Question: How can we overcome material desires, many times we know desire is material but because of weakness of heart we are not able to overcome that. What to do in that situation?

Author: Devotee
Date: 2023-12-05
Some people their weakness is desire for sex life.
So, that can be solved by staying in the āśrama where sex life is permitted.
But that may also be if you are satisfied and happy anyway
then they don’t have any appeal.
So the point is if you have weakness of heart, don’t be weak!
Be strong, build up your strength.
You see, people work out at the gym.
That is not the kind of strength we need.
If it is for Kṛṣṇa’s service, you can do it.
But we need Balarāma’s strength,
the strength of spiritual life.
That you get by good japa, attending morning program,
reading, spiritual things.
And one thing is not having weakness of heart, being strong.
When we are attracted by certain desires we may be situated in an āśrama appropriate for those desires.
Category: [Emotions / Lust]

Related Questions

Gurumahārāja, being a gṛhastha, how can we understand whether we are actually gṛhastha or a gṛhamedhī. What happens if we don’t act according to the scriptures and go on satisfying our lusty desires?
Questioner: Saṅgītamayī Gopī devī dāsī
Date: 2022-09-02
Jayapatākā Swami: That is why we read in the pastimes of Lord Caitanya
when Lord Caitanya was in Vṛndāvana,
one gṛhastha approached Him
and he said, I am a very very fallen gṛhastha.
So like that he got the mercy from Lord Caitanya.
Now Śrīla Prabhupāda said as gṛhasthas we should try to keep our goal higher.
But as you said, maybe we are not able to achieve that right away.
But we try.
That is why the śāstra gives us different vratās, different systems that we can follow.
Like the Bhīṣma Pañcaka is optional.
So there are many things which are optional.
If you think you need more purification, you can do these optional vratās.
A brahmacārī may consider, these are not for me, I don’t have any problem.
But they can also preach to the gṛhasthas.
And if they do, no harm.
I asked Śrīla Prabhupāda what should we do in the Dāmodara month?
He said, this is especially for the new customers!
Like a store has a sale.
To encourage new customers,
but you are a regular customer.
All the months, all the days, whether sale or not sale, you are a regular customer.
So this is the answer Śrīla Prabhupāda gave me.
Category: [Emotions / Lust], [Karma / Desires], [Sādhanā / Technicalities], [Varṇāśrama / Gṛhastha]
How can I keep my mind firmly fixed on the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa when lust always stands as an obstacle to my devotional service ?
Questioner: Sukamala Nityānanda dāsa [Bangladesh]
Date: 2022-09-10
Jayapatākā Swami: I just said that
we should pray to Kṛṣṇa
that whatever we do, we do service in a Kṛṣṇa conscious way.
Firstly, you have to get married,
and then the two should pray that you have Kṛṣṇa conscious children.
Hare Kṛṣṇa! 
Category: [Anarthās], [Emotions / Lust], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead)], [Sādhanā], [Sādhanā / Sevā]
How to control lusty thoughts and desires while practicing bhakti alone? Sometimes due to lusty desires I am not able to chant properly. So how to overcome this?
Questioner: IYF Māyāpur
Date: 2022-08-03
Jayapatākā Swami: Arjuna asked a similar question
and Kṛṣṇa said that by the sword of knowledge
he should cut the knots of illusion.
So there are different ways to overcome –
one is knowledge.
We have to have knowledge.
Like in Gajendra Mokṣa līlā, the elephant king and the crocodile king were fighting with each other
and they were in the water.
So the elephant realized he was a land animal and the crocodile was a water animal and the crocodile was winning.
Then he prayed to Lord Viṣṇu,
he could remember in his previous life he was a human being,
he was saved by Viṣṇu.
But in the purport Śrīla Prabhupāda says that
we should see which place we are stronger to fight māyā.
Even though we may have knowledge and wisdom,
maybe our nature is such that we should be gṛhastha
but if we can control our lust by knowledge and by engaging in service,
keep the mind off from the object of lust,
then maybe that is sufficient.
Category: [Emotions / Lust], [Sādhanā], [Sādhanā / Chanting (Japa)]
How to overcome the enjoyment mentality?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2022-10-15
Jayapatākā Swami: We maintain our enthusiasm
when we have a taste for spiritual life.
Like in different stages of devotional service like bhajana-kriyā, anartha-nivṛtti, niṣṭhā, ruci,
ruci means taste.
You have a taste, you want to do more and more service.
And one time, in Montreal, mother and father came to see the son. Put their arm around him talked to him nicely.
But when they got to the doorway, they grabbed him and told him to go home.
Then he held on the door
and they were pulling his feet and Śrīla Prabhupāda when he heard he said he is attached.
After ruci comes āsakti, attachment.
You have to be attached to resist your parents like that.
So anyway, by devotional service we gradually get taste, we get attached
and in this way we desire to render devotional service more and more.
Category: [Anarthās], [Emotions / Lust], [Karma / Desires]
I was reading the section of marriage of Kardama Muni and Devahūti and was feeling sexually agitated by reading the description of their union to procreate children. I was thinking that by reading Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam I am supposed to rise above the sex desire, but here it is happening otherwise. Why is it so and how can I get rid of this problem?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2023-10-29
Most people even if they take sannyāsa, they don’t do the karma-sannyāsa.
We stay in āśrama, we live in the association of devotees.
Not like in previous ages when sannyāsīs went to the forest.
But must people, they are recommended to get married.
Then gradually get free from materialistic desires.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, he said one should get married to one who is more spiritually advanced.
So, Kardama Muni, he told his wife to stay in the gṛhastha-āśrama and he gave her a child,
and then he would take sannyāsa.
Devahūti, she was the daughter of Manu.
And they experienced material pleasure;
but, then she told her husband, you promised me a son.
And then he gave her a son.
That son was the incarnation of Lord Viṣṇu.
He is still being worshiped in Gaṅgā-sāgara.
And Devahūti, her husband took sannyāsa, but she received the instructions from her son.
So that is the subject of the third canto.
The Śāṅkhya-yoga by Kapila Muni.
Category: [Emotions / Lust]
If a person has a lot of lusty desires for illicit sex and intoxication, is it helpful to indulge and feel they are fully like had enough and overcome those desires?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2023-01-05
Jayapatākā Swami: It is said that if you hear with faith if you hear and not be agitated,
then you can cure the lust in your heart.
If you speculate lusty things when you hear, then you are not hearing with faith.
Category: [Anarthās], [Emotions / Lust], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles]
If Mahāprabhu is displeased with such behavior of Choṭā Haridāsa, and in view of this teaching of Caitanya Mahāprabhu will this behavior satisfy Caitanya Mahāprabhu or you?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2022-12-22
Jayapatākā Swami: Especially meeting with a married woman in a private place,
that was prohibited by Lord Caitanya.
Sometimes I will be in a room, and there would be a man and woman and the man walks out!
Then I would ask the lady to go out or tell the man not leave or I would go out myself.
Sometimes a vairāgī says they just want to experiment.
You see, checking or experimenting should be done before you become a vairāgī!
If you are a gṛhastha, do all the experimenting with your wife.
If you take the vairāgī path, then at least you should follow the vows of renunciant life, at least for a sannyāsī.
Category: [Anarthās], [Emotions / Lust], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Pastimes]
In the Bhagavad-gītā we read that we are not the body, we are the soul. Can two people of the same gender be together and offer their service to Kṛṣṇa? Is it wrong to have same sex relations?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2024-05-13
Jayapatākā Swami: Of course, he or she is saying that we are not the body.
But the question is being asked simply about the body.
So, the man woman relation is specially meant to produce children.
People of the same gender are not able to produce children.
In America they have stores that sell men’s semen.
The hatches ladies they purchase male semen and have children.
In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, it is said that husband and wife if they have a relation, it is considered celibacy.
Till today, I have read that people of the same gender if they have a relation that is still illicit sex.
Category: [Emotions / Lust], [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles]
In this age of Kali Yuga, How did you become unattached from material things?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2022-12-09
How did I become?!
How did I become?
Well,
material desires are always there,
they are coming in the mind.
I don’t allow any time to address those.
I keep busy.
Who can say that they have no desire comes?
Desires may come in the mind.
So we go back to Kṛṣṇa and we have the material body desire may come,
but that desire we dovetail it in Kṛṣṇa’s service so we reject it.
Even Prabhupāda one time someone said,
"I have no lust,
Srila Prabhupāda,
I have no material desire." So,
Prabhupāda said,
"really!
what’s wrong with you!
(devotees laugh) I have material lust but I have no time to address that.
I have no time for that.
I am too busy in Kṛṣṇa’s service." You see,
the point is that it's already,
nobody can say that in the material world,
even if they were desireless,
they shouldn’t say that.
Because that would give,
even if someone was a nitya-siddha,
they have no desire,
which is very unlikely to find such souls in this world.
But even if that were the case,
they should,
supposed to take the role as a conditioned soul to teach by example others.
Even if one has some desire comes in the mind,
the desire is either dovetailed,
seen if that can be used for any Kṛṣṇa conscious purpose.
If it is totally material,
then it’s rejected with appropriate disgust,
according to the nature of that particular thought.
We stay so occupied in Kṛṣṇa’s service that there is no chance for Māyā to come in.
That is the secret.
Category: [Emotions / Lust], [Emotions / Greed], [Anarthās], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Sādhanā], [Material World / Kali yuga]
Parīkṣit Mahārāja was able to fully concentrate on each and every word of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam being his last seven days and so able to remember Kṛṣṇa at the time of death. But being in gṛhastha-āśrama even after reading every day, still we have material thoughts like what will happen to our family and close ones if we leave this world. Please suggest Guru Mahārāja how we can act in this situation?
Questioner: Ānandinī Sītā devī dāsī
Date: 2022-12-22
Jayapatākā Swami: Parīkṣit Mahārāja, he was a gṛhastha.
He had children, he had a kingdom.
But when he heard that he was going to die in seven days, he gave up everything.
So, actually what can you do anyway for your children, for your pet dog cat?
Some people in the last minute, they are thinking, oh my dog, who will take care of my dog? Who will give him food?
Then they may birth as a dog in his next life.
When we leave we leave everything to Kṛṣṇa.
And at the last minute what can we do in any case?
All these things should be given in your will.
When you leave your body you only think about the Lord. 
Category: [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Pastimes], [Emotions / Lust], [Anarthās]
While preaching about celibacy to the youth, they are sometimes seen to justify lust by referring to the divine rāsa-līlā of the Lord. How can we handle such a situation?
Questioner: Rakshita Varadarajan
Date: 2022-10-04
Jayapatākā Swami: One can be in whichever āśrama they want to.
Whichever they feel more comfortable.
If they feel that gṛhastha-āśrama is more appropriate for you,
that allows certain license for sex life.
Kṛṣṇa has made machines –
male and female form.
So they can reproduce each other.
So the scientists they are not able to make a machine
that could reproduce itself.
Ha! We shouldn’t think that Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes
with the queens or the gopīs, are material.
He is transcendental.
And in Vṛndāvana,
His pastimes are understood by the liberated souls.
One has to read all the previous nine cantos,
then you can understand how the position of Kṛṣṇa is transcendental.
Once when I was a new devotee,
I asked a question about Rādhārāṇī.
Śrīla Prabhupāda chastised me.
Who are you to ask about Rādhārāṇī?
Since I was a new devotee,
I didn’t understand much, so I accepted that.
Category: [Emotions / Confusion], [Emotions / Lust], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead)], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Pastimes], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Sādhanā / Preaching], [Youth]
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