Gita 03.41 – Alluring sense objects are the trigger, not the cause, of lust

Thank you samātmanirāṇyādo niyamya bharatārśma prāpamanam prajñāyāyena jñāna-vijñāna-nāśana this is 3.41 in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna states here that we need to regulate our senses samātmanirāṇyādo in the beginning first regulate the senses now this first ādau in the beginning can have various meanings it can mean in terms of time that we can begin the practice of sense control from as early as possible and of course we practice sense control positively by you know turning our senses towards Krishna by absorbing ourselves in devotion kaumāraṁ āchare bhrāgyaṁ dharmān bhrāgyaṁ dharmān bhāgatāmya Prahlāda Mahārāja says that from kaumāra from early he started practicing spiritual life from the age of five itself now another thing that ādau it can mean is first control the senses so this means that this first can be connected with the previous verse where Krishna says in 3.40 indriyāṇi manu buddhir asya adhiṣṭhānam uchyate etair vimohayateśam jñānam avṛtti dehinam that lust is situated in the indriyāṇi manu buddhir in the senses the mind and the intelligence asya adhiṣṭhānam uchyate these are the sitting places of lust etair vimohayateśam and from these places it deludes us vimohayateśam jñānam avṛtti dehinam how it covers the knowledge of the embodied soul so essentially or significantly Krishna doesn't say that lust is he doesn't equate lust with say woman he doesn't say that lust is situated in the woman and he certainly does not support blaming woman for for triggering lust or basically sometimes in today's society if a woman is attacked by lust is attacked sexually by some man some people say that she must have asked for it and they blame the victim so Krishna here states that indriyāṇi manu buddhir that lust is situated in the senses the mind and the intelligence and he doesn't mention any particular gender so here he is primarily referring to the seeker and the seeker can be male or female so in that sense Bhagavad Gita describes lust to be gender neutral gender neutral means not that both genders are neutral about it rather lust is not partial in attacking any particular gender it attacks both genders it is the enemy of both genders now of course each gender may express lust in different ways but that variable expression is more a function of the particular gender's psychological psychophysical nature and not a function of the presence or absence of lust lust is present in both of them both males and females and it is present again Krishna says it is present in the senses so when we see a beautiful form that beautiful form is not the cause of the lust it is the trigger for the lust now the difference between the cause and the trigger is that when in a gun there is there are bullets the trigger the trigger the pressing of the trigger does not kill the person the presence of the pulling of the trigger releases the bullet which kills the person so if the bullet were not present in the gun then the pulling of the trigger would not kill similarly so the killing is the cause of the death of someone because of a gunshot the cause is not the trigger but the bullet similarly the cause of lust is not the beauty of a person or it is not even the way a person dresses or walks or moves the eyes or talks or makes gestures yes it may be true that certain ways of talking of dressing walking talking gesturing moving eyes may trigger lust but they are triggers the woman may do the same thing in front of a child who is pre-puberty and of course today we have a hyper-sexualized culture where even small children they know about sex and they want to explore they explore sex even before their bodies have developed so we are not talking about this very unfortunate situation of the slaughter of the innocence of childhood by the sexualization of childhood that is done through the culture's depiction of of even children as sexual beings so children the woman may talk or walk in the same seductive way but a child will not be affected by that a child we are talking about a not a hyper-sexualized child but a normal child that's because for such a child the lust is not present in the senses mind or intelligence and that's why such a person will not blame that person cannot be blamed now of course a person using a gun needs to be careful when pulling the trigger because if there is a possibility that there might be a bullet in it then the pulling of the trigger may hurt so similarly when women know that lust is present in men their deliberately dressing and acting provocatively is like pressing the trigger and naturally then men may act aggressively against them so this does not mean that the woman is to be blamed the point is the blame is on the man sorry the blame is on the man because the man acted that way but the point which I am making is that it is not the in a society that wants to civilize and culture cultured the point is not to decide who is to be blamed the point is to decide what can be done to avoid or at least minimize the problem and that often means that both men and women have to take precautions take precautions so for men that means not dwelling unnecessarily and not dwelling lustily on women and for women it means not deliberately dressing or behaving in unnecessarily seductive ways ultimately it is not that women are victims of sexual violence yes women may often be the victims often in terms of far more often than men in terms of sexual violence men may be the men are quite often those who perpetuate that who do such violence but despite this fact from the ultimate point of view it is not that women are victims and men are victimizers rather both women and men are victims of the common human enemy of lust and therefore both need to be helped both need to at one level help themselves and both also need to help each other to fight to resist to counter the attacks of lust significantly by recognizing as Krishna tells in the Gita that lust is situated inside us in our own senses mind intelligence by this declaration Krishna makes it clear that we can't that the onus for battling lust is on us by thus recognizing the reality and the gravity of lust and by understanding properly the location of lust we can take the necessary steps for its extradition and its extermination extradition means we drive it out of our consciousness out of the senses mind intelligence and extermination means we eliminate it what is not driven out is crushed for that Krishna states first here that begin by controlling the senses that means controlling the senses in two ways that we have knowledge acquiring senses which we don't let dwell on the sense objects because that will trigger lust further and also we don't let the working senses indulge in sexual behavior that is adharmic and by this by this regulation and the physical indulgence we will be able to focus on inner purification so by outer regulation creates the necessary foundation for inner purification and the more we connect ourselves with Krishna internally when we give up external pleasures we also need to also we need to simultaneously intensify our focus on the inner quest and by connecting with Krishna through intense bhakti we can relish higher happiness and that contact with Krishna purifies us of the residual nagging desires then they become weaker and our bhakti becomes stronger and thus we can successfully navigate the war against lust and eventually conquer this formidable enemy Thank you.