Is it possible for a human being to be entirely free from sex desire?

The scriptures mention that no one except Nara-Narayana rishi is free from lust. So is the expectation that our spiritual guides be free from sex desire a projection of our desire to be God, that is, are we expecting our spiritual guides to be God? How do we understand Prabhupada’s statement that he had no lust.

Transcript

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Hare Krishna question is it possible for any human being to be entirely free from sex desire the scriptures say that except for Narnara and Rishi nobody is free from sex desire so if we expect our spiritual teachers to be spiritual master or other devotees to be free from sex desire is it a projection or super imposition on them of our desire for perfection of our desire to be God that because we can’t be God we expect our spiritual master to be perfect and to be God what does it mean when we say that when Srila Prabhupada said that he had no lust answer firstly the goal of and perfection of life is not simply to be free from sex desire it is to be filled with spiritual desire with the desire to love Krishna now even in the spiritual realm there is the male female attraction that is of course of categorically different from the sexual attraction of this world but still the point is that there is desire even in the spiritual world so we shouldn’t conceive of perfection primarily in terms of freedom from something that is one part of course but that is not the central part the essential part is that one is filled with attraction to Krishna and as a consequence of that the bodily attraction to the form of the opposite sex is no longer there and is this possible yes definitely we see this in the Chaitanya Charitamrita where Ramananda Rai is decorating the bodies of the Devi Dasis who are meant to dance and sing for the pleasure of Jagannath and although he is touching their bodies still it is described that he was not at all disturbed now Chaitanya Charitamrita gives two descriptions of this one is that firstly it says he his mind was as if he were touching stone that he was not at all disturbed by touching the forms of the women now and this is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu glorifies him how renounced he is at the same time it is also described by the Acharyas that he was in the mood of Vishakha Sakhi and Vishakha Sakhi she decorates the Gopis including Radharani for Krishna’s pleasure so there is beauty and there is appreciation of beauty in the spiritual realm and the devotees serve Krishna by adorning themselves or those who are serving Krishna in the most beautiful ways even the Bhagavatam describes that the Gopis would decorate themselves very nicely so that Krishna would be pleased to see them so now Ramanandaraya is actually at one level he is completely detached and it is as if he is touching wood but at another level at a physical level he is not disturbed at all but then it is described in Bhakti Rasamit Sindhu that once a person becomes spiritually advanced especially once a person is Swaroopa Siddha that person acts at two levels at an external level one acts as is appropriate for the body but at an inner level one serves according to Swaroopa so that Swaroopa Siddha level is possible, Swaroopa Siddhi level is possible as is demonstrated by Ramanandaraya and through that he is able to not just see these, the forms of these Devadasis whom he was decorating as merely like wood not a source of material agitation but he also saw them as sources of pleasure for Jananath so he was seeing them as Gopis, as devotees and he wanted to beautify them for Krishna’s pleasure so in that sense if a person has developed the deep spiritual vision by which one understands one’s spiritual identity and one sees others as essentially meant for the service of Krishna at a spiritual level then one can be so filled with the desire to serve and please Krishna and to engage everything in Krishna’s service that one no longer feels even, feels any lust at a physical level at all in fact, in the Purport of 3.36 and 37 when Krishna talks about Kamesh Krodhesh, Prabhupada writes that the spiritualizing of lust basically means desiring everything for Krishna’s pleasure so now although the Gopis’ bodies Devadasis’ bodies are not spiritual but still a devotee sees that yes they have a devotional disposition and decorating them will also be pleasing to Krishna to Jagannath, so the devotee is desiring everything for Krishna’s pleasure, so when Srila Prabhupada said that he had no lust, what he meant was that he had no desire for anything for his own gratification he desired everything for Krishna’s pleasure and that’s what he demonstrated he went to America and he went to a place where degradation was the norm and rather than in any way getting contaminated he elevated those who would have been otherwise thought to be completely beyond redemption so Srila Prabhupada’s purity is demonstrated not just in his words but also in his actions and again lastly is it a projection of our desire for perfection when we expect our spiritual masters or advanced devotees to be free from sex desire in general Srila Prabhupada did not did not impose or state this kind of subjective criteria for saying who is or who is not free from sex desire, his focus was primarily that if one is following the process diligently and one is committed to the process of devotional service then that person can be a spiritual guide we can’t know what is the inner consciousness or the inner kind of desires of a person and trying to speculate about that can unnecessarily lead to comparison or even offensiveness or criticism what we should focus on is that there is a process of purification by which anyone and everyone can be freed from all selfish material desires so to the extent we practice it to that extent we will become purified to the extent that others have practiced it to that extent they have become purified and if they are practicing it diligently and if their example and words are inspiring us to practice that process of bhakti yoga diligently then to that extent we can take their guidance and progress towards purifying ourselves without going into the zone of questioning whether a particular person is entirely free from sex desire or not, our focus should be on the process whether that person is following the process diligently and whether that person’s action and words inspire me to follow the process diligently thank you