How To Gain The Whole World And NOT Lose Your Soul: Rise Above Your Basic Instincts

Cecilia Weber, creater of this image,  is one of several artists using the human body to create beautiful art of flowers.
See others human-body art  pieces on this post.

Lust and Greed are  on equal footing. The difference is that  one focuses on a person, the other on a thing.

Human Bodies "formed" into beautiful flowers. 

Lust is defined as having a strong sexual desire for someone.
Greed is defined as having intense and selfish desire for something, especially weatlh, power or food.

But both come from a place of consciousness, where there is a lack of connection with the soul/spirit within.

Once there is a void, there will be longing for something...anything... outside ourselves.

The key to overcoming lust and greed is to rise above our basic instincts and develop a consciousness that sees we're operating strictly from our animal nature, which is instinctual. 

  Recognize this rose, as a rose? Or are you focused only on the naked bodies forming the rose?
"A rose by any other name is still a rose," line from Romeo and Juliet

SEE WITH RIGHT EYES! 

Yes. Cecilia Weber sees the human body in its totality and as a beautiful object, so she creates beautiful art from the perspective of her inner eyes. But most people who are lusting after someone do not see the human body from those of the eyes of an artist. Most reduce a person to a human frame with parts and lust after those individual parts: breasts, legs, thighs, and buttocks. If we were to just casually glance through Twitter or other social media feeds, we see the extent some are going to today to sculpt various parts of their body, not for functionality, but to create desire and appeal. Those who are born with certain attributes are displaying them without cover...with no modesty...for the world to see. If being vulgar is our new way of showcasing beauty, then we should consider that even our basic instincts are failing us: we've gone over the edge. 

By viewing our bodies in this way, we essentially are reducing our senses to those of animals. They, too, operate from their basic instincts: animals use all their senses to attract and capture the objects of their desires, even if it means preying and hunting them down only to kill and eat them. As humans, we are given more than our five senses.

SELF DISCIPLINE = POWER

We are given the power of self-discipline and self control. These can be used to help us separate even more from the lower species in the animal kingdom.

One of my favorite spiritual master teachers is James Allen, author of "As a Man Thinketh." I was blessed recently by discoverng that an entire volume of his works, "Mind is the Master," has been compiled. Yes. I have been exercising my own form of gluttony, foraging through the 866 pages with the behavior of a beast. 

 Yes. I admit: I've been shameless.The good part for you, my readers, is that you also get to read what "Allen says" in this and the next six blog posts of the year. (See the "Coming Up" section on the right side.)  

Here's what Allen says about Self-Discipline:

Click here to read about 'The Wolf Man."(Wolf Researcher Werner Freund)

 "A man does not live until he begins to discipline himself; he merely exists. like an animal, he gratifies his desires and pursues his inclinations just where they may lead him.  he is happy as a beast, because he is not conscious of what he is depriving himself; he suffers as the beast suffers, becaues he does no know the way out of suffering. he does not intelligently reflect upon life, and lives in a series of sensations, longings, and confused memories which are unrelated to any central idea or principle. A man whose inner life is so ungoverned and chaotic must necessarily manifest this confusion in the visible conditions of his outer life in the world; and though for a time, running with the stream of his desires, he may draw to himself a more or less large share of necessities and comforts of life, he never achieves any real success nor accomplishes any real good, and sooner or later worldly failure and disaster are inevitable, as the direct result of the inward failure to properly adjust and regulate those mental forces which make the outer life. 

"Before a man accomplish anything of an enduring nature in the world, he must first of all acquire some measure of success in the management of his own mind." 
  

Recognize the bodies for what they form: a beautiful flower.

Lack of Self-Discipline Is Toxic To Our Soul

We may gain the whole world and lose our Soul by not recognizing a strong and unhealthy attraction to someone else for what it is in truth. It is such an unhealthy emotion that right thinking is not involved, when lust takes over. See this piece about a doctor and patient. ((Doctor Began Affair With Patient After Seeing Her Undress.) Others, get into similar trouble when they lose perspective on money and things and people. Whatever the object of desire, it's still lust! Congressman's Rise Ends With a Thud

 "Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. For she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her."

-Proverb 7: 25-27 

RISING ABOVE!

Another beautiful piece from Cecilia Weber: Human Body creating art. 

From the proverb, we can see that throughout the ages men and women have succumbed to lust and often to their destruction. It's time now for us to wake up to Truth and see lust for the role it plays in our lives. 

• We must get beyond our animal desires and reach for higher goals. 

• We must begin to view the body as God's vessel, as an entire "entity" here for a purpose, and strive to see beyond the outward appearance.

• We must remember that self-discipline applies to several areas of our lives: emotion, attitude and behavior. 

Here are meditation, I found in "Metaphysical Meditations," by Paramahansa Yoganada that should work help you to "rise above" if used with sincerity:

• "Teach me, O spirit, to distinguish between the soul's lasting happiness and the temporary pleasures of the senses."

• "Teach me not to engross myself in the passing sense pleasures. Teach me to discipline my senses that they may always make me really hapy. Teach me to substitute for flesh temptation the greater allurement of soul happiness."

Namaste',
Che'