How to overcome the sin of lust/temptation

good_logic

Peace.

Yes ,we can say that not many are going to commit murder. Not many are going to oppress /bully all the time...Big and clear doing wrong!

However lust, lying, back-biting,jealousy,being nosy,spying on people, spreading rumours...etc can be small things or big things?

Now "intentions" are what matters in those things.

All sins are harmful. If you are a true believer you recognise a sin. You build a defence mechanism called" Remembering GOD" 24/7!!!

That will be your weapon. Once you realise who GOD is, you will automatically feel His presence everywhere. You will know His attributes .i.e His greatness, omnipotence, omnipresence, He is there with you where ever you are...etc.

The second you feel temptation, a bell should ring inside you,a warning that your Lord is there watching you. How can you proceed knowing this? If the urge is too strong and you make the first few steps towards the temptation, seek refuge in your Lord He is still there ready to help.If you still cannot resist and you make more steps towards the temptation... And so on ,then you commit the sin!!!

Well, there is a lot of repentance to be done in this case. Make sure you mean it. Try your Lord and sincerely promise you will do better from now on...He will try you harder this time, you will need a lot of willpower from now on...etc.
Just make sure you do not keep coming back to your sin, you may then reach a situation where there is no return.

In simple term, if temptation of any sort tickles your fancy, remember your Lord. If remembering your Lord becomes your habit, the Lord is always there to save you .
GOD bless.
Peace.

HP_TECH

I am starting to wonder whether frequenting this forum is my sinful temptation...

Taro_Hiroshi

You know what Taro I miscalculated your character a while ago. I see now you seem to be a humble fellow,
for that I apologize

There's no need to apologize. Because you haven't done anything wrong.

You yourself seem like a humble/good person.

Peace.

Taro_Hiroshi

Peace Man of Faith,

Thank you for your post.

Summary is that desire is more or less always a negative thing.

I think that there are both good/right and bad/wrong desires. In my view, all desires are not negative. Also, I believe that there are both natural and artificial desires. I''d like to share two quotes with you.

"The Platonic Socrates defined desire as a "longing to fill an emptiness within us. It may be profound (a desire to know why we exist) or less so, such as the desire to own objects just to fill a void." Rational and religious ethics distinguish between right and wrong desires and affirm that wrong desires may result in damaging and destructive pursuits that can shatter an individual's psychological well-being and severely damage human relationships. Wrong desire is desire for an illusory good; this is pernicious, particularly so in carnal desire."

William E. May

The first premise implies a distinction of desires into two kinds innate and externally conditioned, or natural and artificial. We naturally desire things like food, drink, sex, sleep, knowledge, friendship and beauty; and we naturally shun things like starvation, loneliness, ignorance and ugliness. We also desire (but not innately or naturally) things like sports cars, political office, flying through the air like Superman, the land of Oz and a Red Sox world championship.... Now there are differences between these two kinds of desires. We do not, for example, for the most part, recognize corresponding states of deprivation for the second, the artificial, desires, as we do for the first. There is no word like "Ozlessness" parallel to "sleeplessness." But more importantly, the natural desires come from within, from our nature, while the artificial ones come from without, from society, advertising or fiction. This second difference is the reason for a third difference the natural desires are found in all of us, but the artificial ones vary from person to person... The existence of the artificial desires does not necessarily mean that the desired objects exist. Some do; some don't. Sports cars do; Oz does not. But the existence of natural desires does, in every discoverable case, mean that the objects desired exist. No one has ever found one case of an innate desire for a nonexistent object.

Peter Kreeft

Taro_Hiroshi

Peace hawk,

Thank you for your post.

Peace Taro Hiroshi, good research on your part, Allah sums it up in Quran
by guiding believers to do what is best. The Quran does not say lust is bad
but that inappropriate lust is bad. I think if men asked this question with
women as the "lusters" (is that even a word) the answer would come swiftly
and clearly.

peace

I think you raise some good points here.

Taro_Hiroshi

Peace mmmm,

Thank you for your post.

Of course. Sorry.

No need to apologize. And thank you for staying on topic. I appreciate it.

Well I don't have much to say about this topic, to me it's simple lust itself (same as hunger or thirst) is not evil - the way you satisfy the need is what is importaint, since you can do it the right or the wrong way.

Good point.

Taro_Hiroshi

Peace As-Salaatayn,

Thank you for your post.

Taro,

Nice quote from Hamza Yusef.

I'm glad to hear you liked it.

By the way, I'm planning to share some quotes in a post in this thread in due time. You and other members in FM might find them interesting and/or insightful.

Taro_Hiroshi

Peace good logic,

Thank you for your post. And thank you for sharing your advice.

All sins are harmful. If you are a true believer you recognise a sin. You build a defence mechanism called" Remembering GOD" 24/7!!!

That will be your weapon. Once you realise who GOD is, you will automatically feel His presence everywhere. You will know His attributes .i.e His greatness, omnipotence, omnipresence, He is there with you where ever you are...etc.

I think that building a defense mechanism called "Remembering God 24/7) will help/protect people from doing (engaging in) lewd/shameful deeds/actions. However, I think that both our thoughts and our deeds can give us God-consiousness, not just our thoughts. Making right/good choices everyday, seems to be the key to being chaste/pure. I'd like to share two quotes with you.

Kierkegaard rightly and insightfully reminds us that to seek pleasure and avoid pain is a quality we share with all sentient creatures. It is not a choice in reality to seek pleasure but rather a capitulation of choice. ?Choosing? the hedonistic life of an aesthete is not a choice, but an abstention of choice. This is profoundly consistent with Islam?s doctrine of freewill, a doctrine embedded in the Arabic language itself. ?To choose? in Arabic is ?akhtaara,? and ?choice? is ?ikhtiyaar.? The tri-radical source of the word is ?khayr,? which means ?good.? The verbal form ?ikhtaara? literally means ?to choose good for oneself.? Hence, from this perspective, choice is the act of choosing what is good.

Hamza Yusuf

The choice that is meant in ikhtiyaar is the choice of what is good, better, or best between the two alternatives. This point is most important as it is aligned to the philosophical question of freedom. A choice of what is bad of two alternatives is therefore not a choice that can be called ikhtiyaar; in fact it is not a choice, rather it is an act of injustice done to oneself. Freedom is to act as one?s real and true nature demands?that is one?s haqq and one?s fitrah demands?and so only the exercise of that choice which is of what is good can properly be called a ?free choice.?

Sayyid Naquib al-Attas

The second you feel temptation, a bell should ring inside you,a warning that your Lord is there watching you. How can you proceed knowing this? If the urge is too strong and you make the first few steps towards the temptation, seek refuge in your Lord He is still there ready to help. If you still cannot resist and you make more steps towards the temptation... And so on ,then you commit the sin!!!

It seems that you are advocating treating the symptoms of lust instead of treating the root cause. of lust I think that preventing the "state of lust" from happening/appearing in the first place is better than trying to control/manage this mindstate (through intervention) when it has happened/appeared. I recommend this post

Well, there is a lot of repentance to be done in this case. Make sure you mean it. Try your Lord and sincerely promise you will do better from now on...He will try you harder this time, you will need a lot of willpower from now on...etc.
Just make sure you do not keep coming back to your sin, you may then reach a situation where there is no return.

I agree with you that someone should repent if he/she has wronged himself/herself. But once again, you seem to advocate treating the symptoms of lust instead of treating the root cause of lust. From my knowledge, the universe is not chaotic or haphazard. From my knowledge, every cause has and effect. And from my knowledge, in order to remove an effect, we must discover the cause. Nothing happens by chance or outside universal laws, in my opinion. In my view, as long as someone doesn't identify the root cause of lust, he/she will keep coming back to his/her sin. Because it seems that those who don't know what causes their sin (error/mistake/spiritual blunder) are bound to repeat it. Let me explain this through an example. If someone exercises in order to lose weight, he/she is not treating the cause of weight gain. But he/she is treating the symptoms of weight gain. The cause of weight gain is eating more calories than you burn each day. The symptoms of weight gain are becoming overweight. By exercising, a man/woman is treating the symptoms of weight gain, not the cause of weight gain. As mentioned earlier, the cause of weight gain is eating more calories than you burn each day. Therefore, the only way to lose weight is to eat less calories than you burn each day. By eating less calories than you burn each day, you'll treat the cause of weight gain. Even if you exercise 5 hours a day, you won't lose weight as long as you eat more calories than you burn each day. Because by exercising 5 hours a day, you are treating the symptoms of weight gain, not the cause of weight gain. There is a study which shows that going to the gym won't help you lose weight, you need to eat less (see this article).

Some people claim that there are both physical diseases and spiritual diseases. And some people claim that spiritual diseases requires spiritual cures, not physical cures. Personally, I believe that the best method to get rid of inappropriate lust, is to treat the root cause of lust. As a saying goes, "If we hope to heal the pain, we must first discover the cause."

Man_of_Faith

Hello brother Taro,

Due to the reward hormone dopamine it does not take any physical stimulus to generate an addiction but anything that "thrills" the body into releasing dopamine can potentially be dangerous l. I am not saying desire have to be adverse as I hope you see in my previous post, but it is always important to be mindful of your habits. Too much preoccupation of the mind may hurt the remembrance of your Rabb.

Basically you also combat an intruding Satan which I have my own understanding of and which is the actual instinctive drive of the Homo Sapiens species. This will make you drawn to certain behavior which may be detrimental to your spiritual growth. Controlling its animalistic desire can be incredibly hard but is possible and can be spiritually rewarding basically because the body is a huge distraction to us.

Even the human science psychology has mentions of how controlled our mind is by the primate we reside in, and many of those are atheists or independent of religious bias even if some scientists have spiritual beliefs. Funny is that psychology can actually help understanding the God topic.

Be safe
Amenuel

good_logic

Peace Taro.

GOD heals the lot. Root or effect or whatever one wants to call it.

Just how are you going to deal with the root cause, if your programme is being attacked by viruses?

I am advocating this

O people, enlightenment has come to you herein from your Lord, and healing for anything that troubles your hearts, and guidance, and mercy for the believers.

GOD is the Master Doctor, the Master Psychiatrist, He cures all causes and effects of anything you can imagine ,including lust..
Brother I am advocating treating both.
Who can heal better than GOD?
GOD bless you.
Peace.

Taro_Hiroshi

Peace everyone,

In this post I'd like to share some quotes about the topic/subject of lust and some quotes about purity/chastity with you. The reason why I'd like to share these quotes with you, is because I thought you might find them as interesting and insightful/enlightening as I did.

Our reason, which is the only power in us that knows Truth, and our heart, which is the only power in us that loves, are thus both harmed by lust. Lust takes away clarity and reason from our mind and freedom from our will. And these two powers, mind and will, are the two most precious powers of the soul, and their objects?truth and goodness?are the only two things we absolutely and eternally need. That is why lust is no casual and relatively harmless sin.

Peter Kreeft

"...lust is the most addictive of all sins. Love frees us, lust enslaves us. Its glue is the stickiest, and it is harder to free the soul from its clutches than from the clutches of the less attractive, cold-hearted sins like pride or idolatry or envy, because those sins are no fun at all."

Peter Kreeft

"Our world, far more than St. Thomas?, is chock full of lustaholilcs. The very word ?lust? is typically treated as a joke, or else the alternative is assumed to be unattainable, undesirable, and incomprehensible. When everyone has a fever, a fever seems normal and 98.6 seems abnormally cool. Yet, as C. S. Lewis says, ?when poisons become fashionable they do not cease to kill."

Peter Kreeft

"If one wants another only for some self-satisfaction, usually in the form of sensual pleasure, that wrong desire takes the form of lust rather than love."
-Mortimer Adler

"Lust is a captivity of the reason and an enraging of the passions. It hinders business and distracts counsel. It sins against the body and weakens the soul."

Jeremy Taylor

"Avoid idleness, and fill up all the spaces of thy time with severe and useful employment; for lust easily creeps in at those emptinesses where the soul is unemployed and the body is at ease; for no easy, healthful, idle person was ever chaste if he could be tempted; but of all employments, bodily labor is the most useful, and of the greatest benefit for driving away the Devil."

Jeremy Taylor

"It is idleness that is the curse of man - not labour. Idleness eats the heart out of men as of nations, and consumes them as rust does iron."

Samuel Smiles

"By lust I mean that affection of the mind that aims at the enjoyment of ones self and ones neighbor without reference to God."

St. Augustine of Hippo

"Do not say that you have a chaste mind if your eyes are unchaste, because an unchaste eye betrays an unchaste heart."

St. Augustine of Hippo

"We must practise modesty, not only in our looks, but also in our whole deportment, and particularly in our dress, our walk, our conversation, and all similar actions."

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

"To defend his purity St. Francis of Assisi rolled in the snow, St. Benedict through himself into a thorn bush, St. Bernard plunged himself into an icy pond. You, what have you done? Don't say that's the way I am, its my character, NO! Its your lack of character. Be a Man! When you decide firmly to live a pure life, chastity will not be a burden on you, it will be a crown of triumph."

St. Jose Maria Escriva

"Humility is the safeguard of chastity. In the matter of purity, there is no greater danger than not fearing the danger. For my part, when I find a man secure of himself and without fear, I give him up for lost I am less alarmed for one who is tempted and who resists by avoiding the occasions, than for one who is not tempted and is not careful to avoid occasions. When a person puts himself in an occasion, saying, I shall not fall, it is an almost infallible sign that he will fall, and with great injury to his soul."

St. Philip Neri

"The state of grace is nothing other than purity, and it gives heaven to those who clothe themselves in it. Holiness, therefore, is simply the state of grace purified, illuminated, beautified by the most perfect purity, exempt not only from mortal sin but also from the smallest faults; purity will make saints of you! Everything lies in this!"

St. Peter Eymard

"For the value of fasting consists not in abstinence from food, but in withdrawing from sinful practices; since he who limits his fasting only to an abstinence from meats, is one who especially disparages it. Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works! Is it said by what kind of works? If you see a poor man, take pity on him! If you see in enemy, be reconciled to him! If you see a friend gaining honour, envy him not! If you see a handsome woman, pass her by! For let not the mouth only fast, but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies."

St. John Chrysostom

You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment. ... When you have made another sin in his heart, how can you be innocent? Tell me, whom does this world condemn? Whom do judges punish? Those who drink poison or those who prepare it and administer the fatal potion? You have prepared the abominable cup, you have given the death dealing drink, and you are more criminal than are those who poison the body; you murder not the body but the soul. And it is not to enemies you do this, nor are you urged on by any imaginary necessity , nor provoked by injury , but out of foolish vanity and pride."

St. John Chrysostom

Taro_Hiroshi

Peace Man of Faith and everyone,

Basically you also combat an intruding Satan which I have my own understanding of and which is the actual instinctive drive of the Homo Sapiens species.

If Shaytan and Iblis are two different things, then you might be right. But if Shaytan and Iblis are the same entity, then I think that the understanding that Shaytan is instinctive drive of humans, is not supported by Quranic evidence. Because the Quran suggests that Iblis (the devil) was created before humankind. In other words, Iblis (the devil) existed before humankind was created. And since Iblis (the devil) existed before humankind was created, then this suggests that Iblis (the devil) is not an instinctive drive of human beings.

Anyway, I want to keep this thread to go off-topic. Therefore, I prefer to only discuss the topic/subject of lust in this thread.

hawk99

Peace Taro Hiroshi, I think you have reached the point of over intellectualizing.
4 m's gave you the perfect answer

Well I don't have much to say about this topic, to me it's simple lust itself (same as hunger or thirst) is not evil - the way you satisfy the need is what is important, since you can do it the right or the wrong way.

I think & a good lead question would be

What has the approach/understanding of lust done to the women and men of Islam.

Oppression- in many forms i.e., beatings, honor killings etc.,
Negative psychological effects on both men and women.
Male insecurity and female self-deception.

not meant as an intrusion

peace

Man_of_Faith

Taro,

If Satan is instinctive drive then it is not off-topic. We are talking about the lust for different things via the Satan.

I surely have no evidence of Satan or Ebless being created except what is mistranslated. And even if Satan is created then also our bodies including the instinct is created.

I have intended to keep on topic. And you can clearly see that.

Instinct becomes lust, and the most intensive feeling that is.

Be safe
Amenuel

Taro_Hiroshi

Peace good logic and everyone,

GOD heals the lot. Root or effect or whatever one wants to call it.

Does God heal inappropriate lust through his laws or through intervention? I think it's worth thinking on this question.

Just how are you going to deal with the root cause, if your programme is being attacked by viruses?

Isn't the root cause that which creates the viruses of the program?

GOD is the Master Doctor, the Master Psychiatrist, He cures all causes and effects of anything you can imagine ,including lust..

I think you are right/correct. But does God cure the root cause of lust through his laws (i.e. cause and effect) or through intervention?

The above-mentioned question is worth pondering upon in my opinion.

Brother I am advocating treating both.

If you want to remove a small tree from the garden in your house, do you cut of its branches or do you pull it's root out of the ground? And if you pull it's root out of the ground in order to remove the tree, is there any need for cutting it's branches afterwards?

The above-mentioned questions are worth pondering upon, in my opinion.

Who can heal better than GOD?

No one can heal better than God, in my opinion. But I don't believe that prayer alone can heal all physical diseases (e.g diabetes 2 or infections) and spiritual diseases (e.g. envy or inappropriate lust). I believe that God has created laws which we have to conform to in order to heal our diseases. That being said, I haven't said that God never intervenes. By the way, I have shared my thoughts about intervention in this post.

It seems that only a right/good lifestyle (which consists of right/good choices) can eradicate inappropriate lust once and for all. I'd like to share two quotes with you and other members in FM.

...Lust is a state, and not a specific act. We tend to conflate the two and think that lust is an act. But when we talk about the deadly sin of lust, it's a state of the soul, a will.

Hamza Yusuf

Kierkegaard says that there is no reason for nine months of gestation, and then several years of nurturing a human being, if they are basically going to have the existence of a slug, that seeks pleasure and avoids pain... It would be better to produce human beings like larvae, that are just hatched out of filth... that if so much energy goes into the production and the nurturing of a human being, there must be something more here to a human being than simply a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure. And this is where he argues that it is the ethical life, that is so important. Now the ethical life, is a life in which Kierkegaard says has to be at least one commitment to another human being. You can not live an ethical life without commitment.

Hamza Yusuf

GOD bless you.

May the God bless you too.

As-Salaatayn

Suratun-Naazi'3aat says in 7940-41

Verily those who fear standing before their lord and forbid themselves from lust/whim/desire paradise will be their home.

So, Taro, i really like what you have had to say. I believe that it confirms the Qur'an's message.

Peace,
Anwar

good_logic

Peace Taro.

I believe Qoran . The self is an advocate of sin.
I believe ,no matter what we tackle first, we cannot win over sins ,We need GOD s help.
True believers live a daily strife to keep up with the divine standards of leading a righteous life.
For them, everyday is an opportunity to practice perseverance, hold fast to the teachings of Qoran,.
Even though God would never burden a soul beyond its mean (2362, 2278, 42, He emphasizes that the journey on the straight path isn't smooth or effortless.
We struggle to discipline ourselves to unconditionally obey God. It is often challenging to implement His teachings and portray His ethics.
God also assures us that He will bring us ease and contentment when we choose this striving path of being devout servants of Him alone. That includes overcoming temptations( lust included).

O you who believe, seek help through steadfastness and the Salat. God is with those who steadfastly persevere.

Yes, we need to seek help from GOD for everything ,including temptations of all sorts, as simple as that( Or may be too complicated for others?)

GOD bless you.
Peace.

JavaLatte

I think & a good lead question would be

What has the approach/understanding of lust done to the women and men of Islam.

Oppression- in many forms i.e., beatings, honor killings etc.,
Negative psychological effects on both men and women.
Male insecurity and female self-deception.

I don't understand, brother Hawk. confused

Would you kindly explain further?

Peace.

es

Salaam hawk,

Peace Taro Hiroshi, I think you have reached the point of over intellectualizing.
4 m's gave you the perfect answer

I think & a good lead question would be

What has the approach/understanding of lust done to the women and men of Islam.

Oppression- in many forms i.e., beatings, honor killings etc.,
Negative psychological effects on both men and women.
Male insecurity and female self-deception.

not meant as an intrusion

peace

I know exactly what you mean, and I completely agree with you which is why I commented earlier that lust isn't a bad thing, it's how you deal with it that matters. It's one thing saying that lust is sinful and wanting to get rid of it, but the reality is it isn't as simple as that, and trying to suppress it and overtly giving into it gives rise to its own problems. I find it really interesting to observe the effects of this in Europe compared to other more conservative countries.

Personally, I think there are serious issues relating to sexual lust which are going on in regards to this surrounding gender politics all around the world, particularly misogyny, violence against women, the extreme objectification and sexualisation of women, and the role of men in society, etc.

Peace.

huruf

I agree with es and Hawk.

Sex or lust of whatever looks more a a damnation than as a potential por the human species. As I said in one post, we seem to tend to make a sewer of it. Nowhere the Qur'n warrants that view. In fact in the first 21 ayas of An Nur points precisely to what I think Hawk and es have signalled.

In an nur, after setting limits to charges anonymous or not of zina, the Qur'an goes on to damn and condemn nd rebuke very, very stronglly those who carry gossip and slander concerning lust, particularly of women.

That precisely countrie which are populated by "muslims" should be prone to that kind of things is the worst indictement of their failure to obey God, worse, their failure to take the slightest interest in obeying God.

Of course not all people are like that in those countries and may people indeed are sick of it, but the dark minds seem to have got the upper hand.

We must struggle to make air circulate in our darkest rooms and dispel that sordid atmosphere that surrounds sex. Sexis the source of human life, in fact of the life of many species. That for humans it should be likened or linked to so much filth is really depressing and a measure of human failure.

Sorry for the apocalyptic tone.

Salaam