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Raise your wish and will against these kāma and krodha. Automatically they will fall. Do not fight with them. Sublimate them in your mind, by denouncing them, by contemplating upon their undesirability.

Q: I am a pure soul. Who instilled these lust, greed and anger in me?

Swamiji: We are all born from the parents. Unless there is something very special, sublime and noble in the parents, naturally we will be children of lust and such other emotional urges.

In most of the cases, birth of a child itself is an outcome of lust. Actually, garbha-ādhāna (a religious rite of impregnation, a ceremony performed to ensure proper conception) is a process the couple should resort to with deliberateness, as an austere sublime mission. They should prepare themselves for at least three or more days. A specific time and date should be selected for the event. The couple should be aware of the process, how eventful, divine and sublime it is. They should feel like purifying themselves bodily, mentally and intelligentially.

They should also feel and plan what kind of a child they want. The sankalpa and attendant factors should be suitably framed. Even now, whenever good souls are born, it has been invariably due to the female partner’s (mother’s) noble thoughts, often keeping God in her heart at the time of impregnation.

How was the birth of Krishna himself? The impersonal voice had said: “I would be born as the 8th child.” Why not the first? Imagine the affliction, persecution, austerity involved till the 8th and after it! How faithfully Devaki and Vasudeva handed over all their new-borns to the uncle, knowing well that they would be butchered outright! If you or your family members were asked to do so, would you do it? Their austerity paid off with Krishna’s arrival. Even today, if a child were to be born after so much of austerity, sacrifice and ego-freeness, the outcome would be highly virtuous!

How many couples have a well thought out plan about pregnancy and child-birth? Often they don’t know the date of conception itself! They do not care too.

To give birth to a child is to be a Brahmā, a creator! It is to institute a lineage in the society, which is likely to continue as long as the Earth lasts. In causing such a lineage in the society, should not those concerned be careful and aware of the long-term consequence of their action?

Generally, we are but normal children, born from normal parents in the normal manner. Human life is always when puṇya and pāpa are equal. Our purāṇas proclaim that ample puṇya results in birth amongst gods, and excess of pāpa leads to the sub-human levels. Kāma and krodha are the usual, inevitable pair, associated with humans.

This should not frighten or disturb you. Let anything be. “Oh, I have lust and greed, I have anger. These are undesirable. By their very definition, they must have no place in me. Let me get rid of them.” With every day of thoughts, words and deeds, you can and must try to sublimate these negative traits and free yourself of them. In fact, one of the important aspects that Bhagavad Gitā speaks of, is this process of inner purification and enrichment.

So raise your wish and will against these kāma and krodha. Automatically they will fall. Do not fight with them. Sublimate them in your mind, by denouncing them, by contemplating upon their undesirability. Anything can be removed from or filled in the mind. In fact, discreet human life consists in the twin process of eliminating the undesirable and incorporating the desirable. This should be on till the last breath.

Is the idea clear to you?

(Vicharasethu-Jan 2012—“Ask Swamiji”)