Spiritual Warrior II
Transforming Lust into Love
Unfortunately, these seductive substitutes for love ultimately bring us pain rather than fulfillment and will only intensify the massive problems we face today such as famine, disease, terrorism, war, murder, suicide, and so on. These problems reflect our failure to fulfill our deepest longings for love, and any solution will require more than just a sophisticated technological effort. Spiritual Warrior II: Transforming Lust into Love attempts to address the most essential need of the individual by showing a clear distinction between lust and love.
What is love? Unfortunately, countless people in the world today have never felt truly loved and do not even know how it looks or how it feels. Genuine love is selfless. It does not revolve around the desire for personal gain but around the quality of the exchange between the individuals. Instead of trying to receive, unconditional love is an experience of trying to give more joyfully than the beloved. Despite common perceptions, love is not a feeling that flows according to circumstances; rather, genuine love remains constant in spite of adversity. Ultimately, love is a verb that finds its highest expression through unmotivated service. It only becomes real through our behavior. The deeper the love, the more we will express it by selfless service to the object of our love.
What is lust? Lust is the insatiable desire for personal sense enjoyment and the self-centered attempt to fulfill our own impulses at any cost. Nevertheless, despite all of our attempts, we can never satisfy lust by any amount of sense indulgence. Although we know deep down that it can never fulfill us, we end up bound by an addictive and vicious cycle: the more we give in to lust, the more its demands increase, just like a drug. If we do not give and receive love in a natural way that is in alignment with our spiritual birthright, our love turns into lust and forces us to act in ways that we would not normally accept.
Within this context, we discuss sex and the leadership crisis because we have a desperate need for leaders who have learned to conquer their lust and fulfill their responsibilities with love. Sexuality is a powerful force that we can use constructively or destructively; therefore, it is essential to understand how to properly channel this energy. We elaborate on sexuality in everyday life, celibacy, sexuality within marriage, and even celibacy within marriage.
Since love finds its expression within relationships, we proceed by looking closer at how to develop healthy relationships in all areas of our lives. A relationship is an arrangement made by God to give us the opportunity to reciprocate His love for us. We want to become powerful spiritual warriors who can offer love in any situation, even to our so-called enemies. In order to achieve this end, we discuss trust; secrets versus confidentiality; the role of judgment; dealing with negativity in others; and many other relevant topics.
The final sections of Spiritual Warrior II focus on two more deeply spiritual aspects of love: compassion and love of God. As we grow spiritually, we will be constantly amazed at the amount of love we can experience and share. Compassion sees profoundly into the heart of each situation and offers unconditional love as a remedy. Unconditional love of God is actually the ultimate goal of our spiritual quest, which is the only remedy to satisfy the deepest longings of the soul.
