Why do we Refrain?

[Guest]

Ive been doing some deep thinking lately. And I asked myself, my do we refrain from having sex, drinking, smoking or any misdeed?

If you refrain from having sex do you think your mind is ganna be clean? Or will this hiddern sexual enegry explode inside of you making us do a misdeed?

Or why do some of us refrain from doing even good deems? When these are the deeds that will help us get to the next world?

Let us discuss about why we refrain?

[tSingh]

There is a similar thought in the 'Last temptation of Christ' in which christ states that the only reason some people choose not to kill is because they fear the consequences, the only reason they act humble is because they are scared of the consequences of being aggressive. in otherwords the desire is there, but fear and weakness causes refrain.

I guess that is the Nietzchian criticism of catholecism.

Refrain can imply not acting upon a desire, whereas we should alter our perception so that we no longer give much creedence to the desire as much as possible.

If the desire arises in the mind and you violently ignore or banish it, psychologically speaking this is not constructive and can potentially be seen as a form of repression. What Freud teaches us is that desire just festers away at an unconscious level. Instead something like vipassana is more beneficial, in observing the desire and watching it drop away back into the bhaav saagar like a wave.

[Guest]

That seems to make sence thanks man.

[Pheena]

another view on refrain. One has to refrain first but then he has to nurture the mind with knowledge. ONLY refrain is harmfull, but refraining accompanied with wisdom is productive and does not lead to repression.

I refrain my mind from having a lustfull thought, but that restraint of the mind is followed with the knowledge and wisdom i have learned/read/heard that creates a balance to neutralize the mind's desire. Which hopefully will be absorbed by the mind in due time as things are repeated to a child when he has done an error. Again and again he is told, an importance to why he must not do this error is more important than to simply state NO.

Fear is also an allie and can be productive. A balance needs to be created as is the balance between a child and his parent. It is the fear of my mother than led me to contemplate again and again on the actions that i was about to take. It made me review my actions. Whether they will be productive or harmfull. Fear that she had over me was not to show her power over me, but to create this space for me to rationalize my actions.

[Hari]

Healthy desires are good.Becoming obsessed by these desires is bad, so is repressing desires.Just relax.Observe your many changing moods and desires.You will come to observe yourself, and find it such a strange and funny animal.Poor little thing, always wanting.There there now.

Go with the flow.All desires come from the Desireless(???).