Brahmajna Ma on Desire

A few months after I took the garb, one day she said suddenly, “The sex impulse is very strong in you even now.”

I said nothing and began to search in my mind for the explanation of this remark, but failed. Next day, when I was alone with her, I said that I could not find out the reason of her previous day’s remark. She replied, “It is clear. I see that you become angry sometimes. What is anger? When desire is checked, anger takes shape. As you become angry you must still have desires, and when you have desires the strongest, namely the sex impulse, must also be in you, though it may be in a latent state. The three principal enemies to the pacification of the mind are, sex impulse (kāma), anger (krodha), and the feeling of want (lobha). The first is the last to go, so when the second and third are visible it is certain that the first is also present.”

From that time I started the habit of looking upon any and every woman I had occasion to meet as an image of the Divine Mother and if I had occasion to talk or write to a lady I would address her as mother. This has helped me a good deal.

—The Life and Teaching of Sri Brahmajna Ma, Swami Prabudhananda, Sadhu Arunachala (Major A W Chadwick), ed. (Deoghar: D N Sen, Santi Asram, Bela Bagan, 1961) 8.