Ramakrishna Quotes on Lust

1. It is not lust alone that one should be afraid of in the life of the world. There is also anger. Anger arises when obstacles are placed in the way of desire.
    
2. Lust is like the root of the tree, and desires are branches and twigs. Passions should be directed to God.
    
3. He who has realized God does not look upon a woman with the eye of lust; so he is not afraid of her. He perceives clearly that women are but so many aspects of the Divine Mother. He worships them all as the Mother Herself.
    
4. God cannot be realized without purity of heart. One receives the grace of God by subduing the passions—lust, anger, and greed.
    
5. Woman exists for a man as long as he has lust. Free from lust, one sees no difference between man and woman.
    
6. I am speaking of the danger of the alligators of lust and the like. Because of them one should smear one's body with turmeric before diving in—the turmeric of discrimination and dispassion.
    
7. The traits of a worldly man endowed with tamas are sleep, lust, anger, egotism, and the like.
    
8. One must live in holy company and pray unceasingly. One should weep for God. When the impurities of the mind are thus
   washed away, one realizes God. The mind is like a needle covered with mud, and God is like a magnet. The needle cannot be united with the magnet unless it is free from mud. Tears wash away the mud, which is nothing but lust, anger, greed, and other evil tendencies, and the inclination to worldly enjoyments as well. As soon as the mud is washed away, the magnet attracts the needle, that is to say, man realizes God. Only the pure in heart see God. A fever patient has an excess of the watery element in his system. What can quinine do for him unless that is removed?
    
9. One may enter the world after attaining discrimination and dispassion. In the ocean of the world there are six alligators: lust, anger, and so forth. But you need not fear the alligators if you smear your body with turmeric before you go into the water. Discrimination and dispassion are the turmeric. Discrimination is the knowledge of what is real and what is unreal. It is the realization that God alone is the real and eternal Substance and that all else is unreal, transitory, impermanent.
   And you must cultivate intense zeal for God. You must feel love for Him and be attracted to Him.
    
10. God cannot be realized if there is the slightest attachment to the things of the world. A thread cannot pass through the eye of a needle if the tiniest fibre sticks out. The anger and lust of a man who has realized God are only appearances. They are like a burnt string. It looks like a string, but a mere puff blows it away.