Question from audience: I’ve heard Srila Prabhupada say that while the material body is there the attraction is there. Does a sober person feel the attraction and simply doesn’t act upon it or does he lose the attraction completely?
HH JAS: He loses the attraction and if somehow the attraction is there, some left over sexual thought or impulse, he thinks it’s so nasty. In the Bhagavad Gita, (sanskrit), the ocean is still even though so many rivers are running into it, similarly a person who is dhīraḥ, who is sober, (sanskrit) he’s also feeling sometimes some desires: “I’d like to do that…this is so nice..”
It may come to him but he controls that, he knows some desires come because I have the body so some thought has come, some desire has come but it’s nonsense so he’s not disturbed. (Sanskrit) therefore he’s peaceful, one becomes peaceful by tolerance.
. EXCERPTS FROM: HOPES AND HORRORS OF HOUSEHOLDER LIFE
– SWAMI JAYADVAITA 1992 – PART 4)