How do I overcome my addiction to masturbation and sexual imagination?

A man admits a long struggle with masturbation and sexual fantasy, and asks Barry Long how to stop feeding it. Barry says the real problem is not the girls in short skirts but the ‘psychic tongue’ of imagination that keeps reaching out and exciting the sexual demon in man. The only way to weaken it is ‘prayer and fasting’ Barry say – refusing to look, refusing to indulge fantasy, refusing to feed the habit in any way, even when it erupts in erotic dreams. Two other men also ask about the same habit. One describes it more as a piercing longing, a deep ache for woman that seems to haunt him. The other asks what is wrong with simply enjoying the habit – “why burn?”, he asks. Barry answers that ‘enjoying it’ is exactly how the demon survives, and that the real work is to endure the burn and starve it of every image and indulgence.“There’s a demon in us, the demon of sex – it is in all of us, and until we are able to get rid of it… It’s really hard. The only way that gets rid of this demon is to really love… the one way is for man to give himself totally and utterly to the love of a woman.”Over time, giving up imagination not just sexually but about past and future brings him more into the present. Barry stresses that this is hard work and deeply subtle, but the sign of success is simple: one day he discovers that he is no longer troubled – and nothing of value has been lost in the process.~This Q&A comes from the third of nine recordings in the 1996 LEICESTER series, recorded in July of 1996. These and many other never-before-published recordings have been meticulously digitised only recently and are now available for listening in high quality. The complete 1996 LEICESTER series can be heard in two ways: through The Barry Long Podcast or The Barry Long Archive.The full recording is available here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/1JS2uAYn9KbaFEMoHWlP6H~From the archive:📃 Man's spiritual challenge –https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/6/mans-spiritual-challenge – ‘Every man has inside his body sufficient energy to take him through to the realisation of truth or God - God realisation, as it's called…’📃 Transforming sex into love –https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/12/transforming-sex-into-love📃 Man’s sexual obsession –https://www.barrylong.org/archive/articles/20/mans-sexual-obsession – ‘Man and the woman have forgotten how to physically make love. This is the greatest tragedy of all time, since it is the cause of the greatest unhappiness on Earth. This has been going on and slowly getting worse for many thousands of years so much that it is now a crucial problem. Only the individual man or woman has any chance to begin to correct it. There can be no mass solutions. The problem is too personal and too deep. Each one has to do it for him or herself, or it cannot be done….’~Barry Long Answers is a new, free podcast that invites listeners into the intimate dialogue of audience questions and the spiritual master’s answer. These exchanges provide universal guidance to a range of everyday issues concerning man and woman. Each episode begins with a direct question put to Barry and his uncompromising response.  The series draws from the Barry Long Archive, a repository of over 20 years of Barry Long’s teachings.For full-length talks and extended dialogues, besides 'Barry Long Answers', the usual 'Barry Long Podcast' continues as a separate stream, with both free and subscriber-only editions available. Or if you'd like access to the full Barry Long Archive, the Barry Long website offers a subscription to this.The Barry Long Podcast: https://www.barrylong.org/podcast/aboutThe Barry Long Archive: https://www.barrylong.org/archive