By Caitanya Caran das
These mental viruses infect us when we let ourselves become overwhelmed by excessive material desires for either the gross pleasures like smoking and drinking or the subtle gratifications of the ego. When we forget our spiritual identity and glory as beloved children of the Supreme Lord, we start thinking of such unnecessary material desires as necessary, resulting in a variety of negative emotions. All negative emotions are just permutations and combinations of six primal negative drives, namely lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion. In Sanskrit, these are called as anarthas. An means not and artha means value or meaning. So anartha refers to that which is valueless and meaningless.