FROM SEX TO SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS - PINNACLE OF MEDITATION
LET ME START THIS WITH A SMALL STORY..............
Let me proceed this with a small interesting tale. Many, many years ago, in a certain country, there was a young and famous painter. He decided to create a truly great portrait, a lively portrait full of the joy of God, a portrait of a man whose eyes radiated eternal peace. And so, he set out to find someone whose face reflected that eternal, ethereal light.
The artist roamed from village to village, from jungle to jungle, in search of his subject, and at long last he came across a shepherd with shining eyes, with a face and features that held the promise of some celestial home. One look was enough to convince him that God was present in this young man.
The artist painted a portrait of the young shepherd. Millions of copies of the portrait were made and it sold far and wide. People felt great gratitude, just being able to hang the picture on their walls.
After a spell of some twenty years, when the artist had grown old, he decided to paint another portrait. His experience had shown him that life is not all goodness, that Satan also exists in man. The idea of painting a picture of Satan persisted; were he to fulfill the project, then the two pictures would complement each other, would show the complete man. He had already done a painting of godliness; now he wanted to portray evil incarnate.
He sought a man who was not a man but Satan. He went to gambling dens, to bars and to madhouses.
This subject had to be full of hell's fire; his face had to show all that is evil, ugly and sadistic.
After a long search, the artist finally met a prisoner in a jail. The man had committed seven murders and had been sentenced to be hanged in a few days. Hell was evident in the man's eyes; they spouted hate. His face was the ugliest one could possibly hope to find. The artist began to paint him.
When he had completed the portrait he brought out his earlier picture and set it by the side of the new painting for contrast. It was difficult to assess which was better from an artistic point of view; both were marvelous. He stood, staring at both of them. And then he heard a sob. He turned and saw the chained prisoner, crying. The artist was bewildered. He asked, "My friend, why are you crying? Do these pictures disturb you?"
The prisoner said, "I have been trying to hide something from you all this time, but today I am lost. You obviously do not know that the first picture is also of me. Both portraits are of me. I am the same shepherd you met twenty years ago in the hills. I cry for my downfall in the last twenty years. I have fallen from heaven to hell, from God to Satan."
I do not know how true this story is, but one thing is for certain: each man's life has two converse sides; two portraits of everyone are possible. In every man both God and Satan exist; in every man there is the possibility of heaven, and the possibility of hell.
LIFE AS ROSES
A bouquet of beautiful roses can grow in man; a heap of mud can also pile up in him. Every man swings between these two extremes. Man can attain to either of these extremes, but most people are inclined towards the infernal. Those fortunate few who aspire to the eternal, who let godliness grow in them, are rare. Can we succeed in making our lives temples of God? Can we also become like the portrait that had the glimpse of God in it?
With this question I resume today's talk. How can man become the reflection of God? How is it possible to make man's life heaven, to make it fragrant, beautiful, harmonious? How is it possible for man to know that which is deathless? How is it possible for man to enter the temple of God?
In this context, the facts of life indicate that all our progress, so far, has been in the opposite direction. In childhood we are in heaven, but as we grow older, by and by we land in hell. The world of childhood is full of innocence and purity, but we gradually begin traveling a road paved with lies and treachery and by the time we are mature we are old -- not only physically but also spiritually. Not only does the body become weak and infirm, but the soul falls into a ruinous state as well. But we simply accept this; we simply let the matter finish there. But we also finish ourselves.
Religion is fatalistic about this question, about this downfall, about this journey from heaven to hell.
But this journey ought to be reversed. This journey should be a rewarding one -- from sorrow to joy, from darkness to light, from mortality to immortality. Man's inner urge is to reach the deathless from the deathbound; this is the thirst of man's innermost soul. The soul's only search is to reach from the darkness to the light. The basic drive of our primal energy is to reach from untruth to truth.
But for that voyage, man needs to conserve his energy; he needs to allow his energy to grow. To scale truth, to reach to the soul, man must strive to become a reservoir of limitless strength; only then can he reach to the eternal. Heaven is not for the weak.
I repeat, heaven is not for the weak. The truth of life is not for those who dissipate their energy, who allow themselves to become feeble and frail. Those who squander life's energies, who become insipid and impotent within, cannot undertake this expedition. It requires great energy to scale the heights.
Conservation of energy is a prime requisite of religion. But we are a weak, sick generation, and through this loss of energy we are progressively sinking to weaker and weaker levels. Our vitality is being drained away and all that is left inside is a honeycomb of dry cells; nothing is left but a terrible emptiness. Our lives are one sad continuous story of loss; our lives are not productive at all.
Why does this unattractive situation exist? And how do we lose our energy?
The biggest outlet for man's energy is sex.
Sex is a continuous drain, and it should be stopped. No one likes to lose anything, but as I told you earlier, there is an irresistible reason why man overdraws on his energy so much. Because of the blissful glimpse in sex, man is dragged, willy-nilly, into losing energy time and time again. The luminescent but transient rapture that comes with sex has such a great attraction for him that man is falling headlong into losing the very thing that is the basis of everything.
If the same ecstasy were available by some other means, would one not stop wasting one's energy through sex? Is there any other way to obtain that same experience? Isn't there any other way to realize the very same exalted experience where we fathom the deeper-than-deep recesses of the soul, where we touch the highest peak of existence, where we are given a revitalizing glimpse of subtle bliss and pure joy, where all definitions and all limitations evaporate? Is there any other way? Is there any technique for plunging into that serene abyss within ourselves? Is there any other process for uniting with the eternal source of peace and joy that exists in us all?
This knowledge will spark a transformation in man. Then he will turn his back on Kama and will turn towards Rama; then his journey will be "from lust to the Lord." Then an inner revolution will take place; then a new door will open.
If man is not shown a new door, he will continue to revolve in the same repetitive circle and will eventually destroy himself.
But man's backward idea of sex has prevented him from even thinking about any other door, about any superior outlet. And a great and disruptive chaos has been created in his life.
Nature has endowed man with one door only, that of sex, but the teachings down the centuries have slammed that door shut, have jammed that release. In the absence of an adequate outlet, the swirling energy in man travels around and around, vainly pushing upwards: disintegrating his personality, degenerating him, turning him into a neurotic.
Moreover, this disintegrated, neurotic man cannot even utilize the natural door of sex, and the onrush of energy from within shatters the walls and the windows of his being. As a consequence it erupts, and man falls and cracks his head, stumbles and breaks his arms and legs. Because it is confined by the closed, natural door, and because the supernatural door is not yet open, man's sex energy flows out through unnatural outlets. This is man's greatest misfortune. No new door has been opened yet, and the old door is already closed.
This is why I am firmly against the traditional teachings of enmity for, and suppression of, sex. It is because of the old teachings that sexuality has not only grown in man but has also become perverted. What is the remedy? Is there no other alternative?
Let us look at the situation carefully. The realization that comes in the moment of orgasm consists of two elements: egolessness and timelessness.
Time freezes and the ego evaporates. Because of the absence of the ego and the stoppage of time, one has a clear vision of one's own self -- of one's real self. But that glory is momentary, and then we are back in the same old rut. And in the meantime we have lost a considerable amount of energy.
The mind pines for that illumination; the mind yearns to grasp it again, but that light, that realization, is so transitory that we have scarcely glimpsed it when it disappears. What remains then is an urge, an obsession, a deep anxiety to achieve that experience again. Throughout the full span of his life, again and again man tries to grasp that glimpse, that exhilarating experience, but it never lingers.
There are two ways to attain superconsciousness, to reach the essence of the inner self: sex and meditation. Sex is the door provided by nature. Sex is the natural course: animals have it; birds have it; plants have it; man has it. So long as man avails himself of nature's door, he is not above the animals; he cannot rise above the animals. That door is also accessible to them. The day man finds a new door can be considered as the dawning of human-ness in him. Prior to that, we are not men; prior to that, our center coincides with the animals' center, with nature's center. Until we rise above this, until we transcend this, we are truly at the level of the animals. In appearance we are men.
We clothe ourselves like men; we speak the language of men, but inside, at the core, at the center, we are like animals. And we can be no more than that. That is the reason the animal in us bursts forth at the first available opportunity.
During the commotion at the time of the formation of India and Pakistan, we came to know that a carnivorous animal lurks behind the mask of man. We came to know of what the people who pray in the mosques and recite the Gita in the temples are capable: they loot; they slaughter; they rape. The very people who were seen praying in the temples and mosques the day before were seen raping in the streets. What had happened to them?
A man takes a holiday from being human whenever there's the slightest opportunity to let his obligations go -- and the animal, ever ready in him, springs forth. The animal is always anxious for free rein. And man is always tense -- curbing this animal, chaining it.
In a crowd, in a group, a man finds the opportunity to throw off his adopted garb of humanity and to forget himself. In a crowd, he develops the courage to forget himself, to forget the real identity he has been restraining. The animal is released. As an individual, no man has committed as many sins as he has in a crowd. A solitary man is a bit afraid someone may recognize him; he worries about what he is wearing. A solitary man will think first about what he is going to do; he is afraid others may call him an animal.
But in the midst of a big crowd of people a man loses his identity; he is not worried about being spotted at all. Then he is part and parcel of the mass; then he does what the people around him are doing.
And what does he do? He hurls stones, he starts fires, he commits rape. As part of the mob, he seizes the opportunity to set his animal free. And that is why, every five to ten years, man is anxious for war, why he is always lying in wait, hoping for a riot to break out. If it is under the pretext of a Hindu-Moslem problem it is fine with him. If not, a Gujarati-Marathi cause will also suit his purpose. If the Gujaratis and Marathis are not ripe for rioting, then a conflict between Hindi-speaking and non-Hindi speaking people will satisfy him. He needs an excuse, any excuse, to free the insatiable beast within.
The animal in man is frustrated by constant bondage; it is howling to get out. But unless this animal is vanquished, destroyed, man's consciousness can never rise above bestiality.
Our nature, our life-force, our energy, has only one easy outlet, and that outlet is sex. Sealing that channel will create problems, so before sealing it, it is very important to throw open a new door so that the energy can be diverted in a new direction. This is possible, but it has not yet happened for the simple reason that repression is much easier than transformation.
It is easier to cover a thing, to sit upon it, than to tackle it, than to transform it -- because the latter demands the effort of a sadhana, of a steady course of meditative action. Hence, we have chosen the internal repression of sex.
At the same time, we are unaware that nothing can be destroyed by suppression; on the contrary, it is strengthened as a reaction. We also forget that repressing something intensifies our attraction for it. That which we repress not only becomes the center of our consciousness but also sinks into the deeper layers of our subconscious. We may repress it during our waking hours, but at night it flashes across our dreams. Inside it waits, anxious to lash out at the slightest opportunity.
Repression will not free man from anything; on the contrary, its roots will go deep into his subconscious and trap him as a consequence. In the process of trying to stamp out sex, man has entangled himself; he has become trapped.
Although animals have their limits and their periods, man has neither. Man is sexual each hour throughout the year. Without exception, no animal in the animal kingdom is sexual to this degree. Animals have a specific time for it, a period, a season; it comes and it goes. And afterwards an animal doesn't think about it again. But look at what has happened to man. The thing which man has tried to repress, has tried to suppress, shoots up throughout his life.
It is an ever-active volcano.
Have you ever observed that no animal is sexual all the time, but that man leans toward sex in each and every situation? Sexuality fumes inside man, as if sex were all and everything in life. How has this perversion come about? How has this disaster occurred? Why hasn't it happened to any animal? There is only one cause: man has done his utmost to suppress sex. And it has erupted throughout his personality in equal measure.
And think of what we have done to suppress sex! We have had to develop an insulting attitude toward it; we have had to degrade it; we have had to abuse it. We have had to call it sin; we have had to shout from the rooftops, "Sex is sin!" We have had to proclaim that those who indulge in sex are contemptible, are to be despised. We have had to invent countless degrading names for sex in order to justify our suppression of it. But we have never worried for a moment that these abuses and objections would eventually poison our entire beings.
Nietzsche once made a very meaningful statement. He said that although religion had tried to kill sex by poisoning it, that sex was not dead, but still alive and full of poison. It would have been better had it died, but it was not to be; it was poisoned but yet it lived on. The device misfired. The sexuality we see around us today -- is the epitome of poisoned sex.
Sex also exists in animals because sex is the source of life, but sexuality only exists in man.
There is no sexuality in animals. Look into the eyes of an animal; you will not find lust there. But if you look into a man's eyes you will see nothing but lust; nothing but the gross desire for sex. And so, today, animals are beautiful in a way, but there is no limit to the ugliness and stench of man, the mad repressor.
As a first step in freeing man from sexuality, children -- both boys and girls -- should, as I told you yesterday, receive instruction in the subject of sex. In addition to their being given this knowledge, the ugly and unnatural distance between them should be erased. As a matter of fact, they should be brought much nearer; this segregation is completely unnatural.
Men and women have become altogether different species. By looking at the separation, at the man-made compartments between them, it is difficult to believe that men and women are of the same kind, that they are both part of mankind. If boys and girls were free to move about the house without clothes, as and when they liked, it would nip in the bud the obscene and unnatural curiosity that develops at a later age. We already know full well how this ignorance of each other's bodies shows up in the inquisitiveness of children: look how all children of civilized men love to play "doctor."
Furthermore, I wonder if you know about a new movement initiated by a segment of American society, all so-called religious people.
Their aim is to stop dogs, cats, horses and other animals being taken out unclothed; they want them to be dressed before they are taken into the streets. The idea behind it is that children may become corrupted if they look at naked animals. How funny it is to think of a child being corrupted by seeing a naked animal! But anyway, they are forming an association to ban unclothed animals from the streets. See how many things are being done to save mankind!
These so-called saviors are the very people who are destroying man. Have you never noticed just how wonderful and how beautiful the animals are, even unclothed? Even in their nakedness they are innocent, simple and plain. You rarely ever think of an animal as being naked, and you will never see animals as naked unless you are hiding your own nakedness inside you! But those who are afraid and those who are cowards will try anything and everything to compensate for their own fear of nakedness. Because of the invention of such remedies, mankind is degenerating, day by day.
Man ought to be so simple that he can stand up naked, unclad, innocent and full of bliss. A person like Mahavir undertook to stand up unclothed and, likewise, every man should cultivate a mentality whereby he could also stand up unclothed. People, so-called religious people, say that Mahavir discarded clothes, that he abandoned wearing garments.
But I deny this. His chitta, his consciousness, became so clear, so innocent -- as pure as that of a child -- that he rose up, nude, to face the world. When there is nothing at all left to conceal, a man can lay himself bare.
Man covers himself because he feels there is something inside that needs to be hushed up. But when there is nothing to hide, one need not even put up with clothes. There is a great need for the kind of world where every individual will be so guiltless, so pure of mind and so serene that he will be able to discard his clothes.
Where is the crime? What is the danger in being naked?
It is a different matter if clothes are worn for other reasons, but if they are worn solely out of one's fear of nakedness then this is contemptuous. Wearing clothes because of a dread of nakedness is indicative of a greater nakedness, is proof of a contaminated mind. But today we feel guilty even wearing clothes, as if we still haven't been able to scrub away the existence of our inner nudity.
Ah! God is so childish! He could so easily have created man with clothes.
By the way, please do not conclude that I am against the wearing of clothes. But I make no bones about stating that clothes worn out of sheer fear of nakedness do not cover nakedness; rather, they uncover it. This unnatural awareness of nakedness is contemptible, and degenerating.
And this awareness has been decreed by a long social tradition.
A person can seem naked wearing clothes and a nude person can appear to be clothed. Is it necessary to elaborate further on this point after seeing the modern, skin-tight clothes for both men and women? This is the outcome of an unsatisfied desire to leer at and to display the body. If men and women were familiar with each other's bodies, clothes would automatically serve no other purpose than to protect the body. But alas, nowadays, clothes are designed to arouse sexuality.
Where is man's civilization going when clothes are no longer clothes but aids to sexuality? This is why I advocate letting children remain nude up to a certain age. They should understand that the necessity for clothes has to do with something other than sex!
Moreover, the concept of nakedness is a subjective one. To a simple mind, to an innocent mind, nudity is not offensive; it has its own beauty. But up to now, man has been fed on poison, and gradually, with the passage of time, this poison has spread from one pole of his existence to the other. Consequently, our attitude to nakedness is completely unnatural.
When I spoke on this topic at the first meeting, at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Auditorium, a lady came to me and said, "I am very upset. I am very angry with you. Sex is a scandalous subject. Sex is sin.
Why did you speak about it at such length? I really despise sex."
Now, you see, this lady despises sex although she is a married woman with sons and daughters. How can she love the husband who leads her into sex? How can she love those children who have been born out of sex? Her attitude to life is permeated with poison; her love will remain poisonous. And so there is bound to be a basic and deep rift between this woman and her husband. There will also be a fence of thorns between her and her children because the latter, to her, are the fruits of sin. The relationship between her and her husband is sin-oriented; she is haunted by an unconscious guilt complex where sex is concerned. Can one live in harmony with sin?
Those who slander sex have disturbed everyone's marital life. Instead of affording any kind of deliverance, this disruptive attitude against sex has had deeply injurious effects. The man who meets with an invisible barrier between himself and his wife can never feel content with her: he will look around for other women; he will go to prostitutes. All the women in the world could have been like sisters and mothers to him had he received full gratification at home, but because of its absence, he will now see all women as potential wives, always after something. It is but natural; it had to be so. He finds poison, repulsion, and talk of sin where he ought to have been blessed with bliss, with ecstasy and serenity.
His basic needs are not met at home and so he roams everywhere, searching for satisfaction in every nook and corner. And what has man not invented to meet those basic needs! You would be amazed if we tried to list all the devices he has come up with.
Man has gone out of his way to devise many, many tricks but he has never thought carefully about the basic drawback. Now that which was a lagoon of love has become a pool of sex, and the pool is poisoned. And when there is an acute sense of sin, of poison; when there is a feeling of hesitation between husband and wife, this guilty approach ends the possibility of any growth in their lives together.
As I understand it, if a husband and wife can try to appreciate sex in harmony and with an understanding love towards each other, with a feeling of pure joy and without any sense of gloom, then their relationship can be transformed, elevated. And after this, it is possible that the wife, the same wife, will be there, but she will be in the form of a mother!
-------------------- ENOUGH FOR NOW ( WILL BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK)
LET ME START THIS WITH A SMALL STORY..............
Let me proceed this with a small interesting tale. Many, many years ago, in a certain country, there was a young and famous painter. He decided to create a truly great portrait, a lively portrait full of the joy of God, a portrait of a man whose eyes radiated eternal peace. And so, he set out to find someone whose face reflected that eternal, ethereal light.
The artist roamed from village to village, from jungle to jungle, in search of his subject, and at long last he came across a shepherd with shining eyes, with a face and features that held the promise of some celestial home. One look was enough to convince him that God was present in this young man.
The artist painted a portrait of the young shepherd. Millions of copies of the portrait were made and it sold far and wide. People felt great gratitude, just being able to hang the picture on their walls.
After a spell of some twenty years, when the artist had grown old, he decided to paint another portrait. His experience had shown him that life is not all goodness, that Satan also exists in man. The idea of painting a picture of Satan persisted; were he to fulfill the project, then the two pictures would complement each other, would show the complete man. He had already done a painting of godliness; now he wanted to portray evil incarnate.
He sought a man who was not a man but Satan. He went to gambling dens, to bars and to madhouses.
This subject had to be full of hell's fire; his face had to show all that is evil, ugly and sadistic.
After a long search, the artist finally met a prisoner in a jail. The man had committed seven murders and had been sentenced to be hanged in a few days. Hell was evident in the man's eyes; they spouted hate. His face was the ugliest one could possibly hope to find. The artist began to paint him.
When he had completed the portrait he brought out his earlier picture and set it by the side of the new painting for contrast. It was difficult to assess which was better from an artistic point of view; both were marvelous. He stood, staring at both of them. And then he heard a sob. He turned and saw the chained prisoner, crying. The artist was bewildered. He asked, "My friend, why are you crying? Do these pictures disturb you?"
The prisoner said, "I have been trying to hide something from you all this time, but today I am lost. You obviously do not know that the first picture is also of me. Both portraits are of me. I am the same shepherd you met twenty years ago in the hills. I cry for my downfall in the last twenty years. I have fallen from heaven to hell, from God to Satan."
I do not know how true this story is, but one thing is for certain: each man's life has two converse sides; two portraits of everyone are possible. In every man both God and Satan exist; in every man there is the possibility of heaven, and the possibility of hell.
LIFE AS ROSES
A bouquet of beautiful roses can grow in man; a heap of mud can also pile up in him. Every man swings between these two extremes. Man can attain to either of these extremes, but most people are inclined towards the infernal. Those fortunate few who aspire to the eternal, who let godliness grow in them, are rare. Can we succeed in making our lives temples of God? Can we also become like the portrait that had the glimpse of God in it?
With this question I resume today's talk. How can man become the reflection of God? How is it possible to make man's life heaven, to make it fragrant, beautiful, harmonious? How is it possible for man to know that which is deathless? How is it possible for man to enter the temple of God?
In this context, the facts of life indicate that all our progress, so far, has been in the opposite direction. In childhood we are in heaven, but as we grow older, by and by we land in hell. The world of childhood is full of innocence and purity, but we gradually begin traveling a road paved with lies and treachery and by the time we are mature we are old -- not only physically but also spiritually. Not only does the body become weak and infirm, but the soul falls into a ruinous state as well. But we simply accept this; we simply let the matter finish there. But we also finish ourselves.
Religion is fatalistic about this question, about this downfall, about this journey from heaven to hell.
But this journey ought to be reversed. This journey should be a rewarding one -- from sorrow to joy, from darkness to light, from mortality to immortality. Man's inner urge is to reach the deathless from the deathbound; this is the thirst of man's innermost soul. The soul's only search is to reach from the darkness to the light. The basic drive of our primal energy is to reach from untruth to truth.
But for that voyage, man needs to conserve his energy; he needs to allow his energy to grow. To scale truth, to reach to the soul, man must strive to become a reservoir of limitless strength; only then can he reach to the eternal. Heaven is not for the weak.
I repeat, heaven is not for the weak. The truth of life is not for those who dissipate their energy, who allow themselves to become feeble and frail. Those who squander life's energies, who become insipid and impotent within, cannot undertake this expedition. It requires great energy to scale the heights.
Conservation of energy is a prime requisite of religion. But we are a weak, sick generation, and through this loss of energy we are progressively sinking to weaker and weaker levels. Our vitality is being drained away and all that is left inside is a honeycomb of dry cells; nothing is left but a terrible emptiness. Our lives are one sad continuous story of loss; our lives are not productive at all.
Why does this unattractive situation exist? And how do we lose our energy?
The biggest outlet for man's energy is sex.
Sex is a continuous drain, and it should be stopped. No one likes to lose anything, but as I told you earlier, there is an irresistible reason why man overdraws on his energy so much. Because of the blissful glimpse in sex, man is dragged, willy-nilly, into losing energy time and time again. The luminescent but transient rapture that comes with sex has such a great attraction for him that man is falling headlong into losing the very thing that is the basis of everything.
If the same ecstasy were available by some other means, would one not stop wasting one's energy through sex? Is there any other way to obtain that same experience? Isn't there any other way to realize the very same exalted experience where we fathom the deeper-than-deep recesses of the soul, where we touch the highest peak of existence, where we are given a revitalizing glimpse of subtle bliss and pure joy, where all definitions and all limitations evaporate? Is there any other way? Is there any technique for plunging into that serene abyss within ourselves? Is there any other process for uniting with the eternal source of peace and joy that exists in us all?
This knowledge will spark a transformation in man. Then he will turn his back on Kama and will turn towards Rama; then his journey will be "from lust to the Lord." Then an inner revolution will take place; then a new door will open.
If man is not shown a new door, he will continue to revolve in the same repetitive circle and will eventually destroy himself.
But man's backward idea of sex has prevented him from even thinking about any other door, about any superior outlet. And a great and disruptive chaos has been created in his life.
Nature has endowed man with one door only, that of sex, but the teachings down the centuries have slammed that door shut, have jammed that release. In the absence of an adequate outlet, the swirling energy in man travels around and around, vainly pushing upwards: disintegrating his personality, degenerating him, turning him into a neurotic.
Moreover, this disintegrated, neurotic man cannot even utilize the natural door of sex, and the onrush of energy from within shatters the walls and the windows of his being. As a consequence it erupts, and man falls and cracks his head, stumbles and breaks his arms and legs. Because it is confined by the closed, natural door, and because the supernatural door is not yet open, man's sex energy flows out through unnatural outlets. This is man's greatest misfortune. No new door has been opened yet, and the old door is already closed.
This is why I am firmly against the traditional teachings of enmity for, and suppression of, sex. It is because of the old teachings that sexuality has not only grown in man but has also become perverted. What is the remedy? Is there no other alternative?
Let us look at the situation carefully. The realization that comes in the moment of orgasm consists of two elements: egolessness and timelessness.
Time freezes and the ego evaporates. Because of the absence of the ego and the stoppage of time, one has a clear vision of one's own self -- of one's real self. But that glory is momentary, and then we are back in the same old rut. And in the meantime we have lost a considerable amount of energy.
The mind pines for that illumination; the mind yearns to grasp it again, but that light, that realization, is so transitory that we have scarcely glimpsed it when it disappears. What remains then is an urge, an obsession, a deep anxiety to achieve that experience again. Throughout the full span of his life, again and again man tries to grasp that glimpse, that exhilarating experience, but it never lingers.
There are two ways to attain superconsciousness, to reach the essence of the inner self: sex and meditation. Sex is the door provided by nature. Sex is the natural course: animals have it; birds have it; plants have it; man has it. So long as man avails himself of nature's door, he is not above the animals; he cannot rise above the animals. That door is also accessible to them. The day man finds a new door can be considered as the dawning of human-ness in him. Prior to that, we are not men; prior to that, our center coincides with the animals' center, with nature's center. Until we rise above this, until we transcend this, we are truly at the level of the animals. In appearance we are men.
We clothe ourselves like men; we speak the language of men, but inside, at the core, at the center, we are like animals. And we can be no more than that. That is the reason the animal in us bursts forth at the first available opportunity.
During the commotion at the time of the formation of India and Pakistan, we came to know that a carnivorous animal lurks behind the mask of man. We came to know of what the people who pray in the mosques and recite the Gita in the temples are capable: they loot; they slaughter; they rape. The very people who were seen praying in the temples and mosques the day before were seen raping in the streets. What had happened to them?
A man takes a holiday from being human whenever there's the slightest opportunity to let his obligations go -- and the animal, ever ready in him, springs forth. The animal is always anxious for free rein. And man is always tense -- curbing this animal, chaining it.
In a crowd, in a group, a man finds the opportunity to throw off his adopted garb of humanity and to forget himself. In a crowd, he develops the courage to forget himself, to forget the real identity he has been restraining. The animal is released. As an individual, no man has committed as many sins as he has in a crowd. A solitary man is a bit afraid someone may recognize him; he worries about what he is wearing. A solitary man will think first about what he is going to do; he is afraid others may call him an animal.
But in the midst of a big crowd of people a man loses his identity; he is not worried about being spotted at all. Then he is part and parcel of the mass; then he does what the people around him are doing.
And what does he do? He hurls stones, he starts fires, he commits rape. As part of the mob, he seizes the opportunity to set his animal free. And that is why, every five to ten years, man is anxious for war, why he is always lying in wait, hoping for a riot to break out. If it is under the pretext of a Hindu-Moslem problem it is fine with him. If not, a Gujarati-Marathi cause will also suit his purpose. If the Gujaratis and Marathis are not ripe for rioting, then a conflict between Hindi-speaking and non-Hindi speaking people will satisfy him. He needs an excuse, any excuse, to free the insatiable beast within.
The animal in man is frustrated by constant bondage; it is howling to get out. But unless this animal is vanquished, destroyed, man's consciousness can never rise above bestiality.
Our nature, our life-force, our energy, has only one easy outlet, and that outlet is sex. Sealing that channel will create problems, so before sealing it, it is very important to throw open a new door so that the energy can be diverted in a new direction. This is possible, but it has not yet happened for the simple reason that repression is much easier than transformation.
It is easier to cover a thing, to sit upon it, than to tackle it, than to transform it -- because the latter demands the effort of a sadhana, of a steady course of meditative action. Hence, we have chosen the internal repression of sex.
At the same time, we are unaware that nothing can be destroyed by suppression; on the contrary, it is strengthened as a reaction. We also forget that repressing something intensifies our attraction for it. That which we repress not only becomes the center of our consciousness but also sinks into the deeper layers of our subconscious. We may repress it during our waking hours, but at night it flashes across our dreams. Inside it waits, anxious to lash out at the slightest opportunity.
Repression will not free man from anything; on the contrary, its roots will go deep into his subconscious and trap him as a consequence. In the process of trying to stamp out sex, man has entangled himself; he has become trapped.
Although animals have their limits and their periods, man has neither. Man is sexual each hour throughout the year. Without exception, no animal in the animal kingdom is sexual to this degree. Animals have a specific time for it, a period, a season; it comes and it goes. And afterwards an animal doesn't think about it again. But look at what has happened to man. The thing which man has tried to repress, has tried to suppress, shoots up throughout his life.
It is an ever-active volcano.
Have you ever observed that no animal is sexual all the time, but that man leans toward sex in each and every situation? Sexuality fumes inside man, as if sex were all and everything in life. How has this perversion come about? How has this disaster occurred? Why hasn't it happened to any animal? There is only one cause: man has done his utmost to suppress sex. And it has erupted throughout his personality in equal measure.
And think of what we have done to suppress sex! We have had to develop an insulting attitude toward it; we have had to degrade it; we have had to abuse it. We have had to call it sin; we have had to shout from the rooftops, "Sex is sin!" We have had to proclaim that those who indulge in sex are contemptible, are to be despised. We have had to invent countless degrading names for sex in order to justify our suppression of it. But we have never worried for a moment that these abuses and objections would eventually poison our entire beings.
Nietzsche once made a very meaningful statement. He said that although religion had tried to kill sex by poisoning it, that sex was not dead, but still alive and full of poison. It would have been better had it died, but it was not to be; it was poisoned but yet it lived on. The device misfired. The sexuality we see around us today -- is the epitome of poisoned sex.
Sex also exists in animals because sex is the source of life, but sexuality only exists in man.
There is no sexuality in animals. Look into the eyes of an animal; you will not find lust there. But if you look into a man's eyes you will see nothing but lust; nothing but the gross desire for sex. And so, today, animals are beautiful in a way, but there is no limit to the ugliness and stench of man, the mad repressor.
As a first step in freeing man from sexuality, children -- both boys and girls -- should, as I told you yesterday, receive instruction in the subject of sex. In addition to their being given this knowledge, the ugly and unnatural distance between them should be erased. As a matter of fact, they should be brought much nearer; this segregation is completely unnatural.
Men and women have become altogether different species. By looking at the separation, at the man-made compartments between them, it is difficult to believe that men and women are of the same kind, that they are both part of mankind. If boys and girls were free to move about the house without clothes, as and when they liked, it would nip in the bud the obscene and unnatural curiosity that develops at a later age. We already know full well how this ignorance of each other's bodies shows up in the inquisitiveness of children: look how all children of civilized men love to play "doctor."
Furthermore, I wonder if you know about a new movement initiated by a segment of American society, all so-called religious people.
Their aim is to stop dogs, cats, horses and other animals being taken out unclothed; they want them to be dressed before they are taken into the streets. The idea behind it is that children may become corrupted if they look at naked animals. How funny it is to think of a child being corrupted by seeing a naked animal! But anyway, they are forming an association to ban unclothed animals from the streets. See how many things are being done to save mankind!
These so-called saviors are the very people who are destroying man. Have you never noticed just how wonderful and how beautiful the animals are, even unclothed? Even in their nakedness they are innocent, simple and plain. You rarely ever think of an animal as being naked, and you will never see animals as naked unless you are hiding your own nakedness inside you! But those who are afraid and those who are cowards will try anything and everything to compensate for their own fear of nakedness. Because of the invention of such remedies, mankind is degenerating, day by day.
Man ought to be so simple that he can stand up naked, unclad, innocent and full of bliss. A person like Mahavir undertook to stand up unclothed and, likewise, every man should cultivate a mentality whereby he could also stand up unclothed. People, so-called religious people, say that Mahavir discarded clothes, that he abandoned wearing garments.
But I deny this. His chitta, his consciousness, became so clear, so innocent -- as pure as that of a child -- that he rose up, nude, to face the world. When there is nothing at all left to conceal, a man can lay himself bare.
Man covers himself because he feels there is something inside that needs to be hushed up. But when there is nothing to hide, one need not even put up with clothes. There is a great need for the kind of world where every individual will be so guiltless, so pure of mind and so serene that he will be able to discard his clothes.
Where is the crime? What is the danger in being naked?
It is a different matter if clothes are worn for other reasons, but if they are worn solely out of one's fear of nakedness then this is contemptuous. Wearing clothes because of a dread of nakedness is indicative of a greater nakedness, is proof of a contaminated mind. But today we feel guilty even wearing clothes, as if we still haven't been able to scrub away the existence of our inner nudity.
Ah! God is so childish! He could so easily have created man with clothes.
By the way, please do not conclude that I am against the wearing of clothes. But I make no bones about stating that clothes worn out of sheer fear of nakedness do not cover nakedness; rather, they uncover it. This unnatural awareness of nakedness is contemptible, and degenerating.
And this awareness has been decreed by a long social tradition.
A person can seem naked wearing clothes and a nude person can appear to be clothed. Is it necessary to elaborate further on this point after seeing the modern, skin-tight clothes for both men and women? This is the outcome of an unsatisfied desire to leer at and to display the body. If men and women were familiar with each other's bodies, clothes would automatically serve no other purpose than to protect the body. But alas, nowadays, clothes are designed to arouse sexuality.
Where is man's civilization going when clothes are no longer clothes but aids to sexuality? This is why I advocate letting children remain nude up to a certain age. They should understand that the necessity for clothes has to do with something other than sex!
Moreover, the concept of nakedness is a subjective one. To a simple mind, to an innocent mind, nudity is not offensive; it has its own beauty. But up to now, man has been fed on poison, and gradually, with the passage of time, this poison has spread from one pole of his existence to the other. Consequently, our attitude to nakedness is completely unnatural.
When I spoke on this topic at the first meeting, at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Auditorium, a lady came to me and said, "I am very upset. I am very angry with you. Sex is a scandalous subject. Sex is sin.
Why did you speak about it at such length? I really despise sex."
Now, you see, this lady despises sex although she is a married woman with sons and daughters. How can she love the husband who leads her into sex? How can she love those children who have been born out of sex? Her attitude to life is permeated with poison; her love will remain poisonous. And so there is bound to be a basic and deep rift between this woman and her husband. There will also be a fence of thorns between her and her children because the latter, to her, are the fruits of sin. The relationship between her and her husband is sin-oriented; she is haunted by an unconscious guilt complex where sex is concerned. Can one live in harmony with sin?
Those who slander sex have disturbed everyone's marital life. Instead of affording any kind of deliverance, this disruptive attitude against sex has had deeply injurious effects. The man who meets with an invisible barrier between himself and his wife can never feel content with her: he will look around for other women; he will go to prostitutes. All the women in the world could have been like sisters and mothers to him had he received full gratification at home, but because of its absence, he will now see all women as potential wives, always after something. It is but natural; it had to be so. He finds poison, repulsion, and talk of sin where he ought to have been blessed with bliss, with ecstasy and serenity.
His basic needs are not met at home and so he roams everywhere, searching for satisfaction in every nook and corner. And what has man not invented to meet those basic needs! You would be amazed if we tried to list all the devices he has come up with.
Man has gone out of his way to devise many, many tricks but he has never thought carefully about the basic drawback. Now that which was a lagoon of love has become a pool of sex, and the pool is poisoned. And when there is an acute sense of sin, of poison; when there is a feeling of hesitation between husband and wife, this guilty approach ends the possibility of any growth in their lives together.
As I understand it, if a husband and wife can try to appreciate sex in harmony and with an understanding love towards each other, with a feeling of pure joy and without any sense of gloom, then their relationship can be transformed, elevated. And after this, it is possible that the wife, the same wife, will be there, but she will be in the form of a mother!
-------------------- ENOUGH FOR NOW ( WILL BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK)
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