Early one morning, before sunrise, a fisherman went to a
river. On the bank he felt something underfoot, and found it to be a small sack of stones.
He picked up the sack, and putting his net aside, squatted on the bank to await the
sunrise. He was waiting for dawn to break in order to start his day's work. Lazily he
picked a stone out of the bag and threw it into the water. Then he cast another stone and
then another. In the absence of anything else to do, he kept tossing the stones into the
water, one by one.
Slowly the sun rose and it became light. By that time he had thrown all the
stones away except one; the last stone lay in his palm. His heart almost failed him when
he saw, by daylight, what he held in his hand. It was a gem! In the darkness, he had
thrown a whole sack of them away! What had he lost unknowingly! Full of remorse, he cursed
himself. He sobbed and cried, almost out of his mind with grief.
He had accidentally stumbled upon enough wealth to enrich his life many times
over, but unknowingly, and in the darkness, he had lost it. Yet in a way he was fortunate:
still one gem was left; the light had dawned before he had thrown it away too. Generally,
most people are not even that fortunate.
There is darkness all around and time is fleeting. The sun has not yet risen and we
have already wasted all life's precious gems. Life is a vast treasure trove, and man does
nothing with it but throw it away. By the time we have realized the importance of life, we
have whiled it away. The secret, the mystery, the bliss, the deliverance, heaven -- all is
lost. And one's life is spent.
In the next few days I intend to speak on the treasures of life. But it is difficult to
enlighten people who treat life like a sack of stones. People are annoyed if you draw
their attention to the fact that the very things they are throwing away are jewels, not
stones. They flare up, not because what has been said is incorrect but because they have
been shown their own folly, because they are reminded of what they have lost. Their egos
step in; they get angry.
Even with what has been lost up to now; even if the life that is left is short; even if
only one stone is left, your life can still be salvaged. It is never too late to learn.
Help is still possible and, especially in the search for truth, it is never too late.
There is still reason to feel confident.
But out of our ignorance and in the darkness, we have taken for granted that the sack
of life is filled with nothing but stones. The faint of heart simply accept defeat before
they make any effort to search for the truth.
To begin with, I want to warn against the
pitfalls of fatalism, against this delusion of certain defeat.
Life is not a pile of sand and stones; if you have the right eyes to see it, there is
much that is good in life. In life you will find the ladder to reach God.
Within this body of blood, flesh and bones, something or someone aloof from these
things exists. It has nothing to do with flesh, blood or bones; it is immortal. It has
neither beginning nor end. Formless, it is at the core of each one of us. From the
darkness of your ignorance, I urge you, yearn for that imperishable flame!
But the immortal flame is disguised by the smoke of mortality, and so we cannot see the
light. We encounter the smoke and step back. Those who are a bit more courageous search a
little, but only in the smoke, and so they cannot reach the flame, the source of
illumination, either.
How can we make this voyage to the flame beyond the smoke -- to the self within the
body? How can we realize the Overself, the Universal? How can we come to know that which
is camouflaged by nature, that which is hidden in nature?
I shall talk about it in three stages.
In the first place, we have smothered ourselves with such prejudices, inflated ideas
and phony philosophies that we have deprived ourselves of the ability to see the naked
truth. Without knowing, without searching, without any curiosity, we have ready-made
hypotheses about life. For thousands of years we have been taught that life is
meaningless, that it is useless and miserable. We have been hypnotized into believing that
our existence is useless, purposeless, full of sorrow; that life is to be despised, to be
by-passed. This constant repetition keeps tightening the stranglehold that is smothering
us, so now we feel that life is nothing more than a big noise, a big din, a hotbed of
misery.
It is only because of this contempt for life that all joy and love have been lost to
man. Man is now just a formless lump; he is a turbulent sea of sorrow. And it's not at all
astonishing that, because of these misconceptions, man has stopped trying to reflect upon
himself. Why try to search for beauty in an ugly lump? And when one firmly believes that
life is simply meant to be thrown away, to be rejected, then what sense is there in trying
to acknowledge it, in trying to cleanse it and to beautify it? The whole effort seems
futile.
Our attitude to life is not unlike that of a man
making use of a waiting room in a railway station.
He knows he is only there for a while, that he will be leaving shortly. So of what
importance is the waiting room? It is of no importance whatsoever; it is completely
insignificant. He tosses odds and ends about; he spits; he dirties it; he is thoughtless;
he's not concerned with his behavior: after all, he will be leaving it in a while. In the
same way, we regard life as a temporary residence.
The current tendency is to ask why one should bother searching for truth and beauty in
life. But I want to emphasize that life will come to an end in due course, and then there
is no escaping the reality of life. We can change our houses, change bodies, but the
essence of our life remains with us. That is the Self, with a capital "S." There
is absolutely no way to be rid of it.
We are formed by what we do. Ultimately, our actions make us or
maim us. They change our lives. They shape our lives and mold our souls. How we live and
what we do with our lives formulates our futures. One's attitude to life guides the path
of one's soul: how it will evolve, what hitherto unknown mysteries it will unravel. If man
were aware that his attitude to life melodies his future, he would immediately drop this
dismal view that life is discord, that it is useless and meaningless. Then he might
realize the fallacy of the belief that existence is meant to be full of woe, that there is
no scheme to things. Then he might come to know that everything that is opposed to life is
irreligious.
But we are taught the negation of life in the name of religion. The philosophy of
religion has always been death-oriented, instead of life-oriented. Religion preaches that
what comes after life is important, but that what happens before death has no significance
whatsoever.
Up to now, religion has revered death, but shown no respect for life.
Nowhere is the joyous acceptance of the flowers and the fruits of life to be found;
everywhere there is an obstinate clinging to dead flowers. Our lives are eulogies on the
graves of dead flowers!
The focus of religious speculation has always been on the other side of death -- on
heaven, on moksha, on nirvana -- as if what happens before death were of no
concern at all. I want to ask, if you are unable to live with what happens before death,
how will you be able to cope with what comes after life? It will be almost impossible! If
we cannot avail ourselves of what is here, before death, we can never prepare or qualify
for what comes after death. The preparation for one's death must be done during one's
life! If there is another world after death, there too we will be confronted with what we
have experienced in this life. There is no escaping the after-effects of this life, in
spite of all the harping about renouncing it.
I say there is not, nor can there be, any God but life itself. I also say that to love
life is one's sadhana, one's path to God. The true religion is to avail one's self
of life. To realize the ultimate truth that exists in life is the first auspicious step
towards achieving total deliverance. The one who misses life is the one who is sure to
miss everything else.
However, the tendency of religion is exactly the opposite: cast life away, renounce the
world. Religion does not advise the contemplation of life; it does not help you to lead
your life; it does not tell you that you will only find life as you live it, but it says
that if your life is miserable it is because your perception of life is impure. Life can
shower happiness on you if you only know the proper way to live it.
I call religion the art of living.
Religion is not a way to undermine life, it is a medium for delving deeply into the
mysteries of existence. Religion is not turning one's back on life, it is facing life
squarely. Religion is not escaping from life; religion is embracing life fully. Religion
is the total realization of life.
As a result of these basic misconceptions, only elderly people show any interest in
religion these days. You will only find old people in the places of God -- in the temples,
in the churches, in the gurudwaras and in the mosques. You will not see any young
people there. Why? There is only one explanation: our religion has become a religion for
people advanced in age; it is for those haunted by the fear of death, for those at the end
of their lives, for those full of anxiety about what comes after death.
How can a religion based on the philosophy of death illuminate life? Even after five
thousand years of religious teachings, the earth is sinking steadily from bad to worse.
Although there is no shortage of temples, mosques, churches, priests, teachers, ascetics
and the like on this planet, its people have not yet become religious. This is because
religion has a false base. Life is not at the root of religion; religion is built on
death. Religion is not a living symbol; religion is a gravestone. This kind of biased
religion can never bring life to our lives.
What is the cause of all this ?
During these few days, I shall discuss the religion of life, the religion of the living
faith -- and a certain elemental principle the common man is never encouraged to discover,
nor even told about. In the past, the utmost was done to throw a blanket over this primary
rule of life, to suppress this basic truth. And the result of this grave mistake has grown
into a universal disease.
What is the basic drive of the average man? God? No.
The soul? No.
Truth? No.
What is at the core of man? What is the basic urge in the depths of the common man --
in the life of the average man, of the man who never meditates, never searches his soul,
never undertakes any religious pilgrimages?
Devotion? No.
Prayer? No.
Liberation? No.
Nirvana? Absolutely not.
If we look for the basic urge in the common man, if we search for the force behind this
life, we will find neither devotion nor God, neither prayer nor the thirst for knowledge.
We will find something different there -- something that is being pushed into the
darkness, that is never faced consciously, that is never evaluated. And what is that
something?
What will you find if you dissect and analyze the core of the average
man?
Leave man aside for the moment. If we look at the animal or vegetable kingdom, what
will we find at the core of anything? If we observe the activity of a plant, what do we
find? Where is its growth leading? Its whole energy is directed toward producing a new
seed. Its entire being is occupied with forming a new seed. What is a bird doing? What is
an animal doing? If we closely observe the activities of nature, we will find that there
is only one process, only one wholehearted process going on. And that process is one of
continuous creation, of procreation, of creating new and different self-forms. Flowers
have seeds; fruits have seeds. And what is the seed's destiny? The seed is destined to
grow into a new plant, into a new flower, into a new fruit, into a new seed -- and so the
cycle repeats itself. The process of procreation is eternal. Life is a force that is
continuously regenerating itself. Life is a creativity, a process of self-creation.
The same is true of man. And we have christened the process "passion,"
"sex." We have also termed it "lust." This labeling amounts to
name-calling; it is a kind of abuse. And this very disparagement itself has polluted the
atmosphere.
Then, what is lust? What is passion? What is the force called "sex?"
Since time immemorial, waves have rolled in succession and dashed against the shore.
The waves come in, break apart and fall back. Again they rush in. They push, they
struggle, they disperse and fall back once again. Life has an inner urge to progress, to
march forward. There is a kind of restlessness in these waves, and in life's waves as
well. There is a continuous effort to achieve something. What is the aim? It is an intense
desire for a better position; it is a passion to reach greater heights. Behind this never
ending energy is life itself -- life striving for a good life, life striving for a better
existence.
It's not long at all -- only a matter of some thousands of years -- since man first
appeared on the earth. Before that, there were only animals. And it's not so very long
since animals came into being either. Prior to that there was a time when there weren't
any animals, when there were just plants. Nor have plants existed on this planet for a
very, very long time. Before that there were only rocks, mountains, rivers and oceans.
And what was this world of rocks, mountains, rivers and oceans restless about? It was
striving to produce plants. And gradually, ever so gradually, plants came into existence.
The life-force had manifested itself in a new form. Then the earth was covered with
vegetation. It continued to bring forth life; it continued to procreate: flowers bloomed
and fruit grew.
But the plants were also restless. They were not satisfied with themselves either;
their inner urge was also for something higher; they were eager to produce animals and
birds. Then animals and birds came into being and occupied this planet for ages. But man
was nowhere in sight. And yet man was always there, inherent in the animals, striving to
break through the barrier, striving to be born. Then, in due course, man entered
existence.
Now, how about man?
Man is ceaselessly endeavoring to create new life. And we have named this tendency
"sex"; we have called it "passion," "lust." But what is the
meaning of this lust?
The basic urge is to create, to produce new life. Life itself does not want to end. But
what is it all for? Can it be that man, from within, is trying to bring forth a better
man, a higher form of himself? Can it be that life is expecting a being far better than
man himself? Sages from Nietzsche to Aurobindo, from Patanjali to Bertrand Russell have
nurtured an image in their heart of hearts, a dream of how a man superior to themselves
will come forth -- a superman. They have been asking how another being, better than man,
can be produced.
We have deliberately condemned the urge to procreate for
thousands of years. Instead of accepting it, we have abused it. We have relegated it to
the lowest possible place. We have concealed it and pretended it is not there, as if there
were no place for it in life, no room for it in the scheme of things.
The truth is that there is nothing more vital than this urge. And it should be given
its rightful place. Man has not freed himself from it by covering it up and by trampling
it; on the contrary, he has entangled himself in it even more. This repression has yielded
the opposite result from the one expected.
Imagine a novice learning to ride a bicycle. The road may be big and wide, but if there
is a small rock lying by the side of the road the cyclist will be afraid he will bump into
the stone. There is a hundred-to-one chance against his running into that stone -- even a
blind man would, in all probability, pass it safely by -- but because of his fear the
rider is only aware of the stone. The stone looms large in his mind and the road vanishes
for him. He is hypnotized by that stone, drawn to it, and in the end he dashes against it.
He collides with that very thing from which he has done his utmost to save himself.
The road was big and wide, so how did this man have an accident?
The psychologist Coue says that the average mind is governed by the Law of
Reverse-Effect. We collide with the very thing from which we are trying to save ourselves
because the object of our fear becomes the center of our consciousness. In the same way,
man has been trying to save himself from sex for the last five thousand years. And the
result is that everywhere, in every nook and corner, he is confronted by sex -- in all its
various forms. The Law of Reverse-Effect has arrested the soul of man.
Have you never observed that the mind is pulled towards and
hypnotized by the very thing it is trying to avoid?
The people who taught man to be against sex are fully responsible for making him so
aware of sex. The over-sexuality that exists in man can be blamed on perverted teachings.
Today we are afraid to discuss sex. Why are we so mortally afraid of this subject? It
is because of a presupposition that man may become sexual just by talking about sex. This
view is totally wrong. There is, after all, a vast difference between sex and sexuality.
Our society will only be free of the ghost of sex when we develop the courage to talk
about sex in a rational and healthy manner.
It is only by understanding sex in all its aspects that we will be able to transcend
sex. You cannot free yourself from a problem by shutting your eyes to it. Only a madman
thinks his enemy will vanish if he closes his eyes. The ostrich in the desert thinks in
this way. The ostrich thrusts his head into the sand and, since he cannot see his enemy,
he thinks his enemy is not there. This kind of logic is pardonable in the case of the
ostrich, but in man it is unforgivable.
As far as sex is concerned, man behaves no better than the ostrich. He thinks that by
shutting his eyes, by ignoring it, sex will vanish. If such miracles could occur, life
would be very easy indeed. But alas, nothing disappears just by pulling down the blinds.
On the contrary, this is proof that we are scared of sex, that its attraction is more
powerful than our resistance. Because we feel we cannot conquer sex, we shut our eyes to
it.
Shutting one's eyes is a sign of weakness, and the whole of humanity is guilty of it.
Not only has man blatantly shut his eyes to sex, he has also entered into innumerable
inner conflicts with it. The devastating results of this war with sex are too well known
to be enumerated here. Ninety-eight per cent of mental illness, of neurosis, is because of
the suppression of sex. Ninety-nine per cent of the women suffering from hysteria and
related illnesses suffer from sexual disorders. The major cause of fear, of doubt, of
anxiety, of the stress and strain on contemporary man, is the pressure of passion. Man has
turned his back on an inherent and powerful urge. Without attempting to understand sex, we
have shut our eyes to it out of fear. And the results have been catastrophic indeed.
To see the truth of this, man need only scan his literature, the
mirror of his mind. If a man from the moon or from Mars were to come here and go through
our literature, were to read our books and our poetry, were to see our paintings, he would
be surprised. He would wonder why all our art and literature is centered around sex.
"Why are all man's poems, novels, magazines and stories saturated with sex? Why is
there a half-naked woman on every magazine cover? Why is every movie concerned with
lust?" he would ask. He would be perplexed.
The alien visitor would wonder why man thought about nothing but sex.
He would be even more confused if he met a man and talked to him, because the man would
try, would try very hard, to impress upon him that he was totally innocent of the
existence of sex. The man would talk of the soul, of God, about heaven, about
emancipation, but he would not say a word about sex, although his whole being would be
filled with ideas about sex. The alien would be stunned to learn that man has even
invented a thousand and one devices to gratify a desire about which not a breath is
uttered.
Man's death-oriented religion has made man sex-minded. And it has perverted him from
another angle as well. It shows him the golden pinnacle of celibacy, of brahmacharya,
but gives him no guidance in getting a foothold on the first rung, in understanding the
base, in understanding sex.
First of all, we have to recognize sex and understand it; we have to comprehend this
elemental urge. Only then can we strive to transcend it, to sublimate it, so we can reach
the stage of celibacy. Without understanding this basic life-force in all its forms and
facets, all man's efforts to restrain and suppress it will only help him degenerate into a
sick and incoherent lunatic. But we do not concentrate on the basic illness, we spout the
high ideal of celibacy. Man has never been so sick, so neurotic, so wretched or so
unhappy. Man is completely perverted. He is poisoned at the root.
Once I was passing a hospital. I read on a sign: "A man stung by a scorpion was
treated here. He was cured in a day and discharged."
Another notice read: "A man was bitten by a snake. He was treated and went home,
hale and hearty, in three days."
A third report read: "A man was bitten by a mad dog. He has been under treatment
for the last ten days and will be well quite soon."
Then there was also a fourth report. "A man was bitten by a man," it said.
"It was many weeks ago. He is unconscious and there is a slim chance of his
recovery."
I was surprised. Can a man's bite be so very poisonous?
If we are observant, we will see that a lot of poison has accumulated
in man.
Perhaps it is because of his quack doctors, but the foremost reason is his refusal to
accept what is natural in him, his refusal to accept his fundamental being. We have tried
to curb and annihilate our inborn urges in vain; no attempts are made to transform them,
to elevate them. We have forced ourselves to control that energy in a wrong way. That
energy is bubbling in us like molten lava; it is always pushing from inside: if we are not
careful, it may topple us at any moment. And do you know what happens when it gets the
slightest opening?
I will illustrate with an example:
A plane meets with an accident. You are nearby and you rush to the scene. What is the
first question that will come to your mind when you see a body in the debris?
"Is this person Hindu or Muslim?" No.
"Is this person Indian or Chinese?" No.
In a split second, and first and foremost, you will look to see whether the body is a
man's or a woman's.
Are you aware why this question springs to mind first of all? It is because of
repressed sex. It is the repression of sex that makes you so conscious of the difference
between a man and a woman. You are able to forget the name, face or nationality of someone
-- if I had met you, I might forget your name, your face, your caste, your age, your
status, everything about you -- but you never forget the sex of a person, you never forget
whether someone was male or female. Have you ever had any doubt that the person you had a
conversation with, let's say, on the train to Delhi last year, was a man?
Why? When you forget everything else about a person, why can't you erase that aspect
from your memory? It is because the awareness of sex is so firmly rooted in man's mind, in
his thought processes. Sex is ever-present, ever-active.
Neither our society nor our planet can ever be healthy so long as
this iron curtain, this distance, exists between men and women.
Man cannot be at peace with himself so long as this burning fire rages inside him, so
long as he sits tightly on it. He has to strive to suppress it every moment of every day.
The fire is burning us. It is scorching us. But even so, we are not prepared to face it,
not prepared to look into it.
What is this fire? It is not an enemy, it is a friend. What is the nature of this fire?
I want to tell you that once you know this fire it will no longer be an enemy, it will
become a friend. If you understand this fire, it will not burn you. It will warm your
homes, it will cook for you, and it will also become your lifelong friend.
Electricity has flashed in the sky for millions of years. Sometimes it killed people,
but nobody ever thought that this very same energy would someday run our fans and light
our homes. Nobody could imagine these possibilities then. But today this electricity has
become our friend. How? Had we shut our eyes to it, we would never have fathomed its
secrets, we would never have utilized it; it would have remained our enemy, it would
always have been an object of fear. But man assumed a friendly attitude towards
electricity. He took it upon himself to understand it, to know it, and slowly, slowly, a
lasting friendship developed. Had that not happened, we would hardly be able to manage
today.
The sex inside man, his libido, is even more vital than electricity. A minute atom of
matter annihilated an entire hundred thousand people in the city of Hiroshima, but an atom
of man's energy can create a new life, a new person!
Sex is more powerful than an atom bomb.
Have you ever thought about the infinite possibilities of this force, about how we can
transform it to better mankind? An embryo can become a Gandhi, a Mahavir, a Buddha, a
Christ. An Einstein can evolve from it; a Newton can be manifest in it. An infinitely
small atom of sex energy has a towering person like Gandhi manifest in it!
But we are not inclined to even try to understand sex. We have to
summon immense courage even to talk about it in public. What kind of fear is it that
plagues us, so that we are not prepared to understand the force out of which the whole
world is born? What is this fear? Why does sex alarm us so?
People were shocked when I spoke about sex at the first meeting last month, in Bombay.
I received many angry letters asking me not to talk in this fashion, letters saying I
should not speak on this subject at all. I wonder why one should not discuss this subject?
When this urge is already inherent in us, why should we not talk about it? Unless we can
understand its behavior, can analyze it, how can we hope to raise it to a higher plane? By
understanding it we can transform it, we can conquer it, we can sublimate it. Unless that
happens, we will die and still we will be unable to free ourselves from the grip of sex.
My point is that those who forbid talk about sex are the same people who have pushed
humanity into an abyss of sex. Those who are frightened of sex, and have therefore
convinced themselves they are innocent of sex, are lunatics. They have conspired to make
the whole world a gigantic asylum.
Religion is concerned with the transformation of man's energy. Religion aims to
integrate the inner being of man -- both his chaste aspirations and his basic urges. It is
also true that religion should guide man from the lower to the higher, from darkness to
light; to the real from the unreal, to the eternal from the ephemeral.
But to reach somewhere, one has to know the starting point. We have to start from where
we are; it is imperative we know this place first. And this is more important at the
moment than the place we want to reach. In this context, sex is the fact, the reality; sex
is the starting point. But God? God is far from here. We can reach the truth of God only
by understanding the starting point of the journey; otherwise we cannot move an inch. We
will be lost. We will be on a merry-go-round, going nowhere.
When I spoke to you at our first meeting I could sense you were not prepared to face
the realities of life. Then what more, if anything, can we do? What can we achieve? Then
all this hullabaloo about God and the soul means nothing. It is all empty of conviction;
it is all just false talk.
It is only by acquiring real knowledge about something that we can
rise above it.
In fact, knowledge is transcendence. And first of all, one fact must be comprehended
fully: man is born out of sex. The whole of his being exists because of the practice of
sex. Man is filled with the energy of sex. The energy of life itself is the energy of sex.
What is this sex energy? Why is it such a powerful disturbance in our lives? Why does
it pervade our entire beings? Why do our lives revolve around it, even to the end? What is
the source of this urge?
Sages and seers have degraded sex for thousands of years, but man is still not
convinced. For ages they have preached that we should defy sex, that we should banish all
thoughts of it and all desires for it in order to be free from maya, from the
illusory world -- yet man has not been able to break his shackles. You cannot be rid of
sex like this; the approach is wrong.
Whenever I meet prostitutes, they never speak of sex. They inquire about the soul, and
about God. I also meet many ascetics and monks, and whenever we are alone they ask about
nothing but sex. I was surprised to learn that ascetics, who are always preaching against
sex, seem to be captivated by it. They are curious about it and disturbed by it; they have
this mental complex about it, yet they sermonize about religion and about the animal
instincts in man. And sex is so natural.
We have neither wanted nor tried to understand this problem. We have never delved into
the reason there is such a great attraction to sex.
Who teaches you sex?
The whole world is against its being taught. Parents feel children should not be
allowed to know about it, and teachers agree. The scriptures say the same thing. There is
no school or university to teach the subject of sex; every institute of learning forbids
knowledge of it. But in adolescence, a young man finds out for himself that his whole
being, his prana, is filled with an anxiousness about sex. Then the age-old
precautions fall. And sex wins.
How does this happen? Truth and love are preached, but the teachings don't hold up;
they prove vulnerable.
Sex is firmly rooted in the core of our beings, but where is it
anchored? Where is the center of this natural pull, of this pull that is so powerful, so
profound? There lies the mystery. And it is necessary to recognize the mystery first; only
then can we surpass it.
Fundamentally, what we feel as the attraction for sex is not the attraction for sex at
all.
After every act of orgasm, a man feels drained, empty, depressed.
He is sorry, with a pinch of heartburn. He thinks of avoiding this practice in the
future. So, what is the source of this state of mind? It is because the desire is for
something else, and not just for physical gratification.
Man cannot ordinarily reach the depths of his being that he reaches in the consummation
of the sexual act. In the ordinary course of his life, in his daily routine, a man has a
variety of experiences -- he shops, does business, earns his living -- but intercourse
reveals the deepest of experiences to him. And this experience has profound religious
dimensions: there, man reaches beyond himself; there, he transcends himself.
Two things happen to him in those depths. First, in copulation the ego vanishes.
Egolessness is created. For an instant, there is no "I;" for an instant, one
does not remember oneself. Did you know that the "I" also dissolves completely
in the experience of religion, that in religion the ego also dissolves into nothingness?
In the sexual act the ego fades away. Orgasm is a state of self-effacement.
The second thing about the experience of sex is that time is undone for an instant.
Timelessness is created. As Jesus Christ has said of samadhi: "There shall be
time no longer." In orgasm, the sense of time is non-existent. There is no past, no
future; there is only the present moment. The present is not a part of time; the present
is eternity.
This is the second reason man is so eager for sex. The craving is not for the body of a
woman by a man or vice versa, the passion is for something else: for egolessness, for
timelessness.
This sexual climax only lasts a moment, but for this brief moment a man loses a
considerable amount of energy and vitality and later laments his loss. In some species of
animals, males die after one act of intercourse alone. A particular insect in Africa can
perform the act only once; its energy ebbs and it passes away in the act itself. It is not
that man is unaware that intercourse diminishes his power, lessens his energy and brings
death that much nearer. After each experience he regrets his indulgence, but in a short
while he feels passionate again. Surely there is much deeper meaning to this pattern of
behavior than meets the eye.
There is a subtler level to the sexual experience
than the mere physical routine.
It is a level that is religious in essence. To understand this experience you must pay
careful attention. If you cannot grasp the meaning of this experience, you will live and
die in sex alone.
Lightning shines in the darkness of the night, but the darkness is not part of the
lightning. The only relation between the two is that lightning only stands out at night,
only in the darkness. And the same is true of sex. There is a realization, an
exhilaration, a light that shines in sex, but that phenomenon is not from sex itself.
Although it is associated with it, it is just a by-product. The light that shines in
orgasm transcends sex; it comes from beyond. If we can comprehend this experience of the
beyond we can rise above sex. Otherwise, we will never be able to.
Those who oppose sex blindly will never be able to appreciate the phenomenon in its
proper perspective. They will never be able to analyze the cause of this insatiable desire
for sex, of this deep craving for sex. What I wish to emphasize is that this strong and
recurring pull toward sex is for the momentary realization of samadhi.
You can liberate yourself from sex if you can learn to attain to samadhi without
sex. If a man who wants an article costing one thousand rupees is shown where one
can be had for free, he would not be in his right senses if he were to go to the market to
buy it so expensively. If a man can be shown how he can attain the same ecstasy he derives
from sex by some other means and in much greater measure, his mind will automatically
cease its rush towards sex; his mind will start racing in the other direction.
Man had his first realization of samadhi in the experience
of sex.
But sex is a costly affair, a very costly affair indeed. And it does not last for more
than a moment; after a momentary climax, we return again to our original position. For a
second, we reach towards a different plane of existence; for a second, we climb towards a
peak of immense satisfaction. The momentum is towards the pinnacle, but we have hardly
taken a step when we fall back to first base. A wave aspires to reach the sky, but it has
hardly risen noticeably when it already starts to fall. We are the same. It is for that
ecstasy, for that joy, for that realization, that we accumulate energy from time to time
and again start the ascent. We almost touch that subtler plane, that higher realm, but
again we fall back to our original position, minus a considerable amount of power and
energy.
So long as man's mind remains immersed in this river of sex he will repeatedly rise and
fall again. Life is a continuous push towards egolessness, towards timelessness -- whether
conscious or unconscious. The intense desire of the being is to know its real self, to
know the truth, to know the original, eternal, timeless source -- to unite with that which
is beyond time, to attain pure egolessness. It is to satisfy this unconscious inner desire
of the soul that the world rotates around the axis of sex.
But how can we understand or develop any kind of rapport with this
realization if we continue to deny the existence of this natural, inner and
all-encompassing phenomenon.
When we oppose sex as vehemently as we do, sex becomes the center of our consciousness:
we cannot free ourselves from it; we become chained to it. The Law of Reverse-Effect comes
into play and we become bound to it. We try to run away from sex, but the more we try to
rid ourselves of it, the more we become entangled in it.
A man was ill. His illness was that he felt very hungry, but in fact he had no illness
at all. He had read that the negation of life was the path to deliverance. He had read
that fasting was religious and that eating was sinful. He had also been told that eating
was violent and contrary to the precepts of non-violence.
But, the more he thought of eating as sinful, the more he suppressed his hunger. And
the hunger asserted itself in equal measure. He used to fast for three or four days and
then, the following day, he would eat anything and everything, like a glutton. After
eating he felt sorry for breaking his vow -- plus, overeating has its own reactions -- and
then, to atone, he would have another spell of fasting. And again, after that, he would
eat for a time.
At last he decided it was not possible to follow the righteous path while he lived at
home, and so he renounced the world, went to the jungle, climbed a hill and found a
solitary cave. The folks at home were sad, and his wife, assuming he must have overcome
his eating illness in his retreat, sent him a bunch of flowers. She wished him an early
recovery and a speedy return.
The man replied with a note: "Many thanks for the flowers. They were
delicious." The man had eaten the flowers. We may not be able to imagine a man eating
flowers instead of food, but we have not undertaken the sadhana of a fast, like
that man had. Of course, those who are devoted to eating will be able to understand the
situation very well indeed. In more or less the same proportion, everybody is committed to
sex.
Man has started a war against sex. And the results of this war with sex are difficult
to assess correctly. Does homosexuality exist anywhere but in man's so-called civilized
societies? Aborigines who live in backward areas cannot imagine a man having intercourse
with another man. I have stayed with tribal people, and when I told them that civilized
people practiced this, they were stunned; they could not believe it. But in the West there
are homosexual clubs, and there are associations that claim that it is undemocratic to
prohibit homosexuality when so many people practice it. They declare that the prohibition
of homosexuality by law is a violation of fundamental human rights, that it is an
imposition by a majority on a minority. The mentality that has given birth to
homosexuality is the result of the war with sex.
Prostitution also exists in direct proportion
to a society's civilization.
Did you ever reflect on how the institution of prostitution came into being in the
first place? Can you find a prostitute in the hilly areas of the tribal peoples, in our
far-flung settlements? Impossible. These people cannot even imagine there are women who
sell their virtue, who undergo intercourse for remuneration. But this trafficking in sex
has developed with the advance of man's civilization. This is an act of eating flowers.
And we would be still more astonished were we to take fully into account all the other
perversions of sex, were we to examine the full range of all its ugly manifestations.
What has happened to man? Who is responsible for this ugliness and debauchery? Those
who have taught man to repress sex instead of understanding it are responsible. Because of
this suppression, man's sex energy is leaking from the wrong pores. Man's whole society is
sick and wretched, and if this cancerous society is to be changed, it is essential to
accept that the energy of sex is divine, that the attraction for sex is essentially
religious.
Why is the attraction of sex so powerful? For it surely is
powerful. If we can grasp the basic levels of sex we can lift man out of sex. Only then
can the world of rama emerge from the world of kama; only then can a world
of compassion evolve out of this world of passion.
With a group of friends, I went to Khajuraho to see the world-famous temple there. The
outermost wall, the periphery of the temple, is decorated with scenes of the sexual act,
with the varied poses of intercourse. There are sculptures of many different poses, all in
sexual postures. My friends asked why those sculptures were there, decorating a temple.
I explained to them that the architects who had built that temple were highly
intelligent people. They knew that passion and sex exist on the circumference of life, and
believed that those who were still caught up in sex had no right to enter the temple.
We entered. Inside, there was no idol to God. My friends were surprised, seeing no idol
anywhere. I explained to them that on the outer wall of life itself lust and passion
exist, whereas the temple of God is inside. Those who are still enchanted by passion, by
sex, cannot reach the temple of God inside; they simply roam about the outer wall.
The builders of this temple were very sensible people. This was a meditation center --
sexuality on the surface, all around; peace and quiet at the core, at the center. They
used to tell aspirants to meditate on sex first, to reflect fully on the copulation
depicted on the outer wall, and when they had thoroughly understood sex and were certain
their minds were free of it, they might go inside. Only then could they face God inside.
But in the name of religion we have destroyed any possibility of
understanding sex.
We have declared war on sex, on our basic instinct itself. The standard rule is not to
see sex at all, but to shut your eyes and blindly barge into the temple of God. But can
anyone reach anywhere with his eyes closed? Even if you reach inside, you will not be able
to see God with closed eyes. Instead, you will only see the thing from which you have been
running!
Perhaps some people think I am a propagandist for sex. If so, please tell them that
they haven't heard me at all. It is difficult these days to find a greater enemy of sex on
the face of this earth than me. If people can pay attention to what I say -- without bias
-- it is possible to liberate man from sex. This is the only course for a better humanity.
The pundits we consider the enemies of sex are not its enemies at all, but its
propagandists. They have created a glamour around sex; their vehement opposition has
created a mad attraction for sex.
One man told me he wasn't interested in anything that was not disapproved of,
challenged or resented. As we all know, the stolen fruit is always sweeter than the one
purchased from the bazaar. That's why one's own wife isn't as appetizing as the neighbor's
wife seems to be. The other is like a stolen fruit; the other is a forbidden treat. And we
have given the same status to sex. It is very tempting. It has been given such a colorful
coat of lies that it has become intensely attractive. Bertrand Russell has written that in
the Victorian era, when he was a child, ladies' legs were never seen in public. The
clothes they wore swept the ground, covering their feet completely. If by chance even a
woman's toe were visible, a man would immediately ogle it; it would arouse his passion.
Russell further writes that today's women move about nearly half-naked with their legs
fully visible, but notes that it doesn't affect us nearly as much. This proves, he writes,
that the more we conceal a thing, the more it arouses our curiosity.
The first step to free the world from sexuality is to allow children to remain nude, as
much as possible, in the home. As far as it is feasible, it is advisable to allow
children, both boys and girls, to play in the nude, so that they become totally acquainted
with each other's bodies. Then, tomorrow, there will be no necessity for them to snuggle
up to each other in the streets. Then there will be no need to print nude pictures in
books. Then they will be so familiar with each other's bodies that no kind of perverted
attraction will be possible in the future.
But the way of the world is just the opposite.
The people who have covered and concealed the body have unwittingly created so great an
attraction for it that, although it has overtaken our minds, we still haven't felt the
full impact.
Children should remain nude and should play in the nude for a long time, so no seed of
madness remains to plague them the rest of their lives.
But the disease is already there, and it is on the increase. The existence of the
disease can be observed in the bulk of obscene literature now being published. People read
it, hiding it between the covers of the Gita and the bible. We shout that
obscene books should be banned, but we never pause to think where the men who read them
are coming from; we protest the displaying of nude pictures but never stop to ask why they
are exhibited in the first place.
Sex is natural, but sexuality is the product of anti-sex teachings. If these teachings
are followed, if the advice given in these unscientific sermons is taken, the soul of man
will be totally filled with sexuality. It has almost happened. But, thank God, such
teachers are not very successful. And because of their failure, man has been able to
salvage some of his conscience, some of his discrimination. If man understands sex
properly, he can rise above it. He should rise above it; it is necessary that he rise
above it.
All our efforts to date have borne wrong results because we have not befriended sex but
have declared war on it; we have used suppression and lack of understanding as ways of
dealing with sex problems. The deeper a man's understanding, the higher he can rise above
sex; the less his understanding, the greater his attempts to suppress sex will be. And the
results of repression are never fruitful, never pleasing, never healthy.
Sex is man's most vibrant energy, but it should not be an end unto
itself: sex should lead man to his soul. The goal is from lust to light.
To reach celibacy sex must be understood. To know sex is to be free of it, to transcend
it; but even after a lifetime of sexual experience, a man is not able to detect that
intercourse gives him a fleeting experience of samadhi, a peek into
superconsciousness. That is the great pull of sex; that is the great allure of sex: it is
the magnetic attraction of the Supreme. You have to know and to meditate upon this
momentary glimpse; you have to focus on it with awareness. On everyone its pull is so
tremendously strong.
There are other, easier ways to attain to the very same experience -- meditation, yoga
and prayer are other alternatives -- but only the channel of sex has such a powerful
influence on man.
It is very important to consider the various ways there are to reach
the same goal.
One friend wrote to say that he found my topic very embarrassing. He asked me to
imagine the awkward position of a mother sitting in the audience with her daughter; he
asked me to think of a mother attending my lecture, accompanied by her son. Further, he
advises me that such things should not be discussed in front of just anybody. I replied
that his objections were groundless and that he must be out of his mind. If a mother is
sensible, she will relate her experiences of sex to her daughter in time, before she slips
into a netherland of sex, before she loses herself in unknown, immature ways. If a father
is sensitive in discharging his parental responsibility, he must freely discuss the
subject with his son and daughter -- to warn them against the common pitfalls and to save
their lives from possible perversion in the future.
But the irony of the situation is that neither the father nor the mother has any deep,
conscious experience in the matter. They themselves haven't risen above the level of
physical sex, and so they fear their children may become entangled at the same level as
well. But, I ask you, did anybody guide you? You have entangled yourself. And your
children will also entangle themselves. And it will be repeated in the second and third
generations and so forth. But isn't it possible if your children are spoken to, if they
are taught, if they are allowed to think freely for themselves, that they may save
themselves from dissipating their energy? They may conserve their energy. And they may
transform it.
We have all seen coal many times. Scientists say that in a period of a few thousand
years coal is transformed into diamonds, and that there is no chemical or structural
difference between coal and diamonds. A diamond is the transformed manifestation of a
piece of coal. A diamond is only coal.
I wish to tell you that sex is coal, whereas brahmacharya, celibacy, is diamond.
Celibacy is a form of sex; celibacy is the transformation of sex. Celibacy is coal, but
after it has undergone a certain process. And believe me, there is no enmity between the
two extremes. No enemy of sex can ever become brahmacharya.
What do we mean by brahmacharya, by celibacy? It is the charya of Brahma;
it is communion with God. It is the realization of the divine experience, of the
experience of God. And, by the use of conscious understanding, it is possible to direct
one's sexual energy on this path, on the path to God.
Tomorrow, I intend to speak to you about how the experience of kama, of lust,
can be sublimated into that of Rama, of light. I wish you to listen attentively, so
there will be no misinterpretation. And whatever questions come to mind, please ask them
honestly. Send them to me in writing so that I can speak to you about them simply and
directly in the next few days. It is not necessary to hide any questions that arise in
your minds; there is no reason to hide the truth. It is pointless to try to run away from
it. Truth is truth whether we shut our eyes to it or not. Only those who have the courage
to face the truth are religious men. Those who are weak and cowardly, those who are not
even manly enough to face the facts of life, can never be helped to become religious.
In the coming days, I invite you to consider my topic. It is one on which your aged
seers and sages cannot be expected to talk. And perhaps you are not used to hearing such
discourses either. Your minds may react in fear, but I urge you to be patient and to
listen attentively. It is quite possible the understanding of sex may lead you to the
temple of your soul. That is my desire.
May God fulfill that desire.
Osho, From Sex to Superconsciousness, Chapter 2