"Glamour Around Sex"

 

    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. 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.

    The outermost wall, the periphery of the Khajuraho 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.

    The answer is 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.

    When we enter inside the temple, there is no idol to God. Everyone is surprised, seeing no idol anywhere. Because 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!

    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.

    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.