"The concept of nakedness"

    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 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.