I have had sex with many women. How to forget all that?
Questioner (Q): Namaste. I have done things in the past which I am not so proud of. Mingling with some girls in sexual way and regretting it later. Such things can’t be taken back. And living with it, knowing that the sexual energy has affected me in subtle ways which I can very much feel. I don’t know how to remove this sexual memory from my body. I tried searching online, how to get rid of this memory. And my mind is occupied with it and so is my body, I believe. I want to get rid of this essence that I have picked up. I’m aware of the changes in my body and all I want to do is get rid of it.
Acharya Prashant (AP): Yes, but what is sexual memory? What do you mean by that?
Q: Like fragrances and like subtle changes that I feel that I have changed ever since that.
AP: Okay. See, it requires you to be occupied in the same kind of patterns as before. Right? If you live the same life as you were living hitherto, if you visit the same places, if you eat at the same places, then obviously all those things will return as nostalgia to you. You cannot be living the same kind of life and yet hope to not notice a missing part of that life.
Sexual activity, relationships are not something that happen in vacuum. So, you had a set of friends, you also had particular sartorial preferences, you also were spending time doing something like watching football, watching movies, visiting this place, doing this particular thing. And in the middle of all this and arising from all this and intermeshed with all this was the sexual aspect of life. Right? Now that sexual aspect might have proven to bring sorrow to you, so you want to get rid of it. Something happens, you know, in these things there is a degree of fragility always present. So, you now want to put it away but you want to keep everything else intact. That’s not going to happen. If everything else remains the same way it was, then this part of life too will cry to remain the same as it was. You cannot say, “I’m still a lover of pizza but I don’t like cheese anymore.” Every time they will serve you the pizza, you’ll be reminded of cheese. Fine, cheese might still be dispensable, but you cannot say, “I am a lover of pizza, I continue to be a lover of pizza but I don’t want the bread anymore.” Every time they’ll serve you pizza sans bread, you will clamor for bread.
If you want to change something in life; really change something, you must change the center itself. Otherwise, you are just inviting a sense of being torn. You visit the same club as you used to. The moment you reach there, they’ll say, “Well sir, where is your partner? Stag entry not allowed.” And the moment they’ll point at that, you’ll be reminded of something and you’ll start missing something.
Are you getting it?
And you will not be able to stand that loneliness for long. If you want to save your other patterns, you’ll be forced to bring in the missing part of the pattern as well. You cannot say, “I want to drive the same car but without one of the wheels.” If you insist that you’ll drive the same car, you’ll have to bring back the wheel, maybe of a different brand, maybe from a different manufacturer, maybe with some other stripes and grooves and cuts, maybe alloy wheels this time, maybe something else, but the replacement would have to be found. And that’s no good, essentially you have restored the status quo. If the wheel has tormented you so much or if you have been able to see the futility of wheeling around, you will need to, maybe, change the vehicle itself.
Are you please getting it?
We tend to look at problems in fragments. We think relationship with one particular person is one particular problem. No. Any particular problem is always related to all the other problems that you have. That applies to a person, that applies to humanity as a whole. But we do not want to disrupt the other problems because every problem to us is a pleasure giving pattern, until it shows up for what it really is. So, we remain enmeshed in problems and at one point in time, only one of the patterns appears as a problem. The other patterns appear as pleasures. So, we don’t want to disrupt them.
Only the one particular pattern that has revealed itself as a problem, we want to do something about it. You cannot do anything about it; not possible. All these problems are related to each other. And lucky are those whose problems all together show up all at once. Unfortunately, that does not happen with us. We are not lucky enough to be attacked by all problems together. In our life, problems come one at a time. So, we feel now at this moment there is only this particular problem and the other factors in life, the other things, other objects in life, they are alright. In fact, they are rather sources of pleasure. In fact, they are the bulwarks helping me to face this particular problem.
So, I have five friends, one of whom has turned into a problem lately. Who are the other four? These four, the other four are the one supporting me in facing the problem. These five together are not the problem, one of them is a problem, and the other four are my support even as I face the problem. So, you will cling even more to the other four.
The fact is, the five of them together are one thing. These five are not distinct at all. They are five manifestations of the same thing. What is that same thing? That same thing is called — your choice, because you are the one who chose all five of them. Each of them is an exhibition of your choice and therefore each of them is problematic because your choice is problematic.
What is choice? Consciousness. When one’s consciousness is not elevated enough or pure enough or sharp enough, then that lack of sharpness is displayed in hazy and harmful choices. The one who is making a harmful choice will make harmful choices in all matters. No? Or will he make harmful choice only in one particular matter? I’m asking, “Please think of it!” If I do not know how to choose, I’ll not be choosing a pair of shoes wisely, I’ll also not be choosing a handkerchief wisely, I’ll also not be choosing a job wisely. If I do not know how to drive, does it matter whether I drive to the left or to the right. If I drive to the left, I’ll be colliding. If I’ll drive to the right, I’ll again be banging into somebody. Because right or left, it’s me at the center, at the wheel. But I think that probably I got hit only when I was driving to the left. Therefore, it is the left direction that’s inauspicious. Let me avoid left and drive only to the right, as if only one segment of life is a problem. No, the segment of life is not the problem, the center of life is the problem. That’s why books like Gita help. They challenge the very Centre of life.
Q: In that case how do I get rid of, like you gave an example of a pizza. What about the good things in it like some vegetables. I can’t just get rid of that. I might have to replace it.
AP: The good things there serve as convenient excuses for all the bad things. Good things are always needed so that we can sustain the bad things. Truth is always needed so that we can cover up the lies. Honesty is always needed so that we can be conveniently dishonest. Absolute dishonesty would absolutely fall. An absolute lie cannot stand. Therefore, some kind of seasoning of the truth is needed.
Remember that goodness moderated, is just a cover up for wickedness. If you really want good things, do not take them through a pizza. Good things are their own justification. Take them for what they are. You cannot take them as dressings or toppings upon a pizza. Good things must not be ordered to tail behind bad things. Good things should not be used as a cover up, as a foil for bad things. If good things are really good, respect them for their own self. If there are olives there or something, why not just consume olives. Why do you need to have a pizza for the sake of olives. I have nothing against pizza. So just because the example is stretching too far, hope we are we are not taking this as some kind of judgment on pizza itself. I love pizzas.
Q: Do you think there’s a way to rise beyond that in a most effective way? Although I do realize, as you said, that the problem, I could blame it on my situations and circumstances, but it arise, really just in me. But how do I change myself?
AP: By seeing what you are doing. The action that brings sorrow must become the gateway to the actor. Ideally every action should enable you to look at the actor, but if the action begets pleasure, you do not want to look at the actor, no? So, when the action results in sorrow it’s an opportune time to look at the actor because the actor now is himself saying, “Come on heal me, come on help me, give me some remedy.” So, this is the right time to go to the actor and see you know, “How are you, where have you been hurt, what happened really.” See how you made those choices and see that those choices are still continuously being made. That will help you avert further sorrow, rather further disasters.
The center from which we made one bad choice is still active and is still choosing on our behalf, which means more sorrow is just round the corner. That will also help you get rid of all the nostalgia and the memory and such things. Should I remember the road accident I had six months back or should I focus on averting the one waiting to happen six seconds later? I’m rushing into a road roller. Should I focus on that or should I remain occupied, thinking of the bad accident I had six months back. Two-hundred meters ahead of me is that road roller and I’m going to collide headlong. When you see that the real tragedy is not what happened in the past but what is going to happen just now, then there remains no incentive to keep clinging to the past. When you are thinking of all the sorrow of the past, you have a very solid assumption. The assumption is that sorrow lies in the past and therefore you’re looking at the past and asking, you know, “How do I get rid of it, how do I heal it?” What if you come to learn that sorrow lies not so much in the past but in the immediate present. That you are going to collide with that road roller right now. Would you still want to remember what happened ten years back? All the nostalgia and all the memory and all those things will just vanish.
Q: Also, since we were on the topic of food, this is a different question, is it fine for me to ask?
AP: Yeah sure.
Q: I saw a lot around my society and my family, I see so many people are getting a lot of illnesses especially due to their diet. And obviously I follow all the things that you say but I’m an international student. So being in the United Kingdom; where I am right now, following such diets, like even if I try to tell it to people, it doesn’t really sit well with them. And often I do just focus on eating pure vegetarian, a lot of times like back in my family a lot of people that are vegetarian get a lot of reports where they have less B12 or they got some kind of diseases or ailments because of not being properly nourished with the food that they consume. How do I like manage it because somewhere I have heard that vegetarian diet is not sufficient for the minerals, nutrition that I might require as a young man.
AP: You see for that there are research reports and qualified medical practitioners and there’s a lot of scientific literature are available on the net. You just need to go through all of that. When it comes to having the right minerals and vitamins and other things in the body, you know of small pox and measles and such things, right?
Q: Yeah.
AP: If you get a smallpox once you are unlikely to get it again. Why? Because what has gone inside you, as the virus, provokes antibodies. So, you become immune. Now that’s one way of getting antibodies inside you. Get the virus itself, suffer, and you’ll have antibodies. But is that what sane people do? Sane people just get factory-made stuff and inject into their bodies. We call that vaccination. Right?
Q: Yeah.
AP: And you too have been vaccinated.
Q: Yes.
AP: Did your vaccine come or had to come compulsorily by violence, by killing a living being.
Q: No.
AP: Factory-made, it’s a chemical thing, it just comes in. What I mean to say is so much of the right things that we need on our body are anyway factory produced. Right? And they need not have been factory produced. For example, think of the of the covid disease. If you do get covid you are protected against, at least to some degree, you’re protected against getting infected again. But is that the course you want to take? Do you say let me get covid once, and once I get it then again, I’m unlikely to get it. No, you don’t. You instead rely on factories. And what do those factories produce? Something that ascertains your health, right? So why can’t you take factory-made B12. If your vaccines are factory-made and you have no problems taking those vaccines, why can’t you take in factory-made B12. What is this entire tamasha about vegetarian food lacking in B12? Go, pop a pill.
You take in so much that is anyway factory-made. Right? Modern life depends on factory products. Do you then say that everything has to be normal and natural. Do you then say? Why do you insist in the case of B12? Let B12 come from the factories. What’s the problem. Just as the vaccines come from factories, even that which you call as natural comes from the factories, for example powdered milk. Do you think that comes from a buffalo? Everything that you take in is anyway coming from a factory. Let B12 also come from a factory, no problem. Or will I say, “No, no, no, B12 must be from a natural source, so let me slaughter a few animals.” Then even Covid should be from a natural source. Why do you use that vaccine? Let the natural virus infect you. Why do you take in any piece of medication? Let life be natural.
Why should you even live in a house, live on a tree. Let life be natural. Why should you brush your teeth. No natural being brushes teeth, should you? Why should you get a haircut? Why should you use headphones? None of these are natural. Why should you be educated? Why should you marry? None of these are natural.
To be human is to wisely transcend nature. And if you cannot transcend nature, you are an animal. I’m not talking of violating nature, I’m not talking of harming nature, I’m not talking of exploiting nature, I’m talking of wisely transcending nature. A human being by definition, is one who can transcend nature. So, use your factories to manufacture B12 and take in the right dose, that’s all.
Just as tetanus, smallpox, diphtheria, you don’t hear of them anymore, right, polio. Why? Because you took in something that was factory-made. Even malaria. In the developed world, I don’t think in the UK there are any cases of malaria since decades now or plague. If someone says, “You know but it is unnatural”, but everything is unnatural. Even your mustache is unnatural. Which animal, which natural animal is seen to keep a proper beard or a moustache. Everything is unnatural. Language is unnatural, think of it. Do you have language in the jungle? No. Even if they have, it is some kinds of primordial sounds. Computers are unnatural, clothes are unnatural, it’s okay.
Q: Well, you could also say that the technology we use is perhaps just part of nature itself. We just are able to manipulate them in the way that we want.
AP: Yes, you could say that. But don’t say manipulate and don’t say we want. Say we are able to wisely use nature as a resource to uplift ourselves, not just to ingratiate ourselves. If we say, we just want to use nature as per our desire, then that is what culminates in things like climate change and biodiversity depletion. Our relationship with nature, Prakriti has to be very finely balanced and it must arise from our wisdom. Otherwise, what’s the problem in just slaughtering everything that you can see. Slaughter, and the justification is — I want to, I want to. My want cannot be the justification, my wisdom is the driver.
Q: Yeah, that answers everything. Thank you.
AP: Welcome.
