Things I Wish I Knew Before Having Sex
Questioner: I was going to play devil’s advocate and say that, well, I have got to eat to satisfy my body. So, why can’t I use contraception and have sex with a woman and not procreate? But as I think about this now, it sounds like I do need food otherwise the body will die. But if I don’t have sex, it’s not that my body will die.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, of course. No, this is such a bad analogy that people so often give. They say, “Sex is like the food. Both are physical needs.” No sir, please! Sex is not like food. No, no, no. Even in food there is a choice involved, obviously. But the dimension of sex is different.
What your choice of sexual partner can do to you, your choice of food material can never do to you, right? Though I speak a lot about dietary choices as well, especially, I speak on diet that involves flesh consumption. But still, I mean, your choice of person, you would be spending a lot of time with, seriously a lot of time. Sometimes twenty-four hours a day. Twenty-four hours a day, twenty years of your life, forty, sixty years of your life is a big part of your life. So, it’s a big choice and it’s a flawed comparison that just as we want food, we also want sex.
No, food is not something that will give you company. Food is not conscious; food is something on your plate, whereas your mate is conscious. Food, you consume, and you are done with it. You cannot consume your partner and be done with her. Are you getting it?
And when you are consuming your food, it won’t speak to you. It won’t look into your eyes. Your partner looks into your eyes, does something to your consciousness. So, there’s a lot of difference.
Questioner: So, even if it’s just for one night, it’s the looking into the eyes, the affecting of my consciousness…
Acharya Prashant: Obviously, obviously. You are debasing yourself. Why do you want to debase yourself even if for one night? Simultaneously, I want to ask a question: Why the hell can you not get a better partner? Why are we discussing so much about an unworthy partner? What is it in us that prevents us from gaining access to somebody worthier? Should not that be the topic?
Aren’t there people around who deserve to be approached? And don’t we deserve good company? Company that doesn’t give us happiness merely in those ten or twenty minutes, or half a minute. Company that keeps us elevated in a mental sense for longer periods. Company that gives us something that is far more long lasting, sustainable, valuable?
How long lasting is the sexual pleasure? What does it leave you with? It leaves you with the need to get a shower and it leaves you with a stained bedsheet. I mean, that’s what you are finally left with in your hands. Whereas, if you spend a day with the right person, a day, and a night, then you are left with something that might last your lifetime. No?
Questioner: Yeah. It seems like every time I go close to someone who I think has good qualities, I see something that turns me off or something that looks ugly.
Acharya Prashant: That’s great. That basically means that you want somebody even higher. But how does that justify going to a lowly person?
Questioner: I guess, in my head what’s going on is that it doesn’t seem like this higher person exists. That someone who is, I guess, this perfection, the myth of perfection.
Acharya Prashant: Darius, Darius. We are not talking of the perfect one. We are talking of the higher one, relatively higher, right? You see, when you say the higher person probably does not exist, my question is: for whom? Does the higher person not exist, or have you convinced yourself that the higher person does not exist for you?
Questioner: It gives me an excuse to do all this stuff.
Acharya Prashant: It gives you an excuse to do all this stuff and it gives you an excuse to stick to your self-image: “I am not good enough to get a higher person.” What good is that self-image? Why do you want to stick to it? If I say, “I am not good enough to get a higher person in my life,” what estimation do you have of yourself? And why must you believe in that kind of estimate?
Even if that estimate is factual to an extent, why don’t you challenge it? Why don’t you…And if you continue to live by that estimate, that estimate only gains in reality. It becomes your life, your reality.
Questioner: Sounds like we have uncovered a lot more than I thought we would.
Acharya Prashant: Because, you know, it’s like…
Questioner: Is there more?
Acharya Prashant: Oh, much more, much more. The question is: Do we have more time? Not that the Truth would ever end, it’s endless, but time ends. So, we don’t really have time. Truth is endless. Therefore, let’s be very careful about where we spend our time. Very, very careful.
The higher person does exist. First of all, you must become that higher person. And then, it’s a case of holding hands to rise together, right? Because that’s the shared love. What’s the common love? The love of height. Because I love the sky, the heights, and you too love the heights; I love you, you love me, and we love each other so that we may both rise high.
Questioner: You should make a Hollywood movie on this.
Acharya Prashant: I don’t know whether it’s by Rumi or Hafiz. There’s this poem: True love always involves three—you, me, and the sky. Unless the sky is a part of this triangular love story, the two of us would only sink together. We would be holding each other so that we sink together. And that’s quite unfortunate. But if there is the third one in the equation, then we rise together.
Questioner: The sky, just to make it more relatable to my life, the sky is a metaphor for the heights of the human consciousness and…
Acharya Prashant: Don’t you know that certain things have higher value compared to other things? Don’t you know that? And if you do know that, why not live to your conviction? Or must convictions remain bracketed and confined to a small part of your life? Why not let them play out in your day-to-day movement and choices?
Questioner: Yeah. It seems like the world tries to limit how much I or someone else can expand. And that understanding now is a reflection of my self-image of what I think is possible.
Acharya Prashant: See, we all are struggling. We all are struggling. To be born a human being is to born into struggle. Hold hands with those who at least have the intention to emerge victorious in this struggle. There are so many who have just surrendered and are on their knees. Leave them to their fate. Why join them in their foolish state? Even if you want to have some contact with them, the contact has to be an uplifting one.
You extend your hand to uplift the fallen one. But that can be said of you only when you yourself are high and strong to the extent that you can exercise an uplifting influence on the other, right? And that’s compassion.
But mostly, we not go to the fallen one to raise him or her. We go to a fallen one because we ourselves are fallen. And then we want to remain fallen. And in our fallen place we happily build a nest, a fallen nest and there we lay fallen eggs. And from those fallen eggs emerge fallen chicks. And thus continues this fallen world.
Questioner: Yeah. Very insightful. I think I will change my dating profile to say, ‘Looking for a threesome with you, me, and the sky’ .
Acharya Prashant: And if you can do that, and if somebody still responds to your profile, things will be interesting. Chances are, the moment you do this, your profile will become untouchable. But in case somebody does show interest…yeah.
Questioner: So are you saying that people, that there are very, very few people who value this?
Acharya Prashant: Yes, of course. But then how many do you need to date? See, it’s again a very strange thing. In the general matters of life, we say we want things that are rare, right? You have done your Business Management from a prestigious university, right? What was the proportion of applicants that would get admission?
Questioner: Twenty percent, maybe.
Acharya Prashant: So, one out of hundred, one out of fifty, one out of twenty, right? And in such cases, we feel proud and emboldened that I am one out of the hundred. You want something that’s rare, right? And when it comes to your sexual partner, why don’t you want the rare one? Just as you want that rare university seat at Kellogg’s, why don’t you want that rare one?
And what is the definition of rarity in such cases? Every single person, the common one, all commoners, live in body-identified ways. They live at mediocre levels of mind, and consciousness, and thought. So, who’s the rare one? The rare one is who lives at a higher level, who lives at a sublime level. He is the rare one. Gun for such a person. ‘Gun’, not in the sense of bringing him down, ‘Gun’ in the sense of, if he is there, find him and rise up to him. And then together, you rise even higher.
Questioner: Yeah. So, just to go back to the business school. It sounds like everything I learned growing up, valued: education, prestigious school, prestigious job, or in your words, the rare job, the rare educational facility, no one really taught me, or I didn’t go towards the finding the rare life partner. And it seems that that’s a much more important decision.
Acharya Prashant: Much, much more important decision.
Questioner: And no one, I have learned it from movies, and my parents, and my friends. And they’re nice people, but…
Acharya Prashant: But there’s a difference here, I will tell you. In some sense, the story that was unfolding in the business school is merely continuing after the business school. Yes, you did get access to a rare seat but then it is not at all rare to want access to that seat. Are you getting it?
Everybody, every single commoner wants access to that seat. However, what is rare is that you succeeded in securing that seat, not everybody. So, on one hand, your achievement is rare. On the other hand, your attitude is fairly common, because everybody wants that same seat. The attitude is fairly common. And it is that common, vulgar—by ‘vulgar’ I mean ‘common’. Vulgar literally means common. It is the common, vulgar attitude that’s at work when you are chasing a very, very common woman.
Just as your intention to secure a prestigious Ivy League MBA seat was a common intention, everybody wants that. Who does not want that? Similarly, it’s a very common intention to chase a physically attractive and sexy woman. Again, you will perform a rare feat here. The woman is very sexy and very few people manage to, in your words, ‘lay her’. You succeeded. So, you have performed a rare feat, but is it really rare? It’s not rare at all.
Questioner: Yeah.
Acharya Prashant: And now, you see…
Questioner: I just feel stupid listening to that…
Acharya Prashant: Now you see, it’s much the same thing about securing wealth. That Lamborghini. Yes, you are rare to the extent that you managed to actually lay your hands on that five-crore car. To that extent you are rare. But when it comes to wanting that car, everybody wants that car. How are you different from any of the billions of people who would want that same car?
You have much the same desire as that common man on the road. He wanted that car; you too wanted that same car. How are you different? So, operate from the centre where even your desires are very, very dimensionally different. You do not want the same things as others do. If you will want all the same things, then you will have the same fate.
Questioner: This is very eye-opening and revealing, pun not intended. I have a lot to think about. I will mull over this for a while.
