Question: Acharya Ji, you have said in a previous session while discussing the attraction towards sex, that one does not need to get entangled even to overcome or suppress. One rather needs to leave sex behind. One should seek that for which one is really eager. All the energy should go in that direction.
One is not rejecting sex, one is just prioritizing correctly. One is saying that the one that has a lower priority must wait because there is something immensely more important that is higher up the priority. That which is higher up the priority is so immense that it would never get completed, never get over. So the one who is waiting for his turn, the one who is lower down the order would just keep waiting.
He would not need to be killed, he would have just been permanently postponed. And she says that, in the same session, Acharya Ji has said “In the subconscious, there is a lot that terrifies you and you try to escape that fear by not trying to know more about it. When you first enter, you will find ‘that’ will scare you but if you stay with it courageously you will meet the one that delivers you from that fear.
If a person doesn’t meet ‘that’, which scares him and how you meet the one that liberates from the fear. Therefore, on your way meet all your imperfections and impurities and it is only after that you will meet the one that purifies, perfects and completes you.
So having quoted these two excerpts from a previous session, the question is, In the context of the pull of Maya and the worldly, here relating to the pull of the sexual energy, does one acknowledge it and transcend it by focusing on the ‘Ananth’ or God ? or does one drop the defences against Maya, go through the worldly and only then arrive at the door of the Ananth.
Thank you.
Acharya Prashant: So, two excerpts have been quoted and apparently the two excerpts are in contradiction. The first one says that you do not need to get entangled, and the second one says that you need to meet all your fears, all your impurities, all your imperfections head-on.
So the questioner is a little confused and she is asking what to do? Does one seek to cleanse herself or does one need to plunge into her own conditioning? I will repeat the question for you. In the context of the pull of Maya and the worldly, here relating to the pull of the sexual energy, does one acknowledge it and transcend it by focusing on God ? or does one drop the defenses against Maya, go through the worldly and only then arrive at the door of the Ananth?
There is really no contradiction. What does it mean when I repeatedly suggest that one needs to go close to herself. If you do not listen carefully, you might assume that I am saying that one needs to get involved or keep getting involved in the same kind of stuff that one is accustomed to. But that is not what I am saying.
Coming close to oneself means having the courage to look at oneself as one is.
If you want to measure your temperature, you would not do that while taking an ice-bath. If you do that, then you are deliberately trying to fool yourself. If you are underweight, and if you want to check up your weight, you do not do that wearing heavy boots and a lot of winter clothing. If you do that again you are trying to fool yourself.
Coming close to oneself means looking at ones existing patterns. One does not need to plunge further into sex. Sex is an existing pattern, you are already deep, deep into it. You only need to open your eyes to see that sex is all over you, all over humanity.
Sex is the very fiber of the human mind. It is there, you don’t need to build it up in order to watch it.
If you watch your daily actions, you will anywhere find the presence of sex there.
What is sex? To seek gratification in the material is sex.
Man seeks gratification in all kinds of materials. The world itself is material. But commonly, we denote sex as a tendency to seek gratification only from a material human body. Be it a material human body or be it a large house or a new car, whenever you look outwards and tell yourself that something that has a shape, size, form, name, color will be able to satisfy you. It is nothing but the sexual instinct in function.
You are already doing that all the time.
Whenever the other is important to you, it is the primitive sexual instinct.
You are asking, does one need to enter it, there is no question of entering it because you are already in it. Already, always, without exception.
Is there a moment when the mind is not attracted to the material? Is there a moment when the mind is not attracted to something or somebody? Even when you seek something inanimate, other than a human body, you seek it for yourself, don’t you? Let’s say you like a new watch. For whom do you like the watch, for yourself. This is again but nothing an attraction towards the body. In this case, one’s own body.
Sex is nothing but the importance that one accords to the body, and it is not about having intercourse either.
Look at the way many people treat their pets, look at the way they hold them. It is obvious that the connection is largely physical. Sex as we commonly know it, might not be happening but still, the relationship is sexual.
Or look at the relationship between the mother and the child. If the mother looks at the child, largely as a body then the relationship is again sexual though it is some kind of perversity, a taboo to explicitly label it as sexual .
A parent-child relationship is one relationship that is supposed to be perfectly ‘asexual’. But it is not.
What is the father or the mother caring for? The purity of the child’s mind, the ‘Peace’ that the child must have, are they bothered that the child must not be conditioned? Are they making sure that the child not only does not get conditioned by the world but also able to overcome the pre-existing biological conditioning? Are they caring for the child’s liberation? If not, then they are only caring for the child’s body.
They might be very worried, how does our child look? What is the color of the skin? How much does he weigh? Is he wearing the right clothes? But if you are not worried about the child’s heart, if you cannot look into the child’s soul then you are a very superficial parent. The relationship is merely skin deep and therefore sexual.
*Sex* is the tendency to find ‘THAT’ in the superficial, which can be found only in the depths. *Sex* is the foolishness to skim the surface of the ocean and hope for pearls.
When you look at the other as a sexual object, then you feel that P eace can be had from the other’s skin or flesh. It is a foolish expectation, it would be belied. You will keep hope-ing again and again and your hopes will be shattered.
People talk about sex as evil. I look at it as mostly stupid. It is stupid not because of the act perse, but because of the hopes, expectations, and dreams attached to the act. You are not engaging in the sexual activity like an animal, you are engaging in the sexual activity like one hopes to go beyond his restlessness, his bondages, his tension using sex. For us, sex is much more ‘social’ than ‘biological.’
What you do in the bed determines so much by the media, by your friends, by what you have heard and read, by what is the going trend.
We are trying to find God in genitals. We would be disappointed, obviously.
And that is happening continuously, Shilpi. Look at the way human beings live. Gaping at the world, ogling at the expanse, feeling belittled by the hugeness of what they see around themselves. Therefore, eager salivating to have something from the world.
Like dogs roaming around a meat shop, wetting the earth with their saliva. Hoping that a piece or two, or even a piece of refuse would somehow come to them. That’s how the common man looks at the world. Can I have something from it? There is so much that the world has to offer; money, prestige, satisfaction, comfort, pleasures, happiness, achievement, glory. There is so much the world has to offer. Can I have a little of all that you can give me?
Dogs around a meat shop eager for flesh, that is sex . Dogs in front of a meat shop, eager for flesh. The dogs are alright and they are not expecting that the flesh for liberating them. They look at the meat as just a thing that would fill up the stomach.
Human beings look at the world as a thing that would fill up an existential hollow at their center. No meat, no flesh, no man, no woman, no material, no sofas, no furniture, no car, no watch, no amount of money can do that. That is why sex keeps failing, and that is why human beings need so much of it.
If you look at animals, sex there is episodic, idiotic.
No animal remains horny throughout the year. Sixteen hours a day, sometimes thirty-six hours a day. Man is the only animal that is always ‘sexually active.’ Why? Because man is the only animal who is always ambitious. Because you are constantly a seeker, because you are constantly feeling that hollow, because you are constantly feeling inferior, so you are always seeking something from the world. Always. A by-product of that is, you are also always seeking ‘sexual gratification.’
When all the time you are seeking prestige, money, success, it is but obvious that you will also seek sex all the time as these two are one. Kabir looks at a dog and says only sometimes is the dog active, the bitch is in heat. At other times, ‘Antar rahe udas’; by ‘udas’ he means ‘indifferent’ and about human beings, he says, ‘KamKabii nar kutta sada, che ritu baara mas.’ The dog is a fucking dog only two months of the year, but man is that fucking dog twelve months a year. Even the dog is not a dog always, but man is a dog always. So, man is dogger than a dog.
Now, when you are anywhere in the words of Kabir active ‘Che ritu bhara mas.’
Six seasons and twelve months, where is the question of plunging more into sex . Where will get the thirteenth month? Twelve months you are already obsessed with sex , it is just that you do not watch it. It is just that you do not call it by the name of sex . So don’t think that you are advised to heighten your sexual activity, there is no scope left. You are already at the peak, what more can you do now? It is just that sex has various types.
Some types are very explicit and the other types are hidden, implicit. A leader is seeking satisfaction by looking at the twenty thousand bodies gathered to listen to him. Where is he getting his satisfaction from? Twenty thousand bodies, this is sexual activity. He will not call it as sex , he will say that the leader addressing an audience. It is not a leader addressing an audience, it is sexual activity. You are counting the number of ‘bodies.’
Somebody is counting the number of votes, or customers, or subscribers. Somebody is counting the population of his country and taking pride in it. Somebody is counting the strength of the country’s arm forces. You know what, our army is five lakh soldiers and taking pride in it. What do all these acts basically involve? Giving importance to the bodies and hence all of these are hidden forms of ‘sexual activity.’ If sex is about entering the other’s body, then why don’t you see that the world, the entire world has already entered your body. Now, how can you have more sex , the entire world is already inside you, is it not?
Look at your mind, does it have anything original, fundamental. What is your mind full of? The entire world, why should you not call that as penetration? ‘Sexual activity’ is going on.
Whenever you try to dominate a person, whenever you try to occupy the mind of a person, don’t you see what you are doing? What are you doing? You are trying to enter that person, that is sex. And don’t you all do that?
Aren’t we all doing that all the time? And is it not very pleasurable, the moment someone says ‘you know what, I keep thinking of you’. You see how your ego swells up? “Somebody thinks of me.”
I have entered somebody’s mind . If you have entered somebody’s mind , then you are? And then there is no protection. Now, you must know why our definition of virginity is so amusing. The fellow has already the entire world inside him or her and has the temerity to call herself a virgin. Only a Buddha is a virgin. Only a Mary is virgin even after giving birth to a Jesus. That is the real meaning of virginity.
When your mind is untouched, unspoiled, unoccupied; that is virginity.
A Krishna is virgin even after frolicking with thousands of women. Have you heard this story? It is an interesting story. So Krishna and Rukhmini were holidaying by the Yamuna and they come to hear that a great Saint is camping on the other side, on the other shore. Both feel elated and Krishna suggests to Rukhmini , let’s cook a good feast and offer it to the Saint. It is rear that you meet a Saint in such conditions.
Rukhmini happily agrees, so good food is cooked and Rukhmini is about to cross the river to serve it to the Saint. But it’s the monsoons, the river is flooded. It is almost like the sea, you cannot see the other end. Rukhmini comes back and tells Krishna that you have asked me to serve the food but how do I cross this river Yamuna of yours? They say that you have played with the Yamuna and do something about the river now. So Krishna says, “O it is very easy. You just go and tell the river that the eternal virgin, the Sanatan Brahmachari has asked you to make way for *Rukhmini.*”
Rukmini says” who is that eternal virgin”? Krishna says, ‘who else but me’. Now Rukhmini is in a very good position to testify that Krishna is not a virgin. In fact, nobody can know that better than her. So, she is astounded, “You want me to get killed or something, you are telling me that you are a Brahmachari ?” Krishna says, let the river prove to you what I mean. He says, “Go to the river and tell the Yamuna that the eternal virgin has told her to make way for *Rukhmini*”.
So, she goes there and tells the Yamuna totally in disbelief, but she just repeats Krishna’s words and the river makes way. She crosses the river, now she does not know what is happening. She is not only confused about what is happening then, she is also remembering what all has happened in the past. She is stretching her memory and figuring out what is happening and what might have happened.
Anywhere, she serves food to the Saint and the Saint is happy with the stuff and offers her blessings and now she has to return. Again the river is flooded, how does she cross it? So, now there is no mobile phone, how does she communicate with Krishna ? So she goes rather to the Saint and she says, “Sir, help me cross this river,
I am anywhere confused.”
The Saint says, “Fine let me confuse you a little more. I know what you are confused with. This time you tell the river that the one who never touches any food has asked you to make way for *Rukhmini.*” Rukmini says, ‘ Sir, who is the one who never touches any food.’ The Saint says, ‘Come on Rukhmini , that is me.’ Rukmini says, “but I just have had you accept you all the stuff that I have brought. You ate in front of me.” The Saint says, ‘ I ate all the food, just as Krishna keeps with all the women, so you try.’ So she goes to the Yamuna and says that the one who never touches any food has asked you to make way for Rukmini . The Yamuna again makes way, and she comes back. And this time, she really comes back to Krishna . This time she really understands who Krishna is and what is the relationship that Krishna has with the body, with the mind, and with the Aatman.
Man is the product of sex and every cell of the body is buzzing and steaming with sex. We are a ‘sexual store-house.’
Even in one’s last breath, there is ‘sexual’ activity just as there is ‘sexual’ activity in one’s first breath. So we are already at the peak, now you can’t go any higher. Right? Watch, look at the mind’s inexplicable attraction towards the world. And if you can watch that you will be able to see the needlessness, the stupidity of so many things. You will be able to go beyond.
