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Why is religion obsessed with sex? || Acharya Prashant Workshop (2023)
Bharat
1.3K views
2 years ago
Social Morality
Religiosity
Sexuality
Prakriti
Sahaj
Consciousness
Celibacy
Bhagavad Gita
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that social morality has become mistakenly conflated with religiosity, leading people to believe that sexuality is the primary touchstone of a moral life. He argues that while true spirituality has very little to say about sex, popular culture and traditional morality obsess over it, often defining a person's goodness solely by their sexual conduct. This obsession creates a distorted mind that is constantly thinking about sex, even when attempting to suppress it through scriptures or celibacy. He points out that even in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjun displays a body-centric orientation by worrying about the chastity of women during a war, showing how deeply sexual identity influences human thought. The speaker emphasizes that the root of this obsession is a lack of understanding caused by forced distance. Common morality keeps men and women separated, which prevents them from understanding each other as conscious beings. This distance turns the other gender into an attractive enigma or a 'monster' to be fought. Acharya Prashant suggests that to be liberated from this attraction, one must understand the other gender. When you do not understand something in nature, it continues to torment and trap you. He notes that a sex-laden society amplifies the sexual component of personality so much that individuals fail to see the other person's intellect, interests, or spirituality. Finally, Acharya Prashant advocates for 'Sahaj' or a state of natural ease. He encourages having easy, non-pretentious relationships with both genders where sex is not treated as a monumental issue. He explains that if sex happens as a natural output of an easy relationship, it is fine, and if it does not happen, that is also fine. The goal of spirituality is to reach a state where one is neither excited nor repulsed, but simply at ease with the essential self and others. He concludes that the quality of one's life depends on this understanding and ease, rather than the suppression of natural instincts.