Wednesday, February 23, 2011

From Sex to Divinity


Sex is a very small part of your bio-energy. It is given by nature to all beings. No one trains you to feel sexual. Yet you know it is there. What is required is to understand it and to face all the feelings that it arouses, rather than resorting to the centuries-old habit of repression and suppression.
It is a natural instinct which grows as the body grows. The hormonal and chemical changes bring forth the urge for sex. Our rishis have never ever condemned it - no wonder that most of them led a married life. Our ancestors never gave us this theory that celibacy is more pious and greater than indulgence. See our temples from Khajuraho to Ajanta Ellora. Statues of men and women in intimate positions have been carved right on the walls of these temples. Inside the temples, there is not even a single idol of any god or goddess. The message is clear: body, mind and consciousness are all divine and interrelated to one another. What happens in the mind affects the body, what happens in the mind affects consciousness and vice versa.
Sex has been generally condemned and never discussed. If sex had been bad then God shouldn’t had made it for nature and nature shouldn’t had given it to us. Our very birth has happened because of it, so how can one condemn one’s very own existence.
Firstly, sex has to be understood as to what it is, only then can one transcend it. By hating it, hiding it; we will be stuck in it. A child doesn’t have it from day one; it comes at a certain age. So, as it comes, truly speaking, it should go by certain age. But it is difficult to find those people who naturally have gone beyond it. Mind remains obsessed with it even in old age. One finds it difficult even to talk about how to come out of it. So what’s left is that you hide the fact even from yourself and suppress it as strongly as you can. This means that there is a continuous struggle with your very own nature. If indulgence is wrong, so is repression.
Many times people have come to me with this problem but have been ashamed to talk about it. They live a sexual life and are guilty of still having sexual urges. For the benefit of all I bring this out so that you know the facts.
Let us try to understand the human body. Yoga says that your spine is the most important organ in your body. It is the base of your body and mind; and the whole body is rooted to it. You are young as long as your spine is young. You begin to get old when your spine begins to get old. Regularpranayamameditation, a right state of mind, correct food as well as discipline can keep your spine young, and therefore, you can keep old age away. Everything depends on your spine; if your spine is alive and energetic you will have a brilliant mind. If the spine is dull and dead, you will have a sluggish, slow mind.
Our spine has two ends - at the beginning is the sex center and at the other end is Sahasrar, the seventh center which is at the top of the head. The beginning of the spine is attached to the earth, i.e. your sex center. Sex is the most earthly thing in you. From the very beginning of this center you are in touch with nature, you are in touch with prakriti. From Sahasrar, you are in touch with the divine.
These are the two poles of your existence. If you are not divine or if you are not bringing divinity into your life - you will be a sex-oriented person. A person who carries sexuality in his mind, day in and out, is a worldly person. You can keep this façade of being a religious person but a truly religious person’s actions will not be sex-oriented. If sex is in your mind all the time then you are established in your lowest center. This center is not energized, nor awakened because the Muladhara chakra doesn’t need your energy to function.
seven_chakra
Muladhara chakra takes energy from nature. Either your energy is flowing all the time from the sex center to the earth or your energy is getting released into the cosmos through Sahasrar. From Sahasrar you merge with Brahm, into the absolute existence. From the sex center you flow down into the relative existence. These are the two flows - one downward, the other upward. Unless your energy starts flowing upwards your miseries will never end, your sexual cravings will never end, your fantasies will never end and your greed will never end.

You must push your energy upwards. This is possible either withwisdom or with Yoga. I’m not saying that in Yoga you don’t need wisdom but I would like to put it in another way. There are two kinds of Yoga: Gyan Yoga and Ashtang Yoga. Through Gyan Yoga you move your energies upwards and the contemplative mind will begin to have glimpses of divinity. The more you are in these states of stillness; the more will be your wish to move higher in this path.

In Ashtang Yoga there is discipline, beginning with the body and moving to the mind with the help of Pratyahar and Dhyan. You systematically energize your Muladhara chakra and with the power of your mind, you move this energy from the lower centers to the upper ones. You may have glimpses of happiness - but they are illusionary ones. It will be like that, in a fraction of minutes there will be this great joy. But it won’t last long. This one glimpse will be enough to push you ahead on this path with a greater zeal because this glimpse has shown you your destination. When the energy starts moving upwards you start to experience more of such glimpses and once this energy reaches the Sahasrar, it is released from there. And then you will experience the absolute bliss, Paramananda. Then you become joy yourself.
Yoga is the method by which we learn to move our energy upwards through the spinal column, moving against gravity. Sex is easy because it follows gravity; earth is pulling everything down back to itself - even your sexual energy. This is something which astronauts experience when they are in space - they have less sexuality. They move beyond earth’s gravity and in a way they move away from their sexuality. When the body is in the state of weightlessness, sexuality diminishes.
The earth is pulling your life energy down and this is natural because life energy comes from earth. Through food we create life energy in our body. Now, food comes from earth and earth is pulling it back. The more epicurean taste you have, the spicier delicious food you’ll eat. And more food in your body means more sexuality. It will change into bio-energy and this bio-energy will keep your sexual center active.
When you eat food, you create life energy in you. This energy comes from earth and earth pulls it back - that’s how gravity works. Everything goes back to its source - life energy going back again and again, and you are moving in a circle. You will be going on and on for many lifetimes together - unless you take a jump just like an astronaut does. Yoga, in a way, teaches us to take this jump from the body to the mind, from unconsciousness to consciousness. The pattern of earth’s gravitational pull can be broken and that’s possible if you move your energy upwards.
In Bhairav Tantra, Lord Shiva gives one technique to Uma, his consort, which goes like this. Consider yourself as a light ray rising from the base center up the spine. If you use this technique in a proper way then it will be easy for you to rise from sexuality to divinity. This technique involves using the power of imagination. Lord Shiva is asking you to consider yourself as light. Isn’t this the same thing that Quran speaks? Quran says God is Light. Bible too says God is Light and if God is Light, so are you. Concentrate on the sex center and then feel that light is rising upwards to other chakras.
Yoga speaks of seven charkas. The first is Muladhara, at the base of the spine, close to the sexual center. The second is below the navel, called Swadishthan and there is another center called Manipurak. You move upwards and then there is one close to the heart. The one in our throat is called Vishudi and in our forehead is Agya. The last center is in our head called the Sahasrar. Some systems have divided these centers or charkas into nine, some three and others five. A division is not very meaningful; you can make your own divisions also but as such the five centers work in a much easier and a better way.
However, we need these divisions to move from one center to the next. It will be difficult to take this single jump from Muladhara to Sahasrar. Our mind can think in bits and fragments easily.
Feel this energy, these light rays rising up from the sex center to your navel like a river. Soon, you’ll feel the warmth rising in you. Soon your navel will become hot; you’ll feel the heat and others around you will also feel the heat.
With your imagination, move these rays from your navel up straight to the heart charka which is called the Anahad chakra. And your heart beat will change, your breathing will become deeper and you’ll feel the warmth in your whole body. Don’t stop. Keep moving upwards. You will experience a great livingness, a great life in your whole body, an inward light will keep rising up, and you’ll experience a great energy dawning upon you.
Now, sex energy has two parts: one is physical and the other psychic. In our body everything has two parts; the same goes for the mind: one is material and the other is spiritual. When we say sex energy has a material part then this material part is the semen. It cannot rise upwards, there is no passage for it to go up. When we say that the sex energy is rising then we are talking about the spiritual part and this can rise through the spinal passage. This spinal passage has these charkas which have to be felt, to be explored. Your sense, your feelings are dead; you hardly know about these centers. To bring these feelings back, we need to use tools and to learn to be sensitive. Otherwise, you can go on thinking that the energy is rising, but there won’t be any feeling at all.
When there is no feeling, the imagination becomes impotent. Only a creative imagination can give you some result. Just sit and close your eyes and listen to the sounds around you - the honking of a car, noise of the traffic or the lilting musical score. Whatever you listen to, just connect. Don’t use the mind, don’t judge, don’t say anything, just feel. You will feel that for a few moments you have become a child. You don’t need to think, just be in that moment and feel the sound.
Another tool is that when you take a bath, feel the bath. When you pour the water on your body, feel the water touching your body. Feel the trickling down of water on your body. When you rub the soap, feel the soap suds, the lather. Enjoy the moment. Whatever you are doing, feel it. When you are sitting idle, then feel the body which is sitting or bring your attention to the breath and feel the breath which is going in and out, in and out, not failing even for once. We are afraid of feeling our own body. Have you ever given attention to it? Do you love your body? Do you respect your body? Actually, our mind is sick, so is the society. A child touches his body with respect and love, and adults around him tell him not to. And then we pressurize this child to drop any kind of contact with the body and then the child begins to treat his body as if it is some stranger’s body, which he should not touch.
sparsh_meditation
I have given a method of meditation called Sparsh dhyan; it’s the magic of touch where you use your own hands to touch and feel your own body. Actually, it’s not the body you are touching, it’s the divinity you are touching. You place your own hands on your head, on your toes, on your stomach, on your back; each and every part is pure, divine, naturally beautiful. Don’t ever think that this part is ugly and this part is not to be touched. But you are so scared; you think that if you’ll keep on touching your body, your sexuality will get activated. The truth is even if that’s the case there is no harm because for once you will experience this sexuality which will have a tinge of divinity in it.

You have always treated your body as material, you have always treated your body as something filthy. You have always done the act with this dirty feeling in your mind. Afterwards, you feel ashamed to talk about it. And that’s the reason Tantra says sex is divine, it is beautiful but only when you consider your body divine, when you consider yourself as divine. And when you consider your partner as divine, only then can the intimacy between man and woman becomes as pure and as sacred as it was when Shivaand Parvati were in union; union of body, mind and soul.
We need sensitivity and a creative imagination. These methods can be employed to help our energies to rise, to get our centers activated. And each center, when activated, will give you a phenomenal experience of being light, of being blissful. These glimpses will get clearer and clearer, deeper and deeper.
As you will continue to practice, when this energy will finally move to the Sahasarar, there will be no sensation at the sex center. It will be totally still and silent. When the sex center is excited, it becomes hot, you can feel that heat, it is physical. And when this energy will move upwards the sex center will become cool. And the heat will all go to the head. You will feel that dizziness happening to you and you can feel nauseated also. Because your body, your head is not ready to absorb this kind of heat. Don’t be afraid if after meditation you feel a little nausea or have a headache or feel dizzy.
Your body is not yet prepared, just not yet purified totally. It will happen when you start respecting your body. And then gradually, your body will get acquainted with this energy and will be able to absorb it. Then this energy will get more and more refreshing. When a lot of energy moves into the head, it has been seen that people can become unconscious. But within an hour the energy will come back and the state of unconsciousness will go. One cannot stay in this unconsciousness state for more than an hour. Actually, it can be less than an hour - within half an hour to thirty five minutes it will go away. This unconsciousness is not exactly the unconsciousness we are familiar with, it is more like a sleep. We have a special name for it, Yog nidra. It’s the deepest center and the head becomes hot - that’s a good sign. And when this energy gets released, your head will experience as if there is an opening of a lotus flower. This energy gets released into the cosmos and you will feel the coolness in your entire body, right from the head to the toe.
Now as I have explained in the simplest way possible, what is needed is for you to put this into practice. But before you start your practice, you need to understand that you must do it under the guidance of aGuru. Your Guru can help you whenever you get stuck as there is every possibility of your getting stuck because this whole path is so new and we need to tread on this path very gently. In the presence of the master it will become easier. And it won’t happen in just one day. Remember, there are no short cuts, there are no easy ways. So, you need to persevere and be consistent. One day, you’ll experience this wonderful state.
We need to explore deeper in meditation to understand that God has made us in such a way that if we use our wisdom we can turn even a negative thing into a positive one.
THOSE WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED DIVINE LOVE CAN NEVER REMAIN TIED TO THE BODY, CAN NEVER REMAIN SLAVE TO URGES OF BODY AND MIND. YOU ARE THE DIVINE ONE TO YOUR CORE, NOTHING CAN CHANGE THAT, EVER!

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