Sex, the super-atom
Discourse date: Fri, 30 September 1968 00:00:00 GMT
Here is a story. In a small village school, the teacher was teaching the story of Rama. Almost all the children were dozing. This occurrence was not unusual at the recitation of the Ramayana; even grownups nap at such times. The story has been told and retold so many times it has lost its significance; the novelty is gone.
The teacher recited mechanically, not even glancing at the open book before him, and even an outsider could have seen that he was dozing too. He knew it by heart and was narrating the episodes like a parrot. He was not at all aware of what he was saying. One who has memorized something never knows the meaning of what he is saying.
Suddenly there was a sensation in the class: the inspector had come in. The pupils became attentive, and the teacher became alert as well. The teacher continued the lesson.
The inspector said, "I am happy to see you are teaching the Ramayana. I will ask the children something about Rama." Assuming that children easily remember tales of broken things or of battles, he asked a simple question: "Tell me, children, who broke the bow of Shankara?"
One boy raised his hand, stood up and said, "Excuse me, sir. I didn't break it. I was away for fifteen days. And I don't know who broke it either. I want to clear this up right now, because whenever anything happens in this school I am the first to be blamed for it."
This hit the inspector like a bolt from the blue. He turned to the teacher, who was about to lift his cane, and heard the teacher say, "This rascal is surely the culprit. He is the worst one of all." He roared at the boy, "If you didn't do it then why did you get up and say that you didn't do it?" He said to the inspector, "Do not be misled by this boy's sweet talk!"
The inspector thought it better not to say anything, so he simply turned and left the class. But he was furious, and went straight to the headmaster's office to narrate the incident in full. He demanded to know what the headmaster intended to do about it.
The headmaster urged the inspector not to pursue the matter any further. He explained that it was a precarious thing these days to say anything to the students. "No matter who might have broken it," he said, "let the matter drop. There has only been peace in the school for the last two months.
Before that, the students broke and burned much furniture. It is better to keep still. Saying anything to them these days will only invite grave trouble. There could be a strike, a dharna, a fast unto death at any time!"
The inspector was flabbergasted; he was completely stunned. He went to the chairman of the school committee and told him all about what had happened - that the Ramayana was being taught in a class, that a boy had said he hadn't broken Shankara's bow, that the teacher had said that the boy must be the culprit, that the headmaster had begged that the matter be dropped no matter who was responsible, saying that it was unwise to pursue this, that there was constant fear of a strike, etcetera, etcetera. The inspector asked the chairman for his view.
The chairman said he felt the headmaster had been wise in his policy. "Furthermore," he added, "don't bother about the culprit. No matter who broke the bow, the committee will get it repaired. It is better to get it repaired than to dig into the cause."
The inspector, who had been totally disgusted by the situation, related his experience to me. I told him there was nothing basically new in his tale. It is a common human weakness to boast of things about which we know nothing at all.
Nobody remembered the part in Ramayana about the breaking of Shankara's bow. Wouldn't it have been better for them to have asked, "Which Shankara?" But nobody was prepared to acknowledge his own ignorance. No man is that bold. This has been the biggest pitfall in the history of mankind.
This weakness has proved suicidal. We act as if we know everything and confuse our lives as a result. All our answers to all our problems are like those given by the boy, by the teacher, by the headmaster and by the chairman. Attempting to answer without understanding the question makes a man a fool. This is sheer self-deception.
In addition to this, there is the attitude of indifference. The indifferent man would ask, "Now, really, is all hell going to break loose if we don't know who broke Shankara's bow?"
In contrast to the problems of this silly tale, there are more profound enigmas in life, and on their proper solution depends whether life can be decent or not, whether life can be harmonious or not, whether our present direction is the right one for progress or not, and so on. We think we know the answers, but the consequences show how inaccurate our perception of life really is. The life of each one of us shows that we do not know anything about life at all. Otherwise, how come there is so much despair, so much misery, so much anxiety?
I say the same thing as far as our knowledge of sex is concerned. We do not know anything about it. Perhaps you will not agree. You will argue, "It is quite possible we do not know anything about the soul or God, but how can you say we do not know anything about sex?" You will probably reply that you have a wife and that you have children. And yet I dare to tell you that you do not know anything about sex, although it may be very difficult for you to agree with what I say. You may have gone through sexual experiences, but you know no more about sex than an animal. To go through a process mechanically is not enough to know it.
A man may have driven a car for a thousand miles, but it does not necessarily follow that he knows anything about the engine. He might ridicule my statement, saying he had just driven a thousand miles, but I still venture to make the accusation that he knows nothing about the car. I repeat, driving a car is different from knowing the internal mechanism.
A man presses a switch and there is light. He presses it again and the light goes off. He has done it innumerable times. He can say that he knows all about electricity because he can switch it on or off at will, and we will say that he is a fool, that even a child can turn a switch on and off, that no knowledge of electricity is necessary.
Anybody can marry. Anybody can produce children. It has nothing to do with an understanding of sex. Animals procreate, but it does not mean they know anything about sex.
The truth of the matter is that sex has not been studied scientifically. No philosophy or science of sex has developed because everyone believed he knew about sex. No one has seen the need for a scripture of sex. This is a very grave mistake by mankind.
The day we fully develop a scripture, a science, a complete system of thought on sex, we will produce a new race of humans. Then, there won't be the production of such ugly, insipid, lame and feeble human beings. Sick, weak, dull men won't be seen any more on this earth.
It isn't at all necessary to continue producing the present kind of generation, a generation born out of sin and guilt. But we are not aware of this. We are in the habit of switching the light on and off, and have concluded we know everything about electricity. Even at the end of his lifetime, a man does not come to know what sex is. He knows only "on" and "off" - and nothing more.
We never go deeply into the subject of sex, never reflect upon the practice of sex, never try to get to the bottom of it, never meditate on it - because of the delusion that we know everything there is to know about it. When everybody already knows everything, what need is there to consider the subject? And in the same breath, I wish to tell you that there is no deeper mystery, no deeper secret, no deeper subject than sex - in this world and in life itself.
We only learned about the atom recently, and the world has undergone a tremendous change. But when we succeed in knowing the atom of sex fully, mankind will enter a new era of wisdom. It is impossible to predict the enormity, the greatness of the heights we may reach when we fathom the process and technique of the creation of life. But one thing can be stated for certain: sex is the most mysterious, most profound, most precious and, at the same time, the most accursed subject; and we are in total darkness about it. We never pay any attention to this important phenomenon. A man goes through the routine of coitus throughout his life, but he does not know what it is.
When, on the first day, I talked about the void, about egolessness, about no-mind, many friends were not convinced. Afterwards, one friend said to me, "I never thought about it before, but what you say has happened." A certain lady came and told me, "I have never experienced this at all.
When you talked about it, I recalled that my mind becomes still and contented, but I have never felt egolessness or any other deep experience." It is possible many have not thought about this before, so let us elaborate on a few points.
In the first place, man is not born with foreknowledge of the science of sex. Rare are those persons who, retaining the impressions of many past lives, are able to understand fully the art of sex, the strategy of sex or the knowledge of the intricacies of sex. These are souls who can attain to the stage of real celibacy. To a person who knows the complete reality of sex, the full implications of sex, sex becomes useless. He simply passes through it; he transcends it. But it is not in our tradition to discuss sex with those who have already attained transcendence. Besides, those who have attained to the purity of celibacy can tell of their previous births and lives only after enormous effort.
Only a perfect celibate can reveal the perfect truth about sex and divinity. The sensualists do not comprehend any of the subtleties and, because of their ignorance, their lives are engulfed in sexuality until the end. Animals have a schedule for intercourse as I told you earlier; they have a season. Animals wait for the mood, for the disposition, but man has no definite time for it. Why is this? It is because the animal exists at a deeper layer of sex than man.
Those who have researched sex, who have gone deeply into it, who have meditated upon life's manifold experiences, have deduced that if coitus only lasts for one minute a man will desire it again on the next day, but if it can be prolonged for three minutes he will not think of sex for a week to come. Furthermore, they have observed that if coitus can be prolonged for seven minutes, a man will be so free of sex that no thought of passion will arise in him for the next three months. And if the period of coitus can be extended to three hours, a man will be free of sex forever; he will never desire it again!
But man's experience is generally of a moment's duration; it is difficult even to imagine a period of three hours. However, I reiterate: if a person can remain in the coital position, can remain in that samadhi, in that submergence for three hours, then one single act of intercourse is enough to free him from sex for the rest of his life. It leaves behind such an experience of contentment, such an experience of bliss, that it lasts a lifetime. After perfect coitus there remains no barrier to the attainment of real celibacy.
Even after a lifetime of sexual experience we never reach anywhere near that supreme stage, near that divinity. Why? A man reaches a ripe old age, comes to the end of his life, but he is never free from his lust for sex, from his passion for intercourse. Why? It is because he has never understood nor been told about the art of sex, about the science of sex. He has never considered it; he has never discussed it with the enlightened ones.
You may be skeptical that an experience that is usually of a moment's duration can be prolonged for three hours, so I will give you certain pointers. If you heed them, the journey to celibacy will become simpler.
The faster one's breathing is, the shorter the duration of intercourse; the calmer and slower one's breathing is, the more it is prolonged. And the longer intercourse lasts, the more possibility there is of making sex a door to samadhi, a channel to superconsciousness. As I said earlier, the realization of egolessness, of timelessness, dawns upon man in that sex-samadhi. The breathing should be very slow. Slowness of breath will open deeper and deeper vistas of realization.
Another thing to remember during the act of intercourse is that your awareness should be focused between the eyes, in the seat of the agnichakra. If the attention is focused there, the duration of the climax can be drawn out - even up to three hours. And such an act of coitus can firmly root a person in the soil of celibacy - not only for this life but for the next life also. A lady writes to say that Vinoba is celibate, and asks if I therefore don't agree that he has probably never had an experience of samadhi. She continues to say that since I am also a celibate and unmarried, that I may not have had the experience of samadhi either. If that lady is present here I wish to tell her that neither Vinoba, nor me, nor anybody else for that matter, can realize the stage and the significance of celibacy without the real experience of sex. I also want to tell her that the experience may be of this life, or it may be of a past life. One who attains to celibacy in this life owes it to a deep coital union in a previous life and not to anything else. This is the only explanation. If a man has had a profound experience of sex in a previous life, he will be born free of sex in this life; sex will not disturb him, even in his imagination. On the contrary, he will be surprised at how other people behave about sex; he will be amazed that people are so mad for sex. Such a man will even have to exert himself to distinguish between a man and a woman.
If a person imagines he can simply be a celibate from his childhood, that he can be a celibate without any experience of sex, he will become a neurotic. Those who are always harping on celibacy, who shout about observing celibacy, are causing the disintegration of man. Nothing more than disintegration can come from this. Celibacy cannot be imposed; celibacy evolves only as the cream of inner experience. Brahmacharya, celibacy, is the result of a serene and profound experience - and that experience is of sex. If during sex one has had an absolute revelation, even once, he is released from sex for the unending journey of lives.
So far, I have discussed two factors for attaining that absolute experience: one's breathing should be shallow, so shallow that it is almost not there at all, and one's awareness should be focused on the agnichakra, on the midpoint between the eyes. The more one's awareness is focused on this center, the more profound the intercourse will automatically be. And the duration of coitus will be in direct proportion to the slowness of the breathing. And then, for the first time, you will realize that the attraction is not for intercourse as such; the magnetic pull is that of samadhi. If you can scale those heights, if you can glimpse that brilliance, it will illuminate your future path.
For a long time a man has been lying in a dingy, dirty room, full of bad smells. The walls are cracked and stained. Then, he gets up and opens a window. Now he can see the bright sun in the sky; now he can see birds flying freely in the heavens. Now, a man who has suddenly come to know about the vast sky, about the sun and the moon, about the flying birds, the swaying trees and the fragrant flowers, will not stay in a dirty, foul, dark room a single moment longer - he will rush out under the open sky.
One who has had a glimpse of samadhi in sex, however fleeting, will immediately know the difference between inside and outside, between freedom and imprisonment. But, in a way, we are all born into tight cells, closed in by walls, and they are dark and dirty. It is essential to realize the outside world exists; this knowledge ultimately inspires us to fly out. But a person who does not open the window and just sits in a corner saying he does not want to know about the dirty house cannot change his situation one bit. He will remain in the dirty house forever.
A self-styled celibate is as much imprisoned in the cell of sex as anyone else. The only difference between him and you is that he has a closed attitude whereas your eyes are open. What you do physically, he does mentally. Moreover, the physical act is natural, but the vicarious imagination of it is a perversion. So I urge you not to be against sex but to try, sympathetically, to understand it.
Give sex a sacred status in your life. We have already discussed two guidelines. The third important thing to remember is the attitude of your approach. At the time of coitus we are close to God. God exists in the act of creation that gives birth to a new life, and so one's attitude ought to be like that of a man going to a temple or to a church. At the time of orgasm we are closest to the Supreme.
We become instruments: a new life is being conveyed into existence; we create a child. How? In intercourse we are closest to the Creator himself, and his shadow converts us into creators as well.
If we approach sex with a pure mind and with a feeling of reverence, we can easily have a glimpse of him.
But alas, we approach sex indifferently. We approach sex with an attitude of condemnation, with a feeling of guilt, and we fail to feel the existence of the Creator. One should never approach sex while one is in anguish, in spite, in jealousy, in indignation; one should never approach sex filled with worries or in an unclean atmosphere. But the general practice is the contrary. The more one is full of anger, dejected, in torment or in despair, the more one moves into sex. A cheerful man does not chase after sex, but a sorrowful man moves into sex because he sees it as the perfect escape from his unhappiness. But remember, if you approach sex with bitterness, with irritation, with condemnation or in sadness, you will never attain to that contentment, to that realization for which your entire soul thirsts.
I urge you to approach sex only when you are cheerful, only when you are full of love and, last but not least, only when you are prayerful. Only when you feel that your heart is full of joy, peace and gratitude, should you think of having intercourse. A man who approaches intercourse like this can attain sublimation, and the ultimate realization, even once, is enough to free one from sex forever.
With one single experience, you can break through the barrier and enter the periphery of samadhi.
A child emerging from its mother's womb is in great distress; it is like a tree being uprooted from the soil. Its whole being yearns to rejoin with the earth; its attachment to the earth means its life, its vitality, its nourishment. It has been uprooted, and it clamors to go back, for now it has been severed from the life line. An infant is cut off from its world when it comes out of the mother's womb, and now its soul, its whole being wants to reunite with the mother, with the source. This longing is the thirst for love. What else do we mean by love?
Everyone wants to indulge in the give and take of love; everyone wants to reunite with the stream of life - and that unity comes in the consummation of the sexual act, in intercourse, in the joining of a man and a woman. Sex is the re-experience of the original unity.
The coupling of a man and a woman has a very deep significance: the ego evaporates in this assimilation of two human beings. A person who really understands the essence of this unity, of this longing for love and oneness, can also comprehend the meaning of yet another kind of unity - a yogi unites; an ascetic unites; a saint unites; a meditator unites. A person is also united in intercourse:
his identity merges with that of the other person, and they become one. In samadhi, a person unites with the whole universe and becomes one with it. In sex there is a merging of two persons, whereas in samadhi, a person loses his identity and becomes one with the universe. A meeting between two persons is temporary, but the union of a person with the universe is eternal.
Any two people are finite beings, and hence their union cannot be infinite, cannot be ever-lasting.
And there is the rub; there is the limitation of matrimony, and of physical love: we cannot unite forever. We come together for a moment of ecstasy, but again we have to be separate. The separation is painful and so lovers are in a continuous state of despair. The other person seems to be the cause of this feeling of dejection, of this sense of aloneness, and irritation erupts in the relationship.
Knowledgeable people will say that two people have two basically different identities and that they can meet temporarily but cannot remain fused forever, even spiritually; that it is out of this unquenchable passion that a conflict arises between lovers and that one starts despising the other; that tension, strife, a feeling of alienation and even a feeling of hatred creeps in, and that it is because one imagines the other is probably unwilling and so the merger is not complete. But no individual can be blamed for this incompleteness. Human beings are finite beings and their merging can only be finite as well. Their merging cannot be forever.
The eternal fusion can only be with God, with Brahma, with Existence. Those who have realized the subtlety of intercourse can imagine, if a moment's union with an individual can bestow such bliss, what the outcome of the meeting with the Eternal must be like. But the average man cannot even imagine that peak of ecstasy. It is stupendous, ethereal, beyond words. It is bliss eternal.
Suppose you are sitting in front of a candle, trying to imagine the difference between the light of the candle and the light of the sun. The attempt at comparison is hopeless. A candle is such a tiny thing and the sun is so immense, about sixty thousand times bigger than our earth. Although it is ninety-three million miles away it heats us, scorches us, so how can we possibly estimate the difference between the light of a candle and the light of the sun?
But, no matter what the astronomical figure may be, it is mathematically possible to calculate the difference, because both are within the range of human cognition; the difference can be ascertained.
But it is impossible to assess the differential between the ecstasy of orgasm and the eternal bliss of samadhi. The sexual meeting of two temporal beings is frantic; in uniting with the Universal one loses oneself like a drop in the ocean. There is no way to compare them, no unit to measure the magnitude of this union.
Would one hanker after sex after touching this bliss? Would one even think of this fleeting pleasure after one has attained the eternal ocean? A glimpse of the eternal convinces man that sensual pleasure is meaningless, that by contrast it is madness. Then, one's present passions soon become obnoxious; then, they seem like a drain, a waste of energy, a source of anguish. After this certainty dawns on a man, he is on his way to the desired goal, to celibacy itself.
It is a long way from sex to samadhi. Samadhi is the ultimate goal; sex is only the first step. And I want to point out that those who refuse to recognize the first step, who censure the first step, cannot even reach the second step. They cannot progress at all. It is imperative to take the first step with consciousness, understanding and awareness. But be warned: sex is not an end in itself; sex is the beginning. To progress, more and more steps are required.
But mankind's biggest drawback has been its disinclination even to take the first step. And it aspires to reach the last! A man despises the first rung and yet is ambitious to grasp the top rung of the ladder; he has no experience of the light of a candle and yet he wants to claim the splendor of the sun! This is impossible. We have to learn to comprehend the dim light of a candle, which lives for a while and is immediately quelled by a gentle breeze, in order to grasp the meaning of the sun. To arouse the craving, the desire, the restlessness for the last step, the urge to reach the sun, the first step must be initiated correctly.
A proper appreciation for light music can pave the way for the eternal music; the experience of a dim candle can lead us to the infinite light; knowing a drop is a prelude to knowing the ocean.
Knowledge of the atom can reveal the mystery of all the material forces, of the forces of matter, and yet nature has endowed us with a small atom of sex, but we do not recognize it at all. We do not even acknowledge it fully. This is because we neither have the clarity of mind nor the sense of mystery to recognize it, to understand it or to experience it. And so we are tremendously far from understanding that process that can lead us from sex to samadhi. As soon as man understands and reveres this process of transcendence, he will usher in a new and higher order of society.
Man and woman are two different poles, the positive and the negative poles of energy. A right meeting of those two poles completes a circuit and produces a kind of electricity. And direct knowledge of this electricity is possible if the period of coitus, when you are in deep and full surrender to each other, can be stayed for a longer time. If it can be prolonged for an hour, a high charge producing a halo of electricity will evolve by itself; if the body currents are in full and total embrace, one can even see a patch of light in the darkness. A couple experiencing this electrical current of energy is drinking life's fullest cup.
But we are unaware of this phenomenon. We find such talk very strange because we don't believe in what we haven't experienced, because this is outside the realm of ordinary experience. But I say, if you haven't encountered this experience, you should think about it and try again. You should review your life, especially the chapter on sex, from ABC. Sex should not only be an instrument of pleasure, it should also be a means of spiritual elevation. Sex is a logical process. I do not think the birth of Christ or of Mahavir or of Buddha was accidental; each birth was the fruit of the fullest union of two people. The deeper the union, the better the offspring; the shallower the meeting, the worse the offspring. But today, the caliber of mankind is sinking lower and lower. Some people blame it on the deterioration of moral standards, while others attribute it to the effects of Kaliyuga, the predestined era of chaos, but all these assumptions are false and worthless.
The deterioration in man is only due to the crassness of our attitude to sex, in theory as well as in practice. Sex has lost its original sacredness. The original sense of reverence man had for sex has been tarnished. Sex has degenerated into a mechanical nightmare. And this attitude to sex betrays a subtle violence, in the strict sense of the term. Sex is no longer an experience of love. Sex is no longer a vehicle to sacredness. Sex is no longer a meditative act. And because of this, mankind is falling steadily into an abyss.
The result of anything we do depends on the mental attitude with which we do it. If a drunken sculptor is making a statue, do you expect him to create a beautiful work of art? If a ballerina is dancing, do you expect a scintillating performance from her if she is disturbed, angry or filled with sorrow? Similarly, our approach to sex has been wrong.
Sex is the most neglected affair in our lives. Isn't it a tremendous mistake that the phenomenon on which the procreation of life depends, on which new children depend, on which new souls entering this world depend, is the most neglected? You are probably not aware that the climax in coitus creates a situation into which a soul descends, and a new life is thereby conceived. You only create the circumstance; when the necessary and appropriate condition for a particular soul is fulfilled, that soul is born. The quality of the soul has a direct bearing on the circumstances. The infant conceived in anger, guilt or anxiety is afflicted from birth.
The standard of our progeny can be improved, but to conceive a higher soul the circumstances must also be of a higher quality. Only then can superior souls be born; only then can the standard of humanity be ultimately raised. That is why I say that when man has become acquainted with the science of sex, with the art of sex, when he is able to impart this knowledge to young and old alike, we will be able to provide the circumstances that will give birth to what Aurobindo and Nietzsche have called Superman. Such a posterity can be sired! Such a world can be created! But before then, there can be no progress; before then, there can be no peace in the world; before then, wars cannot be prevented, hatred cannot be abolished, immorality cannot be cured, evil cannot be eradicated, debauchery cannot be uprooted and the present darkness cannot be wiped away.
Even if we press all the modern conveniences and innovations into service; even if politicians, sociologists and religious leaders do their utmost, wars will not cease, tensions will not ease, and violence and jealousy will not disappear. For the last ten thousand years, the apostles, the messiahs and the leaders have preached against war, against violence, against anger and so forth - but nobody has listened. On the contrary, we murdered a man who preached the gospel of love, who tried to teach us not to be violent, who showed us a spiritual path. Gandhi taught us to practice non-violence, to refine our souls, to live in harmony together, and we rewarded him with bullets.
That is how we expressed our gratitude for his noble services.
All of humanity's apostles, both past and present, have been unsuccessful. They have failed. None of the ideals and values envisioned and promoted by them have borne fruit. None of them has been able to offer a practical panacea; all of their high-sounding ideals have failed. Greater than the greatest, more golden than the most golden - all have fallen short. They have come, they have preached, and they have passed away. And man is still groping in the dark, still sinking deeper into a kind of hell on earth. Does this not prove there has been some basic misconception in their teachings and in what they have preached?
A man is frustrated because he is conceived in frustration. He carries the germ of frustration from the very beginning; his very soul is diseased. This disease, this cancer of misery and sorrow, is rooted in the depths of his soul. His entire being is formed the moment he is conceived, and so Buddhas will fail, Mahavirs will fail, Christs will fail, Krishnas will fail. They have all failed already.
We may not admit it openly, out of a sense of decency or politeness, but mankind is becoming more and more inhuman day by day. In spite of so much talk about non-violence, love and tolerance, we have only bettered ourselves by advancing to the cobalt bomb from the simple dagger. I am told that we killed about thirty million people during the first world war - and after the armistice we talked about peace and love. In the second world war we killed seventy-five million people - and afterward we began negotiating for peace and co-existence once again. From Bertrand Russell to Vinoba, everyone cries that peace should be maintained, and yet we are preparing for a third great war. And in comparison, this war will make the previous ones seem like children at play.
Somebody once asked Einstein what might happen in a third world war. Einstein said he could foretell nothing about the third war, but that he could predict something about the fourth world war.
Surprised, the questioner asked how, if Einstein could not say anything about the third world war, he could predict anything about the fourth. Einstein replied that one thing was certain about the fourth world war, and that was that there would be no fourth world war, because there was no possibility anyone would survive the third.
This is the fruit of humanity's moral and religious teachings, but the cause lies elsewhere and is urgently in need of revision. Unless and until we succeed in bringing harmony to the act of sex, in imparting a spiritual syntax to sex, in coming to revere sex as the gateway to samadhi, a better humanity cannot come into being. Unless this happens, it is a certainty that the humanity to come will be worse than the worst, because today's inferior children will go through sex and will produce children worse than themselves. The quality of each new generation will be worse and worse; this at least can be prophesied. But we have already reached such a low level that there is, most likely, no further to descend. The whole world has nearly become a huge asylum already.
From statistics they have compiled, American psychiatrists have deduced that only eighteen per cent of the population of New York City can be said to be mentally normal. If only eighteen per cent are mentally normal, then what is the condition of the remaining eighty-two percent? They are in a state of virtual disintegration. And you yourself will be surprised to learn the amount of madness hidden inside you if you were just to sit quietly in a corner and reflect upon yourselves for a moment.
How you control and suppress your madness is quite another matter however. A slight emotional setback and any man can become a full-fledged maniac.
It is quite probable that in a hundred years' time the entire world will become one enormous madhouse. Of course, on one hand, there will be many advantages: we won't need treatment for insanity; we won't need psychiatrists to treat neurotics. Nobody will feel he is mad, because the first symptom of a madman is that he will never admit he is mad. This sickness is ever on the increase. This ailment, this mental anguish, this mental darkness, is ever on the rise. A new humanity can never be produced unless sex is sublimated, unless the sexual act becomes divine.
I have stressed a certain idea in the last three days: a new man must be born! The soul of man is anxious to scale the heights, to reach the sky, to be enlightened like the moon and stars, to bloom like a flower, to make music, to dance. The soul of man is in anguish; his soul is thirsty. But man is blind. He travels around and around in a vicious circle: he is unable to break out of it; he is unable to rise above it. What is the cause? There is one cause, and one cause only: his present process of procreation is absurd; it is full of madness. And it is so because we haven't been able to make sex a door to samadhi. One enlightened sexual act can open the gate to samadhi.
For these three days I have elaborated on a few principles only. I would now like to recapitulate one point and then conclude today's talk.
I want to say that those who lead us away from the truths of life are the enemies of mankind. Those who tell you never to think about sex are your enemies; they have not allowed you to think about it, to reflect on it. Otherwise, how is it possible that we have not yet developed a rational attitude towards the subject?
Furthermore, the people who say that sex has no relation to religion are entirely incorrect, because it is the energy of sex, in a transformed and sublimated form, that enters the realm of religion.
The sublimation of this vital energy lifts man to realms about which we know very little. The transformation of his sex energy raises man to a world where there is no death, no sorrow, to a world where there is nothing but joy, pure joy. And anyone who possesses that energy, that life- force, can uplift himself to that realm of joyous, truthful consciousness, to satchitanand.
But we have been wasting this energy. We are like buckets with holes in the bottom, and we are using these buckets to draw water from the well. But all the water drains out in the process and what we end up with is an empty bucket. We are like boats with holes in the bottom: we row only to sink.
Such a boat can never reach the other shore; it is destined to sink in midstream. All this leaking is due to the wrong diversion of the flow of sex energy.
Those who show nude photos, write obscene books and produce sexy films are not responsible for these leakages of energy. The responsibility for these kinds of perversions lies with those who have put barriers in the way of our understanding of sex. It is because of these people that naked pictures are in demand, that pornographic books are on sale, that nude films are made, and we see the sordid and absurd results every day. The ones who are responsible are those we call saintly and ascetic. But if you look deeply into it, you will see that they are the real advertising agents for obscenity.
A tiny tale, and I will finish today's talk.
A certain priest was going to conduct a service in the church of a nearby village. He was almost running in order to get there on time. Crossing a field on his way, he saw a wounded man sprawled in a nearby ditch. A knife protruded from the man's chest and he was bleeding. The priest considered lifting him up and attending to him, but on second thought, he felt it might delay his arrival at the church. He had chosen "Love" as the subject of his sermon; he had decided to elaborate on Christ's famous maxim, "Love is God." He had been mentally preparing his comments as he hurried on his way.
But the wounded man opened his eyes and shouted, "Father, I know that you are going to the church to deliver a sermon on the subject of love. I was to attend the church too, but bandits have stabbed me and thrown me here. Listen, if I survive I will tell people that a man was dying by the roadside and that, instead of saving him, you ran away to deliver a sermon on love. I warn you, don't ignore me."
This frightened the priest a bit. He realized that if this man were to survive and relate the incident, the people of the village would say that his sermons were all humbug. The priest was not worried about the dying man, but about public opinion, so he approached the man unwillingly. As he came nearer he saw the man's face more clearly: it seemed somewhat familiar. He said, "My son, it appears I have seen you somewhere before."
The injured man said, "You must have. I am Satan, and I have very old relations with priests and religious leaders. If I am not familiar to you, then who else would be?"
The priest then remembered him clearly; he had seen a picture of him in the church. He drew back.
He said, "I cannot save you. It is better you die. You are Satan. We are always wishing you dead and it is good you are dying. Why should I try to save you? It is a sin even to touch you. I am going on my way."
Satan laughed loudly and said, "Listen, the day I die you will be out of business; you cannot exist without me. You are who you are because I am alive; I am the basis of your profession. You had better save me, because if I die all the priests and ministers will be out of work. They will become extinct; there won't be any need for them any more."
The priest thought this over for a second and saw the truth in it. Immediately, he lifted the dying man onto his shoulders and said, "My dear Satan, do not worry. I am taking you to the hospital for treatment. Please get well quickly. Do not die, for God's sake, you are right; if you die, we will be out of work."
Perhaps you cannot conceive that Satan is at the root of the priest and that the priest is behind the work of Satan, but Satan is very busy in the exploitation of sex and the exploitation of sex is at the root of everything. Through the fog, we cannot see that the priests are behind all this commotion, that sex has become more and more attractive because of its degradation by the priests, that man has become more and more lustful because of the continuous slandering of sex by the priests. The more the priests strive to annihilate one's thoughts about sex, the more mysterious it becomes, the more curiosity it arouses.
Man is helpless; man is a slave to sex, and this helplessness is to be despised. We want knowledge, not ignorance. Knowledge on its own is power, and the knowledge of sex is an even greater power.
It is dangerous to continue to live in ignorance about sex.
It is possible we may not reach the moon. There is no real need to reach the moon. Mankind may not profit much if we reach the moon, nor is the world going to come to an end if we cannot reach a depth of five miles in the Pacific Ocean, where the sun's rays cannot penetrate. Achieving these things is not going to benefit mankind much. It also isn't terribly important whether we split the atom or not. But in order to succeed in producing a new man, it is a question of ultimate concern and a matter of dire necessity that we accept sex, that we come to know sex fully, that we understand it and that we transcend it.
I have explained a few things to you during the last three days, and tomorrow I will endeavor to answer your questions. Your questions should be put forth honestly; the attitude with which you have been asking about the soul and God will not do. This is a question of living, of life, and only if your inquiries are direct and honest can we delve deeply into the subject. The truth is always ready to be discovered; we require only a true, honest and conscientious curiosity to come to know it. But, unfortunately, that we lack.