Celibate--To be or not to be!

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

First a joke then some serious discussions!:

A young man went to be a monk in an ancient respected monastery. He

was put to work as a scribe, copying texts.

"Here is one," said the abbot, "Brother Jasper has just finished

it."

"But to copy from a copy! There might be errors... shouldn't I copy

the original?"

"You're right, my son, I'll go to the cellars and bring it up for

you," said the abbot, and disappeared.

One hour passed, two, three... the monks were alarmed, and went down

to the cellars to see what had happened to the abbot. They found him

sitting on the floor, an ancient open book before him, weeping

copiously.

"Look what I have found," he cried, "there is an error! For

centuries we have been writing CELIBATE, and here it says

CELEBRATE."

Well shall we celebrate or be a celibate?.TO BE OR NOT BE

THAT IS THE QUESTION.Dont get me wrong I dont mean

celebrate=sex.what I mean is that a holistic approach is needed.

Sex is good when we see it as a way to honor the divine

spark in our partner, as a way to serve and to offer happiness and

pleasure to another Human Soul. It becomes evil, and a "scattering

of energy" when we use it for our own selfish pleasure, when we seek

it for it's own sake, when we let our own sexual desires bring

others down, make them feel crappy about themselves, or place them

in a state of being a sexual object instead of a being of light!

 

If sex is an act of Love, if it's used in MODERATION, if it's just

one of the many ways that two people (gender and sexual orientation

is irrelevent here) show their love for each other and honor the

divine within each other... Then Sex is just as much a part of our

Sadhana as Hong-Sau, as Kriya, as Chanting...

 

I think that one should strive to make EVERY ACT that one commits a

part of his/her Sadhana. Once that happens, then God can get in

there and take over... And then you're FREE!

It translates very well from meditation, with the in breath and out

breath, and the rests in between, and also Ida, Pingala and

Shushumna/Left Pillar, Right Pillar and Middle Pillar. When the

Shakti energy is going up the + or - channels, it becomes angular

and can whip around and cause all sorts of unbalanced behavior and

damage. Only when it's going up the center is it going to go up

gently and harmoniously.

Tantra has a unique approach to life in general and to

meditation in particular. It is a system of self-development which

accepts life fully, exalting experience without reservation and

having no place for philosophical concepts such as sin, which only

serve to generate guilt and psychological complexes. These are the

exact antithesis of the calm and relaxed state of mind which is the

prerequisite for higher meditation and spiritual realization.

 

It is from this outlook that tantra makes use of all activities

equally, seeking to spiritualize or transform all life activities

into acts of awareness and devotion to the primal power or Shakti,

the highest force, which in tantra, is conceived of as a feminine

power.

 

The most powerful of all drives in man are the instincts for self-

preservation, procreation and sensual pleasure. While many systems

advocate a struggle to overcome these 'lower' desires, tantra

maintains that this approach can never lead to successful meditation

but only to self-suppression, 'pseudo-purity', mental imbalance and

physical illness. There is a tantric maxim which states that 'one

must rise through that by which one falls', and this underlies the

tantric approach to sex. According to tantra, one can never go

beyond the sexual plane of existence by denying it, but only by

accepting it fully, utilizing and spiritualizing one's natural

sexual activities in the path to greater awareness. In this way one

Will evolve to a state of true understanding of all of life,

including sex, Only from such a stable base can transcendence of the

mind be attained. At that point, the mode of brahmacharya (including

spontaneous celibacy) will dawn effortlessly. However, to attempt an

enforced renunciation of a perfectly normal and natural human

function, while the mind is full of sexual fantasies, is only a form

of self-repression, and is very far from true brahmacharya.

 

 

Tantra accepts that everyone is not at the same level in spiritual

development, and that each individual has specific needs and

requirements according to his or her nature and level of spiritual

evolution. At the same time tantra offers a way suited to every

aspirant, and includes sex as a means of evolution. Sex can be used

as a means of developing spiritual awareness, and opening up the

higher chakras or planes of consciousness. It can be the key to

higher awareness for many people who have retreated into a spiritual

way of life which really only avoids personal contact and intimacy,

and is a shield behind which one hides from one's own inadequacies

and flaws of personality.

 

Tantra never degrades the mighty gift of sexuality but gives it the

respect it deserves. Sex is never denigrated or practised in an

unaware or animalistic manner, but is elevated to its rightful

place, the plane on which two people can lose their personal

identity in one another, merging into union with the universal

consciousness which is the goal of all true meditation. That

experience is difficult to attain; it is the goal of all yoga, and

is experienced by dint of long years of purification of body and

mind. Similarly through conscious sex, it is possible for two

suitably evolved aspirants to obtain the same experience of cosmic

consciousness, losing all barriers of individuality and ego-

orientated awareness.

 

The path of sexual tantra has been interpreted as advocating sexual

indulgence and permissiveness. But this is not the case. In fact,

according to the tantra shastras, sexual meditation is a spiritual

practice which is suitable only for a special class of spiritual

aspirant, the vira or heroic one. Only these aspirants have the

dedication and self-control necessary to elevate sexual union beyond

its normal plane of passion and sense gratification, to the realm of

a truly spiritual practice dedicated not to pleasure but to the

mutual experience of higher states of awareness. Such aspirants

possess the dedication and mental stability which enables them to

practise sexual meditation to observe the experience of the senses,

rather than for the sake of sensual indulgence itself. This sounds

like a small qualification but by reflection you will realize the

vast difference between the two outlooks. It is really only by first

knowing and then rnastering the senses that they can become tools

for higher awareness and meditation.

 

The nature of most people today is that described in the tantras as

pashu or animal Such people are strongly bound to the passions and

senses, and are therefore unable to perceive the divine nature of

sexual experience which is encompassed in sexual tantra. For this

reason, the tantras maintain that they are not able to use sexual

activity in a liberating way, and therefore the practices should not

be revealed to them. It is the same people who can only see the

practices which lead to higher awareness as being immoral, debased

and licentious. They project the qualities of their own minds onto

an act which is surely divine, and can lead its participants to

spiritual integration. This is why some tantric practices have

always been withheld from the eyes and ears of those whose stage of

evolution renders them unsuited for those techniques. The practices

are being published now because people are beginning to see through

and remove their guilt and conditioning about sex and may be able to

utilize their sexual energy in a profoundly spiritual, mystical way,

for the sake of attaining higher awareness.

 

It is with this frame of mind that sexual tantric sadhana should be

approached. In samadhi the individual consciousness merges with the

divine universal consciousness, and in sexual tantric meditation,

the individual unites with the partner with the same attitude. For

the male, the woman is approached as the embodiment of Shakti, the

highest expression of divine power, and for the female, the partner

is worshipped as the form of Lord Shiva. The practice itself is long

and highly ritualized and is extremely beautiful, very far from the

normal unaware sexual union which is characterized by self-

gratification, lack of control and sensitivity. It is a truly divine

experience, and just to approach sex in this way is to elevate the

mind to a new and beautiful conscious appreciation of the mystery of

life, and to find in the eyes of the other the mirror of one's own

pure self. In tantra, the senses are utilized in order to become

aware of what is beyond all sense modifications.

 

The path of sexual tantra may appear attractive, but it must be

emphasized that it will not prove to be very suitable or useful for

a majority of modern men and women who desire to undertake it. To

practise sexual meditation one requires a very strong and stable

mind. It is said in the tantra shastras that only those who have

eradicated all psychological fears are likely to achieve success

with this practice. That is why aspirants are recommended to

practise this form of meditation in a place of isolation, such as a

jungle or wilderness. They should spend some time living a simple

and purificatory yogic lifestyle, performing various sadhanas in an

environment that is free from disturbance.

 

Traditionally, aspirants were to perform this tantric meditation

late at night in a graveyard or cremation ground because of its

solitude and the psychological fears that such a place creates in

the minds of unstable and non-heroic practitioners. Only those who

are strong enough to overcome the irrational fears of a graveyard

are likely to succeed with sexual tantric meditation.

 

Nowadays it is far from practical for aspirants to put their minds

to the test in a graveyard. Those who wish to utilize sexual tantra

for spiritual development must strengthen their minds first through

mental purification and other sadhanas.

 

One of the most difficult aspects of spiritual sadhana is the

necessity of constantly directing all one's energies- physical,

mental, emotional and spiritual, into a single direction, towards a

single focus of awareness. However, it is only through such one

pointedness of longing and aspiration that God-realization can be

achieved. In this light, tantra has the best solutions, for it

allows the energies to flow naturally towards the objects to which

they are naturally drawn. For a man, that object is a woman. The

male aspirant elevates a woman to the status of divine and worships

her as such. The woman does the same with the man. In the process,

within each partner, there awakens the higher potentials and

possibilities of the human heart and mind. One can perceive a means

by which he can live a divine life on earth amidst his daily

activities and responsibilities. All one's actions become a channel

for expressing love and devotion to the cosmic power as personified

in the other.When such a cosmic link is established through sexual

tantric meditation, a tremendous power is generated, and the path to

higher awareness becomes very clear.

 

It is not the sexual act which is a reflection of our animal nature.

Rather the animal in man is his uncontrolled passions, his anger,

his greed, his lust, his insensitivity and pride. These are what are

lost when the true understanding of sex dawns through tantric

meditation.

 

Sexual meditation, as enjoined by the tantras, can lead its

participants to full self-integration and understanding. Although

initially there is physical union of man and woman as Shiva and

Shakti, this leads to the awakening within the man of the inner

shakti, the hidden complementary half of his nature; and the woman

with the Shiva within herself. Thus the individuals are set on a

path of progressive inner self-discovery, reliance and realization

which culminate in the experience of total endless awareness.

 

Far from leading to excessive or promiscuous sexual activity, sexual

tantra initiates two partners into an ongoing journey of self-

discovery, producing a state of self-fulfillment in each, so that

the necessity for physical union is transcended, and true

brahmacharya, free of suppression, but based on higher understanding

is the natural result. The sexual neurosis of modern society exists

because people do not know how to elevate their natural sexual

activity from the animal to the divine level of consciousness, which

is the goal and purpose of the techniques of sexual tantra.

Yours yogically,

Dattu