One morning, before the sun had risen, a boatman reached the riverbank. His foot struck against something. He bent down and saw a bag lying there, filled with stones. He put his net down on the shore and began to wait for the sunrise. When the sun would be up, he would cast his net and catch fish. Meanwhile he began taking out the stones from the bag and throwing them, one by one, into the silent river. In the stillness of dawn he listened to the soft splash as each stone fell, then threw another.
Slowly the morning sun arose, light spread. By then he had thrown away all the stones in the bag; only one stone remained in his hand. In the light of the sun, at just a glance, his heartbeat seemed to stop, his breath was arrested. What he had thrown away, mistaking them for stones, were diamonds and precious jewels! But now only the last piece was left in his hand, and he had already thrown away the whole bag. He began to weep, to cry out. Such wealth had come to him—enough for infinite lifetimes—but in the dark, unknown, unacquainted, he had thrown all that treasure away thinking it was mere stones.
And yet, that fisherman was fortunate—for before he threw away the last stone, the sun had risen, and he could see that the one in his hand was a diamond. Ordinarily people are not so fortunate. Life passes, the sun never rises, morning never comes, no light arrives—and the diamonds of our whole life we have already thrown away, thinking them stones.
Life is a great treasure, yet man does nothing with it except to toss it away and lose it. What life is, we never even come to know—and we throw it away! What was hidden in life—what secrets, what mystery, what heaven, what bliss, what freedom—none of this ever becomes our experience, and life drains empty from our hands.
In these coming three days I have a few things to say on the treasure of life. But those who have already taken life’s treasure to be stones—how will they ever open their eyes to see that what they believed to be stones are diamonds and rubies? It is difficult. And those who have spent their time throwing life away as if it were only stones—if someone were to tell them today that where you have been flinging stones there were pearls and diamonds—they will become angry, filled with rage. Not because what is said is untrue, but because it reminds them that they have thrown away a wealth beyond measure.
Still, no matter how much treasure we may have squandered, if even a single moment of life remains, something can yet be saved, something known, something attained. In the search for life, it is never so late that a man should find cause for despair.
But we have come to believe—in darkness, in ignorance—that there is nothing in life except stones. Those who sit with this belief have accepted defeat even before they began to search.
Regarding this defeat, this despair, this assumed failure—I want first to give you a warning: life is not mere earth and stones. There is much in life. Even amongst life’s earth and stones much is hidden. If there are eyes that can seek, life also yields the steps that lead to Paramatma.
Even in this body—which, to the eye, is nothing more than bones, flesh, and skin—there is hidden that which has no relation with bone, flesh, or skin. In this ordinary body—which is born today and dies tomorrow and returns to dust—dwells that which is nectar, which is never born and never ends. Within form the formless is hidden; within the visible, the invisible abides; and in the mist of death the flame of immortality is concealed. In the smoke of death the flame is hidden—the radiance that knows no death.
But we see the smoke and turn back; we do not find the flame. Or those who dare a little lose themselves in the smoke and never reach the light. How can this journey be made—that we may know the flame hidden within the smoke, recognize the soul within the body, behold Paramatma concealed within nature? How can this be? On that I must speak in three steps.
First, we have formed certain viewpoints about life, fixed certain beliefs, built such a philosophy about life that by those very viewpoints and beliefs we are deprived of seeing life’s truth. We have decided what life is—without searching, without recognizing, without inquiry. We carry a certainty about life.
For thousands of years one thing has been taught to us like a mantra: life is futile, life is meaningless, life is suffering. Like a hypnotic suggestion this mantra has been repeated over our very life-breath: life is futile, life is meaningless, life is suffering, life is to be renounced. Hearing this again and again, slowly it has settled into our being like a stone. Because of it, life begins to appear futile, life begins to appear as suffering. Because of it, life has lost all joy, all love, all beauty. Man has become an ugliness. Man has become a haunt of sorrow.
And having accepted that life is futile and meaningless, it is no wonder if all effort to make it meaningful has come to a stop. If we have accepted that life is ugly, how can we search for beauty within it? And if we have accepted that life is only to be discarded, then what need to adorn it, explore it, refine it?
We treat life as a man treats the waiting room at a railway station. He knows: for a moment I am staying in this waiting room; a moment later I must leave—so what is the point? He throws peanut shells on the floor, he spits betel juice, he dirties the place and thinks, what do I care? In a moment I shall be gone.
We are behaving the same way with life. Where we think we have to leave in a moment, what need is there to search for and build the true and the beautiful?
But I want to tell you: yes, life will certainly leave us, but the real life—there is no way to leave that. We will leave this house, this place; but the truth of life will always be with us—that is our very self. Places will change, houses will change; but life? Life will be with us. There is no way for it to change.
And the question is not whether we made beautiful the place where we halted; the question is whether the one who sang a song of joy opened inner doors to greater possibilities of joy; whether the one who made a house beautiful gained the capacity to attain a greater beauty; whether the one who lived even two moments of love in the waiting room acquired the worthiness to realize a greater love.
What we do, that is what creates us. Our actions ultimately shape us, make us. What we do slowly becomes the maker of our life-breath and our soul. How we are behaving with life will determine how we are being formed. Our way of relating with life will determine the directions our soul will travel, which paths it will take, what new worlds it will explore.
If we remember that our behavior with life shapes us, perhaps the view that life is futile and meaningless will seem a delusion; perhaps the assertion that life is sorrowful will seem false; perhaps a hostile stance toward life will appear irreligious.
Yet till now, in the name of religion, only opposition to life has been taught. In truth, all religion till now has been death-centered, not life-centered. In its vision, what is after death is important; what is before death is not. Until now there has been worship of death, not reverence for life. There is no honor for the blossoming flowers of life, but praise and devotion for the graves of withered, gone flowers. Till now religion has brooded over what is after death—heaven, Moksha; over what is before death, religion seems to have had no concern.
And I want to tell you: if we are unable to take care of what is before death, we will never be able to take care of what is after death. If what is before death is left waste, then after death there will never arise any possibility nor worthiness for meaning. Preparation for death too must be made by what is in our hands now—in this life. Even if there is some realm after death, there we will behold only that which we have experienced and created in life. But up to now, only talk of forgetting life, of letting life fall into oblivion, has been given.
I want to say to you: apart from life there is no Paramatma, nor can there be.
I also want to say to you: to master life is the very sadhana of Dharma, and to experience the Supreme Truth in life is the first step to attaining Moksha. The one who misses life will miss everything else—this is certain.
But till now the orientation has been reversed. It says, abandon life; renounce life. It does not say, search within life. It does not say, learn the art of living. It does not say that how life appears depends on how it is lived. If life appears dark, the way of living is wrong. This very life can become a rain of bliss, if the right art of living is found.
I call Dharma the art of living. It is the art of living.
Religion is not the abandonment of life, but the steps that descend into its depths.
Religion is not turning one’s back to life, but opening one’s eyes fully toward life.
Religion is not escape from life, but the name of taking life wholly into one’s embrace.
Religion is the full, direct encounter with life.
Perhaps that is why, until now, only the old have been eager about religion. Go to temples, to churches, to mosques, to gurdwaras—you will see the elderly. The young are not seen there, nor little children. What is the reason? Only one: our religion till now has been only the religion of the old—of those whose death has come near, who are afraid of death, anxious about what is after death, and want to know what lies beyond.
A religion founded upon death—how will it influence the wholeness of life? A religion that contemplates death—how will it make the earth religious? It has not been able. After five thousand years of religious instruction, the earth has only become more and more irreligious. There are temples, mosques, churches, priests, pundits, sannyasis—but the earth has not become religious and will not become so, because the very foundation of religion has been wrong. Its base is not life, but death. Its base is not blooming flowers, but graves. If a religion based on death fails to stir the life-breath, what is surprising? Whose responsibility is it?
In these three days I want to speak only of the religion of life; therefore, the first sutra must be understood. And in regard to this sutra, all efforts till now have been to hide it, suppress it, forget it—not to know and to inquire. The ill effects of that forgetting have spread throughout the world.
What is the central element in ordinary human life—Paramatma? Atman? Truth?
No. In the life-breath of the ordinary human being—who has made no search, taken no journey, done no sadhana—what lies in the depth? Prayer? Worship?
No, absolutely not. If we search in the life-energy of the common man, if we go to find his life-force, we will not find Paramatma there, nor worship, nor prayer, nor meditation. We will find something else. And what we find has been the very thing we have tried to forget, not to know and understand.
What will we find if we cut open the human life-breath and look within? Leave man aside—if we explore the rest of existence, what will we find in its depths? Examine a plant—what will you find? What is a plant doing?
A plant is making its total effort to generate new seed. All its life-sap, all its vitality, is laboring to gather and give birth to new seeds.
What is a bird doing? What is an animal doing?
If we look through all of nature, we will find only one activity throbbing, encircling the life-force with its intensity—the activity of continuous creation. The activity of creation. The activity of renewing life, giving life again and again in new forms. Flowers are guarding the seed; fruits are guarding the seed. What will the seed do? The seed will become a plant again, then again a flower, then a fruit. If we look at all of life, life is the name of an endless process of birth. Life is an energy endlessly engaged in producing itself.
The same is within man. Within man that continuous creative urge we have named sex, kama. By that name, that energy received an insult, an abuse. By that name, a sense of condemnation was created. Within man too there is the ongoing urge to engender life. We call it sex, the power of desire.
But what is this power of desire?
For thousands upon thousands of years the waves of the ocean have been striking against the shore. They come, they strike, they return. They come again, they strike, they return. For thousands of years life, in its infinite waves, has been crashing against the shore. Surely life wants to rise somewhere. These waves of the ocean, these waves of life, want to reach higher; but they strike the shore and are shattered. Then new waves arise, strike, and shatter. This ocean of life has been crashing and struggling for billions of years. It rises daily and falls again. What purpose lies behind this? Surely there is a design to touch greater heights. Surely there is an urge to know deeper depths. Surely behind this continuous process of life there is an effort to give birth to a greater life.
Man came upon the earth not long ago, only some hundreds of thousands of years. Before man there were animals. The animals too are not from so very long ago. There was a time when even animals were not—there were plants. Plants too are not from eternity. There was a time when even plants were not—there were stones, mountains, rivers, the ocean.
What pain was that world of stones and mountains suffering?
It wanted to create plants. Slowly plants appeared; life took a new form. The earth filled with green. Flowers blossomed.
But plants were not content in themselves. They went on generating life. Something in them was also at work. They wished to give birth to animals and birds.
Animals and birds appeared. For thousands of years the world was full of animals and birds—but there was no sign of man. Within the life-breath of animals and birds, man dwelt unborn, longing to be born. Then man was born. Now, what of man?
Man is ever eager to create new life. We call this sex; we call it the lust of desire. But what is the root meaning of that desire? Only this: man does not want to end with himself; he wants to create life further. But why? Is there in the life-breath of man some urge to give birth to someone above man—a superman, a maha-manav?
Surely there is. Surely man’s life-breath is engaged in the effort that a higher life than man may be born, that a being greater than man may appear. From Nietzsche to Aurobindo, from Patanjali to Bertrand Russell, a dream has sat within the soul of man—how may a being greater than man be born?
But how will a being greater than man be born? For thousands of years we have condemned the very urge to be born. We have given to sex nothing but abuse. We are even afraid to speak of it. We have hidden sex as if it does not exist, as if it has no place in life. While the truth is that nothing is more important in human life. We have hidden it, suppressed it. Suppression has not freed man from sex; it has made him all the more obsessed. Suppression has brought the opposite result.
Perhaps some of you have heard of a French psychologist, Coué, and a certain law of his—the Law of Reverse Effect. He formulated a law: the law of opposite outcome. We can act in such a way that the result we get is the very opposite of the result we wanted.
A man learns to ride a bicycle. There is a broad road, wide open, and a small stone lies at the side. The new rider becomes anxious: I must not crash into that stone. The road is so wide that even with eyes closed, it would be hard to hit the stone; perhaps one chance in a hundred. He could pass anywhere. But he stares and trembles—what if I strike the stone? As soon as the fear arises—'I must not hit the stone'—the whole road vanishes from his awareness; only the stone is seen. His front wheel begins turning toward the stone. His hands and feet are flustered. His entire consciousness becomes fixed upon the stone. Hypnotized, he is drawn toward it, and he crashes into it. The beginner collides precisely with what he wanted to avoid! The lamppost, the stone—he hits them. The road was so wide that only a marksman could aim and hit that stone—yet how did this learner hit it?
Coué says there is a law of our consciousness—the Law of Reverse Effect. That which we try to avoid becomes the very focus of our consciousness—and the result is that we collide with it.
For five thousand years man has tried to avoid sex—and the result is that in every lane and street, wherever he goes, he collides with sex. This law has seized the human soul.
Have you noticed? Wherever you try to keep the mind from going, it is drawn and invited there. Those who have counseled mankind against sex have themselves taken responsibility for making man hyper-sexual. Man’s excessive sexuality is the outcome of wrong teaching. And even today we are afraid that sex should not be mentioned. Why are we afraid? Because we think that talk about sex will make people more lustful.
I want to tell you—this is absolutely wrong, utterly false. The earth will be free of obsession with sex the day we become capable of normal, healthy conversation about it. Only by fully understanding sex can we transcend it.
Brahmacharya can be born in the world, man can rise above sex—but by understanding sex, by fully recognizing it. By knowing the whole meaning, pathways, and order of that energy, one can be free of it. No one has ever been freed by closing his eyes. Those who think an enemy vanishes by shutting their eyes are fools. In the desert the ostrich does just that. When enemies attack, the ostrich buries its head in the sand and thinks: since the enemy is no longer visible to me, he does not exist. This logic—one may forgive the ostrich, but man cannot be forgiven.
In regard to sex, man has behaved like the ostrich. He thinks: close your eyes toward sex—and sex will disappear.
If closing the eyes made things disappear, life would be easy indeed. But nothing vanishes by shutting the eyes. Rather, in closing the eyes we certify that we are afraid, that we are weak before it, that we cannot win—therefore we close our eyes. To close the eyes is a symptom of weakness.
And in regard to sex, all humanity has sat with its eyes shut. Not only with eyes shut, but it has even declared war in every way. The results, the disastrous consequences, are known everywhere.
If a hundred people go mad, ninety-eight among them become mad because of the suppression of sex. If thousands of women suffer hysteria, ninety-nine out of a hundred cases of hysteria, epilepsy, fainting, are rooted in sex—suppressed sex. If man is so restless, anxious, so sorrowful and afflicted, the reason is that he has turned his back upon a great power of life without understanding it—and the consequences turn reversed.
If we take up human literature, if ever a god from some celestial realm—or a traveler from the moon or Mars—were to come and read our books, look at our art and poetry, he would be astonished. He would be shocked to see why the whole of human literature is centered upon sex; why our poetry is so sexual; why our stories and novels stand upon sex; why on every book there is the picture of a naked woman; why every film revolves around nakedness. He would be amazed. And if he talked with us, he would be even more astonished: man speaks of soul, of God, of heaven, of Moksha—never of sex! And yet his entire personality is filled on all sides with sex. That Martian would be bewildered. He would say: about what is never discussed, you make a thousand crazy attempts to satisfy.
We have perverted man—and we have done it on the basis of good names. We speak of Brahmacharya, but we never try first to understand man’s sexual energy; only then can experiments in transformation be made. Without understanding that energy, all instruction in restraint and suppression makes man mad, deranged, and sick. We pay no attention to this! Never before has man been so sickly, so mean and weak, so poisoned, so miserable.
I once passed by a hospital and read a noticeboard. It said: one man was bitten by a scorpion; he was treated and returned home in a day, cured. Another man was bitten by a snake; he was treated in three days and returned home, healthy. A third notice said: another man was bitten by a mad dog. He has been under treatment for ten days; he is much improved and will soon be fully cured. And there was a fourth notice: a man was bitten by a man. Several weeks have passed; he is unconscious, and there is no hope of his recovery. I was astonished. Can the bite of man be so poisonous?
If we look closely, we will see: much poison has gathered within man. The first reason this poison has accumulated is that we have not accepted man’s nature. We have tried to suppress it, to break it by force. The great power within man we have made no effort to transform, to raise, to make skyward. We have sat upon that power like an invader. Below, it boils like a volcano, pushing and heaving. It tries to overturn man at any moment. And thus, at the slightest occasion—you know what the first question is that arises?
If an airplane crashes and you reach the pilot’s body, what is the very first question that arises in the mind? Do you wonder—was he Hindu or Muslim? No. Do you think—was he Indian or Chinese? No. The first thought is—was it a man or a woman? Have you noticed why this is the first thought? Because sex is suppressed within. Owing to suppression, men and women outside appear exaggeratedly salient.
Have you ever thought? You can forget a person’s name, caste, face. If I meet you, or you meet me—I could forget everything: your name, your face, your caste, your age, your position—but have you ever forgotten whether the one you met was a man or a woman? Has the doubt ever arisen later—was that person male or female? No, this you cannot forget. Why? When all else is forgotten, why not this?
Because within the mind sex sits in exaggeration. It boils twenty-four hours a day. So all else can be forgotten, but not this. We remain ever alert there.
This earth will not be healthy so long as there is a wall, a gulf, between men and women. The earth will never be at peace so long as the inner fire is boiling and we sit upon it by force. That fire must be pressed down every day, every moment. It burns us as well, reduces our life to ashes. Even so, we refuse to consider—what is this fire?
I tell you, if we understand this fire, it is not an enemy, it is a friend. If we understand it, it will not burn us; it can warm our house in winter, it can bake our bread, it can be our helper and friend. For millions of years lightning flashed in the sky. Sometimes it fell and took a life. No one imagined that one day this electricity would run fans in our homes, that it would bring light into darkness. Today the same electricity has become our companion. Why? Because we did not stand before it with closed eyes; we tried to understand it. Slowly it became our ally. Now without electricity it is hard to live even a moment.
Within man there is a power greater than electricity—sex.
Within man there is a force greater than atomic energy—sex.
Have you ever thought what this power is and how we may transform it? A tiny atom can destroy a city like Hiroshima. But have you ever thought that a single atom of the sexual energy gives birth to a new person? And within that person a Gandhi can be born, a Mahavira can be born, a Buddha, a Christ. An Einstein can be born, a Newton can be born. A small unit of sexual energy conceals a Gandhi within; such a vast personality can be born.
Yet we are unwilling to understand sex! We do not gather the courage to discuss this energy. What fear has seized us—that we do not want to understand the very energy from which all life is born? What dread is this? What panic?
In my last series in Bombay I spoke a little on this, and great fear spread. Many letters reached me—do not speak such things! Do not touch such subjects! I was amazed. Why not? If a power is within us, why not know it? Why not recognize it? Without knowing, without understanding its laws, how shall we raise it higher? Through understanding we can master and transform it. Without understanding we will remain in its hands, rotting and dying, never free of it.
Those who prohibit speaking of sex are the very people pushing the earth into the pit of sex—I want to say that to you. Those who are afraid and think religion has nothing to do with sex are themselves mad, and they are helping to make the entire earth mad.
Religion is concerned with the transformation of human energy. Religion concerns itself with transmuting man’s power. Religion wants that what is hidden in man should be expressed in its highest form. Religion wants life to become a journey from the lower to the higher, from matter to Paramatma. But this wish can only be fulfilled… To understand where we want to go is not as useful as understanding where we stand; for the journey must begin from there.
Sex is a fact. Sex is the fact of human life. And Paramatma? Paramatma is still far. Sex is the fact of our life. Understanding this fact, we may travel toward the truth of Paramatma. But without understanding it, we cannot move even an inch. Like the bullock tied to the oil-press, we will go round and round only near it.
In that last series I said a few things—and it seemed as if we are not even prepared to understand the realities of life. What then is possible? Then all talk of God and Paramatma becomes mere consolation, empty and false. For the supreme truths of life—however naked—must be known and understood.
First then, we must know: man is born of sex. Man’s entire personality is formed of atoms of sex. Man’s very life-breath is filled with sexual energy. Life-energy means the energy of desire. What is this energy? Why does it stir our life so intensely? Why does it influence us so profoundly? Why do we continually circle around it and end there? What is its attraction?
For thousands of years seers and sages have denied it, and yet man has not been affected by their denial. For thousands of years they have said: turn your face away! Keep far from it! Abandon the imagination and longing for sex! Drive these dreams from the mind! But the dreams have not left, nor can they leave in that way. In fact, I have been astonished—astonished that even prostitutes, when I have met them, have not spoken to me of sex; they have asked about soul and God. And when I meet sadhus and sannyasis, whenever they find me alone, they ask only about sex and nothing else. I am amazed! Those who are constantly speaking against it are themselves gripped by it in the depths, tormented there. It will be so—naturally—because we have not tried to understand the problem. We have not wanted to know the laws of this energy. We have not even asked why sex attracts man so much. Who teaches you sex?
The whole world tries to do the opposite—to keep you from learning. Parents try that the child should not come to know. Teachers try; scriptures try. There is no school, no university—and yet one day a man suddenly finds that his entire life-breath is filled with the yearning of desire. How does this happen? Without being taught, how does it happen? Instruction is given in truth, in love—of these there is no trace. But this attraction to sex—so powerful, so natural—what is its deep center? Certainly there is a mystery here that must be understood. Then perhaps we can be free of it.
First: the attraction in man’s life-breath that appears as sex is not really the attraction of sex. The desire (kama) that appears in man’s life is not truly desire for sex. That is why everyone regrets afterward, feels sorrow and pain, and thinks to be free of it. Perhaps the attraction is something else, and that attraction has a very religious meaning. It is this: in the ordinary life of man, apart from the experience of sex, he never descends into the deepest part of his being. Except in that moment, he never goes deep. He does business, he trades, he earns fame, he earns money—but the experience of sex takes him to the deepest. And there, in that depth, two events occur.
First—at the peak of sexual experience, the ego dissolves; egolessness arises. For a moment the ego is not; for a moment even the memory that ‘I am’ disappears. Know this: in the supreme religious experience, the ‘I’ vanishes completely, the ego becomes utterly zero. In the experience of sex, for a moment the ego disappears. For a moment it is as if ‘I am or am not’—the sense of ‘mine-ness’ dissolves.
Second: for a moment, time disappears; timelessness arises.
Jesus has said of Samadhi: there shall be time no longer. In the experience of Samadhi, time is no more. It is beyond time. Time vanishes—there is neither past nor future; only the pure present remains.
In sexual experience this second event occurs—neither past nor future remains. Time dissolves; for a moment, time is gone.
These two elements are the most vital for religious realization—egolessness and timelessness. Because of these, man becomes eager and even mad for sex. The eagerness is not for the body of the woman; nor, in woman, is it for the body of the man. It is not for the body at all. It is for something else—the experience of egolessness and timelessness. Why is there this urge to be egoless and beyond time? Because as soon as the ego dissolves, a glimpse of Atman becomes available. As soon as time disappears, a glimpse of Paramatma becomes available.
For a moment this happens; and for that one moment man is willing to lose any amount of energy, any amount of power. Later he repents, feeling that his strength has been dissipated, wasted—and he knows the more it is wasted, the nearer death comes.
Some creatures die after a single mating. Some insects can mate only once and in the very act they die. In Africa there is a spider that mates only once and dies in the very posture of mating—so much energy is exhausted.
Man learned long ago that sexual experience depletes energy, reduces life-force, and draws death nearer. He repents. Yet after a few hours he finds the same longing again. Surely there is some further meaning in this longing that must be understood.
In the longing for sex there is a religious experience, a spiritual experience. If we can see that experience, we can go beyond sex. If not, we will live and die within it. If we can see it… In a dark night lightning flashes. If we can perceive and understand electricity, we can one day dispel the dark night. But if we conclude that lightning flashes because of the dark night, then we will try to thicken the darkness so that more lightning may appear.
In the happening of sex, a lightning flashes—from beyond. If we can catch hold of that experience that transcends sex, we can rise above sex; otherwise not. But those who stand simply in opposition to sex never understand what that experience is; they cannot analyze rightly what our longing truly seeks.
I want to tell you: the attraction of intercourse is for a momentary Samadhi. And you will be free of sex the day Samadhi begins to happen without sex. That very day you will be free. Because if a man spends a thousand rupees to taste a certain experience, and tomorrow he is told: there is no need to lose money, there are mines of that experience—walk this path and attain it—then he will not go to the market to buy the experience for a thousand rupees.
The experience that sex brings—if that experience can be attained by other pathways—the mind’s movement toward sex ceases on its own. It turns in a new direction. Therefore I say: the first experience of Samadhi in the world became available to man through sex.
But it is a very costly experience, exceedingly expensive. And for other reasons, it can never be more than a moment. For one instant there is a glimpse, and we return to where we were. For one instant we rise to some peak, some height, and we do not even quite arrive before we fall again. Like a wave that rises from the ocean—not quite reaching the sky, not quite lifting its head into the winds, it begins to fall. Exactly so is our sexual experience: again and again, gathering energy, we try to rise—toward some deeper world, some higher world—yet before we can rise, the wave disperses, and we stand back where we were, with our energy spent.
But if a wave of the ocean were to freeze into ice, to crystallize, then there would be no need for it to fall. So long as the mind flows in the liquidity of sex, it rises and falls, rises and falls—and spends an entire life doing only that. For the sake of the very experience that attracts so intensely—egolessness, so that I may know the soul; the disappearance of time, so that I may know that which is eternal, beyond time, without beginning or end—the whole world keeps revolving around sex.
But if we merely stand in opposition to this phenomenon, what will happen? Will we attain the experience that sex reveals for a glimpse?
No. If we stand against sex, sex itself becomes the center of our consciousness. We are not freed, we are bound. The Law of Reverse Effect begins to operate. We become bound. We try to escape; and the more we try, the more we are bound.
There was a man with an illness such that he felt hunger day and night. Truthfully, he had no illness; he had read books condemning food. He had read that eating is sin, fasting is virtue; that any eating is violence. The more he thought eating was sin, the more he tried to suppress hunger; the more he suppressed it, the more violently hunger asserted itself. He would fast for two or three days and then, like a madman, eat anything. Then he would be miserable again, for now he would have to suffer the aftermath of eating. Then in remorse he would fast two or three days, and again eat anything. Finally he decided: living at home, I cannot be cured; I must go to the forest.
He went to the hills. On a hill station, he took a room. His family was also disturbed. Thinking that perhaps on the hills he would be freed from his ailment, his wife, in her joy, sent him many flowers—'I am happy that you may return cured; as a token I send you these flowers.'
His telegram came back: 'Many thanks for the flowers—they are so delicious.' He ate the flowers she had sent him at the hills! Who would imagine a man eating flowers? But the one who starts a war with food can eat flowers.
Man has begun a war with sex—and do you know what all we have eaten in the name of sex? Leave the uncivilized; among tribal people is there homosexuality? Tribals living in the forest have never even imagined such a thing—that men with men might have sexual relations! It is beyond thought. I have lived among tribals and said to them: the civilized do this. They said: it is beyond belief. How is it possible?
Yet in America they have published figures—thirty-five percent are homosexual. And in Belgium, Sweden, Holland there are homosexual clubs, societies, newspapers. They demand that laws against homosexuality be repealed, because when forty percent accept it, to oppose it is an attack on a large minority. 'We hold homosexuality to be right; we should have the right.'
Who could have imagined how this homosexuality arose? It is the result of fighting with sex. The more civilized the society, the more prostitutes there are. Have you wondered how prostitutes came to be? Go to a tribal village—try to find a prostitute. Even today in the villages of Bastar it is hard to find one. No one can even conceive that there are women who sell their honor, their intercourse. But the more 'civilized' man becomes, the more prostitutes multiply. Why?
It is the attempt to eat flowers. Sex has made a place in human life in distorted forms. If we were to take account of how many perverse ways sex has entered life, we would be astonished: what has happened to man? Who is responsible?
Those are responsible who taught man not to understand sex but to fight it; who taught suppression. Because of suppression, the power of sex has burst out in wrong channels. The whole society has become afflicted and diseased.
If we are to change this diseased society, we must accept that there is kama-energy, there is sexual attraction. Why is there this attraction? If we grasp its fundamental basis, we can lift man beyond the realm of kama. And only when man rises above kama does the realm of Ram begin.
I was standing before the temples of Khajuraho. I had taken along five or ten friends. Around the outer wall are images of coupling, statues of sexual postures. My friends asked: what is this around a temple? I said: those who built this temple were wise people. Their understanding was that on the outer circumference of life there is sex. And those who are still entangled with sex have no right to enter within.
Then I said: let us go inside. I took them in—there were no sexual images there. There was the image of God. They said: inside there is no such statue! I said: on the outer circumference of life there is sexual desire—on the wall. Within life is God’s temple. But those still entangled in desire are not entitled to enter the temple; they must circle the outer wall. Those who built this temple were wise. It was a meditation center, a center of dhyana. Those who came were told: first meditate upon coupling, upon sex; first understand sex. And when you have understood sex completely and found that the mind is free of it, then come within. Then meeting God becomes possible.
But in the name of religion we did not create the condition to understand sex; we created enmity with sex. Do not understand sex; close your eyes—and barge into God’s temple with closed eyes.
Has anyone ever reached God’s temple with closed eyes? And if you do arrive with eyes closed, you will not see God there—what you ran away from will be all you continue to see; you will remain bound to it.
Some, hearing me, may think that I am an advocate of sex. That I am a propagandist for sex. If anyone thinks so, tell him he has never heard me. At this time on earth, it would be difficult to find someone who is a greater enemy of sex than I am. And the reason is this: if what I am saying is understood, mankind can be lifted above sex—otherwise not. Those shallow people whom we have imagined to be enemies of sex were not its enemies; by their opposition, they only increased its attraction, they did not create freedom from it.
A man said to me: where there is no opposition, there is no zest. Stolen fruit is sweetest—never as sweet as fruit bought in the market. That is why one’s own wife never seems as sweet as the neighbor’s wife. Those are stolen fruits. And we have given to sex such a status—wrapped it in the cloak of forbidden fruit, hidden it in layers of lies, walled it in—that it has powerfully attracted us.
Bertrand Russell wrote: when I was a small child, in Victorian times, even women’s feet were not visible. They wore clothes that swept the ground, and the feet could not be seen. If ever a woman’s toe became visible, a man would become excited looking at the toe, and lust would arise. And Russell writes: now women move about almost half naked, and their whole leg is visible—and there is no effect.
Russell concludes: the more we hide things, the more ugly fascination they attract.
If we want to free the world from sex, children should be allowed to remain naked longer at home. As long as possible, boys and girls should play naked. Let them become thoroughly familiar with each other’s bodies, so that later there is no need on the street to jostle a woman. Let them become so familiar that there is no need to print a naked woman’s picture on a book. Let them be so familiar with the body that its ugly fascination dissolves.
But the world is upside down. Those who have wrapped and hidden the body have made it all the more alluring. The more we cover, the more the body becomes the object of our brooding. This does not occur to us.
Children should be naked, should play naked longer; boys and girls should see each other in nakedness—so that no madness remains behind it and the lifelong disease of this madness does not fester within. Yet it festers. And we keep increasing it; then we search for new channels for the disease.
Dirty books are printed which people read hidden inside the covers of the Gita; they tuck them into the Bible and read. We say: these vile books should be banned! But we never ask: why is the reader of vile books born? We say: naked pictures should not be on the walls! But we never ask: who comes to see those pictures?
It is the man deprived of seeing the female body. A curiosity has arisen—what is a woman’s body? I tell you: clothing has made the woman’s body more beautiful than it is. Draped and concealed, the body is neither covered nor revealed; it is exhibited. Our entire thinking has brought the opposite result.
So today, in this first day’s talk, I want to say this: what is sex? What is its attraction? Why has its perversion arisen? If we understand these three things rightly, man’s mind can rise above them. It should; it needs to.
But our effort to rise has brought the wrong result, because we created a war, not friendship. We raised enmity, suppression, repression; we did not create understanding.
Understanding is needed, not suppression. The deeper the understanding, the higher man rises. The less the understanding, the more he tries to repress. And repression never yields successful, fruitful, healthy results.
The greatest energy in human life is kama. But we must not stop at kama; we must carry kama to Ram. We must understand sex, so that Brahmacharya can blossom. We must know sex, so that we may be free of it and rise above it.
Rarely has man even tried to understand that within intercourse there is a moment’s taste of Samadhi. That very taste draws us. That very taste calls to us: come. Attentively we must know what experience is attracting me—what is pulling me?
I tell you, there are easy pathways to that experience: meditation, yoga, samayik, prayer—all are paths to it. But it is essential to know that the very experience drawing us is that one.
A friend wrote me: you spoke such things while a daughter sat with her mother, listening! A daughter sat with her father, listening! Such things should not be said in front of everyone.
I told him: you are utterly foolish. If a mother is understanding, then before the daughter enters the realm of sex, she will share with her all her experiences concerning sex—so that the daughter does not go, unknowing and immature, toward wrong paths. If a father is worthy and understanding, he will tell his son, and his daughter too, all his experiences—so that the sons and daughters do not go astray, and their lives are not distorted.
But the trouble is: neither father nor mother has any deep experience. They themselves have not risen above the level of sex; therefore they are afraid that hearing about sex the children too may become entangled at that level. I ask them: by listening to whom did you become entangled? You entangled yourselves; the children will do the same. It may happen that if they are given understanding, reflection, awareness, they may refrain from wasting their energy, they may conserve it, transform it.
On the roadside there lies a heap of coal. Scientists say coal becomes diamond after thousands of years. There is no chemical difference between coal and diamond. The atoms are the same; the organization is the same. A diamond is coal transformed, altered; a diamond is coal.
I want to tell you: sex is like coal; Brahmacharya is like a diamond. But it is coal itself, transmuted. The diamond is not the enemy of coal; it is coal’s transformation. It is coal, understood and led into new directions.
Brahmacharya is not the opposition of sex, it is its transformation. And the one who is an enemy of sex can never attain Brahmacharya.
If one is to move toward Brahmacharya—and one must, because what does Brahmacharya mean? It means that the experience that is like the life of Brahman, like the life divine, becomes available. Brahmacharya means the way of Brahman, the life of Brahman—the experience like that of the divine becomes ours.
It can happen by understanding our energies and transforming them.
In the coming two days, I will speak on how sex can be transformed—how, after transformation, kama becomes the experience of Ram. And for these three days I ask that you listen very carefully, so that no misunderstanding about me remains afterward. And whatever questions arise—honestly and sincerely—write them and give them to me, so that in the last two days I can speak to them directly. There is no need to hide any question. There is no reason to conceal what is true in life. There is no need to deny any truth. What is true is true—whether we close our eyes or open them.
And I say this too: I call that man religious who has the courage to directly encounter all the truths of life. Those who are so weak, lazy, and impotent that they cannot face the facts of life—there is no hope of their ever being religious.
For these coming four days, I give you my invitation. On such a subject it has perhaps not been expected that sages would speak. Perhaps you are not used to hearing it. Your mind may tremble. Even so, I would like you, in these five days, to try to listen rightly. It may happen that the understanding of kama grants you entry into the temple of Ram. That is my longing. May Paramatma fulfill it.
You have listened to my words with such love and peace—for that I am grateful. And in the end I bow down to the Paramatma abiding within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
One morning, before the sun had risen, a boatman reached the riverbank. His foot struck against something. He bent down and saw a bag lying there, filled with stones. He put his net down on the shore and began to wait for the sunrise. When the sun would be up, he would cast his net and catch fish. Meanwhile he began taking out the stones from the bag and throwing them, one by one, into the silent river. In the stillness of dawn he listened to the soft splash as each stone fell, then threw another.
Slowly the morning sun arose, light spread. By then he had thrown away all the stones in the bag; only one stone remained in his hand. In the light of the sun, at just a glance, his heartbeat seemed to stop, his breath was arrested. What he had thrown away, mistaking them for stones, were diamonds and precious jewels! But now only the last piece was left in his hand, and he had already thrown away the whole bag. He began to weep, to cry out. Such wealth had come to him—enough for infinite lifetimes—but in the dark, unknown, unacquainted, he had thrown all that treasure away thinking it was mere stones.
And yet, that fisherman was fortunate—for before he threw away the last stone, the sun had risen, and he could see that the one in his hand was a diamond. Ordinarily people are not so fortunate. Life passes, the sun never rises, morning never comes, no light arrives—and the diamonds of our whole life we have already thrown away, thinking them stones.
Life is a great treasure, yet man does nothing with it except to toss it away and lose it. What life is, we never even come to know—and we throw it away! What was hidden in life—what secrets, what mystery, what heaven, what bliss, what freedom—none of this ever becomes our experience, and life drains empty from our hands.
In these coming three days I have a few things to say on the treasure of life. But those who have already taken life’s treasure to be stones—how will they ever open their eyes to see that what they believed to be stones are diamonds and rubies? It is difficult. And those who have spent their time throwing life away as if it were only stones—if someone were to tell them today that where you have been flinging stones there were pearls and diamonds—they will become angry, filled with rage. Not because what is said is untrue, but because it reminds them that they have thrown away a wealth beyond measure.
Still, no matter how much treasure we may have squandered, if even a single moment of life remains, something can yet be saved, something known, something attained. In the search for life, it is never so late that a man should find cause for despair.
But we have come to believe—in darkness, in ignorance—that there is nothing in life except stones. Those who sit with this belief have accepted defeat even before they began to search.
Regarding this defeat, this despair, this assumed failure—I want first to give you a warning: life is not mere earth and stones. There is much in life. Even amongst life’s earth and stones much is hidden. If there are eyes that can seek, life also yields the steps that lead to Paramatma.
Even in this body—which, to the eye, is nothing more than bones, flesh, and skin—there is hidden that which has no relation with bone, flesh, or skin. In this ordinary body—which is born today and dies tomorrow and returns to dust—dwells that which is nectar, which is never born and never ends. Within form the formless is hidden; within the visible, the invisible abides; and in the mist of death the flame of immortality is concealed. In the smoke of death the flame is hidden—the radiance that knows no death.
But we see the smoke and turn back; we do not find the flame. Or those who dare a little lose themselves in the smoke and never reach the light. How can this journey be made—that we may know the flame hidden within the smoke, recognize the soul within the body, behold Paramatma concealed within nature? How can this be? On that I must speak in three steps.
First, we have formed certain viewpoints about life, fixed certain beliefs, built such a philosophy about life that by those very viewpoints and beliefs we are deprived of seeing life’s truth. We have decided what life is—without searching, without recognizing, without inquiry. We carry a certainty about life.
For thousands of years one thing has been taught to us like a mantra: life is futile, life is meaningless, life is suffering. Like a hypnotic suggestion this mantra has been repeated over our very life-breath: life is futile, life is meaningless, life is suffering, life is to be renounced. Hearing this again and again, slowly it has settled into our being like a stone. Because of it, life begins to appear futile, life begins to appear as suffering. Because of it, life has lost all joy, all love, all beauty. Man has become an ugliness. Man has become a haunt of sorrow.
And having accepted that life is futile and meaningless, it is no wonder if all effort to make it meaningful has come to a stop. If we have accepted that life is ugly, how can we search for beauty within it? And if we have accepted that life is only to be discarded, then what need to adorn it, explore it, refine it?
We treat life as a man treats the waiting room at a railway station. He knows: for a moment I am staying in this waiting room; a moment later I must leave—so what is the point? He throws peanut shells on the floor, he spits betel juice, he dirties the place and thinks, what do I care? In a moment I shall be gone.
We are behaving the same way with life. Where we think we have to leave in a moment, what need is there to search for and build the true and the beautiful?
But I want to tell you: yes, life will certainly leave us, but the real life—there is no way to leave that. We will leave this house, this place; but the truth of life will always be with us—that is our very self. Places will change, houses will change; but life? Life will be with us. There is no way for it to change.
And the question is not whether we made beautiful the place where we halted; the question is whether the one who sang a song of joy opened inner doors to greater possibilities of joy; whether the one who made a house beautiful gained the capacity to attain a greater beauty; whether the one who lived even two moments of love in the waiting room acquired the worthiness to realize a greater love.
What we do, that is what creates us. Our actions ultimately shape us, make us. What we do slowly becomes the maker of our life-breath and our soul. How we are behaving with life will determine how we are being formed. Our way of relating with life will determine the directions our soul will travel, which paths it will take, what new worlds it will explore.
If we remember that our behavior with life shapes us, perhaps the view that life is futile and meaningless will seem a delusion; perhaps the assertion that life is sorrowful will seem false; perhaps a hostile stance toward life will appear irreligious.
Yet till now, in the name of religion, only opposition to life has been taught. In truth, all religion till now has been death-centered, not life-centered. In its vision, what is after death is important; what is before death is not. Until now there has been worship of death, not reverence for life. There is no honor for the blossoming flowers of life, but praise and devotion for the graves of withered, gone flowers. Till now religion has brooded over what is after death—heaven, Moksha; over what is before death, religion seems to have had no concern.
And I want to tell you: if we are unable to take care of what is before death, we will never be able to take care of what is after death. If what is before death is left waste, then after death there will never arise any possibility nor worthiness for meaning. Preparation for death too must be made by what is in our hands now—in this life. Even if there is some realm after death, there we will behold only that which we have experienced and created in life. But up to now, only talk of forgetting life, of letting life fall into oblivion, has been given.
I want to say to you: apart from life there is no Paramatma, nor can there be.
I also want to say to you: to master life is the very sadhana of Dharma, and to experience the Supreme Truth in life is the first step to attaining Moksha. The one who misses life will miss everything else—this is certain.
But till now the orientation has been reversed. It says, abandon life; renounce life. It does not say, search within life. It does not say, learn the art of living. It does not say that how life appears depends on how it is lived. If life appears dark, the way of living is wrong. This very life can become a rain of bliss, if the right art of living is found.
I call Dharma the art of living. It is the art of living.
Religion is not the abandonment of life, but the steps that descend into its depths.
Religion is not turning one’s back to life, but opening one’s eyes fully toward life.
Religion is not escape from life, but the name of taking life wholly into one’s embrace.
Religion is the full, direct encounter with life.
Perhaps that is why, until now, only the old have been eager about religion. Go to temples, to churches, to mosques, to gurdwaras—you will see the elderly. The young are not seen there, nor little children. What is the reason? Only one: our religion till now has been only the religion of the old—of those whose death has come near, who are afraid of death, anxious about what is after death, and want to know what lies beyond.
A religion founded upon death—how will it influence the wholeness of life? A religion that contemplates death—how will it make the earth religious? It has not been able. After five thousand years of religious instruction, the earth has only become more and more irreligious. There are temples, mosques, churches, priests, pundits, sannyasis—but the earth has not become religious and will not become so, because the very foundation of religion has been wrong. Its base is not life, but death. Its base is not blooming flowers, but graves. If a religion based on death fails to stir the life-breath, what is surprising? Whose responsibility is it?
In these three days I want to speak only of the religion of life; therefore, the first sutra must be understood. And in regard to this sutra, all efforts till now have been to hide it, suppress it, forget it—not to know and to inquire. The ill effects of that forgetting have spread throughout the world.
What is the central element in ordinary human life—Paramatma? Atman? Truth?
No. In the life-breath of the ordinary human being—who has made no search, taken no journey, done no sadhana—what lies in the depth? Prayer? Worship?
No, absolutely not. If we search in the life-energy of the common man, if we go to find his life-force, we will not find Paramatma there, nor worship, nor prayer, nor meditation. We will find something else. And what we find has been the very thing we have tried to forget, not to know and understand.
What will we find if we cut open the human life-breath and look within? Leave man aside—if we explore the rest of existence, what will we find in its depths? Examine a plant—what will you find? What is a plant doing?
A plant is making its total effort to generate new seed. All its life-sap, all its vitality, is laboring to gather and give birth to new seeds.
What is a bird doing? What is an animal doing?
If we look through all of nature, we will find only one activity throbbing, encircling the life-force with its intensity—the activity of continuous creation. The activity of creation. The activity of renewing life, giving life again and again in new forms. Flowers are guarding the seed; fruits are guarding the seed. What will the seed do? The seed will become a plant again, then again a flower, then a fruit. If we look at all of life, life is the name of an endless process of birth. Life is an energy endlessly engaged in producing itself.
The same is within man. Within man that continuous creative urge we have named sex, kama. By that name, that energy received an insult, an abuse. By that name, a sense of condemnation was created. Within man too there is the ongoing urge to engender life. We call it sex, the power of desire.
But what is this power of desire?
For thousands upon thousands of years the waves of the ocean have been striking against the shore. They come, they strike, they return. They come again, they strike, they return. For thousands of years life, in its infinite waves, has been crashing against the shore. Surely life wants to rise somewhere. These waves of the ocean, these waves of life, want to reach higher; but they strike the shore and are shattered. Then new waves arise, strike, and shatter. This ocean of life has been crashing and struggling for billions of years. It rises daily and falls again. What purpose lies behind this? Surely there is a design to touch greater heights. Surely there is an urge to know deeper depths. Surely behind this continuous process of life there is an effort to give birth to a greater life.
Man came upon the earth not long ago, only some hundreds of thousands of years. Before man there were animals. The animals too are not from so very long ago. There was a time when even animals were not—there were plants. Plants too are not from eternity. There was a time when even plants were not—there were stones, mountains, rivers, the ocean.
What pain was that world of stones and mountains suffering?
It wanted to create plants. Slowly plants appeared; life took a new form. The earth filled with green. Flowers blossomed.
But plants were not content in themselves. They went on generating life. Something in them was also at work. They wished to give birth to animals and birds.
Animals and birds appeared. For thousands of years the world was full of animals and birds—but there was no sign of man. Within the life-breath of animals and birds, man dwelt unborn, longing to be born. Then man was born. Now, what of man?
Man is ever eager to create new life. We call this sex; we call it the lust of desire. But what is the root meaning of that desire? Only this: man does not want to end with himself; he wants to create life further. But why? Is there in the life-breath of man some urge to give birth to someone above man—a superman, a maha-manav?
Surely there is. Surely man’s life-breath is engaged in the effort that a higher life than man may be born, that a being greater than man may appear. From Nietzsche to Aurobindo, from Patanjali to Bertrand Russell, a dream has sat within the soul of man—how may a being greater than man be born?
But how will a being greater than man be born? For thousands of years we have condemned the very urge to be born. We have given to sex nothing but abuse. We are even afraid to speak of it. We have hidden sex as if it does not exist, as if it has no place in life. While the truth is that nothing is more important in human life. We have hidden it, suppressed it. Suppression has not freed man from sex; it has made him all the more obsessed. Suppression has brought the opposite result.
Perhaps some of you have heard of a French psychologist, Coué, and a certain law of his—the Law of Reverse Effect. He formulated a law: the law of opposite outcome. We can act in such a way that the result we get is the very opposite of the result we wanted.
A man learns to ride a bicycle. There is a broad road, wide open, and a small stone lies at the side. The new rider becomes anxious: I must not crash into that stone. The road is so wide that even with eyes closed, it would be hard to hit the stone; perhaps one chance in a hundred. He could pass anywhere. But he stares and trembles—what if I strike the stone? As soon as the fear arises—'I must not hit the stone'—the whole road vanishes from his awareness; only the stone is seen. His front wheel begins turning toward the stone. His hands and feet are flustered. His entire consciousness becomes fixed upon the stone. Hypnotized, he is drawn toward it, and he crashes into it. The beginner collides precisely with what he wanted to avoid! The lamppost, the stone—he hits them. The road was so wide that only a marksman could aim and hit that stone—yet how did this learner hit it?
Coué says there is a law of our consciousness—the Law of Reverse Effect. That which we try to avoid becomes the very focus of our consciousness—and the result is that we collide with it.
For five thousand years man has tried to avoid sex—and the result is that in every lane and street, wherever he goes, he collides with sex. This law has seized the human soul.
Have you noticed? Wherever you try to keep the mind from going, it is drawn and invited there. Those who have counseled mankind against sex have themselves taken responsibility for making man hyper-sexual. Man’s excessive sexuality is the outcome of wrong teaching. And even today we are afraid that sex should not be mentioned. Why are we afraid? Because we think that talk about sex will make people more lustful.
I want to tell you—this is absolutely wrong, utterly false. The earth will be free of obsession with sex the day we become capable of normal, healthy conversation about it. Only by fully understanding sex can we transcend it.
Brahmacharya can be born in the world, man can rise above sex—but by understanding sex, by fully recognizing it. By knowing the whole meaning, pathways, and order of that energy, one can be free of it. No one has ever been freed by closing his eyes. Those who think an enemy vanishes by shutting their eyes are fools. In the desert the ostrich does just that. When enemies attack, the ostrich buries its head in the sand and thinks: since the enemy is no longer visible to me, he does not exist. This logic—one may forgive the ostrich, but man cannot be forgiven.
In regard to sex, man has behaved like the ostrich. He thinks: close your eyes toward sex—and sex will disappear.
If closing the eyes made things disappear, life would be easy indeed. But nothing vanishes by shutting the eyes. Rather, in closing the eyes we certify that we are afraid, that we are weak before it, that we cannot win—therefore we close our eyes. To close the eyes is a symptom of weakness.
And in regard to sex, all humanity has sat with its eyes shut. Not only with eyes shut, but it has even declared war in every way. The results, the disastrous consequences, are known everywhere.
If a hundred people go mad, ninety-eight among them become mad because of the suppression of sex. If thousands of women suffer hysteria, ninety-nine out of a hundred cases of hysteria, epilepsy, fainting, are rooted in sex—suppressed sex. If man is so restless, anxious, so sorrowful and afflicted, the reason is that he has turned his back upon a great power of life without understanding it—and the consequences turn reversed.
If we take up human literature, if ever a god from some celestial realm—or a traveler from the moon or Mars—were to come and read our books, look at our art and poetry, he would be astonished. He would be shocked to see why the whole of human literature is centered upon sex; why our poetry is so sexual; why our stories and novels stand upon sex; why on every book there is the picture of a naked woman; why every film revolves around nakedness. He would be amazed. And if he talked with us, he would be even more astonished: man speaks of soul, of God, of heaven, of Moksha—never of sex! And yet his entire personality is filled on all sides with sex. That Martian would be bewildered. He would say: about what is never discussed, you make a thousand crazy attempts to satisfy.
We have perverted man—and we have done it on the basis of good names. We speak of Brahmacharya, but we never try first to understand man’s sexual energy; only then can experiments in transformation be made. Without understanding that energy, all instruction in restraint and suppression makes man mad, deranged, and sick. We pay no attention to this! Never before has man been so sickly, so mean and weak, so poisoned, so miserable.
I once passed by a hospital and read a noticeboard. It said: one man was bitten by a scorpion; he was treated and returned home in a day, cured. Another man was bitten by a snake; he was treated in three days and returned home, healthy. A third notice said: another man was bitten by a mad dog. He has been under treatment for ten days; he is much improved and will soon be fully cured. And there was a fourth notice: a man was bitten by a man. Several weeks have passed; he is unconscious, and there is no hope of his recovery. I was astonished. Can the bite of man be so poisonous?
If we look closely, we will see: much poison has gathered within man. The first reason this poison has accumulated is that we have not accepted man’s nature. We have tried to suppress it, to break it by force. The great power within man we have made no effort to transform, to raise, to make skyward. We have sat upon that power like an invader. Below, it boils like a volcano, pushing and heaving. It tries to overturn man at any moment. And thus, at the slightest occasion—you know what the first question is that arises?
If an airplane crashes and you reach the pilot’s body, what is the very first question that arises in the mind? Do you wonder—was he Hindu or Muslim? No. Do you think—was he Indian or Chinese? No. The first thought is—was it a man or a woman? Have you noticed why this is the first thought? Because sex is suppressed within. Owing to suppression, men and women outside appear exaggeratedly salient.
Have you ever thought? You can forget a person’s name, caste, face. If I meet you, or you meet me—I could forget everything: your name, your face, your caste, your age, your position—but have you ever forgotten whether the one you met was a man or a woman? Has the doubt ever arisen later—was that person male or female? No, this you cannot forget. Why? When all else is forgotten, why not this?
Because within the mind sex sits in exaggeration. It boils twenty-four hours a day. So all else can be forgotten, but not this. We remain ever alert there.
This earth will not be healthy so long as there is a wall, a gulf, between men and women. The earth will never be at peace so long as the inner fire is boiling and we sit upon it by force. That fire must be pressed down every day, every moment. It burns us as well, reduces our life to ashes. Even so, we refuse to consider—what is this fire?
I tell you, if we understand this fire, it is not an enemy, it is a friend. If we understand it, it will not burn us; it can warm our house in winter, it can bake our bread, it can be our helper and friend. For millions of years lightning flashed in the sky. Sometimes it fell and took a life. No one imagined that one day this electricity would run fans in our homes, that it would bring light into darkness. Today the same electricity has become our companion. Why? Because we did not stand before it with closed eyes; we tried to understand it. Slowly it became our ally. Now without electricity it is hard to live even a moment.
Within man there is a power greater than electricity—sex.
Within man there is a force greater than atomic energy—sex.
Have you ever thought what this power is and how we may transform it? A tiny atom can destroy a city like Hiroshima. But have you ever thought that a single atom of the sexual energy gives birth to a new person? And within that person a Gandhi can be born, a Mahavira can be born, a Buddha, a Christ. An Einstein can be born, a Newton can be born. A small unit of sexual energy conceals a Gandhi within; such a vast personality can be born.
Yet we are unwilling to understand sex! We do not gather the courage to discuss this energy. What fear has seized us—that we do not want to understand the very energy from which all life is born? What dread is this? What panic?
In my last series in Bombay I spoke a little on this, and great fear spread. Many letters reached me—do not speak such things! Do not touch such subjects! I was amazed. Why not? If a power is within us, why not know it? Why not recognize it? Without knowing, without understanding its laws, how shall we raise it higher? Through understanding we can master and transform it. Without understanding we will remain in its hands, rotting and dying, never free of it.
Those who prohibit speaking of sex are the very people pushing the earth into the pit of sex—I want to say that to you. Those who are afraid and think religion has nothing to do with sex are themselves mad, and they are helping to make the entire earth mad.
Religion is concerned with the transformation of human energy. Religion concerns itself with transmuting man’s power. Religion wants that what is hidden in man should be expressed in its highest form. Religion wants life to become a journey from the lower to the higher, from matter to Paramatma. But this wish can only be fulfilled… To understand where we want to go is not as useful as understanding where we stand; for the journey must begin from there.
Sex is a fact. Sex is the fact of human life. And Paramatma? Paramatma is still far. Sex is the fact of our life. Understanding this fact, we may travel toward the truth of Paramatma. But without understanding it, we cannot move even an inch. Like the bullock tied to the oil-press, we will go round and round only near it.
In that last series I said a few things—and it seemed as if we are not even prepared to understand the realities of life. What then is possible? Then all talk of God and Paramatma becomes mere consolation, empty and false. For the supreme truths of life—however naked—must be known and understood.
First then, we must know: man is born of sex. Man’s entire personality is formed of atoms of sex. Man’s very life-breath is filled with sexual energy. Life-energy means the energy of desire. What is this energy? Why does it stir our life so intensely? Why does it influence us so profoundly? Why do we continually circle around it and end there? What is its attraction?
For thousands of years seers and sages have denied it, and yet man has not been affected by their denial. For thousands of years they have said: turn your face away! Keep far from it! Abandon the imagination and longing for sex! Drive these dreams from the mind! But the dreams have not left, nor can they leave in that way. In fact, I have been astonished—astonished that even prostitutes, when I have met them, have not spoken to me of sex; they have asked about soul and God. And when I meet sadhus and sannyasis, whenever they find me alone, they ask only about sex and nothing else. I am amazed! Those who are constantly speaking against it are themselves gripped by it in the depths, tormented there. It will be so—naturally—because we have not tried to understand the problem. We have not wanted to know the laws of this energy. We have not even asked why sex attracts man so much. Who teaches you sex?
The whole world tries to do the opposite—to keep you from learning. Parents try that the child should not come to know. Teachers try; scriptures try. There is no school, no university—and yet one day a man suddenly finds that his entire life-breath is filled with the yearning of desire. How does this happen? Without being taught, how does it happen? Instruction is given in truth, in love—of these there is no trace. But this attraction to sex—so powerful, so natural—what is its deep center? Certainly there is a mystery here that must be understood. Then perhaps we can be free of it.
First: the attraction in man’s life-breath that appears as sex is not really the attraction of sex. The desire (kama) that appears in man’s life is not truly desire for sex. That is why everyone regrets afterward, feels sorrow and pain, and thinks to be free of it. Perhaps the attraction is something else, and that attraction has a very religious meaning. It is this: in the ordinary life of man, apart from the experience of sex, he never descends into the deepest part of his being. Except in that moment, he never goes deep. He does business, he trades, he earns fame, he earns money—but the experience of sex takes him to the deepest. And there, in that depth, two events occur.
First—at the peak of sexual experience, the ego dissolves; egolessness arises. For a moment the ego is not; for a moment even the memory that ‘I am’ disappears. Know this: in the supreme religious experience, the ‘I’ vanishes completely, the ego becomes utterly zero. In the experience of sex, for a moment the ego disappears. For a moment it is as if ‘I am or am not’—the sense of ‘mine-ness’ dissolves.
Second: for a moment, time disappears; timelessness arises.
Jesus has said of Samadhi: there shall be time no longer. In the experience of Samadhi, time is no more. It is beyond time. Time vanishes—there is neither past nor future; only the pure present remains.
In sexual experience this second event occurs—neither past nor future remains. Time dissolves; for a moment, time is gone.
These two elements are the most vital for religious realization—egolessness and timelessness. Because of these, man becomes eager and even mad for sex. The eagerness is not for the body of the woman; nor, in woman, is it for the body of the man. It is not for the body at all. It is for something else—the experience of egolessness and timelessness. Why is there this urge to be egoless and beyond time? Because as soon as the ego dissolves, a glimpse of Atman becomes available. As soon as time disappears, a glimpse of Paramatma becomes available.
For a moment this happens; and for that one moment man is willing to lose any amount of energy, any amount of power. Later he repents, feeling that his strength has been dissipated, wasted—and he knows the more it is wasted, the nearer death comes.
Some creatures die after a single mating. Some insects can mate only once and in the very act they die. In Africa there is a spider that mates only once and dies in the very posture of mating—so much energy is exhausted.
Man learned long ago that sexual experience depletes energy, reduces life-force, and draws death nearer. He repents. Yet after a few hours he finds the same longing again. Surely there is some further meaning in this longing that must be understood.
In the longing for sex there is a religious experience, a spiritual experience. If we can see that experience, we can go beyond sex. If not, we will live and die within it. If we can see it… In a dark night lightning flashes. If we can perceive and understand electricity, we can one day dispel the dark night. But if we conclude that lightning flashes because of the dark night, then we will try to thicken the darkness so that more lightning may appear.
In the happening of sex, a lightning flashes—from beyond. If we can catch hold of that experience that transcends sex, we can rise above sex; otherwise not. But those who stand simply in opposition to sex never understand what that experience is; they cannot analyze rightly what our longing truly seeks.
I want to tell you: the attraction of intercourse is for a momentary Samadhi. And you will be free of sex the day Samadhi begins to happen without sex. That very day you will be free. Because if a man spends a thousand rupees to taste a certain experience, and tomorrow he is told: there is no need to lose money, there are mines of that experience—walk this path and attain it—then he will not go to the market to buy the experience for a thousand rupees.
The experience that sex brings—if that experience can be attained by other pathways—the mind’s movement toward sex ceases on its own. It turns in a new direction. Therefore I say: the first experience of Samadhi in the world became available to man through sex.
But it is a very costly experience, exceedingly expensive. And for other reasons, it can never be more than a moment. For one instant there is a glimpse, and we return to where we were. For one instant we rise to some peak, some height, and we do not even quite arrive before we fall again. Like a wave that rises from the ocean—not quite reaching the sky, not quite lifting its head into the winds, it begins to fall. Exactly so is our sexual experience: again and again, gathering energy, we try to rise—toward some deeper world, some higher world—yet before we can rise, the wave disperses, and we stand back where we were, with our energy spent.
But if a wave of the ocean were to freeze into ice, to crystallize, then there would be no need for it to fall. So long as the mind flows in the liquidity of sex, it rises and falls, rises and falls—and spends an entire life doing only that. For the sake of the very experience that attracts so intensely—egolessness, so that I may know the soul; the disappearance of time, so that I may know that which is eternal, beyond time, without beginning or end—the whole world keeps revolving around sex.
But if we merely stand in opposition to this phenomenon, what will happen? Will we attain the experience that sex reveals for a glimpse?
No. If we stand against sex, sex itself becomes the center of our consciousness. We are not freed, we are bound. The Law of Reverse Effect begins to operate. We become bound. We try to escape; and the more we try, the more we are bound.
There was a man with an illness such that he felt hunger day and night. Truthfully, he had no illness; he had read books condemning food. He had read that eating is sin, fasting is virtue; that any eating is violence. The more he thought eating was sin, the more he tried to suppress hunger; the more he suppressed it, the more violently hunger asserted itself. He would fast for two or three days and then, like a madman, eat anything. Then he would be miserable again, for now he would have to suffer the aftermath of eating. Then in remorse he would fast two or three days, and again eat anything. Finally he decided: living at home, I cannot be cured; I must go to the forest.
He went to the hills. On a hill station, he took a room. His family was also disturbed. Thinking that perhaps on the hills he would be freed from his ailment, his wife, in her joy, sent him many flowers—'I am happy that you may return cured; as a token I send you these flowers.'
His telegram came back: 'Many thanks for the flowers—they are so delicious.' He ate the flowers she had sent him at the hills! Who would imagine a man eating flowers? But the one who starts a war with food can eat flowers.
Man has begun a war with sex—and do you know what all we have eaten in the name of sex? Leave the uncivilized; among tribal people is there homosexuality? Tribals living in the forest have never even imagined such a thing—that men with men might have sexual relations! It is beyond thought. I have lived among tribals and said to them: the civilized do this. They said: it is beyond belief. How is it possible?
Yet in America they have published figures—thirty-five percent are homosexual. And in Belgium, Sweden, Holland there are homosexual clubs, societies, newspapers. They demand that laws against homosexuality be repealed, because when forty percent accept it, to oppose it is an attack on a large minority. 'We hold homosexuality to be right; we should have the right.'
Who could have imagined how this homosexuality arose? It is the result of fighting with sex. The more civilized the society, the more prostitutes there are. Have you wondered how prostitutes came to be? Go to a tribal village—try to find a prostitute. Even today in the villages of Bastar it is hard to find one. No one can even conceive that there are women who sell their honor, their intercourse. But the more 'civilized' man becomes, the more prostitutes multiply. Why?
It is the attempt to eat flowers. Sex has made a place in human life in distorted forms. If we were to take account of how many perverse ways sex has entered life, we would be astonished: what has happened to man? Who is responsible?
Those are responsible who taught man not to understand sex but to fight it; who taught suppression. Because of suppression, the power of sex has burst out in wrong channels. The whole society has become afflicted and diseased.
If we are to change this diseased society, we must accept that there is kama-energy, there is sexual attraction. Why is there this attraction? If we grasp its fundamental basis, we can lift man beyond the realm of kama. And only when man rises above kama does the realm of Ram begin.
I was standing before the temples of Khajuraho. I had taken along five or ten friends. Around the outer wall are images of coupling, statues of sexual postures. My friends asked: what is this around a temple? I said: those who built this temple were wise people. Their understanding was that on the outer circumference of life there is sex. And those who are still entangled with sex have no right to enter within.
Then I said: let us go inside. I took them in—there were no sexual images there. There was the image of God. They said: inside there is no such statue! I said: on the outer circumference of life there is sexual desire—on the wall. Within life is God’s temple. But those still entangled in desire are not entitled to enter the temple; they must circle the outer wall. Those who built this temple were wise. It was a meditation center, a center of dhyana. Those who came were told: first meditate upon coupling, upon sex; first understand sex. And when you have understood sex completely and found that the mind is free of it, then come within. Then meeting God becomes possible.
But in the name of religion we did not create the condition to understand sex; we created enmity with sex. Do not understand sex; close your eyes—and barge into God’s temple with closed eyes.
Has anyone ever reached God’s temple with closed eyes? And if you do arrive with eyes closed, you will not see God there—what you ran away from will be all you continue to see; you will remain bound to it.
Some, hearing me, may think that I am an advocate of sex. That I am a propagandist for sex. If anyone thinks so, tell him he has never heard me. At this time on earth, it would be difficult to find someone who is a greater enemy of sex than I am. And the reason is this: if what I am saying is understood, mankind can be lifted above sex—otherwise not. Those shallow people whom we have imagined to be enemies of sex were not its enemies; by their opposition, they only increased its attraction, they did not create freedom from it.
A man said to me: where there is no opposition, there is no zest. Stolen fruit is sweetest—never as sweet as fruit bought in the market. That is why one’s own wife never seems as sweet as the neighbor’s wife. Those are stolen fruits. And we have given to sex such a status—wrapped it in the cloak of forbidden fruit, hidden it in layers of lies, walled it in—that it has powerfully attracted us.
Bertrand Russell wrote: when I was a small child, in Victorian times, even women’s feet were not visible. They wore clothes that swept the ground, and the feet could not be seen. If ever a woman’s toe became visible, a man would become excited looking at the toe, and lust would arise. And Russell writes: now women move about almost half naked, and their whole leg is visible—and there is no effect.
Russell concludes: the more we hide things, the more ugly fascination they attract.
If we want to free the world from sex, children should be allowed to remain naked longer at home. As long as possible, boys and girls should play naked. Let them become thoroughly familiar with each other’s bodies, so that later there is no need on the street to jostle a woman. Let them become so familiar that there is no need to print a naked woman’s picture on a book. Let them be so familiar with the body that its ugly fascination dissolves.
But the world is upside down. Those who have wrapped and hidden the body have made it all the more alluring. The more we cover, the more the body becomes the object of our brooding. This does not occur to us.
Children should be naked, should play naked longer; boys and girls should see each other in nakedness—so that no madness remains behind it and the lifelong disease of this madness does not fester within. Yet it festers. And we keep increasing it; then we search for new channels for the disease.
Dirty books are printed which people read hidden inside the covers of the Gita; they tuck them into the Bible and read. We say: these vile books should be banned! But we never ask: why is the reader of vile books born? We say: naked pictures should not be on the walls! But we never ask: who comes to see those pictures?
It is the man deprived of seeing the female body. A curiosity has arisen—what is a woman’s body? I tell you: clothing has made the woman’s body more beautiful than it is. Draped and concealed, the body is neither covered nor revealed; it is exhibited. Our entire thinking has brought the opposite result.
So today, in this first day’s talk, I want to say this: what is sex? What is its attraction? Why has its perversion arisen? If we understand these three things rightly, man’s mind can rise above them. It should; it needs to.
But our effort to rise has brought the wrong result, because we created a war, not friendship. We raised enmity, suppression, repression; we did not create understanding.
Understanding is needed, not suppression. The deeper the understanding, the higher man rises. The less the understanding, the more he tries to repress. And repression never yields successful, fruitful, healthy results.
The greatest energy in human life is kama. But we must not stop at kama; we must carry kama to Ram. We must understand sex, so that Brahmacharya can blossom. We must know sex, so that we may be free of it and rise above it.
Rarely has man even tried to understand that within intercourse there is a moment’s taste of Samadhi. That very taste draws us. That very taste calls to us: come. Attentively we must know what experience is attracting me—what is pulling me?
I tell you, there are easy pathways to that experience: meditation, yoga, samayik, prayer—all are paths to it. But it is essential to know that the very experience drawing us is that one.
A friend wrote me: you spoke such things while a daughter sat with her mother, listening! A daughter sat with her father, listening! Such things should not be said in front of everyone.
I told him: you are utterly foolish. If a mother is understanding, then before the daughter enters the realm of sex, she will share with her all her experiences concerning sex—so that the daughter does not go, unknowing and immature, toward wrong paths. If a father is worthy and understanding, he will tell his son, and his daughter too, all his experiences—so that the sons and daughters do not go astray, and their lives are not distorted.
But the trouble is: neither father nor mother has any deep experience. They themselves have not risen above the level of sex; therefore they are afraid that hearing about sex the children too may become entangled at that level. I ask them: by listening to whom did you become entangled? You entangled yourselves; the children will do the same. It may happen that if they are given understanding, reflection, awareness, they may refrain from wasting their energy, they may conserve it, transform it.
On the roadside there lies a heap of coal. Scientists say coal becomes diamond after thousands of years. There is no chemical difference between coal and diamond. The atoms are the same; the organization is the same. A diamond is coal transformed, altered; a diamond is coal.
I want to tell you: sex is like coal; Brahmacharya is like a diamond. But it is coal itself, transmuted. The diamond is not the enemy of coal; it is coal’s transformation. It is coal, understood and led into new directions.
Brahmacharya is not the opposition of sex, it is its transformation. And the one who is an enemy of sex can never attain Brahmacharya.
If one is to move toward Brahmacharya—and one must, because what does Brahmacharya mean? It means that the experience that is like the life of Brahman, like the life divine, becomes available. Brahmacharya means the way of Brahman, the life of Brahman—the experience like that of the divine becomes ours.
It can happen by understanding our energies and transforming them.
In the coming two days, I will speak on how sex can be transformed—how, after transformation, kama becomes the experience of Ram. And for these three days I ask that you listen very carefully, so that no misunderstanding about me remains afterward. And whatever questions arise—honestly and sincerely—write them and give them to me, so that in the last two days I can speak to them directly. There is no need to hide any question. There is no reason to conceal what is true in life. There is no need to deny any truth. What is true is true—whether we close our eyes or open them.
And I say this too: I call that man religious who has the courage to directly encounter all the truths of life. Those who are so weak, lazy, and impotent that they cannot face the facts of life—there is no hope of their ever being religious.
For these coming four days, I give you my invitation. On such a subject it has perhaps not been expected that sages would speak. Perhaps you are not used to hearing it. Your mind may tremble. Even so, I would like you, in these five days, to try to listen rightly. It may happen that the understanding of kama grants you entry into the temple of Ram. That is my longing. May Paramatma fulfill it.
You have listened to my words with such love and peace—for that I am grateful. And in the end I bow down to the Paramatma abiding within all. Please accept my pranam.