Is Sex your path to spirituality?
Celibacy for spirituality was the last millennium’s mantra. New age gurus are re looking at the sexual experience and linking it to the spiritual realm. Let’s look at what their latest findings are…
Deepak Chopra, the world’s favourite new age guru, is coming out with a book which he promises, will be a ‘contemporary version of the Kama Sutra.’ The Kama Sutra, as every self-respecting Indian knows, is the text that sees pleasure, or Kama, as one of the four goals of life, the other three being, Dharma, Arth and Moksha.
ORGASM: A Mini-Samadhi
Chopra’s delving into this topic has once again opened the subject of the connection between sex and spirituality. It reminds us of Osho, who catapulted the sex vs. spirituality controversy centre stage with his book From Sex To Super Consciousness. He propounded the view that orgasm is a mini and temporary Samadhi since it can transport you to a state of pure rapture. The mind becomes devoid of thought. Our egocentric view of life disappears and we step outside of time into the timeless. This line of thinking was so revolutionary that at that time it attracted a lot of flak.
Since then, however, this idea has been explored by thinkers and philosophers, spiritual masters and sex gurus.Margot Anand, who teaches Sky Dancing Tantra, a system that combines elements of Tantra and modern psychology, coined the term ‘High Sex’, defined thus: “High Sex takes the experience of orgasm to a dimension in which the genital orgasm is only the beginning. It inspires you to explore the full capacity of orgasm. Culminating in ecstatic body-to-body and soul-to-soul communion, it is an experience to the whole body, the whole being.”
SEX—Positive View
A widely held view seems to be that sex, long seen as the enemy of the sprit, is actually its ally. To become spiritually whole, we must liberate our sexuality from the thrall of guilt, shame and repression and allow it to find full expression as a healthy, natural and even sacred part of life.
Vikas Malkani, an Indian spiritual guide and author, is reported to have said: “Making love can become a giving, expressing, selfless act, which is a form of prayer itself. Through the body, the hearts are touched; the emotions opened and desires expressed, fears released, security given and souls merged. Through the act of physical sharing, God is remembered and revered. Making love goes from the physical level to the emotional and finally to spiritual level where it becomes a prayer to the divine.”
Deepak Chopra too, believes that “Sexual desire is sacred and chaste. The suppression of sexual energy is false, ugly and unchaste. Sexual energy is sacred energy but meaningful sex has to be value based.” Not just that but, says Chopra, “Sex is many peoples’ only experience of meditation.” The belief is gaining such popularity that the spiritual practice of celibacy, considered, for the millennia, crucial for spiritual enlightenment by Christians, Buddhists and Hindus, is up for debate. Will Chopra’s contemporary version of Kama Sutra be able to convince the non-believers that “once we have restored the sexual experience to the realm of the sacred, our world will be chaste and divine, holy and healed”?
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