HOLISTIC YOGA

COURSE
Well Being for Body, Mind & Spirit

LESSON 11
SEX LIFE

THE ROLE OF SEX IN SOCIETY

Sex has played various roles in various societies. In yoga, sexual
energy is considered, and is experienced, as the central energy.
Sexuality is not peripheral in yoga. It is central. Sex is the most
important energy, or urge, desire, motion, or mental wish. The energy
that keeps the body alive is a sub energy of the sexual energy. In yoga,
sexual energy is called shakti, sometimes personified as a goddess;
that is, it is the reason for doing anything. It is the motivating force. It is
why we are alive. It is why the world is even here. It is not superficial.

Sometimes the approach to sex is to to put up with it because it is

around, hide it, pretend it does not exist, suppress it as much as
possible, push it off to the side, and then lead your life. If you try to do
that, you will be miserable, unhappy, and ill, mentally, emotionally,
physically, or a combination of all of these. You will be frustrated and at
the end of your life will feel that your life had no purpose. It will seem
empty to you. You cannot just push sex aside. Sex is central to life and
living.
SEXUAL ENERGY-CENTRAL ENERGY
It is well known that when a person has a deep religious experience
their description of it could almost describe an orgasm. The similarity
between deep religious experiences and sex is obvious; any yogi
knows this.
Sex is central in another way. The human body is made up of male and
female. It is obvious that females exist and that males exist. We do not
have to pretend that this is the case.

In any particular body, the right side is masculine and the left side is
feminine.
This makes a very sexual situation which the yogis recognised at least
seven thousand years ago. Where the two meet is right at the central
line, the central energy channel. Here again the sexual situation, which
is the meeting of the male and the female, is central in the body. It is
this plane which goes right down through the middle of the body. In
Sanskrit it is called the sushumna. Yoga has a lot to do with this central
energy channel, but the point is that it is central. It is the middle of the
body. It is at the heart of the body.

AREAS OF OPERATION OF CENTRAL ENERGY

When sexual energy is active from the diaphragm down, we
experience it in its most expressive manner as sexuality: sexual urges,
sexual feelings, sexual thoughts.
When sexual energy is active from the diaphragm up to the eyebrows
in the central energy channel, we experience it as divine love, or heart
love, or devotional love.
When sexual energy is operational in the central energy channel in the
dome of the head it is experienced as divinity. It is exactly the same
sexual energy which manifests in all three basic areas. There is no
difference in the energy except where it is operational. It is still shakti,
or sexual energy.

Energy is always operational in the chest, in the function of breathing

and in the heart beating, but this is not the central energy. This is
peripheral energy. The central energy channel has to be operational in
the chest area for you to feel universal love for everyone, and
devotional love for God or Truth.

When the central energy rises up above the eyebrows, then one goes
in samadhi, or the state of union with the Absolute, which is
indescribable. When the energy is operational in the central channel
then you experience these high levels. If the energy is moving in the
central energy channel above the eyebrows you have the Ultimate.
When you have a thought it is either to the right or the left. Sexual or
central energy moves in the central channel. Sexual energy is the most
important thing in your life. Physiologically it is central, and it is central
to the ultimates in life.

If you take the Ultimate, God if you like, and split it in two, you get
female and male. From one you get two. When these two are brought
into union, which is what the word yoga means, then you have the
Ultimate. The Ultimate has returned. As long as you have male and
female, there is separation. The central energy is the same as the
Absolute, or the Ultimate. Sexuality is the central aspect of life. It is
important.

THE BASIC BEING IS AT THE CENTRE

What has this got to do with the basic beingness? Basic beingness is
not personality, not a body, not the way we act, not a superficial
beingness. The basic being is the true you, who you really are. Who
you really are is the basic being and is in the centre; it is the heart of
you, the core of your being.

In the Self Development mandala the being is the centre. The central
energy channel goes through the centre of the mandala. The centre is
the core of the being. Sexuality is the central energy of life and your
basic beingness, who you really are, is in the centre. They are not
different. That is why you cannot just push aside sexuality and live your
life. You will end up with a fake personality. You will think that you are a
fake personality, your life will be a fake life; it will seem like everything
is fake, and you will be right. It will be fake, artificial, hollow, unreal, and
no matter what happens you will never feel satisfied because that core,
who you really are, is not satisfied. Therefore, you must deal with the
subject of sexuality.

USE OF SEXUAL ENERGY

The question is, how is sexual energy dealt with? One way is to not
suppress it, not to shove it aside. People think the other option is to let it
run wild. That does not work either. Wild, permiscuous sexual activity
comes closer to the central being but usually what happens is
wreckage, tragedy, and dispersal.

Part of life involves sexual expression. This cannot, and should not be
avoided. The question is, how is it going to be channelled; how is it
going to be used? How are you going to use this so that it does not just
dissipate? If you misuse sexuality you will dissipate your energy. The
yogis of ancient time realised the following principle: Sex is neither
good nor bad. Sex is sex. The question is, how are you going to use it?
Are you just going to fritter it away? The yogis have recommended
three things: that it be used for success, for family and for liberation.
That is the proper use of sexual energy.
If you use sexual energy for selfish purposes, that is, if you try to satisfy
your ego self and your own desires, then you will dissipate your energy
and create disorder in your life. If you use the sexual energy for
success and your creative powers are properly channelled and
directed, then your life will get better. if you use it for your family, then
the energy is channelled into your relationship with your spouse, and
having and raising children.

The third use for sexuality, known by the yogis is to achieve liberation.
In all three of these cases the sexual energy must be restrained. Even
when you raise children and are successful, if you only try to satisfy
your desires, your sexual energy will be dissipated and you will have
no success. You will soon get bored with your spouse and will only see
all his or her negative qualities. Your spouse will seem uninteresting
and dull. Everything he or she does will irritate you. What began as a
romance went down the drain.

It is not a matter of morals. Sex is neither good nor bad in itself. The
yogic view is that sex is the central energy of life. If you master it and
use it properly, your life will be happy. If you want to be successful and
have a fulfilling life, you are going to have to deal with this energy in a
way that works.

THE BASIC ERROR

Therefore, you have to use the sexual energy for something other than
your own selfish desires. This sounds like moralism but it is not. This is
the error that is made by everyone: "I've got this desire. You say it is
central. I can't suppress it or push it aside, so I've got to deal with it.
What can I do but try to get it satisfied?" The error is this. You think it is
your desire. That is the mistake. That is the mistake that mankind
makes. We think that the sexual urge is ours and it is not.
You did not one day say, "I think what I'm going to do is think up this
thing called sex and I'm going to have an urge to have it." That is not
what happened. You found yourself having this urge, and you thought
it was yours. "I want sexual contact. I want sexual expression." That is
not true. That is not the way it is. That is what the ego is for; it grabs
onto this sexual desire and says, "This desire is mine. It belongs to me.
It is my desire and I'm going to get it satisfied." Good luck.
It is hard to fulfil an untruth. In fact, it is impossible. Sex is not your
desire. It does not belong to you. You did not think it up. You did not
decide to have it. You just found that it was there. That is the case. It is
just there. Some people might say it is God's desire; some people
might say it is a biological desire, that it is an inevitable outcome of the
evolutionary process. These are all good ways to look at it, but on a
practical level we tend to claim it for our own.

The reason why we tend to do that is because it is central. The sexual

energy is central and so is our true state of being. Therefore, it is easy
to identify with the central energy. We tend to think that it is ours. But it
is not.

Therefore, in the first place, you should not blame yourself for having it,
and second, you should not try to satisfy your sexual urges. You have
sexual urges, and they should be satisfied, but they are not yours. They
are running around in your mud, brain, body, and genitals, but they are
not yours. This is the truth. It is this truth that will liberate you from the
error of trying to act from ego in terms of sexuality. It is not your desire.
Whose desire is it? It is God's. It is the energy of God, or Absolute Truth
itself.

GUILT ARISES FROM THE ERROR

The deepest form of guilt comes from trying to satisfy your sexual
desire. You attempt to satisfy your sexual desire and you feel guilty. It
has an inherent untruth in it; that is, that it is your sexual desire. You try
to satisfy it, and if you do get some satisfaction, you usually feel guilty
not long afterwards.

You may think that you do not feel guilty. You may think that you are a
liberated person. There are layers of guilt. There is intellectual guilt. If
you involve yourself in sexual activity and mentally feel that it is wrong,
you will have mental guilt. If you are part of the California liberated
social culture you may have an intellectual view that sex is all right
between any two consenting adults. It is even the law in the State of
California. So intellectually you will not feel guilty. Unfortunately you
were brought up in a society, a Christian-Judaic society, that has an
emotional guilt with regard to sex outside of sanctified situations. This
could be called a religious guilt, or philosophical guilt, but it is actually
more of an emotional guilt, as a result of having been brought up in a
society. Later on we have an intellectual overlay that sex is all right.
Still, especially if somebody has hurt feelings from something that has
happened, you will feel guilty about your involvement in sexual
activities. The same practicality applies to masturbation. You may have
read in a psychology book that masturbation is all right and so you
have this intellectual view that masturbation is all right. However,
underneath, on an emotional level, below the level of thought, the
society and culture that we are grown up with has the religious view
that it is wrong.

If you are trying to satisfy your own sexual desires, it is wrong because
of the inherent untruth in it. On a religious basis it is also wrong
because it defeats spiritual growth, whether that growth be in a
successful life where you're going to be rich, ambitious, and creative,
or in family life, or in the isolant life of a monk seeking liberation. But it
is only wrong because the ego has inaccurately assumed that sexual
desire is the ego's desire, not because sex, itself is wrong. The ego is
connected in, and the ego is saying, "This is my desire and I'm trying to
satisfy it."

To be liberated from this deep-seated guilt that is brought up just by the

whole thought form of the society we live in would take considerable
research and reflection. In every innuendo sex is always a giggle, and
people get embarrassed. It's genetic even. It's so deep-seated it goes
right down into the instinctual level. For millions of years there have
been these patterns compounded by a tremendous cultural overlay.
Otherwise, why do people sneak around? It is because there's
something wrong. In order for you to be liberated from the guilt of
sexual activities, and therefore, to ever be able to handle it, to ever be
fulfilled by it, to ever use it successfully, your whole religious basis, and
your whole cultural basis is going to have to be reviewed and revised.
It won't work to merely alter it on top. You have to look honestly into
your own past, and the teachings of the culture that you've been
brought up in, and you're going to have to question it, "What did Christ
really mean? What did Moses mean? What did Abraham mean?" right
down to the roots. This does not mean that you have to become a
theologian, but you do have to study it for yourself. You have to find out
how it applies to you instead of just pretending that sensuality is all
right and all you need to do is to satisfy your sexual urge. That's just
trying to skip over the top of it. You need to get down to the root of it. To
get over the root guilt, one of the things you could do is to realise that it
is not your urge in the first place. It's not your energy. It's just there.

CHANNELLING SEXUAL ENERGY

How can you use sex for success, for a happy family, and for
liberation? To turn on the creative power, you'll have to restrain the
sexual urge. If you get an urge to have sex with someone else, with
yourself, or however, hold it in. This will cause the energy to go up the
central channel and soon you'll be hyper; you'll wonder what's wrong,
why you are so weird? You think what's wrong is that you haven't had
any sexual outlet for awhile. The usual human solution is to try to find
an outlet for the sexual energy at the earliest possible moment.

ASSIGNMENT
1. Record your thoughts and feelings in your spiritual journal.
2. Do the following relating dyads or record your reflections in your
spiritual diary.
a) Tell me what sex is.
b) Tell me what you’ve done with regards to sex that you think you
should not have done.
c) Tell me how you have abused another in the name of sex.