Now, as you are today, you are your lust; you are not your souls. You can also become souls, but only by the gradual transformation of your sexuality. Only then can your journey to God begin.
I have said you must strive for continuous awareness of the glimpse of samadhi in coitus. One should try to grasp that point, that glimpse of samadhi which flashes like lightning in the midst of intercourse, which shimmers for a second like a will-o’-the-wisp and then vanishes. Your effort must be to know it, to become acquainted with it, to hold to it. If you can make the contact fully, even once, at that moment you will know that you are not a body, that you are bodiless. For that fraction of time, you are not a body; at that moment you are transformed into something else: the body is left behind and you become the soul, your real self. If you have a glimpse of that glory even once, you can pursue it, through dhyana, through meditation, to establish a deep and lasting relationship with it. Then the path to samadhi is yours. And when it becomes part of your understanding, part of your knowledge and of your life, there will be no more room for lust.
Another friend is afraid of what might happen to our progeny, to our whole race, if we drop sex like this.” If everyone attains celibacy through samadhi,” he asks,” what about the future generation?”
One can definitely state that the kind of children now being produced won’t exist. The present manner of procreation is fine for producing cats, dogs and other animals, but it is not good enough for man. What kind of attitude to procreation is this? What kind of thoughtless production of children is this? This sort of mass, accidental procreation is aimless; it is useless. And how vast our crowd has become! Our population has exploded to such incredible proportions that if it is not checked in time, scientists say there will not even be room to move your toes in a hundred years! In a hundred years you will always feel you are in the middle of some kind of congregation. Wherever you look you will feel a meeting is going on. To call a meeting will be unnecessary.
This particular friend’s question is very relevant. He may well ask how children will be produced if celibacy becomes commonplace.
I want to give him one more eye-opener, and you should also take note: Children can be born out of celibacy, but the entire purpose and meaning of producing children will have a new dimension. Lust is not the right vehicle for procreation – celibacy is the only medium discriminating enough. As it is now, the birth of a child is accidental: you move into sex with some other motive; children just happen. Children are uninvited guests, and you can only have as much love for these children as you have for unexpected visitors.
And how are uninvited guests treated? You prepare beds for their comfort and you serve them food; you greet them politely and you pamper them – but everything is done out of etiquette; there is no feeling of love inside. Your constant thought is,” When are these bores going to leave?” You treat unwanted children the same way, for the simple reason that you never really wanted them in the first place. You were after something else; they were simply by-products. Today’s children are not products, they are by-products. They are not produced, they come along with sex like the husks that appear with the corn.
And so, the whole world has been trying to protect sex from these accidents. Birth-control developed out of this attitude; unnatural aids were invented so we could enjoy sex and, at the same time, be safe from children. For ages, efforts have been made to rescue mankind from this so-called evil. Even ancient Ayurvedic scriptures mention remedies. Today’s selfish scientist is also concerned about the same thing that worried Ayurvedic scholars three thousand years ago.
Why? Why does man concentrate on this research? Children kick up storms; children pop up in between things; children bring the burden of responsibility, and there is also a danger of a woman’s apathy towards sex after childbirth.
Men don’t want children either. A man may want children if he hasn’t any, but it is not because he loves children, it is because he loves his wealth. When a man wants a child, do not be misled into believing that his soul is anxious for a son, for a new and innocent human being. He has amassed his wealth by hard labour. Who knows whose hands it might fall into after his death! He needs an heir, one born out of his own blood, to save his wealth, to enjoy his estate. No one wants a child for the child’s sake. We try to save ourselves from them, but they simply come of their own accord. We just want to enjoy sex and a child drops in! These offspring are the by-products of sexuality. They are sick, they are weak, they are frail, they are ridden with anxiety.
Children can also be conceived by celibates, but they will not be the accidental by-products of sex. When this happens, sex will be the means to bring forth children but it will not be an end unto itself.
When you reach the state of super consciousness through sex, when you have attained to brahmacharya, to the state of communion with the divine, your child will be a true product, he will be truly a creation! But up to now, man’s ingenious mind has concentrated on building defence mechanisms to help him avoid children and yet allow the fullest enjoyment of sex. Efforts should be made in the opposite direction. But we still want to remain in our seats even after we have reached Palam airport in Delhi. Do you get my point? If brahmacharya became widespread, our inventiveness could be applied in the direction of spirituality. At present, the push is in the opposite direction loathe the idea of children and enjoy sex for the sake of sex alone.
I also wish to ask this man why he is so worried about saving the world from brahmacharyas. He is so very apprehensive at present that people becoming brahmacharya might stop the birth of children and end the world. My friend, as things are now, the possibility of people becoming brahmacharya is nil. And it will remain so, as long as this callous, conscious and peculiar disrespect for sex exists. No, my friend, there is no danger to the world from that quarter. But the possibility of extinction is increasing day by day because of these continuous, accidental births. If you go on producing children in this fashion the world will certainly come to an end. And you won’t need atom bombs or hydrogen bombs. This ever-multiplying population, this obscene by-product of a swarm of worms will destroy itself.
The new man, born out of brahmacharya, will be of different stature. He will have longevity we cannot imagine. His health will be excellent; he will be free of illnesses. His form and figure will be like that of some majestic statue. An ethereal fragrance will emanate from him. Kindness, love, truth, beauty and religion will be his character. He will be born with religion in him. He will be a kind of divinity incarnate.
We have been produced irreligiously. We are inflicted with irreligiousness from birth and we die in irreligion. And in between, from morning to night, from birth to death, throughout the entire span of our lives, we talk and talk and talk about religion. In the superior man, there won’t be any idle chatter or empty discussion about religion, because religion will be his way of life. We talk about things that are not part of our lives and don’t talk about the things that are. We don’t talk about sex because it is the way we live, but we keep talking about God because the way we live has nothing to do with God whatsoever. In fact, we keep ourselves satisfied by talking about the very things we can neither attain nor obtain.
Haven’t you ever noticed that women talk more than men? Women are always busy talking about something or other – with their neighbours, with anyone who will listen. No offence is meant, but it is said that it is very difficult to imagine two women sitting together for a time without talking to one another. Why do women talk as much as they do? Men have their work, but women don’t have that much to do. Where there is not much work, not much activity, there is always idle chatter. This feminine trait is the national character of India. There is no progress in this country; there is only talk and discussion.
The new man, the man born out of brahmacharya, won’t be talkative – he will live life. He won’t just talk and talk about religion; he will live in religion. People will forget about religion as a topic for idle discussion because religion will be their very nature. To think about that man, to imagine him is wonderful; it is awe-inspiring.
Such men have been born, but their births have been rare. Occasionally, very occasionally, such a beautiful man is born that even the costliest clothes cannot beautify him, and he rises up unclad, naked, and the radiance of his beauty spreads far and wide. People throng around such a man – to see him, to marvel at a living deity. One such man had such a glow, had such vitality about him that although his name was Vardhamana people called him Mahavir – the great victor. The glory of brahmacharya in him was such that people prostrated themselves before him, before this Godman. Occasionally a Buddha is born, occasionally a Christ is born, occasionally a Lao Tzu is born. We can barely count more than a few names like these in the whole history of mankind.
The day children are born out of celibacy, out of divine communion – you probably don’t like the sound of the phrase ”children by celibacy” but I am talking about a new concept, about a nobler possibility – the day children bloom out of celibacy, humanity will be so beautiful, so strong, so considerate, so energetic and so intelligent that the knowledge of the self, of the Overself, of the Universal Consciousness, won’t be very far away for anyone. Although this is difficult to imagine.
