The Sex Problem

"I want to write a word on the subject of sex in the life of the disciple. There is much confusion in the minds of aspirants on this matter, and the injunction as to celibacy, is assuming the position of a religious doctrine. We are often told by the well-meaning but illogical, that if man is a disciple, he cannot marry, and that there is no real spiritual attainment, unless a man is celibate. This theory has its roots in two things:
First, there has ever been a mistaken attitude in the East towards women.
Secondly, in the West, from the time of Christ, there has been a tendency towards the monastic and conventional conception of spiritual life. These two attitudes embody two mistaken ideas and lie at the root of much misunderstanding, and at the heart of much evil. Man is no better than the woman, nor woman than man. The belief that to be a disciple necessitates a celibate life, and complete abstinence from all natural functions, is neither correct nor desirable. This can be proved by the recognition of two things:
The first is that if divinity is indeed a reality, and an expression of omnipotence and omnipresence as well as omniscience, and if a man is essentially divine, then there can be no condition possible, wherein divinity cannot be supreme. There can be no sphere of human activity, where man cannot act divinely, and wherein all functions cannot be illumined by the light of pure reason and divine intelligence .

Secondly, a life that is not normally rounded out till all the functions of its nature -- animal, human and divine are exercised.
That all cannot marry in these days is true, but that fact does not negate the greater fact, that man has been created by God to marry . That an enforced celibacy is an indication of a deep spirituality, and a necessary part of all esoteric and spiritual training, is equally false, abnormal, and undesirable. There is no better training school for a disciple and an initiate, than family life, with its enforced relations, its scope for adjustments and adaptability, its demanded sacrifices and service, and its opportunities for the full expression of every part of man's nature. There is no greater service to be rendered to the race, than the proffering of bodies to incoming souls, and the giving of attention and educational facilities, to those souls within the home limits . . . The disciple and the aspirant upon the Path, and the Initiate upon his Lighted Way, have no better training ground therefore, than the marriage relation, rightly used and rightly understood. It is of course true that sometimes a man may be called to some particular life, wherein he is faced with the problem of celibacy, and is forced to abstain from all physical relations, and to live a strictly celibate life, in order to demonstrate to himself that he can control the animal and instinctual side of his nature. But this condition is frequently the result of excess and license in a previous life, which necessitates stringent measures, and abnormal conditions in order to offset and rectify past errors, and give the lower nature time to readjust itself. But again it is no indication of spiritual development, rather the reverse. Forget not that here I am dealing with the special case of self-applied celibacy, and not with the present world-wide condition wherein, through economic and other reasons, men and women are forced to live without a natural and full life expression.
The sex problem must, in the last analysis, be solved in the home, and under normal conditions, and it is the advanced people of the world and the disciples of all degrees, who must thus solve it.
Esoteric Psychology Vol. I

Many initiates have attained their objective when duly and wisely participating in the marriage relation. An initiate cultivates a peculiar attitude of mind, wherein there is a recognition that all forms of manifestation are divine, and that the physical plane is as much a form of divine expression as any other of the higher planes. He realizes that the lowest manifestation of divinity must be under the conscious control of that indwelling divinity, and that all acts of every kind should be regulated by the endeavor to fulfill every obligation, to control every action and deed, and to utilize the physical vehicle so that the group may be thereby benefited and aided in its spiritual progress. . . .
Initiates and Masters, in many cases marry, and normally perform their duties as husbands, wives, and householders, but all is controlled and regulated by purpose and intention, and none is carried away by passion and desire. In the perfect man upon the physical plane, all centers are under complete control, and their energy is legitimately used.
Initiation, Human and Solar

Out of many sexual experiments now going on, the coming generation will arrive at a point of balance and then, as a consequence, they will tip the scales in the desired and desirable direction. Of this there is no question of doubt; there is only the point in time, and this will be astrologically determined. Through the legal minds and through right legislation, sex will be seen eventually to be a proper and divine function, and will then be safeguarded by right education of the young and the ignorant, and the right action of the young and highly intelligent emerging generation - the children and babies of today.
The teaching of wrong sexual habits, the example of widespread prostitution (I use this word in connection with men as well as women), the growth of homosexuality not in its rare physiological forms and predispositions, but from the angle of a perverted mentality, and an unwholesome imagination, which today lie behind so much of its expression), the narrow-minded Christian inheritance of a "guilt complex" where sex is concerned, and the heritage of diseased and over- and under-sexed physical bodies, have brought the race to its present chaotic and unintelligent handling of the important problem. The solution will not be found through religious pronouncements, based upon an outworn theory, or through physiological inhibition or legalized license; neither will it come through legislation, inspired by various schools of thought in any community or nation. It will be the result of the united activity of the spiritually minded consciousness, the judicial attitude, the intellectual perception, and the steady urge of the evolutionary process. Nothing can prevent the inevitability of the solution, and the appearance of desirable attitudes and conditions wherein sex can find right expression. Esoteric Astrology

You have likewise been told that the energy of the sacral center (the center most implicated and active at the time of the first initiation), has to be transmuted and raised to the throat center, thereby transforming the physical creative act into the creative process of producing the good, the beautiful and the true. This is the A B C of your fundamental knowledge: the transmutation of sex. In that transmutative process, men have greatly erred and have approached the subject from two angles:
1. They have sought to stamp out natural desire, and have endeavored to emphasize an enforced celibacy; they have thus frequently warped the nature, and subjected the natural man to rules and regulations which were not of divine intent.

2. They have tried -- at the other extreme -- to exhaust normal sexual desire by promiscuity, license and perversions, damaging themselves, and laying up the basis for trouble for many incarnations ahead.
When a proper recognition of the place the sex life should play in the daily life, is paralleled by the concentration of thought anent the throat center, that center becomes automatically magnetic, and attracts the forces of the sacral center upward through the spine into the place of creative building; the normal sex life is then regulated and not atrophied, and is relegated to its rightful place, as one of the usual faculties or appetites with which man is endowed; it is brought under control through the lack of directed interest, and is subordinated to the law of the land as regards its relation to the opposite pole -- either negative and feminine, or masculine and positive. To the aspirant it becomes mainly the agent for the creation of the vehicles needed for reincarnating souls. Thus by force of example, by the avoiding of all extremes, by the dedication of the bodily energies to the higher uses, and by the acceptance of the law of the land in any given country, and at any given time, the present disorder and the current misuse of the sex principle, will give way to orderly and to right use of this major bodily function."Rays and Initiations

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