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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