From
the Work of the Tibetan (Djwhal Khul),
through Alice A. Bailey
Self-indulgence
and the control of the human being by any part of his organism are
always inevitably wrong. When a man's entire mind is occupied with
the thought of women, or vice versa; when he lives mainly to satisfy
an animal craving; when he finds himself unable to resist the lure
of his polar opposite, then he is a victim of and is controlled
by the lowest part of his nature, the animal.
But when man recognizes his physical functions as a divine heritage,
and his equipment as having been given him for the good of the group
and to be rightly used for the benefit of the human family, then
we shall see a new motivating impulse underlying human conduct where
sex is concerned. We shall see the elimination of promiscuity, with
its attendant evil, disease.
We shall see the solution of the problem of too many children and,
incidentally, easement of the economic problem. Through right control
of the sex function and its relegation to the purpose for which
it exists (the carrying onward of the human family and the providing
of bodies whereby souls call gain experience) then right use will
be made of sex. Then, passion, Lust, self-gratification, disease,
and over-population will die out in the world. Matter will no longer
be prostituted to selfish desire, and the relation between the sexes
will be governed by understanding of divine purpose and skill-in-action.
Two points of view are equally wrong: in the one
case we have practices taught which lead eventually to sexual orgies.
These have been dignified by the name of sex magic, and in the sexual
orgasm, deliberately induced, a man is led to believe that the physical
sex act is his highest point of spiritual opportunity and that,
at such a moment, he can touch, if he will, the kingdom of Heaven.
The other attitude, which makes marriage and all expression of the
sex life a sin for a disciple and which says that a man cannot be
pure in the truly spiritual aspect if he marries and raises a family,
is as devastatingly dangerous.
There is no state of consciousness and no condition of life in which
it is impossible for a man to function as a son of God.
If it is not possible for a man to live the life of discipleship
and the life of initiation and, with due self-control and understanding,
live a normal, balanced sex life; then there is a department of
human expression in which divinity is helpless, and this I refuse
to recognize.
There is no department of life, no field of expression, no meeting
of obligation, no use of the physical apparatus, in which the soul
cannot fulfil the part of the dominating factor and all things be
done truly to the glory of God. But the soul must control, and not
the lower nature.
People forget that some of the greatest of the world initiates married;
that the Buddha married and had a son, and must have been an initiate
of high degree when he entered into the married state. They forget
that Moses, David the Psalmist, and many of the outstanding figures
in the world of mysticism in both hemispheres, were married and
raised families.
Disciples belong to all races, both in the occident and in the orient,
and the attitude of different races towards sex is widely diversified.
Standards of conduct differ. The legality or the illegality of relations
varies. Different epochs and different civilizations have seen relationships
that were legal at one time, and illegal at another. Some races
are monogamous and some races are polygamous. In some civilizations
the woman is regarded as the dominant factor, and in others the
man. Down the ages sex perverts, homosexuals, true and spurious,
have been with us, and today is probably no worse than 5,000 years
ago, except that everything is now dragged out into the light, which
is good.
Everybody talks about the problem; and the rising generation are
asking in no uncertain tones: "What about sex? What is right and
what is wrong?" How can they be expected to deal with a question
which has been discussed, seemingly in the most futile manner, down
the ages?
Here it is pertinent to note that Minos, King of Crete, who owned
the sacred bull also possessed the maze in which the Minotaur lived,
and the maze has ever been the symbol of the great illusion. The
word "maze" comes from an old English word, meaning to bewilder,
to confuse, to puzzle.
The island of Crete with its maze and its bull is an outstanding
symbol of the great illusion. It was separated from the mainland,
and illusion and bewilderment are characteristics of the separated
self, but not of the soul on its own plane, where group realities
and universal truths constitute its kingdom.
The bull, to Hercules, typified animal desire, and the many aspects
of desire in the world of form which, in their totality, constitute
the great illusion. The disciple, like Hercules, is a separated
unit, divided from the mainland, the symbol of the group, by the
world of illusion and the maze in which he lives. The bull of desire
has to be caught and mastered and chased from one point to another
in the life of the separated self, until the time comes when the
aspirant can do what Hercules succeeded in doing: ride the bull.
To ride an animal, in the ancient myths, signifies control. The
bull is not slaughtered, it is ridden and guided, and under the
mastery of the man. There are potencies and faculties hidden in
the human being that, when developed and unfolded, may bring new
powers to bear upon this problem. But, in the meantime, what shall
the aspirant do?
Certain suggestions may be made:
1.Ride, control and master the bull and let the aspirant remember
that the bull has to be ridden across the waters to the mainland;
which means that the solution of the whole sex problem will come
when the disciple subordinates his separated personal island self
to group purpose and endeavor, and begins to rule his life by the
question, "What is best for the group with which I am associated?"
It is by doing this that the bull is ridden to the mainland.
2.Use common sense. The ancient meaning of the word "common sense"
was that there was a sense which synthesized and unified the five
senses and so constituted a "common sense", literally, the mind.
Let the aspirant use his mind, and through the medium of intelligent
perception, guide and control the bull of desire. If common sense
is used, certain dangers will be avoided.
There is a danger in the method of many aspirants in inhibiting
or shutting off all sex expression. Physiologically they may succeed,
but the experience of psychologists and teachers is that where inhibition
and a drastic suppression is imposed upon the organism, the result
is some form of nervous or mental complex. Many physically clean
people have unclean minds. Many who would scorn the practise of
any of the sex perversions and who hold that marriage is not for
the disciple, have mental apparatuses which will not bear investigation.
Their minds and their interpretations of other people's actions
are so salacious and their capacity to think evil so great, that,
dangerous as this may sound, one feels that it would be better for
them to be ridden by the bull of desire than to continue their present
practice of substituting mental indulgence for outer sin.
A clean mind and a pure heart, a rightly organized and rightly used
physical body, conformity to the laws of the land in which his destiny
is cast, utter consideration for the welfare of those with whom
he is associated, and a life of loving service: these constitute
the ideals of the aspirant.
3.A right understanding, of the meaning, of celibacy. The word means
"single" and the meaning usually given to the word is, to refrain
from the marriage relation.
Many young men and women, driven by spiritual desire and under the
influence of the thought-form of the church during the Middle Ages,
with its many monasteries and convents, believe that for them the
celibate state is essential and right, and are puzzled when they
find that complexes result. But may it not be that the true celibacy
has been expressed for us in the words of Christ, when he said,
"If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light"?
May it not be that true celibacy is the refusal of the soul any
longer to identify itself with the form? May not the real marriage
relation, of which the physical plane relation is but the symbol,
be that of the union of the soul and the form, the positive spirit
aspect and the negative mother-matter? Let the soul be single in
its purpose and freed from the thralldom of matter, and then right
action and a right point of view will inevitably be the characteristics
of the physical plane life.
Let the soul ride the form, controlling and mastering it, and then
it will surely know its right obligations. It will recognize the
relation that it should hold to other human beings, whether its
destiny is to be that of husband or wife, father or mother, brother
or sister, friend or companion.
Through right use of the form and right understanding of purpose,
through right orientation to reality and right use of spiritual
energy, the soul will act as the controlling factor and the whole
body will be full of light.
Through control, through the use of common sense, by a right understanding
of celibacy, and by identification with group purpose, the disciple
will arrive at liberation from the control of sex. He will succeed
in following the example of Hercules and will ride the bull of desire
over to the mainland where, in the Temple of God, he will hand it
over into the care of the Cyclops who were early initiates, having
the single eye about which we have been speaking, the eye of Shiva,
the Bull's eye in the constellation Taurus.
For Hercules himself was not only the disciple, but he was, in his
lower nature, the bull, and in his higher nature the Cyclops. When
the bull of desire has been handed over to the Cyclops, to the initiate
with the single eye, which is himself, the soul, the three divine
aspects, will begin to manifest: Brontes, Steropes and Arges will
guard the sacred bull, and Hercules, the disciple, will no longer
have any responsibility.
Brontes is the symbol of the first aspect of God, the Father who
spoke and is the creative sound.
Steropes means lightning, or light, and is the second aspect, the
soul.
Arges means whirling activity, the third aspect of divinity, expressing
itself in the intense activity of physical plane life.
These divine aspects constitute the controlling factor and once
they have gained possession of the sacred bull, the problem of Hercules
is solved.
The solving of the sexual problem will release the minds of men
from an inhibition and an undue concern, and so produce a mental
freedom which will admit of the inflow of new ideas and concepts.
We shall discover that vice and virtue have no real reference to
ability and inability to conform to man-made laws, but to man's
attitude to himself and to his social relation with God and his
fellowmen.
Virtue is the manifestation in man of the spirit of cooperation
with his brothers, necessitating unselfishness, understanding and
complete self-forgetfulness. Vice is the negation of this attitude.
These two words signify in reality simply perfection and imperfection,
conformity to a divine standard of brotherhood or a failure to achieve
that standard.
Standards are shifting things and change with man's growth towards
divinity. They vary also according to man's destiny as it is affected
by his time and age, his nature and surroundings. They alter also
according to the point of evolutionary development. The standard
for attainment is not today what it was one thousand years ago,
nor a thousand years hence will it be what it is today.
[And from Esoteric Psychology I - Section Two - II.]
The Rays and the Kingdoms in Nature Yet all periods of the world's
history have not been as critical as today, for - apart from the
great cyclic opportunity to which I have earlier referred - we have
in humanity itself a unique attainment. For the first time in racial
history, we have the expression of a true human being, of man as
he essentially is.
We have the personality, integrated and functioning as a unit, and
we have the mind and the emotional nature fused and blended, on
the one hand with the physical body, and on the other with the soul.
Also, the shift of emphasis is today away from the physical life
to the mental life, and in an increasing number of cases to the
spiritual life. There is therefore little real cause for depression,
if what I have here noted is true.
There is today, on a wide scale, a true "lifting up of the heart
unto the Lord," and a steady turning of the eyes towards the world
of spiritual values. Hence the present upheaval. Apart from the
coming in of the new age, apart therefore from the inflow of the
Christ spirit, with its transforming power and regenerating force,
and apart from the cyclic return of the seventh ray energies, we
have mankind in a condition where the response to the deeper spiritual
energies and to the new opportunities is, for the first time, adequate
and synthetic. Hence the increasing problem. Hence the great day
of opportunity. Hence the wonder of the dawn which can be seen brightening
in the east.
I should like here to approach the problem of sex from another angle
and point out that it is a basic symbol. A symbol, as we well know,
is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual reality.
What is this inward reality?
First of all, the reality of relationship. It is a relationship
existing between the basic pairs of opposites, - Father-Mother,
spirit-matter; between positive and negative; between life and form,
and between the great dualities which - when brought together in
the cosmic sense - produce the manifested son of God, the cosmic
Christ, the conscious sentient universe.
Of this relation the Gospel story is a dramatic symbol, and the
historical Christ is the guarantee of its truth and reality. Christ
guarantees for us the reality of the inner significance and the
true spiritual basis of all that is and ever shall be. Out of the
relation of light and dark that which is invisible emerges into
visibility, and we can see and know. Christ, as the light of the
world, revealed that reality.
Out of the darkness of time God spoke, and the Fatherhood of Deity
was revealed.The drama of creation and the story of revelation are
depicted for us, if we could but see truly and interpret our facts
with spiritual exactitude, in the relation of the two sexes and
in the fact of their intercourse with each other. When this relation
is no longer purely physical but is a union of the two separated
halves on all three planes, - physical, emotional and mental - then
we shall see the solution of the sex problem and the restitution
of the marriage relation to its intended position in the Mind of
God.
Today it is the marriage of two physical bodies. Sometimes it is
the marriage also of the emotional natures of the two people concerned.
Rarely indeed is it a marriage of minds as well. Sometimes it is
the union of the physical body of one party, with the physical body
of the other party left cold and uninterested and uninvolved, but
with the emotional body attracted and participating. Sometimes the
mental body is involved with the physical body, and the emotional
nature left out.
Seldom, very seldom, do we find the coordinated, cooperating fusion
of all the three parts of the personality concerned in both parties
to the union. When this is indeed found, then you have a true union,
a real marriage, and a blending of the two in one.
It is here that some of the schools of esoteric teaching have gone
sadly astray. The false idea has crept into their presentation of
truth that marriage of this kind is essential for spiritual liberation
and that without it the soul remains in prison. They teach that
through the marriage act, at-one-ment with the soul is brought about,
and that there is no spiritual deliverance without this marriage.
At-one-ment with the soul is an individual interior experience,
resulting in an expansion of consciousness, so that the individual
and specific becomes at-one with the general and universal. Behind
the erroneous interpretation, however, lies truth.Where this true
marriage and these ideal sexual relations on all three planes are
found, the right conditions exist in which souls can be provided
with the needed forms in which to incarnate. Sons of God can find
forms in which to manifest on earth.
According to the scope of the marriage contact (if so unusual a
form of words can be used in this connection), so will be the type
of human being attracted into incarnation. Where the parents are
purely physical and emotional, so will be the nature of the child.
Thus is the general average determined. Today we have a world of
men which is rapidly reaching a high stage of development. We have
therefore a dissatisfaction with the present views on marriage,
preparatory to the enunciation of certain hidden principles which
will eventually govern the relations between the sexes, and provide,
as a consequence, the opportunity to men and women to furnish, through
the creative act, the needed bodies for disciples and initiates.
Under the symbol of sex, you have also the reality of love itself
expressing itself. Love in reality connotes a relation, but the
word "love" (like the word "sex") is used with little thought and
with no attention to its true meaning. Basically, love and sex are
one and the same thing, for both express the meaning of the Law
of Attraction. Love is sex, and sex is love, for in those two words
the relation, the interplay and the union between God and His universe,
between man and God, between a man and his own soul, and between
men and women are equally depicted.
The motive and the relation are emphasized. But the impelling result
of that relation is creation and the manifestation of form through
which divinity can express itself and come to be. Spirit and matter
met together, and the manifested universe came into being. Love
is ever productive, and the Law of Attraction is fruitful in results.
Man and God came together under the same great Law, and the Christ
was born, - the guarantee of the divinity of humanity and the demonstration
of the fact. Individual man and his soul are also attempting to
come together, and when that event is consummated the Christ is
born in the cave of the heart, and Christ is seen in the daily life
with increasing power. Man therefore dies daily in order that Christ
may be seen in all His glory. Of all these wonders, sex is the symbol.
Authors
Details:
From the Work
of the Tibetan (Djwhal Khul), through Alice A. Bailey
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