Why is religion obsessed with sex? || Acharya Prashant Workshop (2023)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Sir, why is religion so obsessed with sex?

00:14In the sense that the normal kind of religious people who are socially respectable, all that

00:20they have in their mind regarding religion contains a lot of sexual connotations.

00:26So for example, they'll keep saying that abstain from the other gender and practice celibacy.

00:34Instead of talking about core scriptures, I find them talking of women, don't do this

00:40to women, don't look at women, don't talk to women, don't have relationship with women.

00:47Now I'm not saying that men should have a lot of sexual relationships.

00:51No, that is not what I'm saying.

00:54What I'm saying is that instead of focusing on scriptures and knowledge and the removal

00:59of one's own inner ignorance, why are the social and moral and religious people talking

01:05so much of sex and women?

01:09See what has happened is Rajdeep, social morality in some way has become conflated with religiosity.

01:22If you ask a normal man, he will be unable to tell the difference between social morality

01:27and religiosity.

01:32And what you call as social morality has so much to do with sex, everything to do with

01:39sex.

01:41It is as if sexuality becomes the touchstone of morality.

01:53Not consciousness, not knowledge, not realization, but sexuality.

02:00So it becomes a very probable kind of thing for a religious person to start thinking of

02:12sexuality as very important and then it starts hovering in your mind.

02:22What does true spirituality have to say about sex?

02:28The answer might surprise you.

02:31It has not much to say about sex.

02:35It is popular culture and morality etc that wax eloquent on sex.

02:40Sex, sex, sex.

02:41He is a good man, why?

02:42Because he doesn't have sex.

02:44What kind of definition is this of a good man?

02:47Somebody is a bad man, why?

02:51You know there are some.

02:54What kind of definition is this?

02:57Arjun is talking in a body centric way.

03:05He says the war is not to be fought for the sake of keeping the women chaste.

03:12And women, first of all, the women come in from nowhere.

03:17So just as women circle in your mind, you have someone else who faces the same situation.

03:25Think of Arjun, in the middle of the war, only men are assembled there and animals and

03:32weapons.

03:33Arjun is suddenly thinking of the women.

03:38What will happen to the women?

03:40Obviously it is not that he is thinking of the women, he is thinking of himself with

03:45respect to the women.

03:46If I am not there, what will my women do?

03:50Do you see the orientation?

03:51The orientation is sexual.

03:53And that's what happens to most religious people, their orientation becomes sexual.

03:58A normal man does not think of sex so much.

04:02But a so called religious mind just keeps thinking of sex all the time.

04:09And not his fault, because he has been told that religiosity and sex are very intertwined.

04:15So he is thinking of sex, sex, sex.

04:18And when he is thinking of sex, he has to suppress sex a lot.

04:26Take lesson from this.

04:29Sex has to become something small, something not very important, not a great monster that

04:40you are fighting all the time.

04:46Just as you do not remember what you took for breakfast yesterday.

04:49Sex is something you do not even, you should not even remember.

04:54If it is instead present in the mind all the time, what to do?

05:03So sometimes it happens that, especially while reading scriptures, I think that, so normal

05:10times I am thinking about sex and women and then I think that, okay, let me start studying

05:14scriptures.

05:15In this way, the thoughts about women and sex will go away.

05:18But while studying scripture, I continuously keep a look whether the thoughts about women

05:23and sex have gone away or not.

05:25But by continuously looking at those things, I end up…

05:27No, no, this will not succeed, Rajat.

05:29This is a very, very traditional route you are taking, it's doomed to fail.

05:34See, when we began today, in the afternoon, we said prakriti ensnares you, traps you only

05:47because you do not understand.

05:49Realize it.

05:51You don't know it.

05:52What you do not understand, you fall for.

05:58In some way, the un-understood will torment you.

06:07It will remain a bit of a knot, unresolved.

06:14Because you are body-identified, therefore you remain distant from women, right?

06:20As a man, you have to be separated from women, that's an identity you have accorded yourself,

06:26I am a man, that puts you at a distance from women.

06:30And that which you are distanced from, you will never understand.

06:35To know something, you have to go close to it.

06:39But what does sex mean or a sexual orientation mean?

06:42It means you will be most of the times away from the object of your desire and even if

06:53you go close to it, you will go close only with the purpose of exploitation and consumption.

07:00You will never go close with a view to understand.

07:07So common morality means that men will never understand women and women will never understand

07:12men because common morality keeps men away from women and women away from men, right?

07:18In common morality, if you find men and women mingling too much, you say, oh loose character,

07:22cheap fellow, all the time he is hanging around with women.

07:26Are you getting this?

07:29The problem, do you understand?

07:32If you are so separated from women, how will you ever understand women?

07:37And we said that in Prakriti, which you do not understand, you will never be liberated from.

07:47Because I had said that you are attracted to so many women because you have never understood

07:52even one woman.

07:54If you can understand even one woman, you will be liberated from all women.

08:01The un-understood remains unresolved.

08:06The further you keep yourself from something, the more that thing remains an attractive

08:13enigma to you.

08:17Have you not heard men saying this way?

08:19Nobody can understand the mind of a woman.

08:22How can you ever understand her?

08:24You never really went close to her.

08:26Whenever you went close, your only purpose was sex.

08:29Otherwise you never tried to enter her mind because you never tried to enter your own

08:33mind either.

08:35You understand neither yourself nor the woman.

08:38So you feel a very animalistic compulsion towards her and nothing more.

08:47Just as you want to know of everything in the universe, you must also know women.

08:56And women must also know men.

08:59And that cannot happen if your mediocre kind of morality keeps you at a distance from the

09:07other gender.

09:09If you cannot sit across the table and talk to the other as a person, as a being of consciousness,

09:15how will you ever understand the other person?

09:20But our sex-laden society amplifies the sexual component in the personality so much that

09:30when someone from the other gender comes to you, all you see is a huge genital.

09:37You do not realize that sex is only a small part of the entire personality.

09:42Why can't you talk politics?

09:44Why can't you talk sociology?

09:45Why can't you talk economics or science or spirituality or sports or whatever?

09:50We live in a distorted culture.

09:56It does not allow us to remain at ease with the other gender.

10:01Sahaj.

10:02Sahaj.

10:03That's a word that you do not have when it comes to women.

10:07Neither do women have it when it comes to men.

10:09Don't you experience a certain unease?

10:15Recently there was this news item, a very tragic one.

10:17But look at this.

10:18One fellow was to write his board exams and he was sent to an examination center where

10:25there were 500 girls and he got a heart attack and actually died.

10:33That kind of unease.

10:37Think of it.

10:38He was thinking of women all the time.

10:41And so when he found so many of them around himself, he just couldn't take it.

10:46It's tragic obviously, but look at the lesson.

10:54I mean, you won't believe regarding this only.

11:06So one of my friends actually sent that news to me and said that, look, this is your younger

11:14self.

11:15I mean, I don't know how even my college friends come to know about this problem.

11:32I mean, that day I started thinking that, have I even progressed an inch in spirituality?

11:37I mean, that day, that was a serious day for me when I received that message.

11:47You know, my teacher, he told me, no pretense, no convoluted methods, no mumbo-jumbo, just

12:06being the essential self is sufficient.

12:14Sahaj.

12:17Not excited, not distracted, not attracted, not repulsed.

12:27A person has come in front of me.

12:29I acknowledge the person is from another gender.

12:32That's all.

12:32I acknowledge and I can talk now.

12:35That's fine.

12:36Half the population is women.

12:40How can you avoid them or remain in confusion about them?

12:47At some point in your time, you will enter a relationship.

12:52What will become the quality of your life if you do not understand women?

12:56The relationship will eat you up and unfortunately the other person also.

13:01Have easy relationships with both the genders.

13:13Do not make sex such a big thing.

13:18If sex comes as an output of an easy relationship, it is okay.

13:27If it does not come your entire life, that too is okay.

13:31It is not a big thing.

13:35You know what the big is.

13:36The ease is the big thing.

13:38The sahajita is the big thing.

13:41If it just happens, happens.

13:42If it doesn't happen, don't force it.

13:50I have other questions to ask, but I won't ask because I'm sweating right now.

13:53I need to take this.

13:56I mean, my earphones are sliding off.

13:59So, thank you.

14:01I will re-watch this part again and again, two, three times.

14:05So, thank you so much.

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