December 15, 2006
Hello vfr,
You said (in Philosophy"The evolution of a philosopher through suffering"):
This idea – which promotes an excess of enthusiasm in many for the spiritual realm because of its presumed benefits – causes one to concentrate on the abstract side of life and downplay the physical side, thus violating the whole. It is related to the Christian theological definition of dualism – “the doctrine that there are two mutually antagonistic principles in the universe, good and evil” – which is contrary to the essential oneness and harmony of all things. Essence and form are not opposed to each other. Body, spirit and any present soul are one and only function together in harmony. Only human mind can delusively imagine that all is not essentially one.
In dualistic thinking (seeing pairs of contradictory as opposed to complementary opposites), qualifying a person or thing often misleadingly suggests that another person or thing may be significantly different. When students of a certain teacher said “you are our friend” to him, he replied, pointing to a third party, asking “and he is not?” The idea, “God is only the Good” can be misinterpreted as implying that man/woman (“god”, or the instrument of God) is “evil”; this is allegedly induced by Greek thought that stressed soul or spirit over body, and has been furthered by the evil-seeing, “sinner”-condemning, self-agonizing and crucifixion-obsessed Christian martyr Paul of Tarsus, whose dualistic illusions have encouraged like-minded people to practice flagellation and sexually deviant long-term celibacy in the hope of realizing the Kingdom of Heaven – “…but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Romans 8:13). Incidentally, the Jews in Paul’s time did not approve of celibacy, being strongly in favour of marriage and children, and had the concept that “all things were good”. Paul had been a Jew. The alleged Christ utters a veiled reference to the spiritual death of ascetics and hedonists in Matthew 15:4: “For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” Father and mother are figurative, and mean one’s inner and outer natures.
A friend who travelled to India in search of a “holy man” met with some long-term celibates and observed that they were like zombies. These celibates were unable to sustain an intelligent dialogue regarding philosophical concepts – their “conversation” was basically a monologue with themselves, repeating their doctrines without any originality of thought. We both concluded that when one attempts to shut down the natural sexuality and ignore the vitalizing aspect of the male-female love relationship, everything shuts down, including one’s higher nature with its powers of perception and creative thought. Ultimately what the long-term celibate seeks is lost. Dulled minds that seek to escape any aspect of life cannot express wisdom.
The basic happinesses in life are found in expression of basic emotions. One of these basic happinesses is the expression of sexual desire. Such however does not lead to true happiness if respect or loving consideration is not involved, but that is for another discussion. Lust is not evil in itself; it is simply strong sexual desire, a natural thing. Upon the basic building blocks of basic happinesses – sex, musical and artistic expression, etc. – may be built higher forms of happiness related to expression of one’s higher nature – philosophical expression, including the ultimate expression of Wisdom through the Word or Logos. These higher forms of happiness depend and rest entirely upon a foundation of the basic happinesses previously stated. Even though some may search their entire life and not find it, true happiness and fulfillment is found in a life that includes the expression of all sides of our natures in balance and, ideally, a male-female love relationship. Excessive concentration on the “spiritual” is ultimately self-destructive.
Anything based on fear cannot succeed. True universal love knows no fear, and love’s expression is the only means through which universal logic and reason may become apparent to humanity. I had to discard my first wife, and my second wife was compelled to discard me, but still what keeps me going is the thought of finding some woman to love whose load of petty rubbish is light and who lacks harsh judgment. Amazingly, there is such a woman who says she loves me. She’s married to a husband who is absent most of the time, and she loves to bring troubled souls to stay at her house. In my bachelor years until age 30 I was basically a mentally ill dead man; now I can’t live without women and I know why. Because love and the male-female relationship bring life!!
The following quote regarding the vow of Brahmacharya (Celibacy) in Hinduism is from The Mahabharata and hinduism.org.za/celibacy.htm: “One that has betaken oneself to that vow should not speak with women. He should never cast his eyes on an undressed woman.” Celibates fear self because they fear they will not obtain Self-realization unless they reject their own lower nature. If one imagined God as a “sage”, he might say to the celibate, “How can you expect to know Me when you can’t even look at My form? Do you think I created goddesses to be ignored? Half of Me is in them!”
Regarding Brother David Steindl-Rast’s concept that “The root of joy is gratefulness.” My perhaps rhetorical question is: Grateful for what?