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Sexology/Sexuality and Ethics

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Sexuality and Ethics

To begin with, let us examine the problem of the weakening of the sexual function in people who are still quite young. We need to realize that in many cases this is an indication that something is wrong in the organism. One can stimulate the malfunctioning reproductive system with the help of drugs, but this is not a reliable method. The drugs’ effect ends, but the problem remains — as long as its cause is not eliminated.

There exist two general approaches to the treatment of diseases: the first one is “to smooth away” their outer manifestations (symptoms) by taking various medications, visiting psychotherapists, healers, etc., while the second one consists in eliminating the causes of the disease.

Any disease has to be viewed as a consequence of our ethical mistakes, i.e. those we make in interactions with other people, with other living beings, with God, as well as when we neglect the necessity to progress spiritually all the time or when we indulge in our weaknesses. Another thing that we need to remember is that in the task of solving a serious problem only those results can be stable that are achieved by our own efforts and not by someone else’s. So, one provides true help for us in such a situation by suggesting what we should do to solve the problem rather than by trying to solve it for us.

It is thanks to our own efforts that we can achieve realization of our latent potential in psychic self-regulation. This concerns the control over the emotional sphere, first of all. Thank to this, one can get rid of a great variety of diseases and gain the ability to control one’s own sexual sphere.

Sexual relations are legitimate. The perverted pseudo-religious morality of the distant past that once declared these relations inferior, shameful, and unclean must not be accepted by modern people.

As long ago as in the 1^st century, in the apocryphal Gospel of Mary Magdalene an attempt was made to praise sexual love — as one of the legitimate aspects of great love. With the help of sexual love, one can learn to give oneself to another, to care about another, and to develop the emotional sphere cultivating subtlety and tender emotions.

According to the definition of the World Health Organization as of 1977, sexual relations enrich people, improve their communication skills, and increase their ability to love.

This has been acknowledged even by the Russian Orthodox Church.*

However, declaring sexual relations legitimate and not shameful does not imply propagating casual sex. It does not make any sense to repeat well-known truths about sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, etc. Recalling what we have said about the bioenergetic aspects of sexual relations would be enough to conclude that casual sex is unwise. Cultivation of the reasonable abstinence is also necessary for development of control over one’s own primitive passions — for the sake of the personal spiritual progress.

To talk about sex from the perspective of religious self-perfection, I think it would be appropriate to quote two fragments from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene*:

12. … I asked Him, “Teacher, how can a sinful one, as I am, be compared to the Apostles?”

13. He answered me, “What is sinful in this world is righteous in My Father’s Kingdom.”

20. They caught me and wanted to stone me. I, sinful, loved a man who was married and had three children. The relatives of his wife brought me to the square and began to shout in a loud voice, “Let us kill the adulteress! She profaned the Law!”

21. Then came Christ and told them, “Let the one who is without sin among you throw the first stone!” And the Son of Man made the crowd disperse.

22. Then He approached me and knelt before me.

23. … I was burning with shame and fear. The sublime was taking place in me. I fell on the ground and cried. He stroked my hair and told me,

24. “My dear sister, find strength to listen to Me. Much evil exists on this Earth, many lies have been said by the evil one. Forget that you are a sinner and tell Me, does your heart live when you love?”

25. “It does, Lord! When I do not love it is dead!”

26. “Then love, heavenly sister, and do not sin anymore, thinking that you are a sinner!”

These words are in total conformity with the essence of the Teachings of Jesus Christ, which consists in the following:

In order to learn to love God one has to possess the developed ability to love emotionally. And this ability can be gained through the development of the corresponding bioenergetic structures, which are, in essence, organs of emotional love. Among these structures the major role is played by the chakra anahata.

Development of the structures of the organism responsible for emotional love — i.e. the so-called emotional center — can be achieved both through a natural (exoteric) way (development of an ethically correct attitude towards all people and towards each specific person, as well as towards all living beings — in all aspects of life including sexual relations), and by means of special (esoteric) methods of working with the mentioned structures.

And only if we have developed the emotional center, are we able to direct our love to God as well — not only with our minds but also with our “hearts”, because emotional love is the mechanism that connects one person with another and a person with God.

The Teachings of Jesus Christ contain many instructions on how with the help of exoteric methods one can learn to love emotionally. Let us look at the following precepts from the New Testament:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another! By this everyone will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

“I am giving you these commands that you love one another!” (John 15:17). “… Be brotherly loving one another!…” (Romans 12:10). “Greet one another with a holy kiss!” (2 Cor 13:12).

“Above all, have love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates a brother or sister, that person is a liar!” (1 John 4:20).

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God!…” (1 John 4:7).

“God is Love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16).

* * *

Emotional love has multiple aspects. It may be manifested as admiration, respect, devotion, affection, care, compassion, gratitude, feeling of oneness with the object of love, sexually colored tenderness, willingness to self-sacrifice, and so on. We must master all these aspects of love on the path of our spiritual development.

But we do not necessarily have to love every person with all aspects of love.

* * *

So, when we say that sexual relations can play an important role in the spiritual advancement of a person, we also need to raise the following question: are those followers of various religious movements who practice celibacy right?

Yes, they too are right — for themselves.

There are many people for whom egotistic sex is the most important thing in life. Their most distinctive feature is lust. It determines their whole lifestyle. It is often accompanied by rude violence in sexual relations, by ignoring interests of the partner, and by bioenergetic vampirism. For such people for sure it will be appropriate to learn to get their primitive passions under control.

By the way, the cause of bioenergetic vampirism is a perverted kind of love: love for oneself, when one wants to receive something from the partner instead of striving to give one’s love to him or her. In most cases, our emotions serve as a mechanism that brings bioenergies into motion. Thus we can either fill other people with invigorating bioenergy or suck it away from them.

If we possess correctly developed love (love as a giving of oneself) — we have an opportunity to reach a very high level of harmony in relationships with people of the same kind as we are.*

Or we can turn our life with other people into a nightmare (both for them and for ourselves) if we adopt a consumerist attitude towards them and start to want something from them. If we do so, then those from whom we want something start feeling exhausted and develop an intense desire to avoid contacts with us. One may say that to want love from another is the best way to destroy love.

In conjunction with this, let us think about another perverted kind of love — jealousy.

* * *

“Threefold are the gates to hell where man perishes: lust, anger, and greed. Therefore one has to renounce these three! Those who have freed themselves from these three gates of the darkness make their own good… and attain the Supreme Goal!” (Bhagavad Gita, 16:21-22) [17,19-20].

Therefore, those who possess an uncontrolled or egotistic sex drive are absolutely right when they attempt to suppress it — by means of strict celibacy or other self-restraints — for the sake of becoming closer to spiritual Perfection.

Yet those who do not have the mentioned defects of love and use sexual relations as a school for their further spiritual advancement are right too.

The whole essence of spiritual development of a person comes to only one thing: to learn perfect love for everyone and Everything [14-23,87-88,96-104]. On this Path — at its different stages — different methods, which sometimes appear to be opposite, can be used.

By the way, Krishna, Who said the previously mentioned words from the Bhagavad Gita, had wives and children.

And let us remember that sexual relations can play a positive role for us only if we have a correct attitude towards them. The first goal that we must have in this respect is to learn to never want anything from anyone.