Periodically we read about the public downfall of men and women due to sexual misbehavior. However, while these cases are portrayed as spectacular, sexual energy is very much with us and is highly influential in all of our everyday lives. It can be innocently “making yourself look nice,” or two available people flirting. Then it can take a dark turn, to the extremes of predatory deviancy and sexual violence—and everything in between. To find the high road of sexual energy is the task of all incarnated souls—this is especially true for those treading the path of spiritual practice who require keen awareness of its benefits and pitfalls.
God designed human bodies to represent sexual opposites; male and female. It has been said that in the higher yugas, in more enlightened times, a couple could produce a baby without sexual contact: through the power of thought or a touch of the hand. However, for most humanity today coming together as man and woman is the typical means. What has been the most successful formula around the world is for a man and woman to form a bond of committed marriage, then to raise children as a family.
However, sexual energy does not simply run in straight lines of husband and wife. We must learn the wisdom of what it can do for us, and how it can lead to our downfall. There is no doubt that Western society has become highly sexualized, with advertising, film, television and print media all capitalizing upon the power of sex energy to sell products and ideas. There is precious little in these medias to support the beauty of a committed relationship, the sacrifice of love, and the benefits of transmuting sexual energy into creativity and spiritual realization. The effort to liberate sexual repression of the past all too often results in debasing relationships into serial affairs, the blatant use of sex to sell anything and everything, as well as the means to gain and exploit power.
Those of us following a spiritual path must come to a right understanding of the role of sexual energy; finding in this most powerful human drive the very means for unleashing its spiritual potential. We know through our own experience how potent a force sexual energy is. From childhood to getting on in years, it plays a part in our lives. In religious traditions sex is many times demonized for the downfall of mankind—and there is truth in this, but that teaching must be properly understood.
The preexistent soul is free of desire nature and common human needs—it is of pure light and consciousness. When soul consciousness mingles with earthly expression it can be done with a light touch—producing no binding attachments. However, the soul can also become focused on the object of the senses, creating a desire for more and more. This desire nature creates a split of the human self from the real Self. Now, instead of being a pure Soul-expression, awareness is driven by desire nature. Sex, along with survival instinct and desire for power are incredible allurements that are occasionally satisfied, but always calling for more. Consciousness, controlled by these forces falls from its original state of freedom, is now at the beck and call of lower impulses. Sexual energy being so powerful and having such a drawing power becomes binding when unregulated in human affairs—it literally and symbolically is the counter-opposite of spiritual freedom.
For animals, sexual energy is powerful but regulated by nature. Certain mammals mate only a few times in life, going years without reproducing. Higher human evolution loses connection with natural regulation; many times, the higher the intelligence the more cunning and dominant sexual desire can be. To recognize how powerful, pervasive and destructive sexual energy can be, is not say it is all-powerful, but to recognize its importance and how demanding of a task it is to purify and transmute it. You can think of our mission as twofold, one is purifying sexual energy on a human level, and the second is raising and transmuting it into a wholly new paradigm—the super fuel for Divine Consciousness.
In addition to transmuting sexual energy for spiritual advancement, we also know from history that many great artists and writers have been abstinent during times of intense creativity. The uprush of compelling creative energy draws upon transmuted sexual energy; that is why there is no interest in the sexual act when the energy is flowing up the spine to creative centers. This transformed energy takes away any urge for procreative activity—this is not in any way repressing the energy, but giving it creative expression.
Purifying sexual energy on a human level means finding beauty in complimentary relationships between the sexes, the ability to transmute it into a creative force, and appreciating its sacred power to bring about new life—a truly remarkable miracle. Mother Hamilton is perhaps unique in spiritual annals, particularly in the West, for teaching the uplifting beauty in relationships between men and women. Anything from the tasteful use of makeup by ladies, to gentlemanly behavior by men, she sought to bring out the best of behavior and consciousness between the sexes—not for exaltation of base drives, but coming to know the real expression of Soul through the body. At the infancy of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Mother had a mature vision for finding the higher road of sexual energy. She delighted in being a woman, she deeply appreciated the role of men, she was for equal pay for equal work, but also knew that men and women have some great and good differences. I have never known anyone, man or woman, so perfectly balanced in male and female energy, yet she was always the perfect expression of a woman.
Even with this great example before them, there were many who followed Mother’s teachings that were tripped up by sexual energy in their path toward God-realization. Every aspirant knows that sexual desire is one of the great oppositional forces in their sadhana. In addition to this general battle, there is also a particular time when entering into spiritual experiences when the full power of sexual energy emerges and seeks to reassert its dominance. Whatever latent desire nature is present, it is now given high octane fuel from the serpent or kundalini force. Given the powerful role sexual energy plays from the beginning to the end in our spiritual journey, we must know its proper role and be its good and faithful steward.
Keeping the utmost integrity in thought, word and deed is your greatest ally as a devotee. When you feel sex-energy stimulated (outside of marriage), avoid the situation, go deeper into prayer and communion with your infinite Beloved. Surrender this impulse at the feet of the Lord and visualize the energy flowing up from the base of the spine into the higher centers of the heart, the ajna (the third eye) and the sahaswara (the crown of the head). This shifts your spiritual practice from any sort of crude form of repression to that of the transmutated energy. Teach yourself to appreciate the superior experience of spiritual purity and freedom. Instruct the mind and desire nature, “Oh mind, observe, see how the energy flowing up the spine leads to bliss, expansiveness and freedom. Contrast that to how confining, demanding, and ultimately unfulfilling it is when I give into it.” Sexual energy is like a snowball at the top of the hill, if you stop it immediately at its beginning you can more easily master it. But, if you give into it, it starts rolling down the hill and when you try stopping it after it has become as big as a house, you will be hard pressed to change it—however, a strong determination backed by divine will can move mountains and change the course of a run-a-way snowball!
Spiritual freedom and purity are vastly superior to anything the five senses can offer. The body uses divine power and directs it through the nerves, when channeled through the senses you are experiencing pure spiritual energy indirectly, and much diluted. However, when you have God-experience, you tap directly into the Source of the intelligence and power that is creating this entire universe. You may think of the yogi sitting in his cave in deep meditation as the one who is doing without—sitting all alone and nothing interesting happens. In reality, he is united with the kingdom of heaven that is all bliss, fulfillment, and knowledge of God—he is a monarch not of this earth, but of infinite Spirit. By comparison this earth in a carnal sense will seem grubby, shabby, and low grade.
Husband and wife through time and experience of a deepening relationship and spiritual attunement can successfully transmute all experiences into spiritual awareness. Through divine prompting there may be physical union that plays a part in their lives, which elevates the sexual experience into spiritual union. The after-effect is merging into an ocean of Infinite expanse. On a human level there will always be differences between two people, but in Spirit there is a perfect joining of two souls into One. Mother said that such a union is the highest experience on a human level.
When raised, transmuted sexual energy becomes the very fuel for total spiritual union with God. The sex force that plagues the aspirant in his sadhana as an oppositional force and proves to be the downfall of many, now becomes his or her greatest ally. That is why the downward facing serpent in Genesis is later changed, and in the teachings of Moses and Jesus the serpent force becomes upward facing and leads to spiritual illumination.[1]
Through intelligent application of will with a higher purpose, the aspirant realizes the fullest benefit of transmuted sexual energy. Creating a list of “don’ts” without understanding its tremendous positive potential leads to perversion. However, with a clear awareness of all that sexual energy can do, the ways it is transformed into creative endeavors and spiritual upliftment, the aspirant discovers the real source of a truly liberating sexual revolution.
[1] Elizabeth Haich speaks of this transmutation with great wisdom in her book, Sexual Energy and Yoga.