There are two basic instincts in human beings, one is food, the other is sex. These you have been doing in all the lifetimes, when you were an animal and now as a human being. You are born out of these two - food and sex.
It is so beautiful that in this country (India) they connected both these with Divinity. Food is connected with God. In the Upanishads, it is said ‘Food is God’. When you consider food as God you will not over eat. You don’t simply stuff food but you eat food with so much honour. No festival in India goes without food. And when you go to temple the first thing they give is some Prasad. Prasad is just a little bit of food that is given. Without Prasad there is no pilgrimage, no festival. Food is connected with God.
Similarly, sex is also connected with God. Otherwise you keep sex separate and think this is my material life and think of God as different. But here the ancient people, they linked that to God so that no aspect in you remains away from God. A basic instinct doesn’t remain away from God. That is why they put Radha Krishna and Shiva Parvathi. Shiv Ling is a symbol of that. So when you honour sex and consider it as part of Divinity, then your obsession disappears, lust disappears and sacredness dawns.
And the basic instinct from being an aggressive lust gets transformed into a submissive love. This is the ancient thought. But some people are misusing yoga for their enjoyment of the carnal instincts, this is wrong. This is a blunder. It should be the other way around. Whenever there is a carnal instinct transform that into a Divine inner experience. There is a beautiful word in Sanskrit called Atma Rati, union with one’s being, oneself. Rejoicing in one’s own self.
There are two things, Prakriti (nature) and Purusha (consciousness). Nature and consciousness inter play all the time. Your body and soul. Your body is female and your soul is male. So their coupling is happening all the time. And seeing that union within oneself is Samadhi.
That is why Samadhi is considered to be a thousand times more joyful than the carnal instincts. Whatever joy sex gives, Samadhi is thousand times more joyful because there is no effort, there is no action there. It is only Being and just Being. So just the Being consciousness, the play and display of consciousness comes to one’s awareness, comes to one’s experience. This is very beautiful.
Don’t keep any corner of your existence away from Divinity. The Divine should be interwoven into every aspect of your life and this is called Brahmacharya, which means moving in the infinity, uniting with the infinity.
Isn’t that so beautiful?! It is very deep and very high knowledge. If you don’t get it in one time, never mind, keep listening and keep understanding and one day you will say, ‘Ah! That is what Guruji was talking about.’
So here (in India) when you go to any temple anywhere, you find both the aspects, Shiva and Parvathi, Prakrathi Purusha. Consciousness and matter. This is to first recognize the duality and then see the unity. They are not two, they are not different, they are two sides of the same coin. You are complete.
What does this mean? You are both man and woman. Coming out of this label, ‘I am man’, ‘I am woman’ - Getting out of your identity. This is Vedanta, the highest philosophy of the universe.
We keep identifying ourselves, ‘I am a man’, ‘I am a woman’, ‘I am old’, ‘I am young’, ‘I am educated’, ‘I am illiterate’. Throw away all these labels. What remains is pure consciousness. Do not even say I am consciousness. Just know I am consciousness and not even say it. Don’t go around saying I am nothing.
Adi Shankar once said, ‘One who labels themselves as something is a fool and one who labels themselves as nothing is a bigger fool.’ One who is nothing does not talk, so just keep quiet. How can you say I am nothing when you are saying something?! There cannot be somebody there saying I am nothing. So keep quiet, shut up. If you are nothing then shut up. Be quiet.
When you consider the basic instincts of food and sex as sacred then the aggression in you disappears and surrender dawns in you. Gratefulness and love dawn in you.
That is when it is said the devotee and the Divine have become One. They have merged into One!
It is so fascinating, isn’t it?!
