From a site visitor: “Came across your site--read some old sections. In April, you say masturbation is good on what is supposed to be a spiritual website. After enlightenment, we reach new heights of spirituality…we live a moral life I’m abstinence…if your enlightened, you wouldn’t have any body identication and be a slave to masturbation and body activities your still practicing. Maybe your not as pure as you try to make people think.”
F.: If it weren’t for the fact that several people after that posting had questions about post-Realization body/sexual activities, your message would have been ignored. For the sake of those who submitted legitimate questions, however, the subject shall be addressed.
There are nearly as many nonsensical beliefs about how the Realized should live as there are false beliefs in general. First, once the functioning of the totality is understood, it is of no consequence whether the consciousness continues or not. Thus, it should be clear that once the functioning of the totality is understood, it is certainly of no consequence whether any bodily functions continue or not. On the other hand, as long as the consciousness is manifested, and as long as one is in touch with reality, and as long as one is living in an AS IF fashion, then what is natural happens and what is unnatural is not sought out. This is the basic premise of Nisarga Yoga which teaches that programming, conditioning and enculturation inspire unnatural behaviors and magical (super-natural) thinking, neither of which is based in fact or sanity and both of which prevent natural, sane living during the period of consciousness manifestation. It is Realization that removes all magical thinking, so nothing natural is forfeited, post-Realization, as a result of any of the super-natural beliefs that have been dreamed up by controlling men. Now, you have joined the ranks of those controlling men who would tell people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.
The pointer offered in April was in reference to a self-proclaimed “religious man” who was working as a sponsor in a twelve-step program and who was demanding of his sponsees that they forfeit many natural acts if they were to succeed at becoming “spiritual” in “his program.” The pointer was offered merely as one of many examples of how super-natural beliefs inspire unnatural behaviors when people listen to controlling people who demand that people abandon natural acts.
Next, AFTER Full Realization, natural living happens in an AS IF fashion until the consciousness is no longer manifested. [For more, search on this site for AS IF LIVING at the top of this webpage.] Post-Realization, all natural bodily functions can continue: urination, fornication, breathing, defecation, masturbation, etc. What does not continue is any game-playing or role-playing around any of the natural, bodily functions. After Realization, for example, copulation can continue but it is no longer used to sustain a role such as “The Stud” or “The Marvelous Lover” or “The Hottest Woman.” It is not used for purposes of manipulation or gain (de-accumulation always accompanying Full Realization). The Realized would not use money to try to attract someone in order to sustain a role, and the Realized would never use sex to gain a certain lifestyle or to reinforce a role. While persons are always plagued with anxiety and will use all sorts of practices to try to treat it, the Realized have no such need; however, the Realized can enjoy sex to its relative-existence fullness. The intensity of a sexual act can actually be heightened among the Realized since far more than a mere act of friction is involved…the unicity being fully understood.
Contrary to the notion that the Realized should become “robotic,” an image reinforced by some who play the role of “The Stoic Guru” or “The Spiritual Giant” or “The Most Enlightened One” or “The One Who Is So Metaphysical That He Would Like to Abandon All Physical Functions,” the Realized feel far more than persons (who can only emote). When At One with All, and in light of so many suffering across the planet, where is the opportunity for being free of feeling? Are the Realized free from attachment to feelings? Yes. Are the Realized free from the emotional intoxication that ego-states generate? Yes. But can the Realized continue to witness feelings as they rise and as they fall during the AS IF-living style that happens? Definitely.
So continue your abnormal, unnatural, super-natural style of living, but you’re invited to understand that your modified behavior is not the result of Realization (as you erroneously believe). It is a result of your having fallen under the influence of some controlling, fanatical person or persons who now have control of your behavior and your “mind” and who have convinced you that the normal is abnormal and that the abnormal is normal. The result is that you take yourself to be enlightened and living a “spiritual life.” You think that at some point in the past you reached the gunpowder stage and that truth exploded into consciousness. The fact is, you’ve not even made it to the dry charcoal stage. You haven’t even made it to the wet charcoal stage. At this point, in fact, you’re drowning in so many concepts that you’re not ignitable at all. Now, for the others who submitted questions after that April posting, understand that you need not fear that Realization will result in a boring, robotic life as some suggest. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
