Ending Our Patterns of Unnecessary Suffering: Part II 

We can see clearly how the sexual aspect of survival is actively around us in all life forms. The fact of pollination, the exquisite dance of flowers, birds, bees, and insects, is the inherent sexual dance of life.

Our sexuality as human beings can also lead us into the mystery of relationship and the experience of bonding with another human being. In the deep intimate knowing of another, we are annihilated in our individuality. We bring our individuality to that relationship, and then we surrender it to something bigger. In that experience it is possible to recognize that this depth of intimacy is not limited to other human beings; it’s actually possible with all life, including with oneself.

Human sexuality is obviously a necessary part of the survival of our species and the cultural story of humanity. The sexual energy that each human has is natural. There is nothing wrong with it. It's the way we are made. It's part of what it means to be alive. However, the intent of this course is not in making sexuality right or wrong. My interest is in the possibility of you freeing yourself from the bondage of sexual identity. If you are suffering with this aspect of your humanity, you might find yourself ready and willing to look into your own life and see how your sense of happiness and self-worth are somehow linked to your identity as a sexual being. When one’s fulfillment is associated with the expression of sexual energy, suffering is inevitably created and sexuality becomes a veiling of truth.

I invite you to consider how you define yourself as a sexual being and what judgments you might be bringing to that definition. Not necessarily to change anything but to simply be willing to tell the truth, and then observe what happens when you tell the truth to yourself. You are not being asked to discover what is the right way for you to define yourself. This discovery is simply about bringing the light of awareness to all of your strategies of survival—however subtle or gross—that unconsciously create unnecessary suffering.

In our Western culture in particular, we have worshiped sexual power. We have bowed to it, fed it, and ultimately been enslaved by it. If you follow sexuality with thought and energy and devotion, you are following a limited god. When limited gods are worshiped, the devotees suffer.

Our sexual energy is a huge force, and there is deep conditioning to do something with this force. The mind can get very activated with fantasies of how this force might be satisfied. Some people, after realizing how much the mind is entangled in sex, are no longer interested in sex because they are no longer interested in feeding the mind. They want to realize what is beyond the mind, what has more power than even the mind. The truth is that if sexual thoughts are not fed, they dissolve effortlessly.

Obviously, an enormous spinning of the mind can occur around the dance of sexuality, because sex is where most people experience some kind of bliss, release, silence, or peace. Many people would say that sex is as good as it gets. Yet in linking up bliss, silence, and peace with the sexual act, a regeneration of struggle, tension, acquisition, and loss also occurs. Once again you find yourself fully back on the wheel of suffering.

My teacher, Papaji, would say quite often about any drive, any desire, or even any thought, "Just don't touch it." This means don't make it wrong, don't make it right, don't make it something you need to express, don't make it something you need to repress, just don't touch it. Then the energy is free to be present as part of the mystery of our physical and emotional life forms. When sexual energy is free to exist without the necessity to either express it or repress it, you have the capacity to intelligently see what is appropriate in relationship to it. In this you can see clearly what it is you truly want for yourself, and what it is you want for others.

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