Spirituality and Sex

Spirituality and sex have had an uncomfortable relationship for a very long time. Can you truly be spiritual if your mind is preoccupied with sex – which is true for so many of us? Can you control your own spiritual powers if lust is constantly with you?

Cultures throughout the ages have had different answers to this. In very ancient times, the Egyptians, Babylonians, and others tried to ensure everyone was sexually fulfilled; the Babylonians had sacred prostitutes who – well, they lay back and thought of Ishtar (goddess of love and beauty) while having sex with anyone who brought a proper offering. The Egyptians were extremely sensual, but encouraged marriage and sexual fulfillment within marriage as a way to keep yourself free of lust.

Christianity and several religions afterward had a very different idea. Drawing from several Greek ascetic traditions, they decided that only through abstinence and celibacy can one make the truest connection with the spiritual. As a result, the priests and other religious leaders became celibate.

This actually worked. Complete celibacy (including no masturbation), when practiced for a significant period of time, leads to a decreased sex drive and allows the mind to focus on other things, including the divine; that’s why sailors out to sea for extended periods have long suspected their commanders of putting saltpeter into their food. This is, however, simply a physiological response. When a man’s not going to get any sex, it doesn’t make sense for his brain to continue craving it.

A more recent response to the spirituality and sex problem has been in transcendental religions or practices. Tantric sex uses sexual ecstacy to transcend sexual impulses, conserving the sexual energy created by intercourse to channel into magical or spiritual ends. Celibacy, too, has great power; rumor has it that Gandhi slept with a beautiful virgin every night to test his own will to remain celibate.

If you are having a great deal of clashing between your sex drive and that which draws you to the spiritual beyond, it may not be a bad idea to try celibacy for a little while. For the first month or two, it’s very, very difficult. But after that, the feelings of lust and the romantic dance that everyone’s mind engages in with both short and long term relationships slowly dwindle away, allowing you to focus your mind on the spiritual beings beyond.

If, however, you prefer to use that sexual energy within you to communicate with God, sex and spirituality may be used together to enhance your spiritual strength. This, too, is a difficult path in the beginning. Tantrism requires that you gain control over your orgasmic self, that you be able to withhold the orgasm and ejaculation while engaged in sex. You become a better sexual partner in the end through greater control, but that should not be the end.

By focusing on the spiritual part of yourself instead of the sexual part of yourself, you’ll learn many things: that you can control the animal within you; that sexual thought has very little to do with sexual reality; that there is nothing personal about the sex drive, so lusting the person in the subway is perfectly normal even if you’re happily married and madly in love with someone else. Through understanding how to control your sexuality, either through celibacy or tantrism or another means, you prevent sex from controlling you.

Regardless of your personal spiritual quest, understanding the relationship between sex and spirituality will wind up making you a better and stronger person. And ultimately, the way you blend sex and spirituality in your life and your religious life is a very personal decision, not to be undertaken lightly.