Response To Dalai Lama About Sexuality

By Reza Ganjavi

A friend posted an interview in which Dalai Lama condemned sex. I wrote this:

Very interesting and heavily loaded one. I saw interview with a Catholic priest who castrated himself in order to not have sexual desire but he still had desire for sex.

The roots of desire need to be understood.

At a certain level it's in the animalistic part of the brain - like the desire for eating - but not an accurate comparison since sex is not a biological "need" -- if we don't get it we don't die.

It's important to understand the root of desire. How sensation turns into desire. At the heart of it is the activity of thought which makes an image, projects how it will feel to be inside that car, owning that purse, or sniffing that gorgeous woman.

The image is made from thought, habitually forms desire, and gives it continuity.

Now back to sex, we all know that it's overblown by commercialism -- given far too much importance -- and even abused as an escape.

Yogis talk about energy being stuck in second chakra for those who are preoccupied with it -- vs. when a person has well-balanced, well-distributed energy. Yes, yoga seems to help in reversing gravity but the core of the issue is mental/psychological, too much thought, and it entering where it doesn't belong.

I should finish packing and go to bed for tomorrow morning's flight but philosophizing/writing is more fun!

As humans, we're more than animals. So Dali Lama and others who abstain in order to find God are missing out on God. There can be a beautiful contact, healing, magical, sacred, holy, in a sexual act -- and I mean by that act not sex as portrayed in porn, but at a much higher level, artistic level, human or even angelic level, where just touch can be enough.