Brahmacharya, Marriage And Sexuality
They say that the east and west has a fundamental difference. The East views woman as a Mother while the west views woman as a sex object… but these days the western view seems to be gathering momentum if we see the entire media is sex-based. You need sex to even sell a coffee powder. If you think the west is saturated with sex, you are mighty wrong… the west is perverted while the east is repressed.
Nevertheless, I do agree with the eastern view that woman is primarily a Mother. You see even a little girl. Motherhood is in her genes. See her playing games mothering a doll… but then it is another riddle of the egg and chicken. If a woman has to be a mother, she also should be a sex object. Only through sex, can she be a mother.
Osho my favourite since only he has the guts to speak unpleasantly that every woman is a prostitute while every man is a pimp. He used to say that every lady has a bitch in her who wishes to flirt with multiple men at a time.
Nevertheless, my purpose of writing this article is to elucidiate on the most misunderstood and taboo themes of brahmacharya, free sex, marriage and mental blue films.
First of all, sex is the basis of creation. It is the most fundamental energy in every creature. Sigmund Freud’s view is that 99 per cent of mental problems have its origin in sex. I disagree. For me, sex is a part of nava rasas (nine emotions). So my view is that man is a crowd and sex should occupy only around 14 per cent of man’s mind and time. It is virtually impossible to have sex 24 hours a day. That itself is proof that Freud is wrong.
Food For Rot !
Millions go to bed hungry as millions of
tonnes of wheat rot in open in Punjab
As you drive through Punjab, stored wheat lying in the open is a usual sight. For at least three decades now, you have been seeing wheat stacked in the open facing the vagaries of the inclement weather. You have got used to it.
I was therefore pretty surprised when CNN-IBN and NDTV decided to take on the issue prominently in their prime time bulletins. I remember, two decades back, when I was the Agriculture Correspondent of The Indian Express, and based in Chandigarh, stored grain in the open was quite a frequent picture on the front page. My photographer colleague Swadesh Talwar and I had travelled quite extensively, and we did highlight the sad plight of rotting foodgrains time and again.
I must acknowledge that our efforts did not succed in making the official machinery, deep in slumber, wake up and do something meaningful. Ninety per cent of the procured grains still lies in the open.
In other words, the criminal neglect of foodgrain continues. What makes it a heinous crime is that those
who are at the helm of affairs do not realise that these rotting stocks could have fed several million hungry. Even in Punjab, the frontline agricultural State in India, millions are facing hidden hunger if not starvation.
Punjab, the food bowl of India, fares much below Sudan in the IFPRI Hunger Index.
For three decades now, the government has failed to act. I don’t know what it means when Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar says that he will hold an enquiry. Ever since I had been on the foodgrain chase, I have heard this promise time and again. For a sound-byte hungry journalism, these statements come in handy while reporting, but after the next story takes over, the bytes are all but forgotten. I hope CNN-IBN and NDTV do not let the issue die down once again.
Look at the startling figures reported by NDTV the other day:
Punjab’s rotting food mountain 2007-2010
72 lakh metric tonne wheat grain stored
65 lakh metric tonne wheat grain lying in the open
Rs 500 crore to Rs 800 crore worth wheat grain rotting
While the Ministry for Food and Agricultural is trying to pass on the blame to the Punjab government, the fact remains that the food bowl provides roughly 50 per cent of the country’s surplus wheat. Punjab has all these years kept the country in a comfortable position when it comes to food security. In fact, Punjab is the single-most important factor in turning the country “self-sufficient” in foodgrains. The nation therefore has to pay back, and it becomes the duty of the country to ensure that not even a single grain of what is produced in Punjab goes waste.
The problem compounds when the stocked foodgrains are not lifted in time. While Punjab is saddled with wheat stacked for over two years, the new harvest is around the corner. The bigger problem for Punjab therefore is where to find additional space for the bountiful harvest that is expected to flow in. Much of the stocks have already become unfit for human consumption.
This reminds me of a story that the noted economist and a former vice-chancellor Dr SS Johl had once shared with me. It was in this connection, that he narrated a story of a farmer who grew papaya in his backyard. Every day, he would pluck one ripened fruit and eat it. One day, he had to go out to his in-laws and he knew that he would not be able to return before the next two days. So he plucked 3 unripened papayas from the plants and kept them in the kitchen.
When he came back, the three fruits had ripened. But the one that was meant to be eaten the first day, had almost rotted. To ensure that he does not waste the fruit, he ate the over-ripened fruit (almost nearing rotting) the first day. The next day, the other fruit also became over-ripened, and he consumed it. The third day too he was left with an almost rotten fruit, which he ate.
The moral of the story is that unless the Punjab government (or the Food Corporation of India) disposes-off as cattle feed the sub-standard wheat that is stocked, it will end up feeding the population with rotten wheat year after year.
It is all a question of setting your priorities right. If successive Prime Ministers had realised the importance of saving every grain I am sure by now India would have put in place a modern network of grain silos throughout the country. If the country can invest in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) at a pace that defies the bureaucratic obstacles that are normally thrown in, and also look at the amazing speed at which the national highways are being constructed, I see no reason why foodgrain storage cannot receive the same priority, if not the topmost.
While I think it is the nation’s responsibility to safely store what Punjab produces, but still I don’t think Punjab government should be allowed to go scott free. If Punjab government can lay out and approve blueprints for setting up (or modernisting) 40-odd new townships, there is no reason why Punjab government couldn’t have focused on storing its own harvested crops. Both the Centre and the Punjab government therefore are at fault. It takes two to Tango.
By Devinder Sharma
owever, Freud is not entirely wrong. Today, sex has occupied more than 90 per cent of man’s mind space. That is primarily because of guilt and repression.
My view on sex is very similar to Osho and J Krishamurthy. They say that physical sex is not the problem. It is mental sex that is the real problem. Animals do not have the problem of wet dreams. Only man has thanks largely to repression.
That is the reason why Osho did not encourage marriage… because any woman (or man as the case may be) becomes boring after a few days. How long can we rub each other’s noses without getting bored.
My logic is simple. Whatever is natural cannot be wrong. What is right is natural. Buddhists called it sahaj.
That of course does not mean that I am encouraging free sex. I am of the view from practical experience that once we get saturated with sex, we see the opposite sex not as a sex object but as a human being.
Parenthood is a more powerful instinct than sex. However, it is attained only after transcending sex or after a particular period of time. Brahmacharya is not merely physical. It is deeper. However, the brahmacharis that I see around (whether it be the padre or the celibate monk) is a walking mental blue-film.
Humanity should not be a zombie. It should be humane and evolved. That is possible only if we have a sense of healthy sexuality. However, modern society today is full of extremities. The west is extremely on indulgence while the east is extreme on repression. There has to be a balance somewhere.
I am also reminded of Russell’s line Skin to Skin is no sin. The west used Russell as an excuse for their promiscousness that even Russell was shocked.
Repression is one end. Indulgence is the other. Liberation is possible only on the middle path. Utopia is possible only in a society which respects healthy sexuality.
Osho used to say that sex is also a great fear of humanity (The other is death. I will write about it someday). That is why everybody speaks in a hushed tone and I even keep getting comments that this site is high on sexuality. I wish to say that a healthy society should not be afraid of the basic energy of the creation. If it does, the result will be a cowardly society. This is what we are seeing today.
Postscript: Before you pass any judgement on me, I would like to state that I am a devotee of Hanuman. I wish that everybody could be a brahmachari. Real joy is possible only when we transcend sex.
By Deepak Kamat
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