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Sex, Spirituality and Transformation of Human Life · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Most religious and spiritual paths have addressed the issue
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  of sexuality from a viewpoint that turns it into some kind of
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  sin or morality. Concern and proscriptions about
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  sex and responses to the sexual impulse mirror this focus on
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  morality versus immorality. People who engage in sexual
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  behaviour outside the accepted norm in a particular society are
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  stigmatized by those activities. The determination of what
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  constitutes moral or immoral is clearly based on the view of
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  specific societies and thus can be seen as a temporal
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  determination, not some kind of universal law or judgment.
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  Obviously, forcing oneself sexually on another person
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  without mutuality, or using sex as a way to control, bully, or
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  dominate another person shifts the general conversation
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  somewhat where it breaches moral, legal, and interpersonal
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  human constraints. Regardless of how a particular
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  society views sex and sexual practices, the spiritual seeker
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  needs to strip away the opinions, the prejudices, the
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  prejudgments and the accepted morality to understand how the
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  sexual power functions, what role it plays, and how it needs
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  to be addressed in the context of the evolution of
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  consciousness and the transformation of human
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  existence. In order to accomplish this,
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  Srioro Bindo has taken an entirely different view of sex
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  and the sexual impulses. He places it in the context of
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  the evolution of consciousness and the focus and use of the
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  energy in relation to the required focus and force needed
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  to accomplish the yogic objectives.
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  As well as by looking at it in the context of the high
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  probability of distraction by the arising of the sexual
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  impulse or by misuse of the higher powers when they open the
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  lower vital chakras and instead of acting to transform the
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  energy, simply enhance the action of the original vital
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  powers through increase of energy.
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  There are numerous examples of this misuse of spiritual force
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  to gain sexual power. The idea that it can somehow be
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  managed is for most people an illusion perpetrated by the
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  vital nature, eager to continue its old ways with new forms of
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  energetic support. This can lead to serious
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  imbalances and failure in the spiritual pursuit for the
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  individual seeker and can cause extreme disruption to the
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  environment within a spiritual community.
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  Sri Ro Bindu observes Quote I have stated very briefly in my
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  previous letter my position with regard to the sex impulse and
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  yoga. I may add here that my
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  conclusion is not founded on any mental opinion or preconceived
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  moral idea, but on probative facts and on observation and
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  experience. I do not deny that so long as
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  one allows a sort of separation between inner experience and
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  outer consciousness, the latter being left as an inferior
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  activity, controlled but not transformed, it is quite
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  possible to have spiritual experiences and make progress
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  without any entire cessation of the sex activity.
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  The mind separates itself from the outer vital life parts and
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  the physical consciousness and lives its own inner life.
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  But only a few can really do this with any completeness.
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  And the moment one's experiences extend to the life plain and the
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  physical sex can no longer be treated in this way, it can
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  become at any moment a disturbing, upsetting and
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  deforming force. I have observed that to an equal
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  extent with ego, pride, vanity, ambition and rajasic greeds and
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  desires, it is one of the main causes of spiritual casualties
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  that have taken place in Sadhna. The attempt to treat it by
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  detachment without complete excision breaks down.
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  The attempt to sublimate it favoured by many modern Mystics
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  in Europe is a most rash and perilous experiment, for it is
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  when one mixes up sex and spirituality that there is the
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  greatest havoc. Even the attempt to sublimate it
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  by turning it towards the Divine, as in the Vaishnava
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  Mathura Bhava, carries in it a serious danger, as the results
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  of a wrong turn or use in this method so often show.
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  At any rate, in this Yoga, which seeks not only the essential
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  experience of the Divine, but a transformation of the whole
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  being in nature, I have found it an absolute necessity of the
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  Sadhana to aim at a complete mastery over the sex force.
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  Otherwise the vital consciousness remains a turbid
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  mixture. The turbidity affecting the
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  purity of the spiritual must mind and seriously hindering the
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  upward turn of the forces of the body.
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  This Yoga demands a full ascension of the whole lower or
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  ordinary consciousness to join the spiritual above it, and a
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  full descent of the spiritual, eventually of the superimental,
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  into the mind, life and body to transform it.
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  The total ascent is impossible so long as sex desire blocks the
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  way. The descent is dangerous so long
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  as sex desire is powerful in the vital, for at any moment an
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  unexcised or latent sex desire may be the cause of a mixture
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  which throws back the true descent and uses the energy
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  acquired for other purposes, or turns all the action of the
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  consciousness towards wrong experience, turbid and delusive.
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  One must therefore clear this obstacle out of the way,
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  otherwise there is either no safety or no free movement
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  towards finality in the Sadhna. End Quote Reference Sri
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  Aurobindo Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4 Desire Food Sex pages 73 to
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  75.