My dear brothers and sisters,
First of all, let us all reflect on the meaning of Sex.
For me sexuality is a potent and fundamental part of human nature, and a thing of great power. The drive to engage in sexual activity, or at the very least to be on some level a sexual being, is intrinsic to human nature - just like eating or sleeping - not least because on the purely genetic level, the whole point of Life is to thrive and keep on living, which can only happen through the conception of new lifes.
Sex has two functions:
1) Procreative Act - it is the means through which life is transmitted and new life comes into being
2) Unitative act - Sex is the closest physical union between human beings possible on earth. Two bodies literally become one when joined together in this act. It is thus the supreme, earthly icon of Unity and the best metaphor for describing the spiritual experience of Oneness with God.
The orgasm is the most pleasurable human sensation; pleasurable to the exent that one could say it almosts reaches divine heights. It is thus the best means for describing and understanding spiritual experience - which is why so many mystics of the world's religious traditions, particularly Sufi, have expressed their spiritual relationship with God through the medium of ecstatic, orgasmic bliss and sexual longing.
The Jewish Kabbalist mystics have a very profound understanding of sexuality which I would like to share with you. While Christian, Hindu and Sufi mystics all used sexual imagery to express their union with God, the Jewish mystics went a step further - they actually developed an awareness of how sex itself can become sacramentalized and constitute a means to Union with the Divine.
"The inner purpose of human sexuality is to regain wholeness and manifest the oneness of God" - Daniel Chanan Matt (Jewish Zohar translator)
"...The sexual relationship is in reality a thing of great exaltation when it is appropriate and harmonius...Keep this great secret and do not reveal it to anyone unworthy, for here is where you glimpse the secret of the loftiness of an appropriate sexual relationship...When the sexual relation points to the Name, there is nothing more righteous or more holy than it..."
- Moses ben Nahman (1194-1270 AD), Jewish Kabbalist master
Now this part should be be arresting for Sikhs: "When the sexual relation points to the Name, there is nothing more righteous or more holy than it"
Yes NOTHING is holier!
When sex is mutual and self-giving, when the two lovers care not about their own pleasure - solely at least - but about pleasuring the other, then sex can ascend to divine heights. It becomes an act of seva - mutual, self-sacrificing, self-giving love and in the sexual act what you have is not only the unity and harmony of the sexes, but an icon of that Higher unity between God and the soul.
In Kabbalistic Judaism, sexuality in marriage is a metaphor for union with the Divine. On Shabbat Eve - according to Jewish Kabbalist myth - Adonai made love to Matronit, the feminine aspect of deity comparable to the Shekhina and the Ruach Ha-Qodesh or Christian Holy Spirit. Kabbalist Jews thus were encouraged to engage in sex with their spouses on the holiest night of the Jewish Week, whereas in most other religions - for example Islam - one is told to abstain from sex on that night.
This is because the Kabbalist Jews believed that in the sexual act they were offering up the best possible worship they could give to God through selfless sexual intercourse in reflection of the Divine Love.
In this way, their sexual intercourse was directed towards the Name and became a spiritual act, almost one could say a sacrament - a visible sign of the invisible Grace of God.
The "Odes of Solomon" are beautiful hymns from the first or early second century AD and are the inspired work, most likely, of the same community that composed the Gospel of John. In Christian tradition, they were reputed to have been composed by Jesus' disciple Salome, one of his closest female followers. It appears to have God say to the soul:
"...Like the arm of the bridegroom over the bride, so is my yoke over those who know me; and as the bridal chamber, the bed that is spread in the house of the bridegroom and bride, so does my love cover those who keep faith with me..." - (Odes 42:9-12)
I think it is really charming to picture the love that God has for each one of us and had for his disciples, as being like the love of a bridegroom for his bride with his arms around us, drawing us close to his heart, to engage in an act of love with him within the Bridal Chamber of the soul.
And our human sexual relationships are called upon to become an earthly model of this divine lovemaking.
In a number of ancient Christian documents, often mixed in with texts praising chastity or celibacy, we sometimes see those which exalt sex as being sacramental in nature. Often the sacrament of sex is called " The Sacrament of the Bridal Chamber". Holy, spiritual sex is a sarcrament of wholeness, a sacramnet of unitive conciousness as well as unitive bodies. It is called also, the "Sacred Embrace" of the sexes, a sex that is carnal but not only carnal, also spiritual and unititative.
In Catholicism marriage is a sacrament, and is consummated and made effective only on the wedding night when the spouses make love. This means that we view sex as a visible sign of an invisible Grace from God.
Thus in the ancient Christian text called attributed to Philip we read in saying 64,
"...What is the bridal chamber [sexual act], if not the place of trust and consciousness in the embrace? It is an icon of Union, beyond all forms of possession; here is where the veil is torn from top to bottom; here is where some arise and awaken...The Sacrament of Marriage is grand...Therefore contemplate the image of sanctified sexual intercourse, for it has great power...Christ comes again to heal the wound [of divided humanity], to rediscover the lost unity, to enliven those who kill themselves in separation, reviving them in union. [The] embrace that incarnates the hidden union... is not only a reality of the flesh, for there is silence in this embrace. It does not arise from impulse or desire; it is an act of will. [We] are reborn by the Christ two by two. In his Breath, we experience a new embrace; we are no longer in duality, but in unity. All will be clothed in light when they enter into the mystery of the sacred embrace. All those who practice the sacred embrace will kindle the light. Those who are to have sex with one another will be satisfied with that sex. And as if it were a burden, they leave behind them the annoyance of physical desire (lust) and they do not separate from each other. They become a single life....For they were originally joined to one another when they were with the Father. This marriage has brought them back together again and the soul has been joined to her true love. If someone experiences Trust and Consciousness in the heart of the embrace, they become a child of light. If someone does not receive these, it is because they remain attached to what they know; when they cease to be attached, they will be able to receive them. Those who are no longer enslaved by (lust) rise above attraction and repulsion. (To do so, however) They must receive a power that is both masculine and feminine [achieve equilibrium] in the bridal chamber [sexual act]. Seek the experience of the pure embrace; it has great power...One shall be clothed with light in the Sacrament of intercourse..."
As the Catholic scholar Leloup points out, the Gospel of Philip envisions a "sacred embrace," which is a sexual union based not on lust, but rather upon the spiritual blending of man and woman. According an ancient saying of Jesus, this spiritual, social and sexual (re)union of male and female is the way in which we return to God and regain our primordial power and wholeness.
What this ancient Christian text envisions is this:
Often sex is based upon lust, what the text calls desire and attachment. In such sexual intercourse the goal is divisive rather than unitative, since it is all about self-gratification and self-pleasure. In this kind of sex, what the text calls "carnal intercourse", the true purpose of sexual intercourse as the means for unity between the sexes, as a symbol and potent force of unity and love that ascends to divine heights and becomes is an earthly icon of the Union of the Soul with God, is tarnished and left forgotten. Sex becomes a divisory activity, since it leads to power struggle and abuse of one partner over the other.
And the result of such brief, lustful sexual intercourse is that the couple, after enganging in the act of love making, separate from each other. The act is purely physical. When the sexual act is over, the connection between them is severed and broken because it is merely physical and fleshly.
But holy, sacramental sex is the opposite: The sexual act is the fruit of a deep, mutual, emotional relationship between two people who have pledged themselves to each other. When the sexual act is over, the connection between them is not broken, because they are so much in love that in the sexual act they "become a single life" and even afterwards they are still one in spirit and in body, as if they were continually making love. In such a sexual relationship the act of sex becomes a true symbol of the self-giving love between the individual soul and God and becomes a means through which two people can grow spiritually.
Sex thus becomes a holy act through which God leads two people to become spiritually reborn and move towards Union with God through love for each other.
This is holy, non-attached, non-lustful, mutual, self-giving, loving sexual intercourse.
The kind of relationship within which this kind of holy sex life is lived was beautifully explained by the Catholic Church Father Tertullian:
"...How shall we ever be able adequately to describe the happiness of that marriage which the Church arranges, the Sacrifice strengthens, upon which the blessing sets a seal?...How beautiful, then, the marriage of two [people], two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow...They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. Nothing divides them, either in flesh or in spirit. They are, in very truth, two in one flesh; and where there is but one flesh there is also but one spirit. They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another. Side by side they visit God’s church and partake of God’s Banquet; side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations. They have no secrets from one another; they never shun each other’s company; they never bring sorrow to each other’s hearts. Unembarrassed they visit the sick and assist the needy. They give alms without anxiety; they attend the Sacrifice without difficulty; they perform their daily exercises of piety without hindrance. They need not be furtive about making the Sign of the Cross, nor timorous in greeting the brethren, nor silent in asking a blessing of God. Psalms and hymns they sing to one another, striving to see which one of them will chant more beautifully the praises of their Lord. Hearing and seeing this, God rejoices. To such as these He gives His peace. Where there are two together, there also He is present; and where He is, there evil is not..."
(Tertullian, Church Father, ca. 160 – ca. 220 A.D)
In this kind of relationship, sex is for me holy, vivifying, sacramental and intensely spiritual. And by this I mean not just a marital relationship per se but any committed, mutual, loving sexual relationship
"...Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment [from oneself] and in suffering for the Beloved...All for you [Beloved] and nothing for me..."
- Saint John of the Cross (1542 – 1591), Catholic mystic
