Life and Spirituality

S ome modern philosophers have argued that sexual pleasures, beyond those necessary for procreation, of the appropriate kind are a useful part of the human experience and therefore worth pursuing. What exactly is considered appropriate varies with thinkers but in no case does it involve compulsion, inducement or force by one human on another. Sexual indulgence, if any, must only be between adults and from mutual interest and agreement. However, spiritual literature and saints across diverse traditions of the planet have advised humans to overcome urges of lust and described that along with two other emotions - greed and anger – it is a cause of driving humans to hell. The Bhagvat Gita, a revered scripture of the Hindus, describes these as the three gates to hell. It only lauds limited sexual desire i.e. that associated with procreation as divine. The new testament of the Christians warns not just against lustful activity but even lustful thoughts. However sexual desire w...

Artist: Pompeo Girolamo Batoni “Your task is not to seek love, merely to seek barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ― Rumi, the prophet of love A t times, some of my younger and not so young friends ask how to find romantic love that they are missing in their lives, based on my experience in the journey through life, at a time when I have seen what I wished to see and have nothing more to seek in this lap of an eternal journey, this life, and have come to the end of the road to share and reflect on what I saw. I did a post on this topic a long time ago in this blog. However, since a visitor to this blog raised a comment on the issue to the last post, I had promised that I shall do a post on it again. Especially, because to be frank the earlier post was primarily directed at an older friend with a philosophical bent of mind and the answer in the older post was therefore philosophical and somewhat advanced. Other younger persons wish for simpl...