Sex is a manifestation of kama or desire. ‘Sex is the original sin,’ this is what people have been made to believe in the past. Sex is not a sin. It is the basis of all life on the planet. There are two basic instincts in human beings, and these have been with you in all your lifetimes — food and sex. These have been with you in all your lives, even when you were an animal and now as a human being. You are born out of food and sex.
It is so beautiful that in India we connect both of these to divinity. In the Upanishads, it is said ‘Food is God.’ When you consider food as God, you will not overeat. You won’t simply stuff yourself with food, but you will eat with honour. No festival in India is celebrated without delicacies, associated with that festival, being prepared in every household. When you go to a temple, the first thing the priest gives you is some prasad. Prasad is just a little bit of food that is given to the devotees. Without prasad, there is no pilgrimage and no festival. Food and God are connected.
Similarly, sex and God are also connected. One often tends to keep sex separate from God. Sex is often thought of as part of material life. But here in India, the ancient people linked sex to God so that no aspect in us, even an instinct as basic as sex, remained away from God. When you honour sex and consider it as part of the divinity, then your obsession disappears, lust disappears and sacredness dawns. Also, the basic instinct of lust transforms into love. This is the ancient thought.
