Man's Fate and God's Choice by Bhimeswara Challa (ereader for textbooks TXT) 📖

sex and a greater variety of partners as the primary benefits of having wealth’.252 And then we have that special seductive something called ‘sex appeal’, which is the bedrock of the fashion, entertainment, and movie industries. The cliché goes that, in the advertising and consumer industries, the fail-safe way to attract an audience and to sell is through the projection of sex. While it is socially acceptable to show ‘sex appeal’ and to use it to make money, it is deemed both a crime and a sin to actually ‘sell sex’. We can, legally and even ethically, seduce and sell everything or anybody by the allure or use of sex, save sex itself. The premise is that sex is not a skill, or a product or a commodity. But the irony is, in our society where sex and money are intertwined, a direct trade-off between the two is socially, and in most countries, legally, prohibited. And then we have two other ‘industries’ that owe their existence to sex: prostitution and pornography. We may prefer to turn a Nelson’s eye to it, but the rude reality is that sex has become so much a part of us — so much our way of life, so much of what we see, hear and read, occupying so much of our psychic space, and its shadow likely to extend so large on the human future — that we have to ask ourselves: are we true to God and His intent? What was the intent? God created a ‘male’ and a ‘female’ as opposed to two men or two women, to be, in the language of the

 

 

 

252 Cited in: Thomas Kostigen. More Money, Better Sex. MSN Money. MarketWatch. 10 February 2007. Accessed at: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/LoveAndMoney/MoreMoneyBetterSex.aspx

 

Bible, fruitful and to multiply by ‘becoming one flesh’. And to ensure that nothing man creates could rival that ecstasy, God formed the male and the female bodies. Much theological debate has focused on the question: does human sexuality strictly circumscribe to multiplication through procreation, or does it have a pleasurable purpose? Without built-in pleasure, God knew that man might shy away from sex and he made the union ecstatic, but he could not make every act automatic and instantaneous for begetting children. Therefore, sex became a source of both procreation and recreation, and pleasure is the incentive and insurance for multiplication.

Scientists tell us that sexual reproduction appeared over a billion years ago, and it is amazing that it has survived and almost stayed the same for so long. When it came to man, the Greeks thought that a jealous God separated the sexes and dared them to find their other halves before they became infertile. As a sequel, a wag puts it: man spends nine months struggling to find a way out of the womb, and the rest of his life in search of another.

Although the dynamics of reproduction have somewhat changed due to technology, the different ‘techniques’ of mating have not changed (the Kama Sutra is still the standard book!), but the urge for sex has grown stronger, fuelled by the power of the visual image, and its grip over the human mind has become even tighter. Basically there are three broad views of sex in human affairs: Sexual Pragmatism treats sex as nothing more than just another appetite that is inevitable, an integral part of the pantheon of inherent human desires, no more despicable than our need to eat or breathe. And since you cannot stop it, ‘just go with the flow’ and allow yourself to go wherever the desire leads you to. In short, all sex is right if it is safe. From the perspective of Sexual Animalism, sex is an animal passion that lowers us; a necessary evil since it is the only way to procreate. This view loathes sexuality but tolerates it as a way to leave a legacy to our children. Sexual Romanticism sees sex as a creative self- expression, but repressed. It proposes that every human being is born with a healthy sexual desire, but it is twisted by the influence of society and its culture. Of the three, it is the first that has gained the upper hand in recent human history. In the minds of many people, sex is not only a ‘basic desire’ but, more importantly a desire that can be endlessly satiated with or without money and/or power. To top it, we can still ‘make money’ and acquire or augment power. With sex we have multiple choices — we can be either a superman or a supermodel, a plain Jane or a Cleopatra, young or old; we can get sex free or pay for it or earn from it; sex can be an instrument of power or of the powerless; it gives us ecstasy and entertainment like nothing else.

And then we have what has come to be called ‘spiritual sex’. It has two dimensions: the seamy and the sacred. The seamy or the sordid dimension is its association with pseudo- religious ‘gurus’ and goons, who exploit the love and devotion of their followers for their personal gratification. While it has always been an occasional aberration, it has become far more frequent in recent times, for two reasons. One, in today’s sexually charged culture, it is far more difficult for the people with some religious or spiritual authority to resist the temptation of trespass; it is too difficult to pass up the opportunity. Two, it reflects the sense of disquiet, desperation, and deprivation that mark millions of lives. So many are searching for something to help them overcome a problem, or simply find some solace, that when a charismatic ‘spiritual master’ comes along and offers some comfort, all taboos break down and offerings are made in flesh to a ‘god’.

On the other hand, the sacred dimension of spiritual sex is timeless. It has been a

long-held article of faith that sexuality is a potent source of energy, and that if it is controlled, channeled or harvested it could enable man to transcend the bounds of being human. It is believed that sexual energy can be channeled or redirected upward to develop our energy centers, as a way to our spiritual evolution (as, for example, in the Hindu chakra system that comprises seven fields of energy in the human body). Celibacy, enjoined upon priests, nuns

 

and monks, is one way. There are also techniques of spiritual or sacred sex for couples, like karezza in the West and tantra in India. They are concerned with the conservation and transmutation of sexual energies for spiritual growth. Whichever way one looks at it, we are a sexually lost species. There is so much sexuality and so little satisfaction. Hundreds of books have been written — like the Kama Sutra — on how to achieve sexual ecstasy. We have experimented with numerous methods to find sexual peace (monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, casual sex, ceremonial sex, commercial sex, etc.), but lust remains at large, unvanquished, unquenched.

Having examined ‘money’ and ‘sex’, let us now look at the third constituent of the triad — power. Power closely connects the two, money and sex. Money is power and power is money. Sex is power, too, and power is sex. Power, which is the ability to control the surrounding environment (including individuals) is intrinsic to human nature; it is a means to prevail upon, to control and to subdue another life. Everyone wants to be powerful. No one wants to be weak and vulnerable. Power manifests as coercion, control, and authority. In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), O’Brien, the main antagonist, makes several telling comments about ‘power’. While describing the Party’s vision of the future, he says (to Winston Smith, the protagonist): ‘we are the priests of power’ and ‘power is in inflicting pain and humiliation’. O’Brien says that there will always be the ‘intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler’. And he tells Winston to visualize the future as a boot trampling on a human face. That description aptly captures the grip of power on the human consciousness. Almost no one — be it a saint or sinner, or a spiritual or sensual or secular person — can deny having harbored, either consciously or unconsciously, a yen for power. As Friedrich Nietzsche chillingly captured the importance of power in human life: being ‘good’ is that which enhances the feeling of power, the will to power, and the power itself in man; and ‘bad’ is that which proceeds from weakness; and ‘happiness’ is the feeling that the power is increasing — and that resistance has been overcome. And what matters is not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but competence. And to top it all, the first principle of our humanism is that the weak and the unsuccessful should perish and, indeed, they even ought to be helped to perish. Human thirst for power entails, as described by Steven Lukes (Power: A Radical View, 1974), an imposition of internal constraints, and those vulnerable to it acquire beliefs that induce them to consent to domination by either coercive or persuasive means. We all know the power of power every minute of our lives. It is a shadow we cannot run away from because that is our shadow. How we exercise it — or submit to it — is the test of our character. No high marks on either count. The English historian Lord Acton famously said that ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’; it is in the nature of power itself to seek unchallenged power. Bernard Loomer, the American theologian said, “The problem of power is as ancient as the age of man. The presence of power is manifest wherever two or more people are gathered together and have any kind of relationship. Its deeper and sometimes darker qualities emerge as soon as the omnipresent factor of inequality

makes itself felt.”253 Not only Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘very rich’ but also the ‘very powerful’ belong to a different genre. The scent of power easily seduces most men. Abraham Lincoln said “Nearly all men can stand the test of adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character,

 

 

 

 

 

253 Bernard Loomer. Two Conceptions of Power. 1976. [Process Studies, vol.6, no.1, Spring, pp.5-32]. Accessed at: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2359

 

give him power.”254 Why the human animal alone is so singularly single-minded and ruthlessly relentless about gaining dominance — physical, psychological or emotional — over another person defies comprehension. What deep-seated urge or sadistic instinct does that fulfill? How does humiliating another person, which dominance is all about, make one feel better or superior? Yet, power is also necessary to protect the weak and the vulnerable, and also for good governance. Man has long tried to find a balance between the two competing factors, but not very successfully, as history shows. Since the possession and retention of power often requires aggressiveness and unscrupulousness, those who wield power rarely happen to be the right kind. It is therefore a state of ‘double jeopardy’; good men do not come to power, and power corrupts those who come to power.

 

End, means, and violence

Whether it is pursuit of power, pleasure, or profit, we often face the ethical dilemma: does the end justify the means or do the means justify the end? And to what extent should we tolerate or embrace violence as a means to achieve a just end? What takes precedence in the crucible of life, with so many competing demands, desires, ambitions, temptations, and obligations, is the question. We get mixed messages from the scriptures. Our incapacity — both cognitive and emotional — to mingle, manage and marry them has impeded our search for our real identity and erupts as violence, which tends to spread like a virus. It is, in one sense, the daily dilemma that dogs us every step of the way. It has a bearing on our moral sense of right and wrong