SEX AND ENLIGHTENMENT

Studying the spread of Vajrayana Buddhism in the Himalayan region, I was surprised to learn that enlightenment can be achieved through Sex. So far, I had only known that one fine day Buddha, a former prince in the 6th century BC India, sat under a tree and went on meditating for days and nights and overcoming many physical and spiritual hurdles, achieved enlightenment. I have even wondered what exactly enlightenment is? While trying to understand enlightenment, I was told that Enlightenment couldn’t be comprehended by Intellect. Intellect is not the right faculty to understand enlightenment. The word enlightenment has the word 'light' sandwiched between 'en' and 'enment'. It occured to me that through meditation a light must have appeared before Buddha dispelling all the darkness, which I think, are negativities. Or he may have achieved extraordinary control over his mind that he was able to control all the ramifications and emanations not only of his mind but of other people's mind too. This is my conjucture, there might be other theories.

But in the process of my learning, trying to understand enlightenment in the light of sex was puzzling me. I think OSHO was the first person from the Indian subcontinent who publicized the theory of achieving enlightenment through sex. He said (in his book 'From Sex To Superconciousness') that a sexual union between a male and a female can result into enlightenment if one knows the method. He was not liked in India. He became very controversial for propounding that. People found it hard to accept that a religious Guru is preaching sex! But what he telling was not a new theory but a very old one. I learnt that there have been from the first century onwards many practioner of Vajrayana Buddhism who with their female consort practiced Tantra to achieve enlightenment. Guru Padmasdambhava who brought Buddhism to Sikkim and Tibet was such a Buddhist master. More on this in my next blog.

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