Genre: Spirituality
Size: 150 pages
Multiple times during reading this book over a couple of weeks, I felt the urgent need to hide the book, or at least its title, when someone else approach my desk. As Osho is well aware and discusses on the subject in length, sex is a perverted subject. To be found discussing sex can be forgiven among the friends, given that there’s some humor, but to be caught reading a book about it sends strong message of perversion. Much like porn, it is something ubiquitous yet something entirely hidden, yet it doesn’t even exist. That’s the starting point of this book: that sex is all prevalent and it is about time we make it a publicly comfortable topic.
Unlike what the blurb on the back says, and despite my defense, this is a book about sex. It is a book directly about sex, that is, and only later does the book progress towards its spiritual aspects. Given the polarized state of sex in our world, this book can be received in multiple ways. “Why would a well-renowned guru talk about a topic so basic, so common, so impure?” could be the reaction of most of the people; for me, however, I was rather earnest to seek what a transcendental knowledge of sex might be. Finding myself in its grip and burning desire, sex has become one of the most problematic aspects on my youth.
Osho, stage name of Shree Rajneesh, is an Indian spiritual preacher, a prolific reader, and in his own right, an eastern philosopher as well. Introduced to me by a friend, himself an avid reader of Rajneesh, Osho fascinated me. His well-read portfolio, his infamous cult, and his irresistibly charismatic and intoxicating persona, makes one want to read him – or better still, listen to him, since all his books are transcripts of his sessions. Having watched a couple of his clips, I too would’ve like to listened to his sessions instead of having read them in a book. Yet words read or listened of Osho is sure to leave some mark on you. But what about this very topic?
After introducing his audience/readers to the prevalence of sex, that it’s what everyone wants and it’s what everyone born from, Osho then smoothly reveals the connection between sex and love of the highest form. He argues that it is through sex, the first step in the ladder that we can reach samadhi, celibacy, or super-consciousness. Yet how must resistance, taboo, ugliness, and secrecy we face about sex, about the first, and arguably only, step to attaining spiritual purity. So, if the mankind is cut from its entrance, attaining celibacy remains a hopeless pursuit. Moreover, it is not that we could rid ourselves of sex and its essence, discrediting it would only indulge the mankind more intensely into it. The way out, suggests Osho, is only talking about sex, but thinking about it and understanding it.
It is my first book from Osho, and only second book on spirituality after books of Eckhart Tolle. Since it is a transcript of his sessions, the usual complexity of writing with its complex sentences and verbosity, isn’t to be found here. It is an easy book to read; perhaps too easy sometimes. At points when the elevation of the topic demands some nuance and deeper inspections, Osho continues with his simplicity to language, with some irony here and there. Yet the reader remains invested in the book, knowing that a parable is coming every few pages that drives the point home more firmly and humorously home. The small size of this book compliments Osho’s simplistic and wise approach, where not many words are necessary. However, as with the transcend of the subject matter the words needed to transcend as well; this is where I desired for more.
The ascend occurs when Osho zeroes in on the activity of sex. Slow breathing, looking between the eyes, and approaching sex like one approach a sacred temple, are the essentials of prolonging the joy of sex. And what is it exactly that produces this joy during sex? Ejaculation is only the biological explanation, on the deeper level, Osho argues, there’s a mutual phenomenon going on: timelessness and egolessness. For a brief moment, our mortal bodies go through the experience of no time, escaping the concept of time, and there in losing their ego and merging with the whole. Being a virgin, I could only relate to these ideas with my knowledge of handy jobs and my earnestness of imagination, yet still – Osho, at times, propelled me to see what there is going beyond sex as well, that sex is not the end, but a beginning.
It is the beginning of celibacy, says Osho, of overcoming the physical and the psychological, and entering the spiritual realms of intercourse. The state is rarely achieved, despite the path being simple, since it involves the breaking of all taboos around sex (even normalizing nudity in childhood years), embracing it as the first step towards prolonged ‘timelessness and egolessness’, and finally overcoming sex, this common activity, and achieving celibacy – the death of impulsive sex.
Spread over five sessions, Osho can be repetitive at times and refusing to dive deeper into the topic. Reading it, I felt like I was standing at the edge, looking inward, denied access. Perhaps that may be due to my virginity, the deeper understanding explorable only when I explore sex itself. In the last session, however, Osho answers few of the questions presented to him: there he goes off topic and talks about his unwillingness towards fame or prophecy, about the hypocrisy of moralists. Yet two of the outstanding and weirdly credible claims from this chapter were that a sexual desire, permeable through love found everywhere, should also exist between a mother and son. Osho replies affirmatively to this by saying that a woman achieves her great love through birth, while man’s love matures when he becomes a son to his wife (depicted through his striving for the breasts). The second claim is about the possibility of birth through celibacy, to which Osho answers that in the state of celibacy children will be allowed to come to this world, and not be products of accidents. Where once mankind wanted to have sex and avoid childbirth, then they would desire babies but without the process of sex. Babies would become intentional, holy, desired, few, and also transcendental.
Reading this book through at a
time when I haven’t been able to finish a book in over eight months, was
surprisingly an easy business. Osho’s easy prose and captivating parables made
this a simple to book to pass through. As for what I take from having passed through
it remains to be seen. I shall observe from here on what effects, if any, this book
might have had on my thinking about sex and its possible evolution once I finally
approach it – with sacredness of course. After totemizing my virginity for 26
years and counting, by will or by pressure, it is only fair that I should think
of this act as holy. Transcending it eventually, as Osho deeds possible,
remains a revelation to be witnessed.
Ratings: 4/5 ****
May 20, 2023_