Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

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ex-l

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post20 Apr 2008

No "must". Masturbating is out. Actually, after two or three months of celibacy the urge (or power of sanskars) decline a great deal and it is not that hard.

And let's face it ... the majority of longterm BKs are becoming increasingly older. Is it really such a big thing?
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joel

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post21 Apr 2008

ex-l wrote:Excuse me but either the link is surely broken or one needs to be a member to see the interview. Joel ... care to share a username and password? Sorry to be the pendant here ... but what have we agreed "spirituality" is anyway? its seems to be as devalued to zero as the word Zen (or "Tao" for that matter).

It's a text only interview, I fixed the link. Her videos are readily available to order.

Permanent celibacy is not essential, in my view, to grow as a person toward wholeness, integrity, maturity, wisdom and happiness.
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alladin

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lust( poison) -free sex

Post21 Apr 2008

bkti-pit wrote:As far as touching goes. I personally am not so much of the touching type and that goes back to before the BK life.

Bad luck if your cultural background or personality's different! In that case, the imposition of not showing affection through touching, becomes real arm twisting and artificial ( and they call themselves non violent ...)
However, it is not that I did not hug my children. And I did not stop hugging when I adopted the BK lifestyle. I became celibate but did not stop kissing or being affectionate with my spouse. What a sin it would have been!

Congratulations! Means you are a well balanced person with good discrimination power: you did not allow a sect to damage your children's psyche nor your relationship with them or your spouse by making them feel totally rejected!

I think that the way we touch is just as the way we speak, the way we look at others, the way we walk, the way we work... It tells a lot about us. It can be harsh and violent and selfish and arrogant, or it can be gentle and generous, clean and respectful. I think it is not so much about touching or not touching, it is about the quality of the touching or the non touching.
Just as silence can be very pure but can also be morbid or disrespectful or violent, it is the same with our words, our drishti and our every action, thought and feeling

I totally agree.Thanks for writing this, Brother! :D It's a more refined way of thinking, compared to the gross vision which leads to mere prohibitions. Recently I was "churning" about the same thing and wondering if one can have lust-free sex. It is definitely a matter of personal choices. What satisfies, makes us feel good, turns us on, what we find acceptable or not. A friend of mine defined "mechanic" sex as "destabilizing": I could also add uninteresting and disempowering.

I agree that it is only through experience and experimenting that we can come to any conclusion and possibly find an answer to the question raised in this topic. This can only be done outside the BK corral since, in there, sex is the biggest Taboo.

I have realized some things, lately, and life, not external impositions, have allowed me to see more clearly what type of energy I want/like and what I found useless or repulsive. I am trying to understand what purity means for me, what pulls me down and distances from my higher self and goals, and God, and my ideal of relationships. It maybe not so easy to define what we want, but one step could be understanding clearly what we do not want. Some ingredient that sex has in it, and the low vibes some people have, feel like poison. Something clicked in my mind as I was listening to this song. Let me share it with you:
Lisa Stansfield - Poison

Don’t worry about me, baby

Whenever you walk by me, I can hear you breath
I can smell the love you made when you were gone
Darlin’ don’t deny it, or make excuses
I'’ve heard too many lies, to know that I’m not wrong

Baby don’t insult me
I’m too tired to let it hurt me
Baby just believe me
And give me back my key, and set me free

Chorus:
Keep you’r body to yourself, or give it to somebody else
You’re poison

Can’t you you see I’m far to tough to let it hurt
I’'ve had enough of your poison
Got bad habits on your mind, you’re underhanded
I’'m not blind to your poison

Spoken:

Don’t make me laugh, you’'ve told so many lies
And of all the lies you told me, baby, you’re the biggest

jann

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post22 Apr 2008

Celibacy in this Yagya is not free will! It is manipulation.

The unlimited Father says - Children if you do not become pure, then you would not be able to enter into heaven also. If you do not become pure in this last birth, you would lose the kingship." (Revised Sakar Murli dated 22.01.07, pg.3 published by BKs in Hindi and narrated by Father Shiv through Brahma Baba and translated by a PBK; the words within brackets in the English version have been added by the translator).

Give me your body, only than I'll give you heaven.
A typical thing for a cult leader to say to control its members.

jack

Celibacy and Chastity -Difference

Post31 Aug 2008

Celibacy refers to being unmarried. A vow of celibacy is a promise not to enter into marriage. Celibacy is not the same as chastity which refers to an abstinence of sexual intercourse, although it is commonly misused this way.

Baba is asking chastity from the followers, but term celibacy used instead. Baba is not asking celibacy, that’s why the followers can get in to married life by keeping chastity.
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arjun

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post31 Aug 2008

faisu wrote:Baba is asking chastity from the followers, but term celibacy used instead. Baba is not asking celibacy, that’s why the followers can get in to married life by keeping chastity.

Although marriage is not banned for Brahmins, but Baba has said in the Murlis that most of the Brahmins who get married break their vow of chastity on the very first day of married life. So, He generally directs Brahmins to avoid marriage. Only a courageous few are able to remain chaste/pure even after getting married after entering the BK/PBK path of knowledge. So, it is virtually celibacy for most of the unmarried BKs/PBKs.
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ex-l

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post31 Aug 2008

arjun wrote:Only a courageous few are able to remain chaste/pure even after getting married.

To be honest arjun, and I speak from my and others experience here, it is actually quite easy to not have sex - even when it is free offered "on the menu" (as we say) - if you do not love or fancy the other person.

Its a bit of a fantasy within the virgin crone cloisters of the Brahma Kumari world that, "all men are rapists" or nothing but walking penises.

I know for many reasons, things are different in India. Its fair to say that in most Western and developed countries, one could if one wished, walk out of one's house tonight and have sex with one or more others for free. The vast, vast majority of people don't. The vast majority of people spend most of their lives not having sex. Even married couples. And it does not take Lekhraj Kirpalani or bewitched haridans to interfere with their relationship to do so.

This does not answer the question above, but like in so many things, the attitudes of the inner circle of the BKWSU have been created on exaggerated fantasies. Does anyone else remember reading Jagdish Chander's Victorian horror stories, written from 19th Century science, of the atrocities of venereal diseases and women who fell into 'petit mal' coma after making love etc to frighten BKs away from it?

I suspect they do not print them any more, how is the matter discussed within the organization? Or is it hidden so outsiders are not frightened off?

bansy

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post31 Aug 2008

Celibacy / Chatisty is necessary because God cannot do it by himself. So only by entering a body can he do so and know what sex is. After all if he's never done "it", how does he know it is a vice ?

jann

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post31 Aug 2008

Very good point!!
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freedom

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post01 Sep 2008

Now, after many years and journeys through this incredible earth/life/people/nature, I don't have any doubt that sex has nothing to do with God. Better yet; God, the Universe, the Supreme Energy, the Pure Energy that is available to us at anytime (remember the remembrance), is Joy, Happiness, Harmony, Peace. When one is connected with this energy, your own pure energy, there is no "sin" or "vice" ... Now I understand and see BKs as a religion, really. Whatever name you wanna call it; Raja Yoga, Brahma Kumaris, Hinduism ... and religions have rules, that has NOTHING TO DO WITH GOD !!! ;)

I am much happier now with these realizations, and let them (BKs) be or do whatever they want. After all, karma (or the law of attraction), DOES exist !!!

Kisses, everyone !!

jann

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post01 Sep 2008

What goes around comes around. That kind of karma i believe, but not that i suffer in this life for the karma in past lives.
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freedom

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post01 Sep 2008

Yeap ...
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paulkershaw

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post01 Sep 2008

If we look at a deeper meaning or purpose of orgasm, one may see that all joy, happiness, intention of life and potential of life and new life is contained within every single orgasm, then why the celibacy requirement by some cults and followings. It is surely to prevent that same happiness and joy being experienced. Sure, along with orgasm/sex may come (sister in charge) the negative's of attachment, possession and jealousy in the unguarded or immature (I see these things as opportunities for spiritual growth in any case) but the only way to create pure life in its truest form, and bring into being complete total human potential, is through an orgasm. To avoid it, is to keep within the self all potential and if these aspects are kept hidden, then it may in fact be a selfish act to be celibate.

Of course, we 're talking complete balance and commitment to one-self and to one's own journey here, as wanton trails of orgasmic pleasure may cause complete chaos when its misrepresented or misused. An abusive cycle could result as one searches for the same potential in each orgasm/act of sex/act of 'love' etc.
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joel

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post01 Sep 2008

Jannisder commented earlier that celibacy is an indicator to a cult leader that her followers are loyal, have been sufficiently brainwashed.

Another function of celibacy is for the leader to show that she is above the attractions and pleasures available to all humans. If you don't need sex and are not driven by your sexuality, or hunger etc., you can begin to act like you are pure, angelic, 16-degrees complete. Followers would like to show that they too can be beyond the world's attractions and putatively false fulfillments.

For those inclined to research, I find on my bookshelf, A history of celibacy by Elizabeth Abbott. Celibacy has been important to monastic traditions, as Roche also points in his article Tale of Two Paths: The Householder and the Renunciate.

I, for one, would be interested to see some real research, for example on the correlation between autoerotic activity (masturbation) and scholastic achievement. Do kids who play less with themselves achieve more or less academically than those who experiment with this potent mood-altering mode of activity?
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ex-l

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Re: Celibacy - is it necessary for spirituality?

Post01 Sep 2008

You could try starting with Google scholar on masturbation.

I would have had a look for you but I am starting to go blind and need to trim the hairs on the palms of my hands ... :shock:.

I think there is a set of serious questions to be asked in this area. I can imagine any answers or evidence would be instantly dismissed by the BKWSU. My guess is that guilt-free and reasonably stimulated mind/bodies will be score higher than repressed individuals ... the question would then be to test those who have "conquered lust" as a comparison again.

But what would one be testing for? Scholastic results alone? What about artistic creativity? Health ... material success? How would one quantify "well-being"? Many of the world's greatest artists and musicians were homosexuals, bisexuals and lotharios who did not hold back. And would the sexual expression be the root cause or a partial symptom of an already greater creative libido? One might also ask about the age of commencement.

What would be interesting is to test the "lust conquerors" against the performance and well-being of natural individuals who have never had their minds filled with judgmental Gods and religions ...
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