The first impulse of religious or spiritual paths with respect to the sex impulse has frequently been to simply suppress and deny it. When any form of energy is forcefully suppressed, it acts like a coiled spring, storing that energy and building up its potential power, until such time as it is able to overcome the force of the suppression and then is released with a tremendous uprising of that energy. The result can be explosive, similar to the eruption of a volcano. Pressures build up until the cover can no longer contain it and it bursts forth. As practitioners struggle with the force of the sexual impulse, they undergo mental, vital and even physical torture as they try to contain it. Self-flagellation, and the use of the cilice and the hair-shirt represent techniques used by those who try to overpower the sexual drive by torturing the body.
Those who try forceful suppression frequently find the energy turned in other directions, such as through a form of gluttony or greed for food; or through the rising of uncontrollable anger or an urge to dominate and control others, in many cases aggressively and through bullying behaviour.
The turn of the nature toward one option or another depends highly on which Guna is predominant in the nature. Rajas will tend toward the more aggressive forms and potentially turn outwards towards judgmental actions combined with attempts to control or bully others. Kapha may tend toward substitution with fulfilling a desire for food or luxuries. Sattwa may try to sublimate the energy into pursuits of an artistic or intellectual nature.
Sri Aurobindo provides a clue toward the solution when he suggests a substitution of focus. The being rejects the uprising of the desire in favor of this new focus. Western psychology describes the concept of ‘sublimation’ of the sexual force into other forms, such as artistic activity or intellectual pursuits. For the spiritual seeker, however, these forms do not fully answer the seeker’s objective. Certain spiritual paths describe an alternative where the intense aspiration, combined with certain psycho-physical techniques, can lead to what they call the ‘awakening of the Kundalini’, the serpent power coiled at the base of the spine, at the first chakra, which then mounts up the subtle channels through the higher chakras until eventually it bursts through the 1000-petalled chakra at the top of the head and joins the physical to the spiritual.
Some paths attempt to harness the energy and turn it directly to a spiritual purpose, in what are called Tantric paths. While this may certainly be possible, there seems to be a considerable acceptance of indulgence of the sexual desire which, for most practitioners, does not actually lead to the desired liberation, but rather, a further strengthening of the sexual force and a form of justification for indulging in it.
Humanity has tried numerous approaches to this question of managing the sexual impulse. A review of these approaches, and what they have (or have not) succeeded in accomplishing, can aid us in finding a solution that actually succeeds in achieving real mastery of the power active through the Muladhara (first) chakra.
Sri Aurobindo observes: “It is true that the mere suppression or holding down of desire is not eiough, not by itself truly effective, but that does not mean that desires are to be indulged; it means that desires have not merely to be suppressed, but to be rejected from the nature. In place of desire there must be a single-minded aspiration towards the Divine.”
“As for love, the love must be turned singly towards the Divine. What men call by that name is a vital interchange for mutual satisfaction of desire, vital impulse or physical pleasure. There must be nothing of this interchange between sadhaks; for to seek for it or indulge this kind of impulse only leads away from the sadhana.”
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pg. 70
Sri Aurobindo Studies 