Eating can be spiritualized, but how can mating be spiritualized?
So how can karnamuni use sex pleasure in krishna's service somehow we stigmatize sex pleasure too much what happens is material life, sex pleasure is over glamorized.
And in spiritual life, sometimes we go to the other extreme and we demonize sex pleasure. And you know, I answer questions on my website. This is a slightly off track, but it is a good example to illustrate this.
So because people can ask anonymous questions, sometimes people ask very candidly. So one Mataji asked a question to me. She said that I and my sister, both of us were religious from our childhood.
And we decided that we will only marry men who are devoted to God. She says my sister, she, in her workplace, she developed a relationship with a devoted Christian man and she married this Christian man. She says I am a Hare Krishna devotee.
I saw that he is very seriously devoted to God and I married him. He says my sister's, now she became a Christian, my sister's religion, that teaches her husband that a good wife is a gift from God. But it says throughout my life, my husband treats me as a temptation who has deviated from God.
Is this the way I am meant to feel throughout my life? Yes. I also want to be devoted to God and I also want to move towards God. Sometimes I feel I should have also married a Christian man.
My life would have been happier. So then I wrote an answer in several quotes of Prabhupada. No, I didn't write, I spoke answers.
Actually, for a householder, a wife is Ardhangini. Ardhangini is half of the body. They are together meant to serve Krishna.
If a husband starts seeing the wife as a temptation, then that is a misunderstanding. Their partners, yes, there is a sexual aspect to the relationship, but that is not the primary definer of the relationship. That is just one aspect which is surfaced, which will be dealt with.
It's their business how they deal with it. But primarily, they are partners in their spiritual life together. So, how they deal with the sexual aspect of their life, that should not define their relationship.
Their relationship should be defined on the fact that both of them are devoted, both of them are trying to serve Krishna. And if we demonize this sexist activity too much, then that is also a negative obsession with it. There are people who can renounce sex life, but they may just be very proud.
There are others who may be devoted to Krishna. So, we shouldn't very simplistically equate renunciation of sex with advancement in devotion. Rather, it is advancement in devotion which will gradually lead to renunciation of sex.
But if we equate this with this, we think of it as a causal thing, then it's a problem. So, sex is for procreation as we say. But procreation is not just something that, it is, how should I put it? It is not that procreation is meant to be done in an utterly unfeeling machine-like way where, you know, one engages in their activities without thinking about that activity or whatever.
It's a part of life. The problem and Prabhupada condemns it strongly is that, see, it's a part of life and it should be left as a part of life. It should neither, but in today's society, it is made into like the, not a part of life, made into goal of life.
But then we go to the other extreme and we think that it should not even be a part of life itself. Well, that is also not proper. So, both extremes are wrong.
And this demonization of sex in terms of, that can be very, it can lead to hard-heartedness. And it is based on an incomplete understanding of what bhakti is. Bhakti encompasses all our life and we don't have to get into the details of how somebody will, that's not our business as brahmacharis.
I conclude with one example that aahar, hridra, bhai, maithun, these are basic bodily activities. So, we should not put maithun in too demoniac category. It's basically bodily function.
Just like with respect to food. Now, it is ideal, that is the ideal standard is food that is cooked for Krishna, offered to Krishna and then eaten. Now, if that is not possible, then we may take vegetarian food, which is, many grahasthas may have to do that.
Vegetarian food, they offer it to Krishna and then they take that. So, just as within food there is a hierarchy, the ideal food you have a particular standard, but if the ideal is not possible, then there are various levels, or rather descending levels, various levels at which one can take food. Now, somebody says, oh, if I cannot take the ideal food, then I'll eat meat.
No, you cannot eat meat. There is no need for you to eat meat. You take vegetarian food and even if you can't offer it, just offer it in the mind.
So, there are various levels and there is one, like no meat eating or meat eating, it is a very serious breaking of the level. But within that there are various levels and it's not a big issue. It's not a violation of regulative principle.
So, in general, when Prabhupada talked about the principle of no illicit sex, whenever he has talked about it in the context of initiation, as a initiation vow, he always talks about that in terms of no sex outside marriage. Other places in his purport, he talks about sex only for procreation. So, we can see this, sex only for procreation is the ideal.
That is like taking food cooked for Krishna, cooked by devotees, cooked for Krishna and offered to Krishna and served by Krishna, served by devotees and like a complete devotional environment. So, like that, that is the ideal standard with respect to sex. But sex outside marriage, that is like meat eating.
And within that, it's a continuum which is acceptable. So, there is one incident that when Prabhupada was in Mayapur, it came to know that some devotee, he had gone in Mayapur to some prostitute. And Prabhupada came to know about it.
Prabhupada told her, he says, you are married? She said, yes. But, you know, my wife wants to follow very strictly. And she doesn't want to have sex.
So, Prabhupada said, this is nonsense. The husband and wife, sometimes it may happen that, again, I don't want to go into too many details here, but just because you asked the question, the husband and wife, sometimes one partner may have a higher sexual, as they use the word, sex drive. And the other partner may have less sex drive.
So, now, it's not that the two are to be antagonists. The two have to help each other. And you shouldn't think that as a sinful activity.
So, sex within marriage is the basic regulative incident. Sex for co-creation is the highest standard. Within it all, there is a various, it's a various levels of acceptability.
But it is not considered unacceptable. So, the thing is that sometimes we consider anything below the standard as sinful. It is not sinful.
It is, yeah, it is distraction from spiritual life. It can be a potential, a major distraction, major cause of bondage. But we shouldn't put that activity as an entirely out of the normal category.
It is basically bodily function. Don't hype it up. Don't glamorize it.
Don't demonize it. Let people do their business and move on with their lives. Does that answer your question? I think we'll stop here.
So, shall we stop? Thank you very much.