OMG 2 Sex Education A Bhagavad Gita Perspective

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The OMG to movie. A Bhagavad Gita perspective on sex education and related issues. OMG to movie depicts the tragic story of a young boy who tries to commit suicide and.
Bold struggle of his father to do whatever is required to prevent the relapse of such a thing happening for his son. And it depicts a dramatic confrontation between him and societal norms. Now.
I’ll comment on this from three broad perspectives. The first is that young people committing suicide is tragic and whatever is required to prevent anything from happening. We should give full support for that.
And this father makes the case that sex education is what is required. Now we will examine first. Is it that sex education? Would have helped prevent this boy’s suicidal attempt.
So the overall storyline is that the boy is typical teenage trying to woo a girl. And when he succeeds, other other boys become envious and they try to minimise him. They see him and they see his reproductive organ and they say that they make fun of it for its small size and he feels insecure and he tries to.
He tries to take some medication which tries to increase the size. He thinks that by masturbation, the size can be increased. And then he has some self health complications because of that.
And then finally, when he thinks that he has succeeded or whatever in what he wanted to do. Then he is masturbating and these people, some of his friends take videos or other co-students, definitely not his friends. They take a video and that video becomes viral.
He feels disgraced and humiliated by that and his school also rusticates him. And then that makes him feel even more humiliated and he tries to end his life. So now here, sex education, how would it have prevented this boy’s suicide? Is it that sex education by telling him that, OK, masturbating is normal and natural, so there’s no need for him to feel ashamed of it.
Would that have prevented his suicide? Well, he was doing it anyway. And it was not that he was the movie doesn’t depict that he himself was burdened by guilt for what he was doing. Is it that by the sex education can be a very important topic? And that is fair enough.
But how exactly would sex education have prevented this boy’s suicide? So would it have told the people, boys in general, that the other boys, other kids that, you know, there’s nothing, nothing unnatural about it. But they would not have made a video out of it. Would have told society that they don’t need to make this video viral.
Would the idea that masturbation is normal have prevented the school from rusticating the boy? Well, the point is that this whole subsequent scenario is quite unrealistic. Maybe in 25 years before in India, maybe somebody caught masturbating would have been embarrassing. But even then, would it have been scandalous enough that it would have been a viral video? And in today’s world, in the past, well, maybe it was scandalous.
But at that time, there were no mobile cameras to shoot quickly and there was no social media to make it viral. In today’s world, the fact that something like this would become viral and so much so that the school would take action and suspend that whole seems highly unrealistic. So, yes, boy’s suicide attempt should be prevented.
But if at all in sex education would have helped him to prevent that it is not the sex education that masturbation is normal. It is the sex education about the dangers of of medicines which promise or ideas, techniques or tools which promise to change one’s bodily organs. So I increase the size of those organs.
It is the sex education, especially in today’s world, is necessary. The Bhagavad Gita says that. Not that intelligence in the mode of goodness, is what? So that would be that intelligence which helps us understand what is beneficial, what is harmful.
That intelligence is intelligence in the mode of goodness and it should be cultivated. So in one sense, you can say the intelligence which tells us what is dangerous and what should be avoided, that intelligence should be provided. So.
If we consider it in today’s world, there is a great danger of, for example, children being sexually exploited. And often the sexual horrendous child abuse of children happens through people who they’re familiar with, sometimes even their relatives or acquaintances. So children need to be educated about good and bad touch.
And as people grow older, maybe as they enter into puberty and when people are likely to become sexually active, then unhealthy sexual behaviours, they might get into behaviour that cause terrible diseases and they might try out medicines and procedures and stuff like that just to enhance their sexual attributes. And there could be health hazards of that. So where there is danger, there has to be education for protection, especially in today’s world where there is so much free access to porn.
So people get a very distorted idea of what sex is and what the sexual features of people are. What is depicted in such depictions is far different, far more exaggerated than what is there in real life. So, yes, sex education for protecting people from children, people in general, children and youth from dangerous behaviours, whether by others or even by themselves.
That kind of sex education is helpful, maybe even necessary. Now, is this mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita directly? Not necessarily. But the point is that the Bhagavad Gita does say we should be equipped to deal with dangers.
So in the past, there was not so much people with predatory mentality, at least thousands of years ago. There’s no record of in the Vedic culture, this kind of being there. Also, there’s no record of there’s no record of such easy access to pornography being there.
People having such distorted ideas of sexuality because of their imagination being fuelled with misinformation and disinformation and exaggeration. So today, when there is a risk, the hazard is there, then sex education may be necessary. But the sex education that is necessary for this boy would have been that, OK, don’t take dangerous treatment, something treatment which may fall unconscious and which could create a risk for his life.
Is the sex education that masturbation is normal? Would that really have prevented his suicide? What caused his suicide was his sense of insecurity. His insecurity because of which he felt that if he did not have a particular physical attribute in a particular way, then he would be considered worthless. The Bhagavad Gita says that we are all Atma, we are spiritual beings.
And the fundamental illusion is that we identify with our physical body. When people commit suicide, that’s generally because of some kind of misidentification. Some people identify too much with their money and their stock market crashes.
They think they equate their self-worth with their net worth. If I don’t have money, then what is the point of living? And they end their life. Some students may equate their self-worth with their marks.
And if I don’t get marks good enough, then I’ll commit suicide. But here what has happened is a person is identifying their very core, their core identity with not just their body, not just with the organ in the body, but with the size of a particular organ in the body. This is Moha.
And to remove this misconception, this misidentification, this illusion, what is needed is spiritual education. Education that there is more to us than our externals, including our physical attributes. We are at our core spiritual beings.
Each one of us is precious and valuable. Each one of us has higher meaning and purpose for our existence. This is the knowledge.
This is the knowledge given in the Bhagavad Gita. And this is what can truly help people avoid suicide allergies, especially because of insecurities and the failures and the humiliations that may result in life. So, yes, we want to fully support the idea that young people should not be impaled to commit suicide.
But the solution is not the sex education that masturbation is normal. It is a spiritual education that we are there is more to us than our external and physical attributes. And therefore, we are being eternal, should not get too carried away, too rejected by certain external losses or inadequacies.
Beyond that, let’s look at a couple of other issues that the masturbation, the point is that this is said to be completely normal and natural. And it is also said that this is that the past Indian culture was very liberal and now it’s conservative. OK, let’s look at both of these points.
Is masturbation really natural and normal? What do we really mean by natural? That if you consider the call of nature, when the call of nature, say urination, the call for urination comes and we don’t have to stimulate our bodily organs for that. This actually happens for masturbation. People have to generally physically stimulate their organ.
And after that, they often have to either see something visually or recollect something that they have seen before. So in that sense, if it were just natural and normal, why is all this artificial stimulation required? And another point is that this, the semen that comes out when one masturbates, actually, that is that like urine, really? Urine is just a waste product from the body. This has the potential to create new life.
And there’s a universe of difference between the two, both made by bodily products, everything that is produced in the transformation of the body. But one product is filled with enormous nutritive value enough to nourish an entire new life form that comes. So the two, to say that it’s simply natural is incomplete version of the reality.
And even if sex education is there, sex education needs to have both a biological component and an ethical component. How the biology of the body functions, that education is required. But the ethical component is that there are certain actions which are harmful, which are counterproductive.
I mean, even if we put aside the religious angle because we say religions have dogmas, even from a common sense perspective, even from an experiential perspective, and that, you know, from a scientific perspective, sex addiction is a significant danger. And when people get addicted to sex, they are just, they succumb to all kinds of behaviour, exposing themselves, masturbating compulsively, and be unable to get off phone, even flashing their bodies, then seeking serial partners. Now, I’m not saying all this will result simply from porn, or from masturbation.
But the point is, it’s a slippery slope. And Keynes has written a book, Out of the Shadows, talking about sexual addiction. And this is a real and serious problem.
So when masturbation is simply propagated as completely normal, natural, we may well be pushing people down a dangerous, slippery, steep slope. Keynes is telling them there’s no danger over there, but they may slip down. How far they may slip down? Who knows? Not everybody who masturbates is going to become a sex addict, necessarily.
But that danger is there and people need to be aware of that. And not providing that education and simply saying that this is just natural is misleading. Further, even from a secular perspective, that there is a widespread, increasingly spreading, nofap movement, where young people are resolving consciously to give up masturbation and basically, we call it PMO, Porn Masturbation Orgasm.
And they are giving it up not because of any religious restraints, but simply because it is impeding them in real life. When people expose themselves to porn, masturbate compulsively, then they have a distorted idea of what sex is. And they just don’t get stimulated enough in real life.
And then they can’t have physical relationships. In the future, they can’t have children. So there are dangers in making masturbation completely nonchalantly natural, propagating it like that.
And this education has to be there. And this is completely missing. Now, going further, what is the Vedic text say about these things? Yes, there is a quoting of the Kama Sutra.
Yes, Kama Sutra is a part of the broad Vedic canon of books. But at the same time, just because something has a place in the Vedic tradition, does not mean the place of everything is equal or equally important. We need to understand a tradition from the followers of the tradition, from the teachers of the tradition.
What does this tradition mean to them? What is it that they have found of value? And what is it that the great teachers, whether we consider Vaishnava teachers like Ramana Acharya or Madhavacharya, or even Advaitic teachers like Shankaracharya or even Vedanta teachers like Sankhya, Ishwara, Krishna. Many of these teachers, they have commented extensively on the broad Vedic literature. None of them has said that all followers of the Vedic tradition should read the Kama Sutra.
That is one book. It is a small part of the Vedic tradition. It has only become glamorised because when Europeans came to India, there were two groups.
There were the Christian missionaries and there were the rationalists. The Christian missionaries, the evangelicals, when they came, they wanted to criticise Hinduism. And they said, oh, just see these people, their texts contain such explicit descriptions.
And it’s so obscene, so immoral. And they use that to trash the Hindu tradition and the Vedic texts in general. And then the rationalist school who came, they said that they basically were rejecting God and they wanted in some ways licence for sexuality.
So I said, oh, this is from ancient times. There is this book which is talking about sex. So through both of these, it came the limelight.
And yes, today in the West, among the books from the Indian tradition that are widely known, Kama Sutra is one of the most known books. But the Kama Sutra has never had a place of prominence in the broad Vedic tradition itself, as it has been understood and practised by millions for millennia. So same way it is quoted that there are temples where there are depictions of quite explicit depictions are there.
The temples have a sacred architecture and that architecture is meant to replicate the cosmos of the universe. And the idea is that we live on the earth above the earth is heaven. But there’s lots of enjoyment available, including mundane enjoyment, sexual enjoyment also.
But there is a higher happiness available beyond Svarga. So this is earth, this is heaven and this is Vaikuntha, this is spiritual world. And the temple, the sanctum sanctorum where the Lord resides is the Vaikuntha.
So to go to Vaikuntha, one has to go through heavens without being distracted by them. Similarly, the temple architecture is that it has all these depictions. But the idea is one who is a serious worshipper will not get distracted by these things, will go straight ahead.
So there is a purpose within the sacred cosmology and the philosophy of the tradition. And that purpose was not to just explicitly licence sexuality. And the allegation is that this kind of prudishness, this kind of conservative things came from Macaulay, who brought Victorian moral standards into India.
Well, this is quite a cunning or insidious way accusation because the idea that means those who are liberals, they are the real teachers of the Vedic tradition and those are conservatives. They are actually following somebody outside the Vedic tradition. Well, it is not Macaulay who said in the Bhagavad Gita that It is not Macaulay who said that there are three gates to hell and one of them is kama, is lust.
So it is the Bhagavad Gita spoken thousands of years before Macaulay. So the idea of sexual restraint, because kama can become kama can become disproportionate, kama can become destructive. That is taught in the Bhagavad Gita, the fundamental Vedic teaching book.
The same is talked about in the Bhagavatam. The whole story of the Mahabharata is based on the kama, the unrestrained kama of Ravana and how it led to destruction. So now, yes, now the Bhagavad Gita itself has been quoted.
So Krishna says that, that I am sex life. But what is the sex life? Not contrary to dharma. So there are four purusharthas, that is dharma, artha, kama and moksha.
The dharma is one in the beginning of life. One learns some values, one learns some responsibilities. It includes religious values, but one learns ethical values, which involves self-restraint and discipline.
One learns boundaries and by learning such boundaries, then one can become responsible enough to gain artha. One acquires resources and learns to manage resources properly. And in this way, one has got values and one has got things of value.
Then a person is mature enough to actually get married. And then they can fulfil their kama and then they can have children. So such kama, Krishna says specifically, that is a manifestation of the divine.
That is where when a duly wedded husband and wife come together in the procreative act, at that time they become co-creators with God in bringing new life into this world. And the miracle of birth is something which is to be celebrated. But it is that dharma, that is, it is that kama which Krishna is saying, I am that kama.
Krishna makes it clear, this is 7th level, in the 10th chapter he says, prajanas chasmi kandarpah, that kandarpah is the male-female attraction. Krishna says that kandarpah which leads to prajana, which leads to the begetting of progeny, that is who I am. He is not simply saying sex, especially where somebody is masturbating, that is sacred, not at all.
So there are four purusharthas and gradually when after doing dharma-artha-kama, dharma and artha one does kama, then over a period of time, that person starts realising there must be more to life than fulfilling such desires. And then that person seeks moksha. So Krishna himself in the Bhagavad Gita says that there is a danger that among these four purusharthas, the fourth can be neglected.
People forget moksha and say na anyad asti iti vadinah, that just in life just do dharma, artha and kama. And he said these people themselves are misled. Because ultimately the highest fulfilment comes when we go beyond our bodily limitations, we become liberated from our bodily identification and we find happiness at the spiritual level.
But post-industrial revolution, scientific revolution, the growth of atheism, dharma is also more or less removed. All that is focused on artha and kama. Somehow or other get wealth and enjoy life.
And that kind of culture is spread across the world also. So people think of values as valuable only to the extent that can help them function properly. But otherwise, if I can get away morality for most people, for many people today, it’s just lack of opportunity.
So dharma has been devalued. All that remains artha and kama. And now unfortunately, with the spread of porn, masturbation and orgasm, PMO as it is called, even artha has been removed.
All that is left is kama. That means somebody doesn’t even have to learn to take a responsible job or get a living and become competent enough to manage resources like wealth. Then they can have a family and then they can have a relationship.
No, it’s just kama. It is kama which is completely divorced from everything else that gives meaning to life. So when Krishna talks about kama from a biological perspective, the sexual act, its primary purpose is reproduction.
The secondary purpose is in humans, especially it is pair bonding. Human progeny need a lot of care, generally far more care than other species. And who will provide them that care? So the sexual act is meant to create a bond between the parents so that they can subsequently together take care of the child.
So the sexual act brings pair bonding. And then after a third is pleasure. There is some pleasure in that act, but that is the tertiary thing.
Then the point of reproduction is removed. That is done through various kinds of artificial means. And pair bonding is removed by the idea of sexual licentiousness.
You can do just sex as normal as you like to do or do it however you like without even having a relationship, having a virtuous, dharmic relationship, a meaningful, committed relationship with the other person. Then what happens is just becomes for pleasure. And this will lead to severe problems of persons.
People will not be growing individually. They will not be taking responsibilities. Humanity will not succeed if people don’t have children.
Western countries are experiencing severe demographic drops because more and more people are divorcing sexuality from committed relationships and from reproduction. So these are serious consequences. And it is not this just this kama separated from dharma, artha and moksha.
That is not God. Krishna says this is actually it is Mahasana Mahapapma Vidyanamihavairanam. This is actually the greatest enemy of humanity.
So unfortunately, this may not have been the intention of the movie makers. But by quoting scripture, quoting the Vedic scriptures in this way, they may actually be opening the doors for people to go on a path which will be self-destructive. So just licencing, giving a free licence for masturbation can, as I said earlier, take people down a terrible slippery slope.
So this is completely opposite to the teachings of the Vedic literature. And then one part last part is about shaming. This boy was shamed and everybody has sex.
And why can’t we talk about it? Why is talking about it taboo? And why is it? Why is depicting it and seeing it? Why should this be such an object of shame? As I said, I feel that the idea that somebody would be in film doing such a thing that will become viral. That person will be rusticated because of that and that person will feel humiliated. That itself is is unrealistic.
But what about the point of shaming? Is that a bad thing? And not necessarily all the time. There are restraints required for people to not do things which are harmful. And sometimes if social disapproval can act as a restraint, then that can complement legal punitive measures where people are punished for doing what they do.
So for consider smoking in public. Now, in the past, maybe 25, 30 years ago, people would just smoke in public as if it’s a very fashionable and everybody would think it is cool. But now, as the dangers of not just smoking for the smoker, but for others who smoke at Smoker Smoke is passive smoking.
As they become clearer, passive smoking has dropped. There’s only restricted areas where that is allowed. And in general, people follow that.
Now, there are legal fines which do this, but there is also the power of shaming. When somebody starts doing something like this and immediately stop them. That people disapprove of it, you go somewhere else and smoke and people do that.
So shaming itself is not a bad thing that society disapproving certain actions itself is not a bad thing. Now, how exactly shaming is applied and can shaming have bad consequences where a person feels totally demoralised and dejected? That’s possible. But to say that society should never shame anyone, that doesn’t work in real life.
Society needs ethical boundaries. There is a case of in America of one senior CNN reporter, supposedly senior and respected reporter journalist. He was on a Zoom call with some people, with his colleagues, and he didn’t realise that his video was on for the Zoom call.
And while he was on that business Zoom call, he was masturbating. He had exposed his body and that was seen by all the colleagues. That became a scandal.
And then he was suspended for some time. So the point is that there is shame, even in a place like America, where the culture is much liberal, where sex education is there. There are certain actions which will lead to shaming.
Shaming itself is not a problem. It is when that shaming is applied inappropriately, applied viciously. And especially when people do not have the inner substance by which they can resist the effects of shame.
That is when it is toxic. So if you want people to have inner strength and that necessarily means that they need spiritual education. And that is what the Bhagavad Gita provides.
So yes, to conclude, we fully agree that somebody committing suicide is tragic. And a father wanting to do whatever it takes, taking on the world to make sure that such an incident doesn’t recur. That is great.
But the means to do that is not simply the sex education that masturbation is normal. It is actually primarily spiritual education that our identity and our worth are not determined by our external or physical attributes. We are eternal spiritual beings.
That is the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita. And as far as the masturbation is concerned, well, there is if you want sex education, what is much more important is with the dangers of children being preyed on by child abusers of the dangers of the health and other hazards of the sexual behaviours or sexual so-called treatments. And if at all any sex education or masturbation is to be given, it is it is not simply natural like urination.
It is. There are also dangers of sex addiction. There are dangers of people, physical non-performance and real relationships that it can become addictive.
This education also needs to be given. And as far as quoting the Vedic scriptures is concerned, the Vedic scriptures do talk about karma, but they also talk about dharma, artha, karma and moksha. And to talk only about karma and neglect everything else that is not only misrepresenting the Vedic literature, but it can also be misleading people.
Therefore, holistic spiritual education, which can have a sexual component, is what is needed to strengthen people internally.