The discussion starts by Acaryadeva putting out some philosophical points which, rooted in the ancient Indian wisdom, can be considered controversial by modern people.

 Is sex entirely a private or a private AND public act? Before the sexual revolution in the late 60ties from a sociological perspective sex was seen as subject to a certain amount of social restraint, whereas afterwards it was considered to be a private act (with certain limit) and the idea was that society should keep their nose out of it.

 Sex is not entirely a private act but also has a public dimension. Societies have developed certain types of pragmatic considerations that manifest themselves in moral principles. Here are reasonable arguments:

1. Sociological argument: Sex which leads to reproduction is not entirely a private act because the child who is born is also a child of society. Every one of us has an effect on society. Children which are parented by two parents have certain social advantages. Children who are not well parented tend to harm society and themselves; therefore society has a ration interest in the act of reproduction and parenting children.

    

             If the private act has a public effect it cannot entirely be considered private.

2.  Psychological argument: The more people become passionately attached to possessing and enjoying something the less they engage in altruistic behaviour. Because altruistic behaviour means to think what is best for someone else. There is a tension between pure altruism and pure selfishness. There is a massive advertisement of consumer products where all this information is used to stimulate a felt need to get everyone to be vain and selfish. This has an effect on the social fabric and the quality of life.

    

 In America we constantly hear the argument that we cannot restrict people’s sexual freedom or have censorship. The point is that every society restricts and has censorship because there are certain things you cannot say. Every society censors certain kinds of speech and prohibits certain kinds of sexual behaviour around which it develops a certain kind of consensus. The question is where to draw the line. Historically the line moves. There were times when in Europe the female neck was considered to be very agitating and erotic, more than the female chest. What is the erotic zone of the body? Which kind of behaviour is allowed? Societies are concerned with that to the extent to which they pursue virtue and not merely profit.

3. Another psychological argument: There is the term in postmodern thinking that it is not good to objectify people. Objectify in the sense of seeing someone as an object of your consciousness. That gets back to the German philosopher Kant who talks about the categorical imperative of treating everyone as an end of themselves not a means to your ends. Trickled down Kant would be “Don’t use people”. We are conscious and each of us is a subject, the center  of an individual, unique consciousness, but if I see you as an object of my consciousness, objectively speaking there is something wrong with seeing someone as an instrument to my purpose. The basis of a just society seems to be having a group of people that respect each other.

 “The stronger my material desires grow the more difficult it will be to see you as a subject. If someone is really lusty, when they meet other people – guess they will be thinking of: Yes, no, waiting list must have …”

The more people have selfish desires the less they can truly honor  each other as ends of themselves. It is a culture which systematically stokes the fire of selfish desire, greed and vanity. In terms of spirituality, if we believe that the body is good, and the pleasures of this body and the sexual act under certain circumstances is a good, positive thing and not evil, what does it mean about the nature of God and a spiritual realm? If these things have a positive value they must be connected to ultimate positive values, but what is the connection?

The whole purpose of this talk is not to get you to despise your body but to try to understand how all these things relate to the ultimate things.

From questions & answers

Regarding homosexuality: Sexuality in general – positively or negatively - was not seen as a special type of behaviour. Life is analysed in certain way. Sex is just one of the things people do. The general word for action is karma. In the idiomatic sense it means a system of action and reaction and rewards and punishment. It is kind of behavioural Newtonian physics. The general attitude for action is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The principle is in terms of behaviour involving motives, intentions and moral levels.

According to the Vedanta sutra (athato brahma jijnasa) human beings are supposed to understand not only relative but absolute truth. Life is seen as a project enquiring enlightenment and therefore every kind of human behaviour is evaluated in terms of how it affects this ultimate level. So sexuality is on one level very natural, on the other hand there is the very strong teaching that the ultimate person is not merely the physical body, but the atma, the conscious being inside. Therefore activities which entangle consciousness – which is a higher substance – in dead matter make it very difficult, almost impossible for the atma to attach its consciousness to the Supreme consciousness, the Absolute.  Therefore activities usually are considered problematic if they increase our attachment to the body and selfish desires, and activities are considered liberating if they attach us to our eternal environment.

The (Vedic) civilisation was very realistic in that sense, it didn’t put forward very idealistic principles; it didn’t create massive hypocrisy. If you have rules which don’t reflect what human beings really do, it simply creates hypocrisy and debilitates the very notion of law. Therefore there is provision for sexuality.

One thing about homosexuality – I wrote a paper on it - is that it is hardly mentioned. What I concluded from that in my own analysis is that the concern is ultimately with the soul and sexuality in general. So the same principles that apply in general to a soul that is trying to get liberated and enlightened and trying to overcome selfish attachment would apply to everyone, no matter what their orientation was. And in a case of people whose sexual activities lead to reproduction there would be special considerations which protects the reasonable legitimate interest of society.

I don’t mean to say not saying sexuality should be entirely a social act, I am just saying there has to be a balance and everyone who is significantly affected by an activity has some type of rational interest in seeing the activities performed in a way that doesn’t prejudice them.

Q: Is there any kind of sex that doesn’t undermine the principle of high consciousness?

The general principle that Krsna is teaching in the Gita is when we act in the world we produce karma, if we dedicate that action to God it becomes karma yoga. So if sex is dedicated to God by bringing a soul into the world by helping this soul achieving enlightenment that would be perceived as a spiritual activity.

Q: Why are some temples covered with erotic sculpting?

 Not everything that happened in India is Vedic. Vedic means a set of principles ... this temple was not a great idea. There was a whole tantric movement in India, which explicitly rejected all the rules and restrictions, they were like ancient Indian Hippies.

The Pavriti marg can be self-destructive, but there were principles which allowed you to experience it witout loosing control over your life, so it was a managed indulgence in sex.

Sex has to integrated within a general understanding, one shouldn’t glorify or hate it. Your motivation should be the pursuit of truth, not get something out of the situation.

To see somebody as a subject doesn’t necessarily mean that you agree with everything that they are doing. On the other hand I can agree with somebody just to exploit them.

In that culture the general strategy for dealing with sex was marriage. The sexual revolution said that sex is natural (with the underlying premise is that natural is good). For most persons it is natural not to be celibate and engage in sexual activity, but it is equally natural that sex causes reproduction. To claim that I have a natural moral right to engage in sex but then to impede the natural consequences through artificial means is inconsistent.  And if a child is born, it is natural for a child to have a committed, loving mother and father who not only love the child but also love each other. So if we justify sex by saying that it is natural we also have to accept other natural consequences. In my view the notion that in general people should marry is more appropriate.