Authored by Christoph Schaub

"Absolutes" are whatever we refrain from inquiring into, such as our belief in God or our intuition. In contrast, "relatives" are whatever we are comfortable to discuss and question. In other words, while we can assume this or that position in relation to "relatives," we lack perspective in regard to "absolutes." Take, for instance, our phenomenological experience of ‘I,’ which is absolute until we can take a perspective on it. The absolute experience of ‘I’ then becomes relative. But, what about our ’self’ or the entirety of our person, can we take a perspective on it? Can we look at our ’self’ at the entirety of the person we consider ourselves to be? To do so, we would have to be able to step outside of ourselves, which is the case in so-called trans-personal experiences, be they derived from meditation, near-death, or another unpredictable situation that lacks a priori conceptualization. Orgasm is one of them, but since the sensory experience that facilitates this event tends to entirely flood our awareness of ’self,’ we are prevented from re-cognizing the transcendence of ’self,’ as such. We may think that what drives us to have sex is merely our genetically encoded impulse to pro-create our species and while there is a certain truth to it, which mostly applies to the teenage years, it is of little relevance beyond them.

What causes us to engage in sex, over and over again, is fundamentally apart from the drive to pro-create our un-recognized need for the trans-personal experience. This experience is as essential to us as our need to sleep, breath or eat. If sex was merely about the satisfaction of our sensual nature, masturbation would be far more effective for fulfillment, without all the effort we have to exert not only prior to going to bed with someone, but also while actually having sex with them. The other extreme of masturbation is celibacy, as they are both derived from the same self-centered ground of being. In contrast to masturbation, which endorses pleasing the ’self,’ celibacy simply takes the opposite position, yet neither of them lead anywhere other than their point of origination of self. Sex is about relating, just as relating is about making love. To reduce lovemaking to sex is like reducing God to Scriptures. Making love is not about sex, it’s about relating, for where relating takes place love is not made, but arises, effortlessly. Sex is about the trans-personal experience of ’self,’ which is not re-cognized by pleasing the other or our self; it happens in relating to ‘what is’, our human reality of being. Sex is about self-disclosure, which facilitates the experience of the trans-personal. Said differently, the trans-personal experience of ’self’ comes about through the disclosure of ’self,’ which takes place in relationship and no where else.

Sex is the most fundamental self-disclosure there is. To approach sex as if it is simply something that we do, be it by necessity or choice as human beings, leads to the sexual distortions and perversions known to us. Sex is neither dirty nor divine; it is simply a form of relating that, in its most refined expression, equally involves body, mind and spirit. If sex only involves the body, it quickly becomes boring, like eating rice or potatoes everyday; while they appease our hunger, such a diet does not nourish our body. Similarly, if sex only involves our mind, we will avail ourselves of it in the form of prostitutes, pornography and masturbation; sex, in this case, is a mere object in the realm of the mind, lacking the dimension of relating that is derived from being embodied. Equally, if sex merely involves our spirit, it amounts to nothing other than an empty ritual, which, though full of imaginations and projections, is devoid of re-cognition.

Sex is an art that generally requires many years, decades, or even lives to master. It is a potential with which all of us are born; a potential that bears testimony of the unborn, uncreated and unconditioned re-cognition, which each one of us is an expression, referred to as ‘bodhicitta’ in Buddhism and ‘fitra’ in Islam. Our sexual nature, in other words, attests to the individual being we are meant to become; this applies, as well, to all other sentient beings conceived, like ourselves, in sexual intercourse. Mammalian sex causes the re-cognition of other to emerge in the human being. From the perspective of biology, it appears that behavior causes whatever follows thereafter, meaning that matter leads to the evolution of consciousness, which, in turn, causes the realization of Spirit. The same could be said in relation to the perspective of theology, just in opposite order, where matter is created according to the re-cognition of Spirit in-action. Both of these perspectives are extremes, for both are based on assertions that can neither be observed, made sense of, nor witnessed in spirit. They are, in other words, derived from ‘absolutes,’ which defy inquiry due to our inability to assume a perspective thereof. Nonetheless, we propagate both of these perspectives as relative, while we fight about their righteousness, in reality. This faulty perspective of relative and absolute is essentially derived from the inaccurate juxtaposition of Eros and Agape, or, on a less abstract level, on the inaccurate juxtaposition of creation and God, caused by our struggles and con-fusion to come to terms with our sexuality.

From the perspective of ‘what is,’ having casual sex with another person is better, in relation to our growth and development, than masturbating. In casual sex we at least self-disclose our humanity, and which we have to face, in such case; however, masturbating only consolidates our self-centeredness that, in turn, fuels our self-righteousness. AIDS not only forced us to acknowledge our sexual nature, it also caused us to awaken to the fact that sex is an essential function of being human. AIDS, like every other disease, is not caused by moral misconduct?which pertains to the reality of the mind, not the body. Diseases arise because of our growth and development; dis-eases are part of life. They are not the counter-balance to health, but an integral aspect thereof. Dis-eases make us aware of our absent being-ness, just as they inform where we obstruct the free-flow of life, due to our lack of re-cognition, insight and understanding thereof. Dis-ease, in other words, facilitates growth and development, which is always uncomfortable to a certain degree, for it stretches our boundaries and challenges our self-identity. We may fast when we are sick, but not when we are healthy. Similarly, we may inquire into the meaning and purpose of our life when faced with stress and displeasure, but not when we are well and everything appears to work for us, which is like contemplating the reality of love when our life has passed rather than when are in the midst of it.

Eros, the animating life force of creation, becomes self-conscious in the human being who is aware of his/her sexual nature, of which Eros is a reflection. Said differently, to understand Eros, we have to awaken to our sexual reality of being, or the animating life force of creation, known as Kundalini in Hinduism. This awakening precedes the re-cognition of ‘I am,’ which is neither derived from others, nor in relation to them. The re-cognition of ?I am? happens only in acknowledgment of ‘Thou,’ of which Agape is a reflection. Agape, in other words, is the transcendence and integration of Eros; Agape is its culmination. Agape is self-less; it is the trans-personal reality of ?I am.? Agape, however, is not to be confused with ‘re-cognition,’ derived from Logos, which descends, becoming ever more deeply known to us as we evolve. Put differently, as we grow older, we come closer to death and the more
we evolve, the more we awaken to Logos. Logos is the counter-balance, so to speak, to Eros; and as Eros cumulates in Agape, so Logos cumulates in death. To juxtapose Eros with Agape causes separation and prevents us from seeing ‘what is,’ for just like sex and the trans-personal belong together, so do Eros and Agape or Logos and death. Death descends on us; death is not something that evolves. Similarly, with each re-cognition we have, which is derived from seeing ‘what is,’ we die, in equal proportion, to this form of creation into which we are born. Re-cognition and liberation, in other words, go hand-in-hand; liberation is never attained by denying or shunning creation, of which we are an integral part.

To acknowledge and own our sexuality we have to experience it, in the first place, which neither happens by reading, nor by writing a story about it; we have to have the humility, in other words, to bow down to our creation in reality; as when Jesus, for instance, washed the feet of his disciples. Having sex is an act of self-disclosure; and the more as we are willing and able to self-disclose, our sex life becomes proportionally more intense. To self-disclose reveals equally our vulnerabilities as well as our strengths. To self-disclose in order to belong merely strengthens our bond to the groups to which we are members and by which we are defined, in turn. In contrast, to self-disclose in order to be seen reveals to us who we are; something that cannot be re-cognized in isolation, but is rather witnessed and become conscious of by relating to ‘what is.’ To self-disclose on the physical level is to get naked; on the mental level it is to express oneself in language; while on the spiritual level it is to take ownership of one’s intention and purpose. To learn a skill, such as making love, needs both patience and humility, for a skill is not learned like a technique, but is developed through self-inquiry, commitment, and practice. To learn a skill, any skill, requires self-confrontation, which is why Allah, as the Qu’ran states, created us in pairs, confronting ourselves does not happen in isolation. just like ‘Thou’ requires an ‘I’ to be re-cognized. Moses’ solitary ascent to Mount Sinai speaks to the self-confrontation of the mystic, whereas that of a Mother Teresa’s direct participation with life speaks to the self-confrontation of the servant. Both of these self-confrontations are needed to awaken to our human reality of being; for ‘what is’ is seen, witnessed, re-cognized and become conscious of in relationships.

The relationship to our lover or spouse is essentially the only in which we relate as equals in body, mind and spirit; hence, it tends to be the most challenging relationship for us human beings, for the balance of give and take can be as skewed, therein, as the one between ‘I & Thou.’ Skewed in the sense that the giving and taking between lovers, or spouses, neither happens according to clearly established guidelines, nor in a time-relevant manner, which speaks to the developmental nature of intimate relationships. Their purpose is not so much to become one, but rather to become self-differentiated or individualized, as testified in ‘I am.’ In contrast, friendship is cultivated through the equal give and take; where one gives more than the other, friendships become imbalanced and eventually fall apart. If we are not met by the other, there is little interest to relate to them. This is not exactly the case in romantic relationships, which are more intricate and complex due to our involvement of body, mind and spirit, friendships exclude the physical level and often negate the spiritual. The spiritual is about our ultimate purpose of being human, something we may ponder in the context of our intimate relationships, but which we seem to dispense with in friendships, with the result that relating for the purpose of being seen is prevented from happening, for the most part.

To compensate for this lack of relating, meeting, being seen and noticed, we ascribe and project qualities onto people that neither belong to them, nor can be embodied by them. We do it to feel important in their presence; to compensate for the lack of balance, insight and re-cognition experienced in our own life. Within the context of the religious, this human tendency is especially apparent. The projection of holiness in Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, glosses over the fact that Buddha himself never claimed to be a holy man; he simply stated that he has awakened. Similarly, even though the revelation of Islam does not endorse priests and clerics, Mullahs and Ayatollahs do not act accordingly, and fail to address the fact that Mohammad was a merchant. Hence, it does not surprise that they favor a government from the past, due to their denial of ‘what is;’ a government that is supposedly subjected to the divine, according to their own interpretations. Conversely, contemporary democratic government pursues the satisfaction of its constituents without any consideration for the divine or the spiritual reality of being human. The challenge of balance is well understood by Abdolkarim Soroush:

"The problem of religious democratic government is threefold: to reconcile people’s satisfaction with God’s approval; to strike a balance between the religious and the nonreligious; and to do right by both the people and by God, acknowledging at once integrity of human beings and of religion. The task of democratic religious governments is, obviously, much harder than that of democratic or religious regimes."

Scholars like the Soroush, Syed Hossein Nasr, or Abdulaziz Sachedina, capture the spirit of Islam much more succinctly than all of those Mullahs and Ayatollahs combined, whose superficial understanding of Islam is comparable to a Colman Bark translation of Rumi, the great Persian mystic and most read ‘poet’ in the world. In contrast, William C. Chitticks’ "The Sufi Path of Love" The spiritual Teachings of Rumi, is one of the most formidable introductions to Rumi’s re-cognition and teaching. Here is what Rumi has to say:

"The great scholars of the age split hairs in all the sciences. They have gained total knowledge and complete mastery of things that have nothing to do with them. But that which is important and closer to him than anything else, namely his own self, this your great scholar does not know. Wreteched humanity! Not knowing one’s own self, man has come from a high estate and fallen into lowliness. He sold himself cheaply; he was satin, yet he has sewn himself onto a tattered cloak. If you could only see your own beauty?for you are greater than the sun! Why are you withered and shriveled in this prison of dust? Why not become fresh from the gentleness of the heart’s spring? Why not laugh like a rose? Why not spread perfume?"

The untold story behind the ascribed divinity of the Imams in Shia Islam, or the belief that Jesus was God incarnate, points to the experience of a deep injustice; a trauma so horrendous at that time that only a story of salvation could ease the pain. Karen Armstrong points one such trauma:

"Husayn, the Third Shia Imam, decided that he must take a stand against the unjust and unholy Umayyad caliph, Yazid. He set out for Kufa with a small band of fifty followers, accompanied by their wives and children, believing that the poignant spectacle of the Prophet’s family marching in opposition to tyranny would bring the ummah* back to a more authentic practice of Islam. But on the holy fast of Ashura, the tenth of the Arab month of Muharram, Umayyad troops surrounded Husain’s little army on the plain of Kerbala outside Kufa and slaughtered them all. Husayn was the last to die, with his infant son in his arms."

The early Christians paid with their lives for following the teaching of Jesus, just like the Muslims who were slaughtered at Kerbarla. This does not validate their myths, but does lend them meaning. The early Christians did not die for believing Jesus to be the Son of God, but for following his gospel. While those gospels have been entirely taken out of context, Jesus’ followers did follow his teaching, which, in turn, caused many of them to be persecuted, fed to lions, or killed by gladiators, for the entertainment of the Roman Empire. This is how the Christian creed came about, not the one that has been institutionalized by the Roman Catholic Church, but what has been cultivated by those who have been contemplating Jesus’ words. This creed is valid and genuine, whereas that of the Roman Catholic Church is self-made and is, essentially, the opposite of what Jesus’ teaching represents. The same holds true for the followers of Shia Islam, which has a creed not taught by the Mullahs and Ayatollahs brought about by those who have contemplated the deeper meaning of what happened after Mohammad’s departure from this earth; those who abstained from involvement in a power struggle and from committing themselves to a Caliphate, which was true for Ali, but not for Abu Bakr. There was no righteous successor to the Prophet Mohammad; the seal of prophethood, after whom there is no other.

Today, as in the past, we seem to live in such a fragmented world, where no one seems to know what life is all about. Distortions and confusions abound; of which eminent Buddhist scholar Robert A.F. Thurman writes:

"A great disservice was done to the relation between Buddhism and Islam by the error of Western scholars made in the 19th Century when they misinterpreted Buddhism as being atheism. Buddha not only believed in God, he knew God. There were numerous atheists in Buddha’s time, the Charvaka materialists, and the Buddha specifically critiqued their lack of belief in any spiritual reality. The God of Abraham insisted that S/HE, YAHWEY, was inconceivable by human minds. Therefore, the proper response of humans before this inconceivability is Islam, i.e. surrender in mind as well as body. Buddhism is likewise based on the transcendence of self-centeredness, on surrender of self-aggrandizing knowledge in the realization of selflessness. Thus, for Buddhism and Islam, love and mercy, the energies released by surrender of selfishness, are the supreme energies of the universe, all good, all creative, all wise, all trustworthy. The true Buddhist and the true Muslim should embrace once and for all. Let them only be intolerant of intolerance, in the name of their own or any other’s religion. Let religion never again be a cause of harm to beings."

Religion, in brief, is that which connects us the greater whole. The religion of a child is the belief system, to which his or her parents adhere. The religion of a youth is the belief system of the group to which s/he counts him or herself a member. The religion of a scholar is the belief system of academia, just as the religion of a scientist is the belief system of empiricism and mathematics. The religion of a religious person is the belief system of the Scripture to which s/he relates for orientation and guidance. Religion, as mentioned, speaks to that which relates us to the greater whole of life; that which equally transcends and contains us. Religion is a construct; a belief system, of whatever kind. To try and separate ourselves from it, as if we could, does not allow us to become conscious of and re-cognize the beliefs we hold, in the name of reason and logic, wisdom and knowledge, or God and the Buddha-Dharma. To separate ourselves from our holding environments only causes us to remain ignorant of ‘what is’; to separate ourselves from our holding environment causes us to destroy our planet, on which we live. To believe that we can separate ourselves from our holding environments prevents us from becoming conscious of how attached we are to them, which is the root of suffering: being ignorant of our attachments; from which self-righteousness is born. As world-renowned scholar, Huston Smith, writes in "Why Religion Matters":

“The reality that excites and fulfills the soul’s longing is God by whatsoever name. Because the human mind cannot come within light-years of comprehending God’s nature, we do well to follow Rainer Maria Rilke’s suggestion that we think of God as a direction rather than an object. That direction is always toward the best that we can conceive, as the formula of theology’s Principle of Analogical Predication indicates: when we use objects and concepts from the natural world to symbolize God, the first step is to affirm what is positive in them; the second step is to deny to God what is limiting in them; and the third step is to elevate their positive features to supereminent degree (which is to say, to the highest point that our imagination can carry us).”

The sacred is that which exists between extremes; it emerges, can be noticed and witnessed in relationships. The sacred cannot be captured by ritual or enshrined by dogma. The sacred is not a theory, a concept or an idea; it is not something we can manufacture, because it relates to our awareness of being and the re-cognition thereof. To approach life as sacred causes us to miss what life is all about; which we first and foremost, need to engage ourselves with to arrive at our own understanding of the meaning and purpose of life. To have a purpose in life is different than searching for something like enlightenment or God-realization. Searching for something causes us to occupy ‘what is’ with our thoughts; a purpose is derived from inquiry into ’self.’ How could we ever find God or enlightenment without ever inquiring into what God or enlightenment might be? To search for something undefined is nothing other than blind belief, in relation to which we may then conclude that we have to retreat to a monastery or renounce the world to arrive at what we are searching for. This is how ‘what is’ becomes occupied by our thoughts, ideas and concepts; this is how we stray from the path of life and clarity into the land of confusion, self-righteousness and suffering. Having a purpose is derived from inquiring into what is important for us and why. This inquiry ought to precede whatever we do, for without it, we merely run after empty dreams and delusions of the mind; the outcome of which is a life wasted on the pursuit and attainment of material goods that we thought would make us happy and fulfilled; a life wasted on moral guidelines that not only prevent us from seeing ‘what is,’ but also from experiencing life, as it is.

Relating is equally based on self-inquiry and self-disclosure. To do one without the other causes distortion, as demonstrated in confusion, isolation, separation and the assertions of extreme perspectives: absolutes and relatives that lack grounding in ‘what is.’ This is particularly true in relation to sex, which is something that needs to be explored, for it is not something that can be institutionalized. It simply doesn’t work; as demonstrated by the world in which we live. The multi-billion dollar porn industry is a world-wide phenomena that transcends all nationalist boundaries and cultural distinctions. We can acknowledge it or deny it. We have the choice to look at what our intimate relationships amount to, or pretend that we do not see their lack of self-inquiry and self-disclosure for the purpose of being seen and seeing ‘what is.’

The words stated in this essay are a mere pretense, for the real message is communicated in-between the lines or, put differently, in relation to ‘I & Thou.’ It is our choice, our decision to hear it; our choice, our decision to listen. In the end, as well as in the beginning, each one of us carries our own responsibility of being. As Indian sage, Jiddu Krishnamurti, put it:

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man’s pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.

To evolve means to leave the absolutes of the past behind; it means to own one’s purpose and pay the price that is attached to it, for nothing in life is free, just as everything has a consequence and is caused by something. This something is called ‘Thou.’ The sacred arises where ‘Thou’ is acknowledged and re-cognized in the midst of our lives, in the midst of our becoming and being, for without ‘Thou’ there is also no ‘I’. And where there is no ‘I,’ neither is knowledge of value, nor can wisdom can be re-cognized. Wisdom is the middle path between relatives and absolutes; it is what death is in relation to life. Many have given their life, for it without that we, as humanity, becoming any wiser; yet their deaths were not in vain, in spite of this. ‘Ana’l Haqq’ (I am Truth), was one of them; ‘I am the Way’ another. May we awake to the insight that ‘I am Life’ before we set our house aflame.