CHAPTER 7
SEX AND MARRIAGE
J
Krishnamurti
LIKE other human problems, the problem of our passions and sexual urges is
a complex and difficult one, and if the educator himself has not deeply
probed into it and seen its many implications, how can he help those he is
educating? If the parent or the teacher is himself caught up in the
turmoils of sex, how can he guide the child? Can we help the children if
we ourselves do not understand the significance of this whole problem? The
manner in which the educator imparts an understanding of sex depends on
the state of his own mind; it depends on whether he is gently
dispassionate, or consumed by his own desires.
Now, why is sex to most of us a problem, full of confusion and
conflict? Why has it become a dominant factor in our lives? One of the
main reasons is that we are not creative; and we are not creative because
our whole social and moral culture, as well as our educational methods,
are based on development of the intellect. The solution to this problem of
sex lies in understanding that creation does not occur through the
functioning of the intellect. On the contrary, there is creation only when
the intellect is still.
The intellect, the mind as such, can only repeat, recollect, it is
constantly spinning new words and rearranging old ones; and as most of us
feel and experience only through the brain, we live exclusively on words
and mechanical repetitions. This is obviously not creation; and since we
are uncreative, the only means of creativeness left to us is sex. Sex is
of the mind, and that which is of the mind must fulfil itself or there is
frustration.
Our thoughts, our lives are bright, arid, hollow, empty; emotionally
we are starved, religiously and intellectually we are repetitive, dull;
socially, politically and economically we are regimented, controlled. We
are not happy people, we are not vital, joyous; at home, in business, at
church, at school, we never experience a creative state of being, there is
no deep release in our daily thought and action. Caught and held from all
sides, naturally sex becomes our only outlet, an experience to be sought
again and again because it momentarily offers that state of happiness
which comes when there is absence of self. It is not sex that constitutes
a problem, but the desire to recapture the state of happiness, to gain and
maintain pleasure, whether sexual or any other.
What we are really searching for is this intense passion of
self-forgetfulness, this identification with something in which we can
lose ourselves completely. Because the self is small, petty and a source
of pain, consciously or unconsciously we want to lose ourselves in
individual or collective excitement, in lofty thoughts, or in some gross
form of sensation.
When we seek to escape from the self, the means of escape are very
important, and then they also become painful problems to us. Unless we
investigate and understand the hindrances that prevent creative living,
which is freedom from self, we shall not understand the problem of sex.
One of the hindrances to creative living is fear, and respectability
is a manifestation of that fear. The respectable, the morally bound, are
not aware of the full and deep significance of life. They are enclosed
between the walls of their own righteousness and cannot see beyond them.
Their stained-glass morality, based on ideals and religious beliefs, has
nothing to do with reality; and when they take shelter behind it, they are
living in the world of their own illusions. In spite of their self-imposed
and gratifying morality, the respectable also are in confusion, misery and
conflict.
Fear, which is the result of our desire to be secure, makes us
conform, imitate and submit to domination, and therefore it prevents
creative living. To live creatively is to live in freedom, which is to be
without fear; and there can be a state of creativeness only when the mind
is not caught up in desire and the gratification of desire. It is only by
watching our own hearts and minds with delicate attention that we can
unravel the hidden ways of our desire. The more thoughtful and
affectionate we are, the less desire dominates the mind. It is only when
there is no love that sensation becomes a consuming problem.
To understand this problem of sensation, we shall have to approach
it, not from any one direction, but from every side, the educational, the
religious, the social and the moral. Sensations have become almost
exclusively important to us because we lay such overwhelming emphasis on
sensate values.
Through books, through advertisements, through the cinema, and in
many other ways, various aspects of sensation are constantly being
stressed. The political and religious pageants, the theatre and other
forms of amusement, all encourage us to seek stimulation at different
levels of our being; and we delight in this encouragement. Sensuality is
being developed in every possible way, and at the same time, the ideal of
chastity is upheld. A contradiction is thus built up within us; and
strangely enough, this very contradiction is stimulating.
It is only when we understand the pursuit of sensation, which is one
of the major activities of the mind, that pleasure, excitement and
violence cease to be a dominant feature in our lives. It is because we do
not love, that sex, the pursuit of sensation, has become a consuming
problem. When there is love, there is chastity; but he who tries to be
chaste, is not. Virtue comes with freedom, it comes when there is an
understanding of what is.
When we are young, we have strong sexual urges, and most of us try to
deal with these desires by controlling and disciplining them, because we
think that without some kind of restraint we shall become consumingly
lustful. Organized religions are much concerned about our sexual morality;
but they allow us to perpetrate violence and murder in the name of
patriotism, to indulge in envy and crafty ruthlessness, and to pursue
power and success. Why should they be so concerned with this particular
type of morality, and not attack exploitation, greed and war? Is it not
because organized religions, being part of the environment which we have
created, depend for their very existence on our fears and hopes, on our
envy and separatism? So, in the religious field as in every other, the
mind is held in the projections of its own desires.
As long as there is no deep understanding of the whole process of
desire, the institution of marriage as it now exists, whether in the East
or in the West, cannot provide the answer to the sexual problem. Love is
not induced by the signing of a contract, nor is it based on an exchange
of gratification, nor on mutual security and comfort. All these things are
of the mind, and that is why love occupies so small a place in our lives.
Love is not of the mind, it is wholly independent of thought with its
cunning calculations, its self-protective demands and reactions. When
there is love, sex is never a problem - it is the lack of love that
creates the problem.
The hindrances and escapes of the mind constitute the problem, and
not sex or any other specific issue; and that is why it is important to
understand the mind's process, its attractions and repulsions, its
responses to beauty, to ugliness. We should observe ourselves, become
aware of how we regard people, how we look at men and women. We should see
that the family becomes a centre of separatism and of antisocial
activities when it is used as a means of self-perpetuation, for the sake
of one's self-importance. Family and property, when centred on the self
with its ever-narrowing desires and pursuits, become the instruments of
power and domination, a source of conflict between the individual and
society.
The difficulty in all these human questions is that we ourselves, the
parents and teachers, have become so utterly weary and hopeless,
altogether confused and without peace; life weighs heavily upon us, and we
want to be comforted, we want to be loved. Being poor and insufficient
within ourselves, how can we hope to give the right kind of education to
the child?
That is why the major problem is not the pupil, but the educator; our
own hearts and minds must be cleansed if we are to be capable of educating
others. If the educator himself is confused, crooked, lost in a maze of
his own desires, how can he impart wisdom or help to make straight the way
of another? But we are not machines to be understood and repaired by
experts; we are the result of a long series of influences and accidents,
and each one has to unravel and understand for himself the confusion of
his own nature.
