Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
LOVE AND SEXUALITY Part 1
Complete Works – Volume 14 P
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Translated from the French Original title: « L’AMOUR ET LA SEXUALITÉ » Part 1
original edition: © 1976, Éditions Prosveta S.A. (France) © 1976, Éditions Prosveta S.A. (England) © 1987, Éditions Prosveta S.A. (France), ISBN 2-85566-423-3 © 1997, Éditions Prosveta S.A., ISBN 2-85566-740-2 © Copyright Prosveta S.A. 2009. All rights reserved for all countries. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, adapted, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, whether privately or otherwise, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, audio-visual or otherwise, without the prior permission of author and publishers (Law of March 1957 revised). Prosveta S.A – B.P.12 – 83601 Fréjus CEDEX (France) ISBN 978-2-85566-740-9
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Love AND
SEXUALITY Part 1
Complete Works – Volume 14 AN
P
R
O
S
V
E
T
A
Readers will better understand certain aspects of the lectures published in the present volume if they bear in mind that Master Omraam MikhaĂŤl AĂŻvanhov's teaching was exclusively oral and that the editors have made every effort to respect the flavour and style of each lecture. The Master's teaching is more than a body of doctrines; it is an organic whole, and his way of presenting it was to approach it from countless different points of view. By treating certain aspects in many different contexts he constantly reveals a new dimension of the whole, and at the same time throws new light on the individual aspects and their vital links with each other.
CONTENTS
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII
The Masculine and Feminine Principles – Love of God, Neighbour and Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Taking the Bull by the Horns – The Caduceus of Hermes, Part I and II . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Serpent – Isis Unveiled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Power of the Dragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spirit and Matter: the Sexual Organs, Part I and II . . . The Manifestations of the Masculine and Feminine Principles, Part I and II Jealousy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Twelve Doors of Man and Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . From Yesod to Kether: the Sublimation of Sexual Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Spiritual Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learn to Love by Learning to Eat, Part I and II . . . . . . Woman’s Role in the New Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nudism and the Initiatic Significance of Nakedness, Part I and II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Masculine and Feminine Principles: A Relationship of Exchange, Part I and II . . . . . . . . . . Emptiness and Fullness – Poros and Penia . . . . . . . . . . The Teaching of Love in the Mysteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . Love is Everywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11 29 47 65 71 83 97 107 119 123 131 149 159 173 189 199 207
XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII
A Broader Concept of Marriage, Part I . . . . . . . . . . . Sister Souls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Everything Depends on How We See Things . . . . . . A Broader Concept of Marriage, Part II and III . . . . . Analysis and Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Love is Like the Sun: It Organizes Life, Part I and II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Mother’s Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emptiness and Fullness: the Meaning of Renunciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Bonds that Bind Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Youth and the Problem of Love: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I II III IV V
217 223 231 239 249 257 267 279 289 299 301 308 317 323
The Currents of a New Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Argument for Self-control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Need for a Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Send your Love to Heaven before Sending it to Human Beings . . . . . . . . . . 329
Chapter One the masculine and feminine Principles LOVE OF GOD, NEIGHBOUR AND SELF
There are two essential principles in the universe and their reflection can be seen in every manifestation of life and nature. The whole of creation is the handiwork of these two principles which, for the sake of convenience, we call the masculine and feminine principles. These two principles are a reproduction, a reflection, of the heavenly Father and the divine Mother, the two divine principles that created all things and that must be understood as the polarization of the one, unique principle, the Absolute, the Unmanifest, that which Cabbalists call Ain Soph Aur.1 It is said that man was created in the image of God, that is to say, in the image of these two principles, and each human being possesses within himself a masculine and a feminine aspect. One aspect is visible and the other hidden: it cannot be seen but it is there. Every woman is outwardly a woman but, inwardly, she also possesses the masculine principle. And every man is outwardly a man, but he also possesses the feminine principle within himself. If you knew this law of polarity and how to use the two principles, masculine and feminine, emissive and receptive, positive and negative, you would be capable of solving so many problems. Each human being has these two principles in them, therefore; their imprint can be seen everywhere: on the faces and bodies of human beings, on their hands, in nature, in flowers and animals and fruits, in the mountains, rivers and caves of the earth and in the stars. Wherever we look, we can see the manifestations of
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these two principles in countless different forms. On the earth and under the earth, in the depths of the oceans and high in the heavens, everything we see is the work of these two principles. Consciously or unconsciously, all living creatures have the same reaction to this question of the two principles: they all recognize that it is of absolute importance; nothing matters but the two principles. When a man is looking for a wife he is ready to give up everything for her sake. A king is willing to abandon his kingdom with his army, his subjects and all his personal wealth for the sake of a woman. But what is it about a woman that makes her worth more than a nation of millions? In reality, it is not the individual woman, it is the feminine principle; nothing is of greater value than this. A man who abandons everything for the sake of a woman is simply being faithful; it is the principle he is interested in. And a woman does exactly the same; she is willing to defy her whole family, the whole world, for the sake of the man she loves. Why? Is she wrong to do so? No, she is not. The Lord himself and mother nature have engraved this law into the hearts of men and women: ‘Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife (or a woman to her husband), and they become one flesh.’ It is written in the depths of every creature that the first principle must seek the second, and the second must seek the first. Human beings are not always conscious of this, because their seeking takes so many different forms, depending on whether they are seeking in the sphere of science, philosophy, art or religion. Mystics say that they are seeking God but, actually, what they call God is simply the part of themselves that is missing. This is the true object of all their seeking and yearning: fusion with that other part of themselves so as to be a whole, complete entity. They sense that until this union is achieved they will always be mutilated and incomplete. The desire of every living being is always the same: to be united to his complementary principle, that which initiatic science calls the sister or twin soul, so as to find total fulfilment and peace, knowledge and
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power, so as to resemble God himself. The only difference is in the different ways in which individuals seek this principle. Think about this: everything is a question of love; apart from love there is only emptiness, nothingness. Religious people, puritans or hypocrites may not admit it but, in reality, even they seek only one thing: love. They don’t show it because they try to conform to old traditions of purity and chastity, but nature does not recognize human inventions of that kind; she continues to work in every single being and the inner fires burn unabated. The only question, therefore, is to learn how to find true love as God sees it and, having found it, to manifest it according to the divine rules so as to achieve that union, that perfect blending into one. Everything we see and do is an expression of the two principles. When you eat or drink, when you look at or listen to something, when you work and, even, when you sing together in the choir, you are manifesting the two principles. You don’t realize what happens when you sing. Do you imagine that the high notes sung by the sisters and the deep bass notes of the brothers just drift away and lose themselves in space? Not at all; without your realizing it, they mingle in the atmosphere over your heads and give each other something marvellous, something divine. Each one of your voices is impregnated with your magnetism, your vitality, your fragrance. You are tied to your voice as though it were a kite on the end of a string. It soars into the air, where it meets and fuses into one with other voices, before coming back to you, amplified and enriched by all that it has received in that union. Singing is a means for the sisters and brothers to give each other certain divine, etheric elements that they cannot receive by other, cruder means. Your souls and spirits find nourishment in what they receive in this subtle give and take of voices, and they also pass on a few crumbs of that nourishment to your physical body so that it shall not be too hungry or thirsty.
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When we sing together, therefore, the masculine and feminine principles join together in a creative work on a higher plane and we receive the fruits of that work and benefit from this chaste, divine intercourse. No one can accuse us of transgressing the laws of purity by an exchange of this nature which leaves us nourished and strengthened. This is why, since the world began, the custom of singing together has always existed but, today, the light has been lost; the underlying initiatic meaning of these things has been lost, only the external practice remains. Men and women continue to sing in duets, trios and choirs. Even peasants in rural communities are happy when they can sing and dance together, because, although they don’t realize it, music and song are the means by which their souls and spirits enter into communion with each other, and for a brief moment they are satisfied and fulfilled by what they receive in this exchange. Nature has invented hundreds and thousands of different ways for human beings to enjoy intercourse on a subtle level when they cannot do so physically: beaches and swimming pools, for example, dance-halls... even churches. Of course, you can’t be sure that everything that is exchanged between them will be perfectly orthodox – even if they take place in an Orthodox church. A boy sees a dainty young miss, for instance, and starts to follow her down the street when, all of a sudden, she disappears into a church. ‘Hmm,’ he thinks, ‘I’d feel more sure of myself if she’d gone into a disco!’ but he follows her, all the same, and as she has seen this, she strikes a pose and puts on an expression of great piety. As for the boy, he moves gradually closer and, instead of paying attention to the priest and following the Mass, he has eyes only for her. You see? Some subtle forms of exchange can take place even in a church. Of course, the thoughts that may be going through their minds is quite another matter. There’s no knowing whether they are orthodox or highly unorthodox. But, let’s get back to the question of singing. If you did not have a mouth – that is to say a tongue and two lips – you could
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neither speak nor sing. Speech and song, therefore, depend on the masculine and feminine principles in the form of the tongue and the lips.2 Don’t think that I am suggesting anything indecent; I am simply stating a fact. It is nature that designed the mouth, not I. The tongue and lips have to work together to produce words; without that collaboration there can be no speech, no song. Song and speech are a result, a product. They are the children of a father and mother that are more highly evolved, more spiritual, since God has placed them in our head. The tongue and lips have the same function as the sexual organs. By working together they have the power to create, but their creativity is on the spiritual level. ‘In the beginning was the Word...’ If we really want to find the two principles we must look for them on the higher, not on the lower level. The sexual organs of men and women are simply a repetition, a cruder reflection on the lower level, of the two higher principles which are also creative and which, like the two lower principles, can also transmit life. There, what I have been saying should help you to see the importance of singing, and above all, of course, the importance of the spiritual, mystical songs that we sing here. Until now, singing has been simply a pastime, a form of recreation for you. From now on, you must understand that it is a form of nourishment, a necessity, a spiritual need. If you do not learn to nourish yourself with music and song, the less subtle forms of exchange will bring you nothing but bitterness and regrets. But this question of exchange, of intercourse, is still not properly understood. Mystics, hermits and ascetics have sometimes been so ignorant and narrow-minded that they became completely unbalanced. Many of them destroyed their own health and happiness by refusing every form of exchange and ended up as lifeless, barren, dried-up corpses. In their own minds, of course, they were doing the Lord’s will. But how could anyone imagine that dead, inanimate bodies were pleasing to God, who is only interested in life and creation, who does
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nothing but create? No, it is human beings who turn everything upside down and imagine that God is against love and marriage and the procreation of children. In their minds, this is what religion means – but what a strange religion! You will say, ‘But many great Masters and initiates never married; was it because they were like those fanatics?’ No, initiates and great Masters have a very broad, clear vision of reality; they understand God’s creation. If they live in purity and chastity it is because the exchanges that they enjoy on subtler levels are so rich and rewarding that they have no need to burden and limit themselves by seeking them on a lower, material level. They don’t choose to live in celibacy and chastity because they are opposed to love; on the contrary, they nourish themselves and drink from sources and regions unknown to the masses, regions in which every exchange takes place in the utmost light and purity. They are visited by angels and archangels; the sun and the stars smile on them; even human beings give them their love and trust. Thus, all their wishes are gratified; what more do they need? Why should they give up such treasures and allow themselves to get bogged down in swampy regions that can give them nothing but disappointments? You don’t understand what I am saying, yet, but you will understand. We read in the Scriptures: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength...You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 3 You see: we are told to love God and our neighbour; there is no mention of our having to love ourselves. And yet, what do human beings do? They love themselves first and foremost; if there is a little something left over they may give it to their neighbour, but the only thing they do for God is to light a candle in church, once a year. Why is this? Although the Bible never says that we must love ourselves, we do nothing else, whereas we never have time for the two commandments it actually gives us. The initiates have never taught that we should love ourselves, because they know that man’s most natural, his
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deepest and most tenacious inclination is to love himself, to satisfy his own needs, to eat and drink – even to take for himself what belongs to his neighbour. Self-love is all we see around us, night and day. And yet, in fact, when initiates tell men to love God and their neighbour, what they are actually saying is, ‘Love yourselves.’ They have never said this in so many words, because they knew that they would not be understood, but that is what they meant. Love of self, love of one’s neighbour and love of God: these are three forms of love which correspond to three phases in the life of man. A child loves himself, he is only interested in himself; later on he begins to love his father and mother, his brothers and sisters and friends, and still later, his wife and children. Finally, when he has loved all kinds of people – people who have often betrayed him and let him down – he turns to the Lord and begins to love him and wants to be with him. Actually, I could show you that the higher degrees of love are contained in the love of self, for love of God and of our fellow men is still a form of self-love. It is a subtler, more luminous, more spiritual form, but it is still self-love. Why do you love one particular woman and not all the women in the world? Because that one woman reflects something of yourself, and that something is your other half, your missing part. Men and women are polarized beings and it is this polarization that drives them to look for their missing half in each other and even in the Lord. It is always himself that man is looking for, himself that he loves, not the self that he can see in a mirror but his other principle, his other pole. If you are a man, your other pole is a feminine principle; if you are a woman, it is a masculine principle. A human being, such as initiates understand him, is a whole being. The two poles, positive and negative, are two halves of a unit which became divided in the course of evolution. In the beginning, each human being was androgynous, that is to say, both man and woman. When sexual separation was effected, male and female went their separate ways but each continues...
‘Sexuality tends to be self-centred. It drives man to seek only his own pleasure, even to the detriment of others. Love, on the other hand, thinks of the other’s happiness above all else. It is based on self-denial and sacrifice: the sacrifice of one’s time, energy and money, even the sacrifice of one’s gratification, for the sake of helping the other, of allowing the other to blossom and develop his full potential. Nothing is more beautiful than love, when you are ready to do without, to give up what you have or what you enjoy. Spirituality begins precisely at the point where love prevails over sexuality, when a human being is willing to wrest something from himself for the sake of another. As long as you are incapable of sacrifice, you will be unable to love.’ Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
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