The Way Toward Health - June 6, 1984

June 6, 1984

Many schools of religion and so-called esoteric knowledge have promoted the idea that sexuality and spirituality were diametrically opposed to each other.

People in the sports arena also often encourage the concept that sexual expression is somehow debilitating to the male, and can weaken his constitution.  Priests take vows to ensure sexual abstinence.  The fact is that sexual expression is, again, an important element in the entire range of human experience, encouraging mental and physical health and vitality.

Some people may have a stronger or weaker sex drive than others, and yet that drive is a strong part of any individual’s natural rhythm.  Damned up, such sexuality still keeps trying for expression, and it is often men of habitual “sexual discipline” who suddenly break out in bouts of sexual promiscuity or violence.

In actuality, the combination of a philosophical stress upon discipline, physical and mental, with the belief in the sinful self, often brings about the most unfortunate human dilemmas.  These ideas usually ride along with feelings that power is desirable but dangerous.  To abstain from sexuality then means to store up one’s own power.  People with such beliefs often have severe problems with constipation, and have retention symptoms – retaining water, for example, or salt or whatever.

They may also suffer with stomach difficulties, many being overly fond of extremely spicy foods.  Some have unusually heavy appetites, even though these may be regulated by a series of diets – which are then broken by overeating.

There are so many other elements involved in human nature that I do not really want to point out any culprits, yet male-segregated communities are obviously notorious for encouraging that kind of behavior.  Every individual in such institutions or societies is not affected in the same fashion, of course – yet you do have these kinds of closed societies, relatively speaking, and they can indeed serve as cradles for fanaticism and rigid stereotypes of behavior.  Again, here you find that discipline, rather than free will, is stressed, so that the opportunity for choices is drastically reduced.  The more open a society, the more healthy its people.