When one considers the nature of passion, one sees that it
is life itself; it is energy taking substantial form and expressing
itself through different channels and outlets. Different desires
such as speaking, singing, dancing, laughing, crying, fighting,
wrestling, boxing, are different expressions of the same energy,
whose central or final expression takes place in the passion
between the sexes.
Passion is seen in the groups made by speaker and listener,
or thinker and receiver, or actor and spectator, but it appears
most vital and strong in the love of the lover and the response
of the beloved. The passion of the poet is in his poetry. The
passion of the musician composes the melody. The passion of
the actor declaims his part. The act of creation, in no matter
what aspect, is the play of passion, whose source and root is
love alone. For as man without humanity is empty, and as the
body without spirit is dead, so passion without love is energy
that is devoid of beauty and blind.
Passion is the desire of love. Passion is the expression
of love and it is the satisfaction of love. It is no exaggeration
to say that passion is the end of love. For the purpose of love
is fulfilled by passion. Man's life is composed of many lives,
and the circle of each is completed when the passion that inspires
each is satisfied.
All things in life have a purpose. The purpose of some is
known and of others unknown. And beyond life and beneath life
exists that activity which the limited mind cannot comprehend.
But so far as human understanding can probe, it can discover
nothing of greater purpose and value to the world than passion.
Under that covering is hidden the hand of the creator.
In all aspects of life, through the animal kingdom to humanity,
it is the only source and cause of generation; and that of itself
discloses to the thinker its importance. The great teachers
of humanity have therefore wished man to look upon every expression
of passion as sacred; and as most sacred of all that passion
which exists in the love of the sexes for each other. The desire
to make sex passion a most sacred thing is seen in the teaching
of Shiva; and the origin of phallic worship lay in the desire
to raise in the sight of humanity the sacredness of passion,
and to free it from the shame and contempt with which men viewed
it.
The desire of the ear to hear clearly shows itself when one
is unable to listen owing to a disturbing noise. Then the passion
of hearing is not satisfied and man becomes confused. He will
beg others to keep quiet a moment, or if weak, he will lose
his temper if he is not allowed to listen to what he wishes
to hear at the moment. When one smells a thing there comes a
desire to smell it until one knows what it is, until one can
fully understand and appreciate the smell. And so also with
taste; the taste of a delicious dish tempts man at once to taste
more, to enjoy it fully.
The sight of beauty gives man desire to see into its depths,
until his sight is satisfied. In the average man the passion
of touch is, however, the most intense form of sense. For through
this sense consciousness comes to the surface. The comfort of
soft clothing, of easy chairs, of warmth in winter, of coolness
in summer, of the freshness of the bath, is conveyed to a man
through his sense of touch. Indeed, most of his pleasures are
dependent upon it, and this sense reaches its culmination in
the passion of the body for one of the opposite sex. But it
is not only the sense of touch that is energized to its very
center in sex passion. Every sense is then awake, and therefore,
it is that sex passion moves mankind more than anything else
in the world.
In each different aspect of joy a different plane of existence
is reached. But in sex passion all planes of existence are in
motion. When accumulated energy is expressed in the abstract
through feeling, it comes as laughter or tears, anger, affection,
fear or sympathy. Energy expressed through the mind comes as
speech or thought, and expressed through the body as action.
But the expression of intense affection towards the opposite
sex brings the whole being to the surface. Consciousness, which
in other experiences becomes but partially external, remaining
mostly within is brought entirely to the surface by sex passion
alone. It is because of this that spiritually minded people
have abstained from sex passion and religious people have considered
it degrading. For the soul consciousness is thus brought outside
instead of being preserved within, and the soul is thus brought
to earth although its destination is, so to speak, heaven.
But if this world is the work of a Creator, it has been created
so that He might experience external life. In other words, the
knowing aspect of life has wished to know the knowable part
of life. And its joy depended upon knowing, which alone comes
through experience. Moreover, its evolution and development
depend on the inspiration, which is brought by experience alone.
And inasmuch as it is necessary for the knowing aspect of life,
or the soul, to return at length to its original state of being,
even so it is necessary for it to experience first of all the
life it created for the very reason that it might know.
checked 18-Oct-2005