I hesitated for some time before writing this article. The prudish attitude of people in India to the subject of sex is well known. But I think I have something worthwhile to say and who knows possibly someone in the situation where they have to decide on this question posed in the headline may be helped by what I have written here.
I would like all parents, counsellors and mental health professionals to read and be guided by this article. All youngsters also, of course. I may get disapproving messages but as the American philosopher Emerson said, “God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.”
Actually, I have asked the wrong question in the headline. The question should be, “How and what should we do to initiate our youngsters to discover within them that which is beyond death?”
But I will answer the question in the headline first. The short answer for any young man is that he should first test himself in battle before he is allowed to go into the women.
This is something which I read in a Wilbur Smith novel. The name of the book is, “The Leopard Hunts in Darkness.” All the young men in the African Matabele tribe featured in the story were only allowed to have sex by their elders after they have proved themselves in battle. Since this was an African tribe there were many battles and hunts for food featured in the story.
In modern society this can take the form of training in martial arts, Vipassana meditation, adventure sports, hiking and so on.
One enlightened Master, George Gurdjieff has this to say on this question (sourced from Meetings with Remarkable Men):
If a youth but once satisfy this lust before reaching adulthood then the same would happen to him as happened to the historical Esau, who for a single mess of pottage sold his birthright, that is, the welfare of his whole life; because if a youth yields to this temptation even once, he will lose for the rest of his life the possibility of being a man of real worth.
The gratification of lust before adulthood is like pouring alcohol into Mollavallian madjar (a sort of wine).
Just as from madjar into which into which even a single drop of alcohol has been poured only vinegar is obtained and never wine, so the gratification of lust before adulthood leads to the youth’s becoming a monstrosity. But when the youth is grown up he can do whatever he likes; just as with madjar – when it is already wine you can put as much alcohol in it as you like; not only will it not be spoiled but you can obtain whatever strength you please.
I should add that before you are going to take the last sentence seriously, it would be advisable to remember the sound advice in the New Testament – When in Rome do as Romans do.
The need for initiation for youngsters is universal across all traditional cultures. But in modern civilization this need is not recognized and honoured. But initiation is necessary before our youngsters can be entrusted with responsible roles in society. Otherwise they will prove incompetent and unworthy and harm themselves and others.
Here is what the Buddhist meditation master, Jack Kornfield, has to say on the subject of initiation (sourced from the book After the Ecstasy the Laundry)
…more commonly, initiation entails an intense radical and rapid change. Such a transformation often takes the archetypal shape of a rite of passage. A rite of passage can be described as a forced journey through a rocky canyon so narrow you can’t take any baggage with you – a rebirth in which you must leave your old life behind. It involves great risk, sometimes a brush with death, for only then can the seeker discover fearlessness and find that within himself or herself which is beyond death.
…The longing for initiation is universal and for modern youth it is a desperate need. When nothing is offered in the way of a spiritual initiation to prove one’s entry into the world of men and women, initiation happens instead on the road or the street, in cars at high speed, with drugs, with dangerous sex, with weapons. However troubling, this behaviour is rooted in a fundamental truth: a need to grow…
Hindu culture has the concept of a twice born brahmin. The thread ceremony is symbolic of that. But quite possibly this – for most people – this is just an empty ritual without the meaning that it originally had.
I’ll end this article here and await your response. I hope you found it interesting.
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