From my reading of Sri Aurobindo’s letters, his position appears quite strong. Statements such as “In this Yoga all sexual indulgence has to be given up,” and repeated warnings against mixing sexual desire with sadhana, suggest that ordinary sexual activity is regarded not merely as a distraction but as a significant obstacle to the transformative work of Integral Yoga.
My understanding of the rationale seems to be roughly as follows:
1. Sexual desire belongs primarily to the lower vital nature and tends to bind consciousness to excitation, craving, possessiveness, and outward movement.
2. The force involved in sexuality is powerful, but in its ordinary form it is not identical with spiritual Ananda, and mistaking one for the other can lead to self-deception.
3. The project of Integral Yoga is not merely altered states or temporary openings, but a radical transformation of consciousness and nature, making indulgence in sexual desire counterproductive.
4. Attempts to “spiritualize” sexual desire may often amount to rationalizing vital movements rather than genuinely transforming them.
If this summary is inaccurate, I would be grateful for correction.
My confusion arises because other Indian spiritual frameworks, especially certain tantric ones, seem to offer a different perspective.
A typical tantric response, as I understand it, might be:
– If all is Shakti, sexual energy too is a manifestation of the Divine and therefore not inherently spiritually disqualifying.
– The issue is not the force itself but unconscious identification, craving, and egoic contraction.
– Suppression without transformation can produce repression, shadow, or internal division.
– In some traditions, intense energies, including eros, are consciously transmuted into vehicles for awakening rather than renounced.
– Briefly put: the tantric objection would be that rejecting sexual force categorically risks abandoning a potent transformative energy instead of learning to consciously sublimate or divinize it.
I understand that Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga is not classical tantra, and I am not attempting to collapse distinct traditions into one another. My question is more specific.
How should a sincere aspirant understand Sri Aurobindo’s position here?
Is the renunciation of sexual relations an absolute practical requirement for anyone seriously pursuing Integral Yoga in its fullest sense?
How would Sri Aurobindo’s ideas rebut the Tantrik?
Or is Sri Aurobindo’s warning primarily against desire-driven sexuality, while leaving open the possibility of transformed or conscious intimate sexual relationships under certain conditions?
The role and place of sex in spiritual life can be basically summarised as follows.
In normal ordinary life, sex is a strong driving force in Nature. Its real purpose is propagation of the species and thereby in some way it compensates for the instinctive need of physical immortality. Subconsciously, it means that if not me, then at least my progeny that looks like me will survive and continue. Since survival is the strongest instinct in the individual, the sexual energy is among the most potent instinct in animals. It has extended into humanity as a natural process, but human beings have developed other aims than merely the instinct for survival. These can be broadly classified into two broad categories if we take the heart and emotions as the central meeting point. There is a lower movement of life energy in food, sex, material pleasures and furtherance of vital ambition. There is a higher movement towards speech and intellectual knowledge of some kind. Art, music, emotions come in between like balancing factors between a purely intellectual pursuit and a life centered entirely upon carnal desires of the flesh.
Now, an ordinary human being is tied with these ignorant movements of nature. But spiritual seeking requires energy, initially from the same limited source. Therefore, the seeker begins to divert his fund of energy towards the higher spiritual consciousness using the mind as a spring board or else go deeper towards the core using emotions. Thought and emotions therefore become powerful forces for spiritual life, if properly directed towards spiritual ends. What about ambition? The Gita gave us the great path of works, of turning not only thought and emotions but also the will in works towards the service of the Divine. Thus, the sadhaka lives no more to satisfy one’s ambition but to do the Divine Work in the world.
But what about food and sex. This has always presented a difficulty. Being the primal force in creation, it has been difficult to turn it towards the Divine. In Vedanta, the method proposed is Brahmacharya which is not exactly blocking or suppressing it but sublimating and transforming it through the awakening of kundalini. The transformation of sexual energy from Rtas (fluid state) to Tejas (Fire) to Vidyut (Electrical) to Ojas (creative spiritual intelligence) to Viryas (pure and powerful spiritual energy) is a well-known truth. As you can see it is not about repressing the sexual energy, as it is about sublimating and transmuting it into its original power. It is something that creative people understand instinctively. In the spiritual life, it is done more consciously.
Tantra practices differ slightly in the way that is followed, not in the fundamental truth. In Vedanta, the effort at mastery of Prakriti (not only sex but also sex) by standing inwardly apart, separating oneself from the movement when it rises, by inner detachment, by becoming a witness. By this practice, the habitual lower movements and tendencies become weak and gradually drop off. In the path of bhakti, there is a sublimation and turning of these energies towards the Divine in love and adorable with a seeking for union with the Divine rather than human beings. In the path of Gyana, one simply refuses to sanction and identify with the lower movement by withdrawing inwardly and concentrating/meditating upon the One Divine Truth. In Karma Yoga, one turns all the energies into the service of the Divine and thereby uplifts them.
In Tantra, on the other hand, one does not detach or shy away from the forces of Nature but enters into its divine core, the power that drives it. All the movements of Nature, including sex, have at their origin some Divine Energy or Power driving them. The frontal aspect of the action is only an appearance in the lower nature, distorted by the play of ego and desires. In its core or depths, it is the subtle truth of the Purusha and Prakriti, Ishwara and Shakti whose coming together is an important part of the play of creative Ananda. But here too the gross forms of sex, the animal and human modes, have to be got rid of and the union discovered within oneself between the Masculine and Feminine elements, the soul and nature, between the Divine and the entire field and working of Nature offered to Him, leading to what is known as maithunananda.
Of course, these are extremely difficult processes and hence shunned by the average Vedantic Yogi given the inherent danger of the fall. In tantra too, it is only the Vam margis who tried this ultimate formula and most fell precipitously. Besides, if the goal is ultimately liberation, then why risk the method by courting the danger.
In Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga, however, one has to deal with the sexual energy at some point because its transformation is very much needed for the physical transformation. All the Vedantic methods mentioned above are part of the practice along with an active rejection, which becomes easy as the consciousness becomes refined, replacing the crude animality with the refined human and eventually replacing the human with the Divine element. But here the whole secret lies in adding to one’s own efforts an opening and surrender of the sexual energies and all other movements to the Divine Mother with an aspiration for the needed change.
Whether this will be done and completed with the help of a complimentary being, the coming together of the complementing masculine and feminine energies in human form, each progressing upwards like the ancient ideal of Rishis and Rishikas, or it is done through an inner alchemy by a progressive opening of the lower nature and an influx of the higher Supernature will depend upon the Divine Will in the person and the destiny. In either case, the usual human forms of sex have to be overpassed, especially when the physical transformation begins. It takes time, sometimes quite a long time. As always, victory comes to the most persevering.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
