Panch Mahavrat or The Perennial Path The Art of Living

Author(s): Osho Rajnish
Publisher: Osho Rajnish

Page 17

CHAPTER 2. SOURCE OF VIOLENCE IN MAN
cannot realize that there is violence in sex also. When one understands the deep and subtle nature of nonviolence, one realizes that sexual desire is also one form of violence. But this point was not raised, was not discussed till the time of Parshva, because nonviolence was being understood in its deepest sense by the people. Why was it so?
There are two or three matters to be understood with regard to this. As I told you, when a person begins to love another, it is proved that he is unhappy. It is like this: when a person says he will get happiness from another person, it is decided that this person is miserable. It is impossible that a person who could not get happiness from himself, would get it from another person. He will get delusion, not happiness, he will get deception, not the truth; he can see dreams but will weep when he wakes up. The desire for another is a positive proof that one hasn't yet got the key to happiness. And there cannot be any sexual enjoyment without the desire for another.
Sex is hidden in the desire for another so it is also violence, moreover it is also violence because the semen particles a person has got are all living full of life. A person is making use of these semen particles during sexual intercourse throughout his life. All those semen particles which go out die within two hours after sexual intercourse. And if a few semen particles enter a woman's ovary, they start on a journey of a new life and the rest of the particles die within two hours. Thus millions of semen particles die in one sexual intercourse. These semen particles are lives in seed form. Each particle has the potentiality of becoming an individual, a person. So there is already a massacre - killing of millions of persons in one sexual intercourse. And this killing of millions of persons is violence.
It is essential to bear in mind the third point. Those who have understood nonviolence in its true and deep sense will say, the individual for whom there is a possibility of being born or the one whom you have given birth, is created by you to die. Really speaking, birth is the beginning of death. If birth is one end of life, the other end would be death. If a father is considered responsible for the birth of child, he is taking only half the responsibility. Whose responsibility will it be for death? If a mother takes the responsibility of birth, she is assuming only half the responsibility Whose responsibility will it be for the death? When the father or the mother assumes responsibility for the birth, it becomes a dishonest transaction. Then what about the responsibility for death?
Therefore, a fully nonviolent mind (or person) is unable to assume the responsibility of becoming a father or a mother. There is a deep reason for that. Such a mind is incapable of becoming the cause the instrument - of anybody's death. To give birth to a child becomes the cause of death of that child. It makes no difference if death comes after seventy years. This time element makes no difference. So the whole thing comes to this: the semen particles which come out due to sexual intercourse and which die within two hours are sure to die, and those which are saved will also die after seventy or eighty years. Sexual enjoyment goes on producing death though it looks like giving birth. This is the sole deception of life, that 'death' is written on the back door of life. When you enter life, you get in looking at the gate of birth, but when you go out of life, you get out from the gate of death. This is the deception of life that 'happiness' is written on the first or the entrance door, and 'unhappiness' is written on the back door. You enter life in hope of happiness but when you get out, you are frustrated, perplexed and mad with unhappiness.
I have heard a funny story: A man in New York had collected many wonderful things and had kept them in a museum. The things were so attractive and wonderful that those who were going there to
The Perennial Path: The Art of Living
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Osho