CHAPTER 2: Symbolism of Desire

Part 1: The Fall and the Path

The two Paths. In order to find the Path to the peace and happiness of God-Reality it is necessary to understand the Path which originally led away from that God-Reality to the state of psychical disintegration, darkness, and emptiness of culture, which forms the condition of “hell”, experienced by so many people. In order to know the whither one must know the whence, for, as the old traditions proclaim, we return whence we came, for the origin and the goal are one: the state of non-distinction from God-Reality. In order to know the “light”, we must also know the “darkness”.

“The Fall” is, primarily, a change in consciousness, or in traditional terms, the “veiling” and “hiding” of Consciousness. The third Chapter of Genesis deals with this aspect of the Fall (see Evolution, Paradise and the Fall). Other teachings on this subject have been dealt with in this book.

In well-preserved myths and frequently in fairytales the subject-matter refers to the adventures in consciousness on the two Paths of the Fall and the Return. The symbolical adventures are related to the stages marked on “the clock of the Zodiac”, and are connected with its Twelve Signs and Gates of Initiation (into other states of consciousness). It will be shown later that this symbolism is intimately connected with that of Evolution and Manifestation, which follows the same scheme.

Traditionally the two Paths begin in the stage of Capricorn, in which “the choice at the Cross-roads” must be made. The Path of the Fall is called “the left-hand Path” and “the Path of Darkness”. For this reason the English word “sinister” obtained its meaning of malignant, evil, gloomy, of evil omen. The Latin sinistrum means left, and the word “sinister” is used in heraldry in the same sense. This Path is further called “the Path of the Ancestors”. The path of the Return is called “the right-hand Path”, because it is the right Path, and also the Path of Redemption, the Spiritual Path, the Path of the Gods, and the Path of Light. These terms will be dealt with in the proper connections.

In some traditions the Two Paths are conceived as going “right” and “left” and in others as leading forward and backward. The first separate at “the Crossroads” and the second at the Gate, which is, according to the context, the Gate of Hell or the Gate of Heaven. We shall see that this Gate is connected with the winter equinox.

The meaning of sin. What is the real meaning of “sin”? Modern conceptions of sin have wandered far from the original. The fundamental Christian conception, based on Genesis 39:9 and Psalm 51:4, is the correct one. It is that every sin is primarily against God: Omne peccatum in Deum committitur. Every transgression of the Tradition is rebellion against God. It shows that the soul has separated itself from God, and begun to strive for something apart from God, for itself as apart from God. For this reason the word “sin” has been associated by psychological etymology with “to sunder”, meaning to separate. Sin is really separation from God or Reality, implying loss of wholeness, haleness and holiness. To be “whole” is to be united in God-Reality and to be entirely non-separate in Being.

The Primal Offense is the existence of a separate “I”, which has begun to operate in its own way, against the interests of the Self, or, in religious terms, against the Will of God. That “I” becomes reduced to an extremely small focus in world-externals — an imagined “reality” — and thereby forgets its identity with the reality of the Divine Self. It thus becomes an “ego” or an “it” and assumes a certain independence which is really illusory. This is “disobedience”, this is “sin”.

The fundamental conceptions of sin have been formulated in a simple and beautiful form in the Theologia Germaṇica, a mystical work which was written about 1300 A.D. There we read: “The Word, the Faith and the Truth affirm that sin is nought else but the turning away of the creature from the unchangeable Good to the changeable: from that which is Perfect to that which is in part, and most often to itself.” “All disobedience is contrary to God, and nothing else. In truth, no Thing is contrary to God… nor anything we can name is displeasing to Him, but only disobedience.” “He who is in disobedience is in sin, and sin can never be atoned for or healed but by returning to God, and this is brought to pass by humble obedience.”

“Obedience” means obedience of the Tradition, which is, as we shall see later, the Voice of God.

The writer of the Theologia Germaṇica affirms that when there is perfect obedience, the highest goal of the mystic is attained. “It is possible to every man to approach so near thereunto as to be rightly called God-like, and a partaker of the divine nature.” The supreme truth is: “Ye should learn that eternal blessedness lieth in one thing only, and in nought else…..Moreover, it needeth not to enter into the soul, for it is there already, only it is unperceived.”

The ego-factor. Disobedience is due to the activity of the separate “I”. “Nothing is forbidden and nothing is contrary to God but one thing only: that is, self-will, or to will otherwise than as the Eternal Will would have it.” The work also stresses the psychological nature of Hell: “Nothing burneth in hell but self-will… Put off thine own will, and there will be no hell.”

“The Will of God” is expressed by “the Voice of God” and symbolizes the Spirit of the Tradition, — and not its letter, nor an organization representing the letter. Only obedience to the Spirit of the Tradition is a true obedience.

The “I” that is an “it” and causes all the trouble in the psyche and the world of social relations, grows into egoism, egotism, selfishness and other related manifestations.

In this work that “I-factor” is called by its Sanskrit name ahaṅkāra, because that term is both deeper and more embracing than the available English terms, each of which denotes only a particular aspect of it. Ahaṅkāra means literally “I-factor”. It modifies its meaning according to the context. It has not always an “evil” connotation, for its origin is in the spiritual, and not in the moral sphere. The subject will receive further explanation later on.

Desire. The motive in life connected with the cause and the precipitation of the Fall is desire. This and certain other words will be written with a capital letter, in the case of symbolical use or of a meaning more fundamental than the usual. In Eastern thought, will is considered to be a manifestation of desire.

The traditions teach the relation between ahaṅkāra and Desire under (symbolic) form of myths. They do not attempt to explain rationally what lies beyond the reach of reason. For both ahaṅkāra and Desire spring from regions in the psyche where rational thought cannot penetrate by itself alone. It can “enter in” only in close co-operation with the other functions. Mythology hare lends a helping hand by appeal to feeling, inspirational and intuition, and the essential function of faith and insight.

Desire, though it is bound up with the Fall, is not “evil”, for on the Spiritual Path, as desire for liberation from ignorance and sin, and as desire for the peace and happiness of God-Reality, it is as much the motive factor as it is on the Path of the Fall. The two forms might be called “earth-bound” and “heaven-bound” desire.

Desire has brought about everything: Creation, Manifestation, evolution and the phenomena of life, ahaṅkāra or egotism, and involvement in mental darkness and sin.

Furthermore it is also Desire which dissolves these things and leads the way back to God-Reality, when mental darkness has been destroyed.

By the destruction of earth-bound desire, all sorrows and pains that result from “sin”, wither away. Hence the great traditions invariably advocate the systematic substitution of nobler desires for coarser ones, and ultimately the complete destruction of desire, in all its forms from the grossest to the subtlest. Perfect freedom from earth-bound desire means freedom from selfhood and unhappiness. Eventually even heaven-bound desire should be renounced, for these, as is taught, also represent forms of bondage which prevent the soul from experiencing the supreme experience: God-Reality.

Renunciation of desire does not imply, as is often imagined, the end of life. On the contrary: it implies living with greater riches and interest.

The Sage Vāsiṣṭha enjoined his young pupil, Prince Rāma, the hero of the Rāmāyana Epic (in the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha, Upaśānti Prakarana, the Story of Punya and Pāvana): “Steady in the state of Fullness which shines when all desires (dheya-vāsanās) are given up, and peaceful in the state of freedom in life, act playfully in the world, O Rāghava! Inwardly free from all desires, dispassionate and detached, but outwardly active in all directions, act playfully in the world, O Rāghava! Outwardly full of zeal in action but free from any zeal at heart, active in appearance but inwardly peaceful, work playfully in the world, O Rāghava! Free from ahaṅkāra, with mind detached as in sleep, pure like the Ether, ever untainted, act playfully in the world, O Rāghava! Conducting yourself nobly and with kindly tenderness, outwardly conforming to conventions but inwardly renouncing all, act playfully in the world, O Rāghava! Quite unattached at heart, but for all appearance acting as if with attachment, inwardly cool but outwardly full of fervor, act playfully in the world, O Rāghava !” These verses contain some symbolic material — the Fullness, sleep, the Ether — which will be clarified later.

The Path of the Fall led from the Self to self-will, or, to express it in Hindu terms, from the Ahaṁ or “ I “ to the Ahaṅkāra. The Path of Return consists of retracing of the Way, till the Self is all-in-all, and the soul experiences, in the words of St. Catherine, “My I is God, I do not want any other I than this my God.”

Desire is one of the Triad of the Nyāya school of Hindu philosophy: jñāṇa-ichchhā-kriyā. Ichchhā is Desire. The word is related to the English “to ask” and the Dutch “eisen”. This involves will. Jñāṇa means spiritual realization and is related to “gnosis” and “knowledge”. Kriyā is activity and is related to “Creation”, meaning action.

From myths much more than from philosophy we learn about the nature of Desire and its relation to other psychical factors. In the myths, Desire is represented by Gods, e.g. Erôs, Kāma, and other forms of the God of Love and Desire. These have two quite different aspects, representing worldly desire — not necessarily earth-bound — on the one hand, and heavenly desire on the other. Worldly desire is represented by Erôs, the son of Venus, and Kāma, the son of Lakṣmī. The Primordial or Primal Erôs or Kāma has quite different mythological antecedents. The Ṛg-veda describes him as “the first movement that arose in the One, after it had come into life through the power of fervor or disengagement”. This is Desire as the power at the back of evolution. On other occasions Desire is the Parent of all the Gods — in which case he stands at the beginning of the Spiritual Path. In his supernal aspect the God of Love and Desire will be encountered “in the beginning” and “at the end”. In his lower, well-known aspect, he will be met all the time, for he is the great upholder of the world, and Manifestation would come to an end, if he did not continually manifest himself in action. In one myth Kāma is said to be a son of Brahmā, the Creator.

The symbolism of sensual and sexual desire. The lower forms of desire are often symbolically expressive of the higher forms. First of all, sexual desire is often symbolic of Desire, in a general and basic form. Further sensual desire often symbolizes desire for “heavenly things”. Finally sexual desire is used symbolically for the desire for God, and its satisfaction for the bliss of at-onement of “God-the-Father” and “God-the-Mother”, that is, Being and Consciousness, or the Unchanging Reality and the changing World of Creation, — within the psyche.

If the symbolism making use of the imagery of sex is not clearly distinguished from teachings which deal with the subject of sex, it gives rise to the regrettable trivialities and vulgarities which are found in many books. The only connection between the two fields is that they lie at the two extreme ends of a scale of transmutation, as will be shown later.

Sexual symbolism exists widely in the ancient traditions. We read in Genesis, the basic tradition of the Bible (2; 24): “A man … shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” It has been shown in “Evolution, Paradise and the Fall”, that this symbolizes “the mystic marriage”.

The Linga of Śiva, standing in the Ark of Śakti, representing the Yoni, symbolizes the Beginning and the End of spirituality or life, the state of Rest or Peace. In that state Static and Dynamic Godhead — Father and Mother — are One, and the soul is completely merged in God-Reality. The symbolism of the Linga, fixed immovably in the Receptacle, also implies that — in spite of the show of the apparent universe — God is perpetually in contact and at One with his Power, the World of Creation. The word “Linga” means etheric or subtle. The Linga is also the Axis of the Universe of the soul; its base represents the Earth and its head, Heaven.

The Śiva-linga is worshipped by communities and people of high spiritual integrity. These have been occasionally accused of “sex-worship” by ignorant or mentally impure adherents of other religions, who have happened to come across some semi-pornographic work about “sex-worship through the ages” (no particular book is meant), or “enlightening” statements of adherents of some modern school of psychology. Actually the Linga represents primarily the Spiritual Axis of the World of the soul. Its higher end symbolizes the Spiritual Pole, and its lower end the Pole of Manifestation. Therefore the lower end symbolizes among other things the power of sex.

The Linga-symbol, which has survived to the present day practically only in the form of the Śiva-linga of Hinduism, was known and revered almost universally in the ancient world.

When Jacob poured oil over the stone on which his head had rested during his sleep experiences, after putting it up right as a pillar (Genesis 28:18), he performed the same rite which is done in Śaiva temples to-day. The rite does not imply “sex-worship”. But as will be shown later, its opposite, namely, transmutation of sex. The stone pillar was found everywhere in Syria and is mentioned in the Bible in the sacred Massebah (see, for instance, Judges 9:6).

Sexual desire, as a form of desire on the lowest levels, forms a symbol of desire in subtler forms, on higher planes. Ultimately, that is, in order to reach the high End of humanity, sex must be transmuted and controlled, for as long as sexual desire predominates, the subtler forms of desire are certain to predominate also. Only after the former has been overcome is it possible to overcome the latter. Later the important teachings of Hinduism and the half or wholly forgotten teachings of Christianity and other religions will be dealt with.

Sexual symbolism has entered even Christianity — the religion the adherents of which became most prejudiced against “sex”, because it came into existence in a period when in the surrounding religions sexual symbolism had fully lost its meaning and was understood and taken literally, with all the unfortunate moral consequences.

There was a ritual in the early Church, in which a procession, headed by a priest carrying a burning candle, went down into the crypt of the church. The burning candle was dipped into the well which was found under almost every ancient church, as also in the temples of a good many ancient faiths. The well represents the Womb of the Mother and the light the Light of the Father. It was a symbolic fertilization rite: the Divine Mother, represented by the Church, was fructified in order that she might bear and bring forth the Son of God in the hearts of the sons and daughters of the Church, and that thereby the community of saints might be increased. The baptismal font, called the uterus ecclesiae, “the womb of the Church”, was similarly fertilized in the night of the seventh day. The implications and profundity of this symbolism will be clearer when other traditions have been dealt with.

When considering erotic and sexual symbolism one should remember that it originated in ages when humanity had not yet fallen to its present level and become involved in the present-day problems of the emotional and physical planes.

Apart from its use in traditional teachings, sensual and sexual symbolism has also been made use of more individualistically. For the men of old the most perfect language for describing the mystical union with God or Divine Nature, was that describing the blissful experience of emotional and physical intercourse. To the pure everything is pure, naturally and unselfconsciously so. If people object to the use of sexual symbolism it means that they do not understand what it teaches and that their mind is not a clean mirror, because they have not properly solved the problem of Desire in their personal life. The avoidance of the subject in an ignorant environment is quite another matter.

Mystics of all traditions have expressed themselves in intimate terms of sensual love. The Song of Solomon in the Bible is well-known. St. John of the Cross and other Christian mystics were inspired by it in their writings. The poems of Muslim Sufis and the traditions of the Krishna cult of Hinduism are example in the East.

Teachings referring to sex. We should clearly distinguish the teachings referring to the subject of sex from sexual symbolism. The teachings applying to sex proper fall into two classes, pictorial and symbolical.

On some ancient Hindu temples erotic and sexual representations are found, — a fact much emphasized by puritans belonging to other religions. These representations formed part of all-inclusive body of teachings. In Hindu tradition sex has been deemed a part of life which should be considered side by side with the other parts. Hence, on such temples as the Sun-temple at Konarak, known as “the Black Pagoda”, sexual representations are found only in one of the many layers of sculpture and in none of the others. The Temple represents the entire world of the psyche, from the physical body to the Divine Reality in its inmost shrine. That particular layer — a low one — is meant to represent “the level” of sex. It shows a part of human life which is as legitimate and sacred as any other. If Western moralists of a past period had given legitimate attention to “sex” harmonized it with the other functions and aspects of human life, instead of hush-hushing it with morbid shame and damning it as something evil, it would surely have remained a more simple and natural subject and not have hatched so many difficult problems. Tradition should not overlook any of the aspects or functions of life, and isolation and occultation is worse than neglect.

Sculptural representations of the type mentioned represent only a particular period of Hindu tradition. Much more ancient and universal is another class of teachings which followed another method, equally difficult to understand for a person accustomed to modern way of thinking, though perhaps easier to appreciate. The sculptural representations on the outside of temples represent exoteric teachings, meant for the greater mass of the people. The esoteric teachings, meant for people of higher culture, aspiring to understand the inner side of things, used a method which contrasts strikingly with that of the reliefs. It is concerned with symbols only. If, for instance, the male organ had to be referred to, it was, in its relation to other things in the human scheme, not mentioned by its own name, but symbolized by a plough, a snake, a little lizard, an iron rod, or something else. This applies not only to Hinduism, but to all other ancient traditions as well. The rational mind, if acting in isolation, always desperately tries to call a spade a spade. Perhaps in some contexts there is no harm in the method, — in others there surely is. Anyway, it does not really explain anything. For the purposes of morphology tangible and visible representations in stone or paper are eminently suited. But psychology requires a more refined method of teaching.

The paragraph “Teachings referring to sex” has been included for the purpose of distinguishing this subject from sexual symbolism, and has no direct reference to “The symbolism of Desire and the Fall of Man.”