by Mark Jaqua
From the Celibacy forum in the members’ forums.
On the subject of Celibacy one could cull a small book of quotations from Blavatsky’s writings.
I sent a paper around of some of the quotes and some comments to a few people last week. Probably the best quote to give an over-view of the Blavatsky-Theosophy viewpoint is this: When H.P. Blavatsky was asked if a man must marry or remain a celibate (The Key to Theosophy, p. 262), she replied:
“It depends on the kind of man you mean. If you refer to one who intends to live in the world, one who, even though a good, earnest Theosophist, and an ardent worker for our cause, still has ties and wishes which bind him to the world, who, in short, does not feel that he has done for ever with what men call life, and that he desires one thing and one thing only – to know the truth, and to be able to help others – then for such a one I say there is no reason why he should not marry, if he likes to take the risks of that lottery where there are so many more blanks than prizes.”
“Surely you cannot believe us so absurd and fanatical as to preach against marriage altogether?”
“On the contrary, save in a few exceptional cases of practical Occultism, marriage is the only remedy against immorality.” (quoted from a LeGros article).
Her overall viewpoint is that celibacy is the natural state of man, but that we are chained to sexuality from past karma, from man in previous ages diving into animalism for the cheap sensation. This through effort mankind has to escape if he wants to progress. G.R.S. Mead claimed that the whole purpose of the Theosophical Society and movement was the “sexual regeneration of mankind.” Blavatsky identifies Theosophy at base as identical with all levels of altruism, but is heavy on the sexual teachings. (Any attempt to combine sex practices with spirituality is black magic.)
Rose described celibacy as “no conscious sexual action” to paraphrase, and of course this includes no onanism, which in the common definition is allowed, for some bizarre reason. Rose used to make the statement that animals only breed in season, while man breeds all year ’round, and similar quotes are found in Blavatsky. There are many statements Rose made on sex issues that I’ve run across correlaries to in Blavatsky’s writings, and think R. must have got many of his basic ideas on this from his delving into the Secret Doctrine.
Another issue I remember R. talking about a number of times was the supposed life-time celibacy of Krishnamurti. He said he couldn’t believe it, he didn’t think it was physically possible. He put this to physiological factors, that it was almost biologically impossible. I thought the real reason of difficulties is Psychological, not biological, and R. maybe rationalized this in himself and assigned it a physiological cause instead of the real psychological reasons.
Well, Rose was right about Krishnamurti. In an article in “Theosophical History” of about 10 years ago, it was shown that Krishnamurti had a long-time relationship with his best friend’s wife, apparently with his knowledge. This is a good example and support for the above Blavatsky quote for someone Living in the World, as Krishnamurti did. A monastic environment could reap better results.
– jake j.
[ end ]