Báhá'i Marriage

 

 

                        To share a portion of the talk given by Dr. Hossain Danesh:

 

 "Sex is one dimension of the attraction that takes place between men and women. It can be a very powerful force of attraction. Probably for some, or many, it is the most powerful source of attraction. If two individuals   are attracted to each other, it may be in a number of ways: physical, sexual, ideological, emotional.

The process of spiritual attraction is different from each of these. We'll talk a little bit about it later. Sex, of course, is a very essential dimension of the relationship, because it allows the continuation of the human race. And very importantly, it allows us, as Bahá'u'lláh said, to bring into this world those who would remember God, and would contribute to an ever-advancing civilization. So you see, sex has an outcome. Any union has to have results. The outcome of the union of sperm and ovum is the child that comes to this world.

 The union of the marriage is to bring a child to this world. Not only do you create unity between the husband and the wife, and the marriage comes to this world, but also through this marriage the family is created. So far, the attitude towards sex in different cultures, in different religions, have been basically attitudes commensurate to childhood or adolescence. People's understanding of sexuality is either mixed with a lot of ignorance, a lot of lack of knowledge about sex, a lot of make-believe, or a lot of shyness. People do not know what it is all about; they do not talk about it. For example, in Persian families, I would say, by and large, there is a total ignorance about sexuality. Nobody talks about it. The message young people are given is that this is a forbidden area to talk about. But people think about it. People feel it. So they end up going through it with closed eyes. In Christianity, the approach is that sex is bad, do not think about it. This is ridiculous. If I tell the people here in this room, "Please do not think about sex; think about anything else you want, but don't think about that, okay?" What do you think you would do? A few minutes ago, you were not thinking about sex, but now...you are! That is exactly what happens in many Christian and Persian families, or Moslem families, and so forth. We say to the young people, who are full of hormones and an excitement for sexuality: "Don't think about sex!" We tell them that what they have been hearing about is lies, and that they should simply go and take cold showers. Here is the kind of remedy we give to these young people. And if that does not work, then we try to frighten them. We tell them "If you have sex, you will get syphilis or, now, AIDS, or all kinds of things."

We try to control people through the process of fear, or through trying to get them not to think about it. And the overall approach to this process is generally from a negative perspective. When none of these tactics work, we bring in the wrath of God. We say, "God has told you not to do that; therefore, you mustn't do it." But that does not work either. What it does is make people grow up frightened about sex, or ignorant about sex, or ashamed of sex, or angry about sex, or all of these together. That is what happens. Sexuality loses its contact with sensuality, with beauty, with the gratification that goes with it, with any other dimension of human development that should really be fulfilling and magnificent.

Let me give you an example, a parallel, to see how this process works and what kind of problem it creates in our society. Sex is one of the biological appetites. Hunger is another biological appetite. Hunger is more important than sex, because if you do not get hungry and you do not eat, you die. If you do not get the craving for sex and you do not have sex, you do not die. So hunger is more important than sex. Food is more important than sex, in that sense. Now, there are many approaches to eating: Some people eat fast. Some eat slowly. Some eat junk food. Some people eat gourmet food. Some people eat too much, and then they feel sick. Some eat too little, and feel hungry. Most people do not have the discipline necessary to create a healthy habit of eating. Some people share their food with each other, along with their germs and diseases and their colds and everything else they have. Some people steal other people's food. Just think what we do with food! They all have parallels with sex. That is the appetite. That is the way we go about it. Some people think that if they don't eat, they would lose total control. But we know, for example, that in a perfect life, there has to be discipline. There has to be a process. There is a time. You cannot give a steak to a two-month old baby. You just can't. It kills the infant if you feed it steak. Early sex damages the same way that the wrong food at the wrong time damages. The wrong dimension of sexuality at the wrong time damages. And sex is not only having intercourse: it is a gamut of things.

 To begin with, some aspects of it are perfectly fine and acceptable such as the growth that people show to each other through sex; the care that they show each other; the affection that they show each other; the friendships that people establish, and so forth. These are the milk and honey of every childhood. They are perfectly fine. Having intercourse is not only the end result, but that is the way society creates the image of sex, as though it is the ultimate. And that is why the majority of people, when they have intercourse, feel disappointed. Or it is either painful or unpleasant, or it is too short or too long, or too this or too that. The majority of people become disappointed because their approach to it is so undisciplined, so un-thoughtful, so not discussed, and left in the condition of ignorance. They simply approach it with a total lack of sophistication. This is what we have created.

Our children are growing up in a society that believes in instant gratification. Everything has to be instant. Coffee is instant, hamburgers are instant, sex is instant: everything in society has to be instant. The joy goes out of the process. The process of sexual relationships in human beings is the process of discovery: discovery of beauty in each other. That is one dimension of it. It is also the process of the discovery of self-control in oneself. Again, this is connected to food: You know those occasions when you allow yourself to sit around the table and eat slowly and taste everything that you eat? When you have the best gourmet dinner that you can, and cherish each minute? To discover the beauty of that, you have to be deliberate about it, you have to be thoughtful about it, you have to be in the right mood for it, you have to be in the right state of unity for it. A condition of unity has to exist among the people with whom you eat. When it does, that becomes a memorable meal. Sexuality has to be approached in this way. It is very different when you eat that way, compared with when you go and pick up a take-out hamburger and eat it. The whole approach to sexuality has to be, for example, related to knowledge of sexuality. I want to use another analogy of food: I was reading in the Washington Post today that the American Government has decided to change the standards of a good diet for the American people. Bad news. They had been wrong all this time. What they had been telling you all these years about what a good diet is, is now proven to be a bad diet. And do you know what one dimension is of the bad diet? That you are eating too much of those things that you do not need, and too little of those things you do need! This is the same problem with the attitude toward sexuality in this society: we pay more attention to the final act of sexual intercourse rather than focusing on those elements that go into the sexual relationship.

A sexual relationship is a process of first discovering the beauty in the other person. It has to start with encouragement. It has to start with the quality of not thinking solely about yourself, but thinking about the other person. It has to start with being considerate of the other person. It has to start in the condition of creating an atmosphere of comfort and safety and ease with each other, and trust for one another. You have to unite all of these ingredients in order to make the process work. You cannot just rush through it, because you want to discover beauty

The second thing that you want is discipline, because the process of any human activity is only successful if combined with discipline. Let me elaborate on this because it is very important. Every human activity is successful if done from the position of enlightenment and knowledge about what you are doing, with positive feelings of love and encouragement, and with self-discipline and moderation. Every human activity requires these three characteristics. There is nothing in this life that we should not approach with knowledge and love and discipline. What is the ultimate act of a human being? Are we not are created in the image of God? One of God's qualities, or attributes, is that He is the Creator. And He has created us in His own image. Therefore, we are also creators. We constantly create. We create civilizations. We create families. We create chairs. We create airplanes. We create those things we create, because we are created in the image of God. Now, the act of love in sexuality and marriage has to be creative. And in order for something to be creative, it has to be disciplined.

 Those people who paint, for example, or compose music, or dance, they understand. If they are going to be creative, one of the things they absolutely need is discipline. And once you create this discipline, you are free within its boundaries. And that is the relationship between men and women. For instance, Bahá'u'lláh teaches that before marriage the discipline, the boundary, for creativity is chastity. Within the boundary of chastity, a man and a woman can relate to each other like they never have done before. This is so because until this time in the history of humanity, men and women have not been able known each other. Why? Because as soon as they got close to each other, they start thinking about sex. And they started thinking, how can I have him? Or her? Or how can I get away from him? Or her? That immediately applied from the start. And as soon as that happens, these two people are not going to get to know each other. They are not going to be really honest with each other. They are not going to trust each other. But when you know you are going to have a relationship that is disciplined by the standard of chastity, then you can get to know each other; you can be close to each other; you can be intimate in your thoughts; you can share your feelings; you can share your aspirations; you can share and say what you like and what you do not like, what you are afraid of and what you are not afraid of. And you get to know each other.

 It is in this process, then, that when you make a choice, you do it with open eyes, rather than with closed eyes."

(Talks, H.Danesh-Marriage and Sexuality)
Also listen to a mp3 .