Basic Instincts
- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
The two basic instincts in human beings are food and sex. These you have been doing in all the lifetimes – when you were an animal and now as a human being. You are born out of these two – food and sex. In India, it is so beautiful that they connected both these with Divinity.
Food is connected with God. In the Upanishads, it is said ‘Food is God’. When you consider food as God you will not overeat. You don’t simply stuff food, but you eat food with so much honour. No festival in India goes without food. Similarly, sex is also connected with God. Otherwise you keep sex separate and think this is my material life, and think of God as different. In India, the ancient people linked that to God, so that no aspect in you remains away from God. A basic instinct doesn’t remain away from God. That is why they put Radha-Krishna and Shiva-Parvathi. Shiv Ling is a symbol of that.
So when you honour sex and consider it as part of Divinity, then your obsession disappears, lust disappears, and sacredness dawns. The basic instinct from being an aggressive lust gets transformed into a submissive love. This is the ancient thought. When you consider the basic instincts of food and sex as sacred then the aggression in you disappears, and surrender dawns in you. Gratefulness and love dawn in you!
