When one considers the nature of passion, one sees that it is life itself; it is energy taking substantial form and expressing itself through different channels and outlets. Different desires such as speaking, singing, dancing, laughing, crying, fighting, wrestling, boxing, are different expressions of the same energy, whose central or final expression takes place in the passion between the sexes.

Passion is seen in the groups made by speaker and listener, or thinker and receiver, or actor and spectator, but it appears most vital and strong in the love of the lover and the response of the beloved. The passion of the poet is in his poetry; the passion of the musician composes melody; the passion of the actor declaims his part. The act of creation, in no matter what aspect, is the play of passion, whose source and root is love alone; for as man without humanity is empty, and as the body without spirit is dead, so passion without love is energy that is devoid of beauty and blind.

Passion is the desire of love. Passion is the expression of love and it is the satisfaction of love. It is no exaggeration to say that passion is the end of love; for the purpose of love is fulfilled by passion. Man's life is composed of many lives, and the circle of each is completed when the passion that inspires each is satisfied.

All things in life have a purpose; the purpose of some is known, and of others unknown. And beyond life and beneath life exists that activity which the limited mind cannot comprehend. But so far as human understanding can probe, it can discover nothing of greater purpose and value to the world than passion. Under that covering is hidden the hand of the creator.

In all aspects of life, through the animal kingdom to humanity, it is the only source and cause of generation; and that of itself discloses to the thinker its importance. The great teachers of humanity have therefore wished man to look upon every expression of passion as sacred; and as most sacred of all that passion which exists in the love of the sexes for each other. The desire to make sex passion a most sacred thing is seen in the teaching of Shiva; and the origin of phallic worship lay in the desire to raise in the sight of humanity the sacredness of passion, and to free it from the shame and contempt with which men viewed it.

The desire of the ear to hear clearly shows itself when one is unable to listen owing to a disturbing noise. Then the passion of hearing is not satisfied and man becomes confused; he will beg others to keep quiet a moment, or if weak he will lose his temper if he is not allowed to listen to what he wishes to hear at the moment. When one smells a thing there comes a desire to smell it until one knows what it is, until one can fully understand and appreciate the smell. And so also with taste; the taste of a delicious dish tempts man at once to taste more, to enjoy it fully.

The sight of beauty gives man desire to see into its depths, until his sight is satisfied. In the average man the passion of touch is, however, the most intense form of sense; for through this sense consciousness comes to the surface. The comfort of soft clothing, of easy chairs, of warmth in winter, of coolness in summer, of the freshness of the bath, is conveyed to a man through his sense of touch. Indeed, most of his pleasures are dependent upon it, and this sense reaches its culmination in the passion of the body for one of the opposite sex. But it is not only the sense of touch that is energized to its very center in sex passion; every sense is then awake, and therefore it is that sex passion moves mankind more than anything else in the world.

In each different aspect of joy a different plane of existence is reached, but in sex passion all planes of existence are in motion. When accumulated energy is expressed in the abstract through feeling, it comes as laughter or tears, anger, affection, fear, or sympathy. Energy expressed through the mind comes as speech or thought; and expressed through the body as action. But the expression of intense affection towards the opposite sex brings the whole being to the surface. Consciousness which in other experiences becomes but partially external, remaining mostly within, is brought entirely to the surface by sex passion alone. It is because of this that spiritually-minded people have abstained from sex passion and religious people have considered it degrading. For the soul-consciousness is thus brought outside instead of being preserved within, and the soul is thus brought to earth although its destination is, so to speak, heaven.

But if this world is the work of a Creator, it has been created so that He might experience external life. In other words the knowing aspect of life has wished to know the knowable part of life; and its joy depended upon knowing, which alone comes through experience. Moreover its evolution and development depend on the inspiration which is brought by experience alone. And inasmuch as it is necessary for the knowing aspect of life, or the soul, to return at length to its original state of being, even so it is necessary for it to experience first of all the life it created for the very reason that it might know.

Vol. 3, Life's Creative Forces: Rasa Shastra

13. Passion

-ALL-

Vol. 3, Life's Creative Forces: Rasa Shastra

13. Passion