Celibacy.

The exact meaning of celibacy is being single in body and spirit. From Latin word “caelibis” is translated as “single”. In religious meaning, celibacy is a vow given to abstain from a life with sex, and instead to devote it to God. People perceive celibacy negatively because it is associated with suffering, something unnatural and to do with religion. But the truth is, it does not have to be. Celibacy, in fact, can be taken consciously as a way to achieve inner peace and happiness.

In the past, singe people were frowned upon by the society, as were families without children. The community would despise them, neighbours wouldn’t speak with them. For example, single men and women were not welcomed in Ancient Judea. According to the customs of that time, they were considered as sinners, since they were unable to create a family. Every respected person was paired. Before the medieval ages in Judea people who did not want to marry willingly, were forced into marriage. Childlessness was also condemned by the community and perceived as a consequence of an unworthy lifestyle. Not much changed in the current times, even though our society is thought to be more tolerant. Thus, be prepared to be judged and even ridiculed by some of your relatives, friends or opposite sex if you are considering the path of celibacy. Nobody says that celibacy is an easy path. However, there is also nothing more pitiful than chasing the opposite sex for the rest of your life in the pursuit of physical pleasure or in attempt to escape the dreadful feeling of loneliness. The stakes we pay for chasing are high: wasting most of our financial and life resources: time, energy, focus and most importantly, we waste our heart, integrity and our inner sacred wholeness. Therefore, this path of a lifeline, like celibacy, should be a conscious decision because of the high price we pay for it. You may spend the rest of your life searching for someone and for this reason chasing a zillion of girls/men, killing a colossal amount of your life resources, and still feel lonely or not find the one.

In order to avoid wasting our life, we first need to understand what lies at the basis of this hidden hunger craving within us, because when we understand it, it will become easy for us to make a conscious decision that will satisfy and lead us to those lines of life where we want to be in order to feel happy.

First of all, we must understand that this itchy feeling within us is the basic instinct of reproduction and preservation of the human race. Once we understand it, we know what it is that our inner voice is craving. If you already have children or, for some reason, you don’t particularly want to have children, then this issue is not the basis and reason for you to waste the majority of your life resources in pursuit of the opposite sex. This becomes optional. And vice versa, if you dream to have a child and starting a family because you believe that you need this life experience, then it is better to understand this and pursue your goal. Finding a suitable partner to start a family and have a child with will not take you much effort since a large percentage of people, just like you, want the same thing and are looking for someone like you. Once we know exactly what it is that we really want and we are very clear about it, achieving the goal is relatively easy and with the right input of resources we can find a suitable candidate. After all, all living beings on the planet are busy with and engage in reproduction process and preservation of their species, starting from simple organisms, trees, animals and to us, humans.

Secondly, we need to understand if what we are craving is our desire to have physical hedonistic pleasure and satisfaction that sex and chase can offer. Following our sexual instinct and being the slaves of our pleasure and satisfaction plays a significant role in the lives of many of us. Knowing that, the specialists in advertising build their campaigns on sex or they have a hint about it, playing on our basic instincts. The majority of people on the planet are chasing this satisfaction and it is our hormones to blame for. We spend the bulk of our resources in the pursuit of sexual pleasure, and often it leads many of us to big problems that start from sexually transmitted diseases to fights, wars, bankruptcy and other misfortunes. But the most tragic and biggest price we pay is the wear and tear of our heart and our spiritual integrity. The more affairs we have through life, the less our heart is able to love. Lust and sex, if not spiritualised, they drain our spiritual strength and wholeness, necessary for thriving of our soul.

The more affairs we have through life, the less our heart can love.

For this reason, we need to understand what we want and also, if the price we pay for the pursuit of sexual pleasure is really worth it. 

Thirdly, in some of us, our inner craving could be our desire to find a partner who we could love and be loved and to have emotional connection and closeness with them. Again, we need to understand what is it that we are trying to achieve and what is love for us? Because love is the most vague concept on earth and our perception of love and how we need to be loved vary and are very different from one to another.

You say: Christian God - is unbiasedness, that God is love. But what can be more bias than love?…”, - Sergeev

Sometimes our urge to find a partner comes from the concealed deeper fear of loneliness. We just struggle to be alone. True, a man feels incomplete without a woman and a woman feels incomplete without a man. It is our needs and comfort that we all seek to satisfy. However, if you cannot stand being lonely and the notion of life of solitude makes you dread it, then loneliness and the fear of it will haunt you for the rest of your life. Remember, we feel most lonely when we are in the crowd. Another person can only temporarily comfort your feeling of loneliness and inability to live happily with yourself, until the point when you start feeling lonely even in their presence. We must also be aware that the fear of loneliness conceals our deeper psychological issue – not accepting ourselves and the fear to live with and face ourselves. You know perfectly it is much easier to focus attention on someone else, their actions and mistakes, than to face and accept our own wrongdoing and study the depths of our mind and soul. Most people run away from it because it is scary and too painful. But it is only when we face our fear and deliberately go into solitude starting the journey towards our soul and discovering the depths of our being, that we can overcome our fear and move up on the ladder of spiritual growth.

Fourth, if you crave for the highest degree of intimacy: emotional and spiritual, for the experience of merging of two hearts and souls, then this is the most difficult thing to find and you must prepare that you may not find it. We need to realise and come to peace with the possibility that we may never achieve that experience because it does not really depend on us, it is not easy to meet a person with whom we can merge with our heart and soul, not just body. When we clearly understand the experience we want to have exactly, it becomes clear to us what path and the course of actions we must take.

Those who decide to take on celibacy path, whether permanently or temporarily, abstaining from sex, are usually strong people with big hearts who are able to love very deeply and to whom that experience was traumatic for some reason: either death of their beloved, divorce or a breakup, or because they just do not see a suitable candidate to give their heart to. They chose to protect it and not to spill their integrity on meaningless affairs and relationships. The picture of the knight of this Celibacy column represents a person and their service and surrender of their basic instincts, needs and wants to their higher spiritual Self. It is taking control over our ‘lower floor’ needs and of our sexual energy and moving it up to the higher chakra of the heart that opens the path to our spiritual growth.