Men: How to Survive Mother's Day

Dear Fellow Men,

This article is for men only, please. So, before we begin one must use the ancient mudra, “tongue-in-cheek.” It requires entering the breathless state first wherein no critical remarks or sharp retorts are possible. So, now, let’s begin:

Yes, it’s Mother’s Day again and we’d be wise to stock up on flowers, chocolates, and thoughtfulness and be ready to dispense the stuff like, well, candy. It’s practically a cliche to say that this “new age” is becoming an age of women. The cliche further adds that “It’s about time!” And we don’t argue, do we? In fact, we remain silent in the great and long tradition of men everywhere and in all times, golden age or dark age, notwithstanding.(1)

You see our secret weapon is silence even as theirs is loquaciousness. A woman with a three-inch tongue can destroy a man over six-feet tall! As women free themselves from oppression by men, so we men must learn to free ourselves from the oppression of women. The latter takes of course a different form than ours over them.

It is commonly asserted that women are, by nature, more intelligent than men and I would be the last to argue with that, even if I would qualify it in certain ways. But why quibble? What the world needs today are people who want to relate to one another, to understand and appreciate one another, to respect each other, to cooperate harmoniously, and to create hope for a better world. And women are, for whatever reason or none at all, simply more inclined in that direction than men. The need for this is patently obvious and it is a better solution than war and ruthless competition or galloping consumption of resources. It is pointless and stupid to respond otherwise.

It doesn’t change the fact that I prefer doing tasks that I can complete myself and that don’t require me to depend upon, satisfy, communicate with, or otherwise need permission from anyone else. Which is why I am writing this dumb article. And I don’t think I am alone in this tendency. Sure it sounds egotistical and sure men are often described that way. But on this score I will stand my ground and say egotism is definitely 50:50. I simply find my own satisfaction and creativity and ability to get my ego out of the way enhanced in such circumstances. Working with others, especially in groups, for me, reinforces ego-active tendencies and brings out competition or criticism. From observing women, I would say, for them, it’s just the opposite, speaking of course (as I must), generally.

This new rising consciousness is a grass-roots movement. That is why in positions of worldly power the influence of women is less obvious. We don’t yet have, for example, a woman president in the United States. But it isn’t far off, I’m sure we would agree. But on the grass roots level I see around me that the change of status and roles are affecting both men and women.

Women are generally happy about their new found freedom and men are too, except when we are unemployed or earning less than our wives and lovers. House husbands are increasingly common and most are very happy with the opportunity. TIME Magazine ran a recent front-page lead article on how the earnings of women are outpacing those of men.

While we congratulate women on their rising status and freedom, we, as men, need to figure out where we go from here. No more bison to bring down, no more bread to bring home triumphantly at night to the admiring gaze of our womenfolk and dependent children! Ah, a sad day has dawned. Or, has it?

Our secret weapon, then, to return to our theme today, is silence. I don’t mean cold, aloof, indifference. I mean something far more elevated. Let me explain in a roundabout way (heck, I hate short articles, don’t you?).

With the freedom of self-expression that women have achieved, the initial benefit for men was a lot more available women who were eager to explore and experiment outside the dreaded commitment that used to be called marriage. It was, and remains, a candy store for some men and women. But this kind of so-called freedom comes at a high price for both men and women: whether emotionally or health-wise, or in terms of true satisfaction or happiness. Easy to enter a casual relationship but difficult to withdraw from one; then there’s those nasty and dreaded diseases. Well I could go on but in fact this part is pretty much outside my own lifestyle and life experience. But I am going somewhere, trust me.

The rising visibility of women is on all levels: from the obviously sexually titillating level to roles of leadership in business, politics and religion. This high level of activity and interaction has made women much more “in your face” for men. Gone are the armies of men-only, whether in the military, the club house, at the shop or factory, office, or corporate boardrooms.

So the first phase of this new reality can be seen in the two-steps forward, one step back evolution of rules of engagement (now called “etiquette”) in the workplace and in every place (since men and women commingle practically everywhere, even dorms and bathrooms in some places). Learning respect, professional conduct and how to be friendly without being too friendly, these are all new patterns for both men and women. But, not surprisingly, this is generally easier for women than for men. And this is where our secret weapon has to begin its hidden (from women) research and development, top-secret phase.

You see, no matter how much society and its rules insist upon equality in all matters we can never simply erase the primordial powers of magnetism and attraction between men and women. But, now, as much as in every other century or society, we have to find new ways to re-direct and circumscribe (or is it circumcise?) this powerful force. In the past these temptations, urges, and otherwise uncontrollable actions were limited by limiting contact between men and women. But that can no longer work.

Let me pause and say that I am not merely describing sexual urges, or even simply romantic ones. That would be downright silly. Studies have shown that even babies or toddlers may behave differently in the presence of the opposite sex.

No, what I mean is this: how do men avoid becoming, well, let’s say “effeminate” in this new world where men and women are equals? Forget the idea that being equals means anything literally. Yes, you might have the same title, position, pay, or rank as a woman who is your peer, but your influence and behavior around each other will, social myths about equality notwitstanding, will be marked by certain characteristic attributes (speaking, of course, generally).

Ok, now listen: during the last few decades of what is called Feminism, women tended to simply imitate the behavior and attitudes of men. Then it began to dawn on women, those who “made it” into the mens’ world, that such behavior is a betrayal of their own, innate tendencies and contributions to the workplace etc.

So, we, too, then, as men must seek to discover our own traits that are ours to contribute. That is the point of this article. But I’m not going to explore those traits because I still have another point to make.

We come back, then, to silence. As women may be quick witted, fluid, adaptable and good socially, men can learn to be adept at being non-reactive to what can only be called (at great expense to one’s life and limb, publicly) the more feeling and mood “rich” environment in which we live, work, and play. To be men, we need to be thoughtful, observant, reflective, and then, when we act, including making a decision, to do so decisively with quiet, firm conviction. We need to draw upon principles and ideals in our language and action; to behave according to what is right duty, not desire or mere feelings. To avoid being self-indulgent in word or action. We should keep our emotional distance from women, being considerate as duty and circumstances dictate, but avoiding familiarity, or “back-slapping” good ‘ol boy behavior when there are no longer any “good ‘ol boys” around.

We need distance and perspective taken with the sole intention of acting, thinking, and feeling according to the highest standards of principle that we can relate and aspire to. We need to be self-disciplined in habits of food, exercise, continuing education and improvement of our skills. We need to become good listeners. We should aspire to be wise and to understand that kindness and compassion are the wisest principles of all.

In sexual matters we need to be self-disciplined as well; appropriate, certainly; committed with integrity to a meaningful, mutually serviceful, respectful relationship. We should avoid making fools of ourselves in such matters. If we treat our wife and her body with respect and tenderness, she will respect us more, or if she prefers lascivious behavior, well, maybe that’s not the right relationship. We shouldn’t encourage our wife or girlfriend to dress in revealing ways, whether in private or public, for we sew the seeds for the cancer of familiarity, moods, and disrespect. Even at home, and yes, in bed, we should be modest in dress and comportment. The Achilles heel for men in respect to women is the eternal temptation of sex.  


Whereas women can be insatiable in their need for attention and interaction from men, men tend to be insatiable in their thoughts about and attraction to women sexually. Both benefit from being more secure in themselves and less in need of approval from one another.


As women come into their own in our society, men, too, should come into our own center of Being. The “real man” is self-contained and unemotional while yet possessing the deep commitment to and passion for truth and high ideals, including helping and protecting others.


The silence of which I speak is, ultimately, derived from the practice of meditation and prayer. To see our source of strength as coming from God, from a higher Power, brings both wisdom and perspective. To avoid one's strength (whether physical, mental or emotional) becoming the instrument of rank egotism, a man needs to be receptive to the Divine Will. It would be especially helpful for a man to approach God in the form of the Divine Mother. 


It would also be helpful to view women as mothers and sisters, even when their behavior or appearance is sexually alluring. Watch your thoughts and notice where the eyes (and mind) roam. A woman who flaunts her allure reveals only her own insecurity, debasing her own soul and inviting men to grovel in the mud of maya with her. See such, instead, as a mere child, ignorant and lost, but, of course, keep your distance mentally and otherwise. Silence. Distance. Wisdom. Self-restraint. Calm. Kind.


What we seek in our desire for companionship with a woman is to be only truly found within our own souls as children of God. To yoke our actions and intentions to the chariot of truth and to be obedient to the dictates of a compassionate, divinely inspired wisdom is to become channel of strength and grace to others: in your marriage, family, workplace and community.


So, men, deliver your flowers and candy with a smile and a gentle, respectful, and grateful kiss for Divine Mother who has given us life and love as One and the Same!


Aum! Nayaswami Hriman

[1] Withdrawing my tongue, momentarily, let me say that I, too, welcome the rising influence of women in the world today as not only beneficial to humanity at large but necessary for human survival (not to mention the world and its teeming life of plants and animals everywhere).

Sex: a matter of evolution of consciousness

Over a year ago, Swami Kriyananda established a renunciate order for a new age. He calls it the Nayaswami Order. In it, married couples pledged to celibacy and dedicated to spiritual ideals through meditation, devotion, and service can become Swamis. This is an astounding statement and example in the context of social mores.

What makes this article difficult is the twin facts that our culture celibrates (take the 'r' out and you have celibate!) sexuality as the pinnacle of pleasure, and that sexuality is necessarily very personal (and complex because involving two, not just one, person).

Nothing can be said about sexuality that can stand alone as a truth for everyone. Therefore anything I might write here must be seen in the larger context of at least the article as a whole and not any single sentence or statement.

There are certain aspects of human sexuality that are sources for and hints at the deeper reality that this powerful urge represents. One of these is the instinct to privacy in sexual matters. Indeed, in the dark and under the covers is typical. Why is this? Is this the legacy of past social conditioning or is it deeper? Why the instinct to cover up private parts, what we call "nakedness?" This is true even outside the context of sexual arousal or activity.

We accept, in other words, a general norm of "decency" but we don't necessarily understand its source in human consciousness. A few revolt against this or flaunt it and, although relative (like hemlines going up or down), it seems to persist in one form or another. Some cultures enforce a total cover-up of women while others have certain implicit and accepted guidelines that are context sensitive (a bikini worn on a beach is accepted but at the office is not).

Without the creative impulse humankind would eventually die out. Without the creative impulse, inventions, great art, new ventures and social services would not exist. The question in human consciousness has always been how to deal responsibly with the creative urge. The extremes of condemnation or suppression vs. promiscuity aren't worth commenting upon in an article on general spiritual principles.

Another aspect of human sexuality that invites deeper understanding is the simple and undeniable fact that its biological function is the continuation of the human species. Equally obvious is its pleasurable aspects, but then, too, so is the reality of boredom, disease, crime, suffering, shame, abuse, violence, and perversion. Indeed, one wonders if the pleasure of sex is more or less equally balanced by the suffering and degradation it can engender: not in any single individual, so much, as in the human race as a whole. A specultative question, admitedly and one without a definitive answer but interesting, nonetheless.

[A footnote to the sordid side of sex is a curious remark by Yogananda--hardly original, however--commenting that sex, devoid of fantasy and pleasure, and seen strictly speaking from the animal or procreative function is, well, off-putting, to say the least. Not unlike how young children vew their parents caught in the act of kissing: "disgusting!" While no one would seriously offer this view of sex as the recommended one in the face of the human experience, it is not without some validity. Why were the organs of such intense pleasure made to double as organs of elimination?]

Another aspect inviting deeper contemplation is the dynamic tension between sexuality as an expression of human love, caring and tenderness, and sexuality as a means for individual self-gratification. These two aspects of human sexuality compete against each other, too often dragging human sexuality into a neutral zone such that a couple with a great sex life can still end up divorcing one another. It's as if there's no connection between enjoyment of sex and the respect, compatibility, and friendship that is the real basis of marriage.

Paramhansa Yogananda interpreted the Adam and Eve story as a teaching that the impulse to procreate sexually was the single compelling cause for the "fall" of the human race. For as is taught in the Bible and in other similar stories around the world, we were originally created pure and God-realized. Yogananda taught that we were even created with the power to procreate through divine power without resorting to sexual means. Whether this is literal or metaphorical is unclear, for he also suggested a personal one for everyone.

For example, in everyone's life when a human being reaches puberty, a new power and responsibility emerges through the human body and often produces challenges and suffering for the fact of its misuse early in adulthood. In any case, however interpreted, we cannot deny the power of the creative urge and then need to channel it lest harm and suffering result.

Imagine if marriage partners viewed sex as strictly for procreative purposes. Ok, that's NOT imaginable. I agree, it's not. Imagine if marriage partners entered marriage with no prospect of having sexual relations. Ok, again, UNimaginable. I would, however, counsel marriage partners to contemplate both of these and see if their desire for marriage stands on its own in terms of friendship.

Yet, a decline in sexual interest and activity is, in fact, the general trend as the years of marriage progress. (Of course, infidelity, whether mental or physical, can serve as an outlet for unfulfilled sexual or romantic urgings. However, neither fantasy nor fact can bring any lasting happiness as millions can and do testify.) It’s as if nature herself ignites the flame of sexual desire when our bodies are young but then we, in our ego and by indulgence, keep it alive almost despite ourselves.

Few, if any, couples will sustain the high level of sexual activity as the years go by. “As absence doth make the heart grow fonder,” it doesn’t take a sage to experiment and realize that a balanced level of sexual activity is more sustainable than extremes; and, that extremes of passion engender a self-balancing degree of bickering, disrespect, moodiness and the need for separateness. Intense sexual activity cannot be sustained without encroaching upon the longer term success of a marriage partnership which requires calmness, dignity, respect, and mutual friendship. [Again: a general statement, only.]

Thus it is, generally, that the importance of sex to a couple’s relationship will tend to decline as other aspects of their friendship emerge and are strengthened. Indeed, if this doesn’t happen, it’s not unlike a person who only dates but never marries: at a certain point, he or she may seem stunted in their emotional maturity.

Yogis teach (and other traditional cultures) that celibacy or at least sexual self-control and moderation supports mental and physical health and vitality. Moodiness, loss of memory, inability to concentrate, and premature aging are considered the consequences of sustained over-indulgence in sex. Hmmm, don’t these symptoms sound like issues which exist and are widespread in our culture?

Maybe the instinct for privacy derives from the witnessing and transcendent wisdom of our higher nature while the impulse to experience sex itself derives from the past memory of incarnations of sexual procreation as we advanced through the lower life forms towards the human form. (Is it no coincidence that passionate embrace means self-forgetfulness? Is not the tendency to hide this activity perhaps not unlike Adam and Eve hiding from God, their conscience, after the deed was done?) While saints and masters who were married and had children demonstrate that one can be in the married state and still achieve liberation from all desires and attachments, it’s far more true that saints (aspiring to freedom) and masters (having achieved it) live or recommend the unmarried, celibate life, or at a minimum, a self-controlled moderate one.

Perhaps we should contemplate that a person of high ideals and spirituality might aspire to indulge less and less, and eventually not at all, in his or her sexual desires. I admit, yet another culturally unacceptable statement.

Western culture has contributed to the world at large the proof positive that fulfillment of sexual desires and fantasies are incapable of giving us lasting happiness. With traditional cultures we imagined that suppression and repression were the cause of unhappiness, but we, as a human race, must now admit, that neither does sexual indulgence. [This isn’t really news to the human race, but in past civilizations discovery of this truth was limited to a very small number of privileged people.]

It’s time, therefore, for the culture to take a step or two forward, towards a more balanced view of human sexuality. Paramhansa Yogananda made the bold statement that sex enjoyed for its own sake, as an end in itself, not merely a means (at least to human love, if not only procreation) is de facto adultery (even between married persons).

Accepting that almost no one would agree with such a statement today, the purpose of this article is to offer points of view that could expand our view of human sexuality such that in time, in our personal lives, and, culturally, in time, we might edge towards a more balanced form of human sexuality.

A form of “meditation” for married couples would be to re-direct sexual urges, fantasies and feelings, away from personal pleasure and towards the image of procreation as its purpose. (Nothing like images of diapers and howling babies to wilt sexual desire!)

In yoga there are techniques for drawing sexual energy up the spine towards the brain; for keeping busy in exercise, creative arts, serviceful activities, and devotion to high ideals and love for God, as natural means to transmuting procreative energy from its physical manifestation to a higher one.

The simple point of this exercise is to suggest that we face boldly the reality that sexuality cannot bring us happiness, and, conversely, that sexual transmutation and moderation can bring us greater happiness. This could engender a greater personal effort to consciously avoid the bombardment of images on television, in the movies, and internet that suggest the pleasure and happiness of sexual attractiveness and indulgence. It offers suggestions as to how to behave with members of the opposite sex, which in our culture, we accept that we mix freely but we do not have to "mix freely" in familiarity. Dignity, respect, and centeredness in our relations can elevate even the workplace to higher level of creativity, productivity and human satisfaction for a job well done through cooperation and teamwork.

The interaction of men and women from a higher level offers great hope and promise in humanity's tackling the challenges of this new age. As people struggle for freedom from racial prejudice, and from discrimination in the treatment of women generally, we have yet to consciously work towards outgrowing sexual stereotypes, attitudes, and behaviors that we might be more liberated towards our higher (genderless) nature. On this higher level, the differences between men and women can be elevated to a new level of co-creation. When working together as partners in the workplace or at home, and doing so with mutual respect, great things can be accomplished and greater happiness and satisfaction achieved.

At least, I offer this as a possibility and one that most people can experiement upon for themselves.

Blessings, Nayaswami Hriman