Last night I went over a friend's house and unexpectedly was treated to the movie Silence of the Lambs, a classic of criminal psychopathology. I had seen it 20 years before, and had forgotten surprisingly large segments of it, and not so surprisingly, the nuances of the film. See it again and note how Hannibal (the evil cannibal psychiatrist) gets into Clarissa's (the FBI student-in-training) head; how the camera pauses on a hand shake held perhaps too long, how it focuses on ugly imperfections of the men who try to get her interested in a date. She has been made aware by Hannibal of the sicknesses that often infect sexual desire, and begins to see them in all men. And perhaps we, the viewer, are being asked the question: are all men somewhat perverse?
Walking today along a river on a hot, sticky morning, the question came to me - are we indeed all sick? Have we all, as Freud would have it, been stuck at a certain maturation point, where environmental influences have bent the natural sex drive to some form of unhealthy obsession? Are we breast men or butt men, or foot fetishists or cross-dressers or too violent or too passive? The list goes on, and we must first understand that it is not just men who get stuck - women, in the receptive capacity, are less obvious, but they, too, have their obsessions, such that they willingly choose to stay with men with their obsessions. And the big question, the one Freud asked, is - can we alter society so that we might not have such "hang-ups" as the new-agers have called it since the 60's? Is it possible that free-love, where everyone gets what he or she wants sexually, is the answer? And is sex the big hang-up that Freud claims, or just another in a long line of societal restrictions, with no overwhelming role determining our psychological health and happiness?
It is a strong drive, no doubt, and so has a powerful effect. So strong, in fact, that for other natural human social functions to occur it must be harnessed. As far as anyone knows, all cultures have always placed restrictions and rules on sexual behavior, and it is so because Free Love would destroy the basis for the stability of family, which is essential for the slow-raising necessary for the human child. Society is as hard-baked into the human psyche as sex, and the two present us with a necessary contradiction; the one must generally dominate the other. This leaves psychic scars that are, I believe, inevitable, as inevitable as pain in real life that might leave physical scars. What this says about Utopian ideologies both past and present could fill volumes.
But we move on. In my most recent reading, Almaas's Runaway Realization addresses issues of repression from a spiritual viewpoint. It is not only sex that we must deal with, but perception in general. We get stuck not only on developmental aspects of sex, but on developmental aspects of reality. This is something that occurs on both the individual and social level. As evidence of this, we see great variations throughout the world on the meaning of things or functions, some drastic, and the meanings are so important that transgression of them might lead to societally-sanctioned murder. As Almaas paints it, our sense of reality forms around germs of concepts like pearls around grains of sand. Just like someone stuck in the oral sexual stage, we linger there, unable to get beyond, controlled by this focus as it becomes a need, a desire. Almaas's point it that through practice, however that might be, we can find these germs or clumps of reality and, in their recognition, surpass them.
Most importantly, he says, we are ultimately called to surpass these accretions because we are much more than biological beings who might have certain pre-figured impulses. Rather, we are the Everything, the cosmos, coming to realize itself, and as such, are called to move on. We are, at any one point, at a certain stage. There is, according to the author, no final stage, but that realization is our true destiny, for in that lies ultimate creative freedom. But first, the "germs" or grains around which perception or reality forms must be seen for what they are - only way-stations of limitations that must be passed to continue the journey we are called to make.
What is Hannibal, then? A poor soul trapped in the pre-verbal stage of early development where he must get everything he wants and must be the center of attention. He cultivated his "genius" to show people his overwhelming superiority, but still didn't get the recognition and gratification he thought was his due. So he throws tantrums that annihilate those in his way - as a 2 year old might if he could. And being 2, what better way than to eat them?
What are we, then? Poor souls trapped in our own fits of frustration (only, I hope, not at the Hannibal stage!) There is only one positive way out - to confront the obstacles causing the frustration and grow past them. What have the great prophets and holy men called us to but freedom? Freud was wrong, most agree now, and it is not only about sex. But it is about frustration and finding its source. Ultimately, this can only be done when we recognize what we really are - and in that, realize our potential for infinite realizations within the context of total freedom. FK
Walking today along a river on a hot, sticky morning, the question came to me - are we indeed all sick? Have we all, as Freud would have it, been stuck at a certain maturation point, where environmental influences have bent the natural sex drive to some form of unhealthy obsession? Are we breast men or butt men, or foot fetishists or cross-dressers or too violent or too passive? The list goes on, and we must first understand that it is not just men who get stuck - women, in the receptive capacity, are less obvious, but they, too, have their obsessions, such that they willingly choose to stay with men with their obsessions. And the big question, the one Freud asked, is - can we alter society so that we might not have such "hang-ups" as the new-agers have called it since the 60's? Is it possible that free-love, where everyone gets what he or she wants sexually, is the answer? And is sex the big hang-up that Freud claims, or just another in a long line of societal restrictions, with no overwhelming role determining our psychological health and happiness?
It is a strong drive, no doubt, and so has a powerful effect. So strong, in fact, that for other natural human social functions to occur it must be harnessed. As far as anyone knows, all cultures have always placed restrictions and rules on sexual behavior, and it is so because Free Love would destroy the basis for the stability of family, which is essential for the slow-raising necessary for the human child. Society is as hard-baked into the human psyche as sex, and the two present us with a necessary contradiction; the one must generally dominate the other. This leaves psychic scars that are, I believe, inevitable, as inevitable as pain in real life that might leave physical scars. What this says about Utopian ideologies both past and present could fill volumes.
But we move on. In my most recent reading, Almaas's Runaway Realization addresses issues of repression from a spiritual viewpoint. It is not only sex that we must deal with, but perception in general. We get stuck not only on developmental aspects of sex, but on developmental aspects of reality. This is something that occurs on both the individual and social level. As evidence of this, we see great variations throughout the world on the meaning of things or functions, some drastic, and the meanings are so important that transgression of them might lead to societally-sanctioned murder. As Almaas paints it, our sense of reality forms around germs of concepts like pearls around grains of sand. Just like someone stuck in the oral sexual stage, we linger there, unable to get beyond, controlled by this focus as it becomes a need, a desire. Almaas's point it that through practice, however that might be, we can find these germs or clumps of reality and, in their recognition, surpass them.
Most importantly, he says, we are ultimately called to surpass these accretions because we are much more than biological beings who might have certain pre-figured impulses. Rather, we are the Everything, the cosmos, coming to realize itself, and as such, are called to move on. We are, at any one point, at a certain stage. There is, according to the author, no final stage, but that realization is our true destiny, for in that lies ultimate creative freedom. But first, the "germs" or grains around which perception or reality forms must be seen for what they are - only way-stations of limitations that must be passed to continue the journey we are called to make.
What is Hannibal, then? A poor soul trapped in the pre-verbal stage of early development where he must get everything he wants and must be the center of attention. He cultivated his "genius" to show people his overwhelming superiority, but still didn't get the recognition and gratification he thought was his due. So he throws tantrums that annihilate those in his way - as a 2 year old might if he could. And being 2, what better way than to eat them?
What are we, then? Poor souls trapped in our own fits of frustration (only, I hope, not at the Hannibal stage!) There is only one positive way out - to confront the obstacles causing the frustration and grow past them. What have the great prophets and holy men called us to but freedom? Freud was wrong, most agree now, and it is not only about sex. But it is about frustration and finding its source. Ultimately, this can only be done when we recognize what we really are - and in that, realize our potential for infinite realizations within the context of total freedom. FK
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