AC: In the process of looking very deeply into this subject, what has became apparent to me is that generally speaking, in religious or spiritual circles and also outside of them, human beings basically tend to have one of two fundamental views or value judgments with regard to the ultimate nature of sexuality. One of these views holds that sexuality is good, healthy and natural—and this is obviously a very popular belief in the time that we're living in, fueled, as you've said, by a certain rebelliousness against the repressive ideas and traditions of the recent past. And the other view, which many traditional religions seem to emphasize, is that sexuality is bad, dirty and evil—

TK: Yes, that's the idea I was just describing myself, prominent in some early Christian circles and especially in the time of St. Augustine, who was very negative about sexuality. It sometimes happens among converts from promiscuity that they get carried away and go a little too far.

AC: Yes, precisely. But what began to occur to me, in the process of looking very deeply into my own experience in order to try to understand all this, was that obviously the sexual force itself could be neither good, healthy and natural nor bad, dirty and evil because it simply was what it was in and of itself. It wasn't inherently good or bad.

TK: Well, yes, I would definitely hesitate to say that it's bad. I think sexuality is best understood as the basic force between women and men, a force of human growth that needs to be cultivated, but in the right way, with discipline and with choices that are mature, so that it doesn't become a source of neurosis for some people. But as soon as you say there's something wrong with sexuality, then you're taking the side of those who don't believe that everything that God has made is good. What we do with sex may not be good, but that could never mean that the sexual force itself is not absolutely essential because it's the growth of our sexuality, as male and female, that matures and opens us to other people. This is true whether the sexual energy is expressed through genital activity, marriage or in the celibate state. That force is to be not repressed but transmuted, transformed and integrated into the whole of our being; then you have a whole human being. Take, for instance, those who are in the service of others in ministry: If they repress any emotion, including sexual feeling, they're going to come across as "cold fish," as they say, and they're not going to impress anyone. It's sexuality that gives warmth to the whole personality; but in service—and also in marriage—sexuality can be expressed as affection and love without being a form of genitality, because as I said earlier, chastity is not the rejection of sexuality or even of genitality but the right use of it according to our state of life. So sexuality is a positive virtue, and it's a hazard in celibacy only if one denies it and then represses one's feelings instead of integrating them into the whole evolving development of one's faculties, including one's intuitive and spiritual faculties, which I think are especially fostered by a celibate commitment, but which are still just as available to anyone because they are human faculties. So do you see the distinction that I'm trying to make?

AC: Yes, I certainly do. What you're saying makes perfect sense.

TK: It's not that I expect everybody to agree with me. But I think that if we don't take the view that sexuality is good, then immediately we've lost sight of it in relation to the power it has to unify and to mature the whole human psyche and body so that spirit can express itself through us.

AC: I agree with you two hundred percent. But I think I was making a slightly different point, and that is because the power of sexuality is so strong, we as human beings are always seeking for ways to feel comfortable in the face of its awesome and overwhelming power. And one strategy that human beings use in order to feel comfortable in the face of sexuality is to say, "Well, it's good, healthy and natural." And another, of course, is to reject it by saying that "it's bad, dirty and evil." And I basically feel that neither of these positions could ever accurately represent what it truly is.

TK: Yes, now I understand, and I fully agree with you.

AC: So my point is that maybe sexuality itself, and the force of it, is ultimately neutral, because it simply is—it's the creative force or the creative power of life, of the universe in a state of becoming. But in terms of this materialistic relationship with it that the individual creates because it's so compelling, so frightening, so overwhelming and so enticing, taking a position of neutrality really forces one to scrutinize one's relationship to it in a way that I would say never "lets one off the hook," never gives one the security of feeling, "Well, yes, I know what that is"—you know, that it's either a wonderful thing or a terrible thing.

TK: Yes, well, like most things in life it's a matter of intention.

AC: Exactly right.

TK: And it's in this experience of intention that one moves to higher integration. But it's when we get stuck in whichever one of those extremes you just mentioned that human growth slows down—or comes to a screeching halt—until one finds the insight to transcend both of those views, neither of which is fully human. Negative or positive, they're just responses to instinct, and a human being is more than just instinct. A human being has all these other powers that instinct supports, and instinct is fine as far as it goes, but it's incomplete as a motivating power for the whole of life. But that's the human predicament, you see. And of course the majority of people do respond to it by sexually acting out as if sex, as you say, were the only pleasure to be had in life.

AC: Precisely.

TK: I mean, there's no doubt about it: Some people really do seem to live only for that, and we even have an industry that supports this, along with sexual aberrations of all kinds. And it's waved in front of young people, I would guess, in most cities and towns nowadays, and of course in the media.

AC: Yes, it's everywhere.

TK: So needless to say, there's no real support for a commitment to celibacy in our culture anymore. Although it was always only a very small number who were interested anyway, at least in the past there was a profound respect for it in some communities, but now even among the Roman Catholics that respect has diminished. It's sad to consider that perhaps both marriage and celibacy are suffering in our time from what might be called an incapacity in most people who are growing up today, or who have grown up in the last generation or so, to commit themselves to something for life—whatever it might be—or even for a long period of time. Because there are no models for that anymore. So much divorce, so much moving, so much changing of jobs or professions, travel, lack of stability in families; there's no real experience of the larger family, of grandparents, for example, who have been together all their lives. So to start telling people that you've got to make a life commitment either to this person or to this God of yours—well, it sounds like nonsense to them, like somebody's just arrived from another planet!

There are very few experiences in our culture of the value of moderation, of balance, of the integration of human growth beyond instinctuality to a point where instinctual needs are sufficiently integrated and moderated that their energy can be used for the love of God's service. That to me is what the spiritual journey is all about—empowering ourselves to use all the forces of our being, not for our own satisfaction but in the service of God and other people and the planet. I think that's the fruit of celibacy, don't you? It's a capacity for sensitivity to the needs of all other creatures and for a certain happiness in belonging to this universe, and not just for sex! They say that babies have a sort of polymorphous sexuality in which the pleasures of the senses are experienced throughout the body and not just fixated in the genital organs, and I think there's an analogy in that to spiritual life. In the spiritual journey the sexual urge, at least insofar as it wants to express itself genitally, is relativized by the experience of the beauty of the other pleasures of the senses, which obviously are not made ends in themselves either, but together open us up to the truth and the beauty and the goodness of all of creation. In this way, the Creator or the God we're seeking becomes present not only in our meditation or prayer, but comes to be recognized as the source of everything that exists, including events that are passing through our own thoughts and feelings, and soon everything begins to be seen as that unity, that oneness, that immense awareness. And then, it seems to me, human beings can begin to live in harmony and peace because they've learned to see each other not as objects but as subjects manifesting an immense subjectivity that embraces all in the most personal relationship one could ever imagine—father, mother, brother, sister, lover—all rolled into one as a sense of the ever-present unconditional love of God. Promiscuity or repression can only hinder the realization of that miracle, you see? And frankly I've seen far too much of both in the lives of people who have shared their spiritual journeys with me—both within the monastery and outside.