Osho,
Please describe to us the spiritual significance of sex energy. How can we sublimate and spiritualize sex? Is it possible to have sex, to make love, as a meditation, as a jumping board toward higher levels of consciousness?

There is no such thing as sex energy. Energy is one and the same. Sex is one outlet for it, one direction for it; it is one of the applications of the energy. Life energy is one, but it can manifest in many directions. Sex is one of them. When life energy becomes biological, it becomes sex energy.

Sex is just an application of the life energy. So there is no question of sublimation. If life energy flows in another direction, there is no sex. But it is not a sublimation; it is a transformation.

Sex is the natural, biological flow of life energy, and the lowest application of it. It is natural because life cannot exist without it, and the lowest because it is the foundation not the peak. When sex becomes the totality, the whole life is just a waste. It is like laying a foundation and going on laying the foundation, without ever building the house for which the foundation is meant.

Sex is just an opportunity for a higher transformation of life energy. As far as it goes it is all right, but when sex becomes the whole, when it becomes the sole outlet for life energy, then it becomes destructive. It can only be the means, not the end. And means are meaningful only when the ends are achieved. When a man abuses the means, the whole purpose is destroyed. If sex becomes the center of life, as it has become, then means are changed into ends. Sex creates the biological foundation for life to exist, to continue. It is a means; it should not become the end.

The moment sex becomes the end, the spiritual dimension is lost. But if sex becomes meditative, then it is directed toward the spiritual dimension. It becomes a stepping stone, a jumping board. There is no need for sublimation, because energy as such is neither sexual nor spiritual. Energy is always neutral. In itself, it is nameless. The name comes from the door through which it flows. The name is not the name of the energy itself; it is the name of the form that the energy takes. When you say “sexual energy,” it means energy that flows through a sexual outlet, through a biological outlet. This same energy is spiritual energy when it flows into the divine.

Energy itself is neutral. When it is expressed biologically, it is sex. When it is expressed emotionally, it may become love, it may become hate, it may become anger. When it is expressed intellectually, it may become scientific, it may become literary. When it moves through the body, it becomes physical. When it moves through the mind, it becomes mental. The differences are not differences of energy as such, but of the applied manifestations of it.