I have heard about a very famous lady, a very respectable lady, well-known in the highest strata of society. In a get-together party, where all the prominent people of the country were present, she got too drunk. Somebody provoked her and she became so angry that she lost her control, her usual control. She lost her temper and said some vulgar words. People were shocked, they could not believe such ugly words could come from such a respectable woman. They had not ever thought about it. They were so shocked that silence fell and then she was also shocked by their shock.

Then she understood what she had done. She smiled – a sweet smile that only ladies know how to do – and said, “I am sorry. It seems I am turning existentialist.”

Right now this is the situation. Existentialism has only been talking about vulgar things, the ill, pathological, negative – the dark side of life.

It seems as if death is the object of meditation. But if you meditate long enough on death you will be surprised that in the very center of death arises life.

Berdyayev says: “Love in particular seemed to me to carry within itself the seed of anguish, and I have frequently been amazed that people could experience the exaltation of love as sheer joy and happiness. Eros is in anguish for it is concerned with and deeply rooted in the mystery of time and eternity. It concerns time athirst for eternal fulfillment and yet never attaining it.

“Likewise there is anguish in sex. Sex shows man wounded, fallen apart, and never able to attain true fullness through union. It bids man to go out to another, but he returns once more into himself and the anguish of his longing for unity continues unrelieved. The desire for wholeness cannot be satisfied through sex; on the contrary, it only serves to deepen the wounds of disunity.”

The very word sex comes from a Latin root sexus, which means division. Sex divides. It promises to unite, but it never does. In fact, it divides. But there is a great desire in man to be united. The child in the mother’s womb is united with existence. He has no separate existence. He has no separate reality. He is part of the whole. He has no self, no higher consciousness. He is, but he is not yet an ego. And that remains our deepest longing – how to enter into the womb of existence again.

Psychoanalysts say that the effort of man to penetrate the woman while making love is really an effort to enter the womb again. And there is some truth in it. How to enter into that state of absolute calm, quiet, when the ego has not yet been stirred, when everything is in peace and harmony?

While a man and woman join in love they are trying to create a unity – hence the attraction of love and hence the appeal of sex. But it never happens. Or, it happens for such a split second only that it doesn’t matter really whether it happens or not. In fact, on the contrary, it creates more desire for unity – more desire and more longing for the ultimate union. And each time frustration comes to hand. If you have eyes to see and if you have a heart to feel you will become sad; whenever you are in love you will become sad. Again the promise and again you know it is not going to be fulfilled.