Body-centricity lies at the root of all sexual orientation || XLRI (2021)

Questioner: In our times, the matter of sexual orientation has been subject to a lot of debate and controversies. Recently, I saw a YouTube video in which the host is asking children in the age group of fifteen to seventeen years about their sexuality, and they are saying that they are yet to discover if they are lesbian or gay or straight or something else. What do you feel about this trend? What is the future implication of this particular trend?

Acharya Prashant: First of all, the bigger issue is animalistic sexuality itself. Given the way we are, given the point of evolution we are standing at, how important really is sexuality? On one hand, we are testing the limits of the universe, we are searching for extraterrestrial life, we are sending probes to distant planets—these are the kind of things we are doing. On the other hand, we are rushing after males and females as animals do. Even animals have some moderation.

So, being a man, whether you rush after a woman or you run after a man, the thing is: you are still running after a body. And is the body your primary identity? The body is indeed the primary identity of animals. Or is discretion and thought and consciousness or understanding—are they your primary identity? If a man is physically alive but just not able to think, do you even call him alive? And let’s say, physically he is doing everything that an animal does: he can eat, he can breathe, he can walk, he can make sounds without having any language, and he may even exhibit sexual excitation. But would you even call that person really alive if that person has no discretion and no thought? We call a person dead when he is brain-dead, right? You may have everything else in the body functioning for you, but if the brain, which is related to the mind, is not there, then you are no more.

So, the body is not your primary identity; your primary identity is consciousness. You are dead if your consciousness falls below a certain level and stays there. And your lungs could be kept going through a ventilator, but you would still not be called alive.