On Procreation

More primordial and more deeply rooted than the energy called chi, is the energy called jing. It is profoundly related to the creative power which engenders the sexual act, and may be squandered through sex (or even misdirected through abstinence) if one's intentions are impure.

This energy which arouses our sexual centers also inclines us towards procreation and incarnation; just as people have promiscuous sex, so do they breed promiscuously, and incarnate promiscuously, as well.

Anything, even something holy, -- especially something holy, -- will be squandered if we are too casual where it is concerned, and will thereby become cheap and devitalized of meaning. Screams lose their potency when one is always screaming. Tears are disregarded when they flow too freely. How can there be reverence for bodies, when bodies are constantly caressed, or for babies constantly born, or for the earth that is overrun?

Though we celebrate the birth of a child, we do not accord the child, the miracle of birth, nor our godlike power to produce it, anywhere near the respect they deserve. That which God has done alone, man has coupled with woman to do, but not in the sight of God; that is, not with the reverence which is due to the act of creation, nor to the soul which incarnates through its cooperation or complicity with that act.

It is written that souls in the bardo, or in the purgatory which punctuates our incarnations, must incarnate according to the couples to whom they are drawn. If they find only the purest alliances, they will be drawn only by the most wholesome influences, and only in the direction of holiness. Then souls will incarnate under blessed conditions. But when they encounter lesser influences, they may well be tempted in the direction of lower realms. And, for the most part, that is exactly what we see happening on earth today.

When this divine creative power is abused, and the earth is overrun with souls, even the diligence of some cannot balance the liberality of so many. Seeing that there are already too many of us, all ensnared by cultural forces so far beyond our control, how can anyone with a pure intention think of bringing more souls into the world? The presence of a single orphan ought to signal every citizen as to when it is time to stop, and only when the last orphan has been adopted can procreation become, once more, a pure and selfless act.

What righteous man would think of bringing children into the world before he, his partner, and the world itself had been brought into balance? To do so would be to sacrfice the child; something only permissable when the child is divinely conceived; that is, when the child and the father are one! The vast majority of us are not prepared to be sacrifices, nor to sacrifice our young, -- yet, here we are, and here we come.

Do we not see the cliffs over which we run?

Is our momentum too great to restrain, and have we closed our eyes so as not to regard what we fear cannot be stopped? Truly, this world has become, to my mind, a monstrous heap of corpses at the foot of a more monstrous cliff. I believe we have fallen from grace, and fallen into the world, because we have fallen prey to haste, and to lusts untempered by love. I believe the fall was never meant for souls like ours, without wings to help them more softly descend.

Somehow, we ignored or overlooked the warnings of love.