Homosexuality
and On The Difference
Between Friends and Lovers
| O |
ne evening,
… a young woman who read my book Notes on Life & Learning Lessons, called me up and told me that she has a good friend, a young man, who wanted to know me and consult me on a personal problem. She asked me if it was alright to go to my house. I told her that if it was not urgent, it would be good if they could drop at around 9:00 PM after I have sent my two kids to sleep. They arrived at around 9:20 PM.
After some minutes of getting to know each other and drinking coffee, the young man told me his problem. He was actually a homosexual. He said that the last time he had a relationship with a man was around 7 years ago when he was 21 years old. He was feeling quite lonely these past few months. He asked me if it was time again to have a relationship with another man. He also asked if I could know when another right man would come into his life. He inquired if I make fortune telling thru cards or thru the palm.
I said I do some kind of fortune telling by knowing the real first name of the person. Then I said it is not just doing some kind of fortune telling. The most important thing for me is to help you know the right way of looking at your problem as well as help you find out the right solution. My main concern is to tell you what is right and what is wrong in relation to the things you would want to know. Looking a bit surprised at my answer, he then gave me his first name.
After a few minutes of silence, I said, “Your problem is deeply-rooted. It is wrong for me to know more than what I have to know in answering a certain question people ask me unless the person himself gives me the permission to know other things related to their
problem. Would it be alright for me to know from somewhere up there, other things connected to your problem?”
Looking amused and curious, he replied, “I think I can trust you. You can know as much as you can about me so you could give me the best solution to my problem. I really feel very lonely these past few months. You see, I live alone now in a small apartment.”
After a few minutes of silence again, I said, “Your father and your mother played their specific roles well. Your parents are good people. The roots of your problem are not connected with your childhood experience or any other experience in this lifetime. As to why you were born a gay, the truth, my new friend, is that its roots came from another lifetime, from your previous life.”
“You are talking about reincarnation, the belief that we have lived many times in the past. Is that really true?”
“Even if I told you that indeed it is true, for you it will still be simply a theory, an idea. For me, it is not. I know by direct knowledge that it is real. Anyway, you came to me for advice. It is my duty to tell you what I have known and what I believe is the right way of looking at your problem and its right solution.
In one of your past lives specifically, your last reincarnation, you were an artist. You courted and deeply loved a woman who unfortunately rejected you. One of the major weaknesses of many artists is their inability to control their emotions, their passions. That was your weakness then. When the woman you loved so much rejected you, you attempted to commit suicide . A very good male friend of yours, also an artist, saved you. Since both of you were artists who could not properly control your emotions, the difference between friends and lovers became blurred. Furthermore, since you have developed a certain deep fear of women after rejection, you then developed an inclination, a tendency to seek love from your own kind. Thus, eventually, you and your best friend became lovers. Up to the time that you died then, you still had that deep fear of women as well as the tendency to love your own kind. This is the main cause why when you went back into this world now, you tended to be attracted to people of your own sex.”
“Very interesting,” he said. He looked more curious though a bit perplexed. Then he asked, “What now? What do you propose I do to solve my problem of loneliness now in the present?”
“ We look back at our past experiences, we try to trace the roots of a certain problem so we could find out what went wrong and thus learn from it. One lesson you could get from that particular experience is, you must learn when to use your head and when to follow your heart, when to use reason and when to let your emotions, your passions flow. In doing some artistic works like painting, composing music, writing poetry, singing, there are times when it is necessary to let go of your emotions, to allow your passions to flow. In analyzing and solving personal and social problems, you must first use your head. You must use reason, you must use the scientific method to find out the interconnections of things related to the problem as well as to trace the roots of the problem. Only after finding out the direction of the solution should you let go of your emotions and let your passions flow to make sure that these will go, will move in the right direction.
Another related lesson is knowing and keeping in mind the difference between friends and lovers. Friends could be of your own sex or of the opposite sex. Lovers though should be of the opposite sexes. There are things that friends and lovers commonly do like sharing problems, helping each other in solving problems, playing together, going out to eat, watching movies, etc. There are also things that lovers do but friends should not do. It is right for lovers to be physically intimate, to express their love for each other sexually. It is a natural thing to do. It is wrong for friends to use their bodies to show their friendship, to express their camaraderie. It is not a natural thing to do.
To love someone from the opposite sex and to express such love physically, is one of the basic laws of nature, the law pertaining to the survival and the propagation of the human species. Such law corresponds to the physical aspect of our being, to our physical body. This also corresponds to the emotional aspect of our being. It is a natural emotional need to love and be loved, to long and to belong. Thus, the proper use of sex must be between opposite sexes guided with deep emotions of love. Only then can there can be true and complete harmony within yourself as well as between you and the person you love.
One of the well-known Spiritual Masters of the East, Lao Tse, the founder of Taoism, said that one great source of wisdom is finding out and understanding the laws governing nature. After knowing these laws, you should follow and flow with these laws if you are to have harmony and balance, if you are to be physically, emotionally and mentally healthy. If you do not follow and flow with these laws, you will have serious imbalances, deep frustrations and will make one mistake after another. You will become physically sickly, emotionally unstable and mentally unfocused.
One last point. To correct a mistake, you must also learn the right way of approaching and solving the mistake. What should have been the right way, the right reaction to the problem of being rejected by the woman you loved in your previous life?”
“Well, I should have simply shrugged my shoulders and said to myself, ‘There are other women to court who may be better than she.”
“You should consider the fact that when you propose love to a woman and you seek her love in return, you are actually only asking a favor, a request. The woman has every right to accept or reject your proposal. You should accept and respect that right. Use these lessons to guide you in solving your problem of loneliness now.”
He looked uneasy with the ideas I shared. Then he commented, “I have some good friends now but what I really need is a lover. What you are saying, what you like me to do is very, very hard. Frankly, I don’t think I can change. I cannot or rather I do not even know how to love a woman.
“Of course it is very hard to change a certain outlook and a certain way of life you have been accustomed to for many, many years, in fact, for one entire lifetime. But it can be done. It is a matter of strengthening your resolve, of developing a strong will to change. The efforts needed can be likened to the efforts needed to change the course of a river. Indeed, how difficult it is to redirect the waters of a river flowing downstream!
The important thing to keep in mind in your effort to realign yourself is that it is the right thing to do, it is the step towards the right direction. In life, after knowing the right way vis-à-vis the wrong way of looking at a certain issue, you should then strengthen your will to do what is right. You must develop the courage to do the right thing.
You will expectedly walk slow and even fall many times as you try to walk in that right direction. Of course, you can easily run fast in the other direction but remember that you are running in the wrong direction. In life, you must try very, very hard to do the right things, you must try your best to travel in the right direction. Only then can you find real and lasting harmony within yourself as well as between you and the people you love.”
He looked sad when he stood up and said, “Well, it is getting late and I should be going now. Thank you for your time.”
As he was about to walk to the door, I said, “Thank you also for trusting me, for opening up your problem with me. One last piece of advice. It is said that all problems have solutions. That is true. But, there is a right solution and a wrong solution to every problem. In many cases, the wrong solution is easier to do than the right solution. But the wrong solution only temporarily solves your problem, not permanently. The wrong solution will only aggravate your problem, and eventually make it bigger. It will only make you more confused, more frustrated and more lonely.
Well, good luck to your lovelife! I sincerely wish you would eventually find the right woman to love and marry. As you are basically a good man, you would make a good husband and a good father.”
He smiled a little as he thanked me again for the last piece of advice.
March 1996
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