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TRANSFORM!
The Britney Bodhisattva |
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By Meera Francois
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| I AM NOT YOUR TYPICAL CELIBATE. Unlike most, I never took a vow or swore an oath, and rarely struggle with related moral dilemmas. Hell, I even masturbate. But I don't fuck. My circumstance was never forced upon me, nor is it necessarily permanent: I just don't see it coming to an end anytime soon. I think the reason I couldn't pass up writing for The Manifest’s celibacy issue is not only because I am an odd case for a celibate, but because I am a teenager. I'm certainly not here to correct the typical view of teenage girls as whores (there's no correction to make), but there are exceptions. Well, there's at least one exception. In many regards I'm fairly normal--I do my homework, I attend class, and I belong to the fairly large conformist-anti-conformist “goth” subculture. I’m even average for a goth: while I don’t write bad goth poetry (anymore), I DO dress in black, hang out with elitists, deplore my family, love the National Cathedral in downtown D.C., and spend way too much time arguing about which gothic metal band is the best (Lacuna Coil, obviously). But you will NOT catch me dating/fucking other Goths, or anyone else, for that matter. My peers react to my lack of a sexual/romantic life in mixed ways. Many accept it, some bitch about it, a few even try to study it (those future psychology majors). Some just assume I'm in a closet relationship, or that (rightly enough) I simply don't care, or don’t have time. My harsher critics (the ones who KNOW that I really don’t fuck) tell me it is unhealthy, and forced, or unnatural; that I'm not living. My older Gen-X sibling seems very certain that at my age, I should be learning about drinking and fucking. Looking around, most teenagers do one of two things: they fuck, or they don’t date. Dating IS fucking to my generation. My generation is as careless as the preceding one was rebellious, and just as empty. With the advent of the Internet, sex is a set of 1s and 0s, and even in meatspace, sex, dating, relationships, friendships--human connection--are becoming as simple as a set of inputs and outputs, objects coupling without reason or purpose. Our computers may one day have more soul than we do; and watching the fall of my generation, and having witnessed the fall of those prior, it’s hard to mourn the loss. As such, I no longer look to my generation for an example to live by: I look within. And it is only by going within that I discovered a deeply ironic truth: that I, Meera, am merely an object. Now before you feminists out there start sending angry emails to the Manifest editors, let me explain. It all started one night last summer. I was sitting on my porch, thinking my usual thoughts, but for some reason I was not identified with my mind. I was not even the controller of that mind; I was the Self that entered, filled, and replenished that mind, the minds of others, and even the bird feeder my glance chanced upon. The small, finite Meera (that teenage goth who liked cathedrals) became something less; and while the experience lasted half an hour, I was never the same again. All my life I'd had little flashes and glimpses wherein the world suddenly ceased to exist as anything but a dim, hazy dream--a dream with no dreamer. After that night on the porch, I tried to expand these instantaneous experiences to last for a few minutes—even an hour-- to see what I could learn. I got more than I bargained for. Once this perception of the world had been stabilized, the world became what I had theorized it was: an illusion. But, unlike my theory, I could not perceive a deeper Reality beyond this illusion. Worse still, I did not understand how I could be perceiving anything at all--because I too was an illusion! Taking my earlier experience into account, the revelation was startling: Meera was one with the entire world, and the entire world was an illusion. A few weeks later, sitting on my porch again, there was another shift, and there it was: Meera sitting on a porch staring up at a stormy sky, frantically trying to recreate those temporary altered states. It became clear that that was all Meera had ever been created to do, her entire purpose for existence was to re-experience the awesomeness of the Self—through learning, evolution, and transition--that she was a part of, and to facilitate the experience in others. Meera had become an object in a much bigger and more interesting game. Meera had become an “it.” Having distanced my self-identity from the black-clad goth girl dancing around churches and bitching about homework, the idea of going out of my way (or, uh, HER way) to form an intimate relationship with another human being simply fails to make sense. First, it does not serve the purpose of re-contacting those higher states. Second, merely subjective and personal experiences are difficult to reconcile with the fact that my keenest perception is as the impersonal Witness to everything, a mirror to the world. Objects, emotions, thoughts, people: all arise in my awareness, but I am not any of them. Having sex would seem unnatural and forced. While I experience sexual energy, I see it merely as the detached product of existing within a human body/mind, and see no reason to either squander or center my attention on it. I masturbate to maintain some sense of equilibrium, but nothing further. Soon I will learn how to direct that energy upwards—towards re-experiencing those fucked-up altered states—and I won’t even need autoeroticism. Of course, I can always break my celibacy. Although it doesn’t make sense at this moment, I could see having sex if any sort of Tantric or similar type of practice would aid my evolution. See, my decisions are determined within the perspective of that impersonal Witness, and will be for quite a while. The Witness that can see my reasons and goals in existence, beyond the interference of emotions and external words, is trustworthy, and cannot stray. It is the reference point from which I can look at a situation and make a decision based on the simple criterion: does it make sense with my reason for being here? Does it facilitate my growth? If not, it is a waste. For that simple reason, I remain, by default, a teenage girl who doesn’t fuck. |
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| The Manifest would like to congratulate associate editor Meera Francois on her acceptance into college. Also by Meera: West Side Stories. |
©2003-2004 The Manifest E-Zine