Some Extracts
Eroticism of bodies, hearts and sacred
I will talk about these three ways one after another. I will deal with the eroticism of bodies, the eroticism of hearts and, lastly, sacred eroticism. I will speak of all three in order to show clearly that in all cases it is a question of a substitution of the isolation of being —its discontinuity— by a feeling of profound continuity.
It is easy to see what we mean when we speak of the eroticism of bodies or the eroticism of hearts; the idea of sacred eroticism is less familiar to us. For the rest, the expression is ambiguous, to the extent that all eroticism is sacred; although we find bodies and hearts without having to enter the sacred sphere itself. At the same time, the search for a continuity of being carried out systematically beyond the immediate world designates an essentially religious way of proceeding; In its familiar form in the West, sacred eroticism is confused with the search or, more exactly, with the love of God. For its part, the East carries out a similar search without necessarily putting into play the(( representation of a God. Buddhism, in particular, dispenses with this idea. Be that as it may, I want to insist right now on the significance of my attempt. I have endeavored to introduce a notion that at first glance might seem strange, uselessly philosophical: that of continuity, as opposed to discontinuity, of being. I can finally underline the fact that, without this notion, we would not be able to understand in any way the general significance of eroticism and the unity of its forms.
What I am trying to do, taking the detour of an exhibition on the discontinuity and continuity of the smallest beings, involved in the movements of reproduction, is to get out of the darkness that has always covered the immense field of eroticism. There is a secret of eroticism that I am trying to violate right now. Would that be possible without going to the deepest entrance, without going to the heart of being?
If we refer to the meaning that these states have for us, we will understand that the tearing of being from discontinuity is always the most violent. The most violent thing for us is death; which, precisely, rips us out of the obstinacy we have to see the discontinuous being that we are last. Our hearts fail at the thought that the discontinuous individuality that is in us will suddenly be annihilated. We cannot assimilate in a too simple way the movements of the animalcules that are in the process of reproducing with those of our heart; but, however insignificant some beings may be, we cannot represent to ourselves without violence the putting into play of the being that occurs in them; it is, in its entirety, the elemental being that is at stake in the passage from discontinuity to continuity. Only violence can put everything at stake. Only the violence and nameless rift that is linked to it! Without a violation of constituted being—constituted as such in discontinuity—we cannot represent to ourselves the passage from one state to another that is essentially different. Not only do we find ourselves, in the confused changes of the animalcules that have entered into the act of reproduction, with the background of violence that in the eroticism of the bodies takes our breath away, but there the intimate meaning of that violence is revealed to us. violence. What does the eroticism of bodies mean if not a violation of the being of those who take part in it? A rape bordering on death? A violation bordering on the act of killing?
In any case, the eroticism of bodies has something heavy, something sinister. It preserves individual discontinuity, and always acts in the direction of cynical egoism. The eroticism of hearts is freer. Although it apparently distances itself from the materiality of the eroticism of bodies, it proceeds from it by the fact that it is often only one of its aspects, stabilized by the reciprocal affection of the lovers.
But for those who are affected by it, passion can have a more violent meaning than the desire for bodies. We must never doubt that, despite the promises of happiness that accompany it, passion begins by introducing disagreement and disturbance.
Its essence is the replacement of the persistent discontinuity between two beings by a wonderful continuity. But this continuity makes itself felt above all in anguish; this is so to the extent that this continuity is inaccessible, it is an impotent and trembling search.
The possession of the loved one does not mean death, on the contrary; but death is found in the search for that possession. If the lover cannot possess the loved one, she sometimes thinks of killing him; she often would rather kill him than lose him. In other cases she wishes her own death. What is at stake in that fury is the feeling of a possible continuity glimpsed in the loved one.
We suffer our isolation in discontinuous individuality. Passion repeats to us endlessly: if you possessed the loved one, that heart that loneliness oppresses would form a single heart with that of the loved one. Now this promise is illusory, at least in part. But in passion, the image of this fusion takes shape —and sometimes in a very different way for both lovers— with a crazy intensity. Beyond its image, its project, the precarious fusion that does not threaten the survival of individual egoism can, in some way, enter reality. But it's the same; of that precarious and at the same time profound fusion, suffering —the threat of a separation— must almost always maintain full awareness.
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