Sexuality and Spirituality: Can Yoga Intensify Intimacy and Decrease Divorce?

Hindu religion is one of the ancient religions with an active following of over 1.2 billion believers, which is roughly 15% of the world’s population.[1] Interestingly, the conflicting subjects of sexuality and spirituality are undeniably complemented in Hinduism. Marriage for example obligates couples to uphold the four main purposes in life mandated by Hindu scriptures that include dharma, artha, kama, and moksha.[2]Dharma refers to righteous responsibilities involving self, family, and society. By fulfilling one’s duties uprightly, married couples create a harmonious family ambiance. Artha means to obtain wealth by working honestly for the larger interest of the individual, family, and society. Kama refers to the fulfillment of desires including physical and emotional intimacy. Moksha means to pursue spiritual values to attain freedom from birth and death. Hence, the couples are indebted to spiritual progress by backing each other to reach the final goal of self-realization or enlightenment.[1,2] Although marriage remains an important social institution across countries and cultures, the attitude toward matrimony has shifted lately with less emphasis on monogamy and enduring rapport.[3] As a result, divorce has become a serious psychological issue since it mentally impacts the couples and their children.[4] Although statistics vary widely, divorce has become a universal phenomenon. However, the ancient Hindu scriptural concept of marriage has some unique psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual substructures that tend to promote peace among couples guiding to an enriched lifestyle.[5] The art of yoga originated in India over millennia ago and the earliest citation can be found in the oldest scripture, Rig Veda. Yoga means union in Sanskrit, which denotes the merger of individual consciousness or soul with universal consciousness or supreme self. The yoga procedure typically includes body postures, breath regulation, relaxation by retreating senses, and mindfulness through meditation.[2] In fact, couples can transcend their sexual connection from physical scale to spiritual scale through yoga when they transcend it naturally. Then, their interpersonal relationships can transform to strengthen emotional bond, trust, and intimacy while preventing infidelity, which is a major cause for relationship breakups. Hence, sex enacts a vibrant measure in enhancing the psychological, physical, and spiritual health of partners. However, scientific publications on the subject of “yoga and sex” are limited in social science literature. A quick search of the keyword “yoga” in the Web of Science database has yielded 4037 papers. However, when the words “yoga and sex” were searched, it showed only three papers, indicating the rarely deliberated content. Therefore, this article aims to provide an in-depth insight into the prospects on how the union of sexuality and spirituality catalyzed by yoga can reduce breakups while enhancing interpersonal relationships among couples to boost happiness and harmony. Betrayal, Breakups, and Divorce Relationship betrayal and breakups often end up in divorce leading to psychologically damaging features in couples’ lives as they increase stress, suspicion, hate, anger, and bitterness.[4] The overall crude divorce rate in the Asia Pacific region has increased by 25% since 2005 and doubled in China alone. Although India has one of the lowest divorce rates (1.1%), it has seen an increase of 350% in breakups lately that shows the shifting family values further destabilizing the nuptial crunch.[6] Even the wealthy Western nations have reported high rates of divorce. The UK, Canada, and USA for instance have reported about 42, 27, and 25%, respectively, of their total population going through divorce recently.[7] The distressing divorce-propelled psychological predicament has become a serious societal epidemic, so social scientists have an obligation to decode the driving divorce scenarios in order to propose workable mitigation strategies before it’s too late. Couples in general face numerous challenges in life that sometimes lead to marital crises. Frequently cited reasons for the crises include infidelity, lost intimacy, sexual incompatibility, physical/emotional abuse, parenting dispute, lifestyle disparity, financial liability, and communication meltdown.[8] In reality, infidelity can have a significant impact on individuals and relationships by triggering mental distress, discontent, separation, and divorce. Couples scuffle to rebuild relationships after an episode of cheating, especially when they perceive it as an unforgivable offense. Infidelity can become a deeper sign of psychosomatic stress within a relationship due to interaction failure, romantic displeasure, and insufficient openness. There could be gender differences in motives, with men likely to confess sexual inspiration for infidelity, whereas women likely to reveal emotional discontent with expected desire achieving intimacy.[9] Sexual and Spiritual Transformation to Superconsciousness Scientists have explored whether or not sex can open a small window on spiritual mindfulness space, whereas others have offered guidance on using the intense sex energy to ignite self-realization. A report illustrates that when women and men practiced yoga regularly, they improved sexual functioning and gratification compared to those who did not.[10,11] Besides, yoga is known to enhance fair-mindedness, integrity, and goodness. Similarly, yoga has been reported to increase couples’ sexual desire and functioning with enriched pleasure.[11] The mind–body connection cultivated through yoga boosts awareness and sensitivity during passionate sex and a study demonstrated that yoga reduced stress and anxiety in women while improving the overall sexual functioning.[12] Furthermore, yoga cultivates a deeper sense of natural romantic intimacy, heading to a deeply contented and spiritually transformative experience.[2] Yoga also nurtures a profound sense of awareness and connection with bodies and minds directing couples toward cherished sexual immersions.[13] Studies have found higher levels of sexual satisfaction, greater mindfulness, and superior sense of interaction among couples during sex. Furthermore, one in four women and one in nine men or over 10 million adults yearly on average in the United States undergo intimate partner violence that often precedes post-traumatic stress disorder (https://ncadv.org/statistics). A practice termed trauma-sensitive yoga has been designed by scientists and its application has been reported to meaningfully help victims to improve mental health.[14,15] It is obvious that yoga promotes mindfulness, which is a key marital predictor to minimize violence in married life steering to the cessation of disagreements, arguments, and fights leading to breakups while fortifying amicable relationships. A study showed that mindfulness solves all emotional regulation snags resulting in the dipping of emotional divorce while firming up sexual fulfillment among couples.[16] Thus, the above-depicted logical confirmations suggest that yoga can heighten sexual health, which is the key to transcend body and mind to the ultimate superconscious state of ecstasy so that couples can experience endless bliss. Sacred Matrimony Upholds Harmony through Sexual-spiritual Union Marriage is a sacred deed involving the holy union of souls.[17,18] There are various traditional marriage ceremonies and some have been codified into the legal system as customs. Studies have shown that marriage maintains harmony in life.[19] Spiritual and sexual bond is polygonal and scholars consider spirituality to promote sexual fulfillment among couples.[20] Thus, yoga as a spiritual tool may lend a hand to convert couples with clarity and calmness while speaking, touching, and expressing emotions with subtle attunement that flows in sync to augment resilient romantic bondage to enrich mental health. Hence, spiritual awareness through yoga has the potential to transform partners’ relationship from the mundane physical scale to an elevated spiritual scale linking body, mind, and spirit, as shown in Figure 1. On a physical level, it can improve sexual and mental health directing to greater fulfillment and bondage among partners. On an emotional level, it can cultivate a deeper sense of intimacy minimizing the threat of divorce since it finds a mindfulness route to dissolve disputes. On a spiritual level, it can transcend the ego leading to a deeper sense of divinity during intimacy.[17,21]Figure 1: Couples have the potential to transcend from physical to spiritual scale linking body, mind, and spirit to fulfill the four major goals in life leading to ultimate happinessSpiritual values are likewise known to strengthen amiability among couples. When they share similar beliefs and practices, it can form a rigid foundation for an enduring relationship. Spirituality can help couples to show empathy and compassion while increasing intimate lovingness. It also provides a deeper emotional linking that can lead to superior intimacy, love, and loyalty.[22] Spiritual seekers in society are increasingly facing a hard dilemma either to involve themselves in shallow sexual endeavors or to avoid the burden of nuptial commitment totally. A recent study, for example, shows that many men prefer to stay single; they vehemently avoid marriage due to their sloppy seducing skills, low confidence, repulsive outlook, introvert attitude, lack of effort to approach women, and bitter past experience with them.[23] These options are unfortunately neither preferable nor rewarding for families and society at large. Conclusion This paper has shed the spotlight on the rational, not radical facet on the union of sacred sexuality and yogic spirituality with prospects of heightening physical and mental health with chances to prevent infidelity, reduce divorce, build emotional bond, and strengthen monogamy, and above all transcend marriage from a social construct to an absolute divine union.[24] Thus, marriage may serve as a necessary resolve in life to pursue happiness. By uniting sexuality and yogic spirituality, intimacy among couples can be intensified while reducing the risk of mental health hazards induced by immediate breakups and eventual divorce. However, more quantitative long-term research focusing on the viewpoints highlighted in the article is needed in the near future to unravel the psychiatric riddles surrounding sexuality and spirituality.

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