Sexuality and Spirituality

Sexuality and Spirituality are two different words for the same thing!
Wow, I like that thought! It just came to me!

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Entren en mi sitio, descarguen mi libro yo tambien soy escritora, creo que les gustara , es super interesante!! … Y admiro a Paul Cohelo!!

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Dear Paulo and friends,

this week the forum was very interesting with all the posts about the sacredness of sex…Personally, I feel that it is “sacredness” what is missing in most sexual “encounters” today…

There is one song I was listening to all week while I was reading the posts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83OIx5lwhY0
this is Jeff Buckley version with lyrics

The following are the original lyrics of 1984 version by Leonard Cohen

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

With loving kindness,
Satora

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Religion allows you to explore sexuality in its fullest form with dignity in its entirety. Along with safety and security, often there arent many inhibitions and this is provides an open platform to be free with someone you love and trust. We need to educate our spouses to explore this with their partners to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

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I found this piece by Rilke many years ago, why religion has made sex taboo, because perhaps sex has a stronger hold, I don’t know, it doesn’t require faith, that there is a God, it can bring you in touch with God, if understood like Rilke.

Sex is difficult; yes. But they are difficult things with which we have been charged; almost everything serious is difficult, and everything is serious. If you only recognize this and manage, out of yourself, out of your own nature and ways, out of your own experience and childhood and strength to achieve a relation to sex wholly your own (not influenced by convention and custom), then you need no longer be afraid of losing yourself and becoming unworthy of your best possession.
Physical pleasure is a sensual experience no different from pure seeing or the pure sensation with which a fine fruit fills the tongue; it is a great unending experience, which is given us, a knowing of the world, the fullness and the glory of all knowing. And not our acceptance of it is bad; the bad thing is that most people misuse and squander this experience and apply it as a stimulant at the tired spots of their lives and as distraction instead of a rallying toward exalted moments. Men have made even eating into something else: want on the one hand, superfluity upon the other, have dimmed the distinctness of this need, and all the deep, simple necessities in which life renews itself have become similarly dulled. But the individual can clarify them for himself and live them clearly (and if not the individual, who is too dependent, then at least the solitary man). He can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a quiet enduring form of love and longing, and he can see animals, as he sees plants, patiently and willingly uniting and increasing and growing, not out of physical delight, not out of physical suffering, but bowing to necessities that are greater than pleasure and pain and more powerful than will and withstanding. O that man might take this secret, of which the world is full even to its littlest things, more humbly to himself and bear it, endure it, more seriously and feel how terribly difficult it is, instead of taking it lightly. That he might be more reverent toward his fruitfulness, which is but one, whether it seems mental or physical; for intellectual creation too springs from the physical, is of one nature with it and only like a gentler, more ecstatic and more everlasting repetition of physical delight. “The thought of being creator, of procreating, of making” is nothing without its continuous great confirmation and realization in the world, nothing without the thousand fold concordance from things and animals—and enjoyment of it is so indescribably beautiful and rich only because it is full of inherited memories of the begetting and the bearing of millions. In one creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love revive, filling it with sublimity and exaltation. And those who come together in the night and are entwined in rocking delight do an earnest work and gather sweet nesses, gather depth and strength for the song of some coming poet, who will arise to speak of ecstasies beyond telling.

And perhaps the sexes are more related than we think, and the great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false feelings and reluctances, will seek each other not as opposites but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will come together as human beings, in order simply, seriously and patiently to bear in common the difficult sex that has been laid upon them.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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“In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.”

Jean Paul Satre

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Namaste,
I can only address this topic as a woman who was raised Catholic and a long term rape survivor who is trying to heal. I think sex is taboo for most religion because sex is the great equalizer. No one needs a high priest to intercede with God during sex. Men and women, gay or straight are equals in the Great Prayer of sexual union, especially at the moment of Divine Bliss. It’s the great unifier as well. Who’s to say what’s the right way to have sex? Not me. I only know the wrong way… and that’s without a choice. Lack of choice rips a soul apart.

To me the repression of sex correlates with the repression of women, so, unfortunately, it’s easy to slip into blame mode. Religion works hard to make women dependent. In many communities around the world, I would have been killed because I was raped. Men were taught this through religion. My mother who was unmarried when she gave birth to me would have been killed as well because of religious teachings on the subject.

Violence is acceptable, even condoned by religion but sex is not. It all comes down to controlling behavior. Also in nearly every book I’ve read on the subject, they say it’s easier for women to attain the ecstatic state of Divine Vision than it is for men. Maybe that’s one reason sex is taboo in male dominated religions.

So how do I make love sacred? I start with letting go of my anger! I approach sexuality from the perspective of pure love with an open heart. The Heart Chakra is the Divine Union of Healing and Love. I use this in my meditations. My lover is not responsible for the way things are. I accept the things I cannot change and use them as life lessons, but I change what I can, myself and my reactions to sex.

I focused on sex in my writing because it was thrust upon me early and badly. I figured God was giving me a sign. Still I was lost without a rudder until I read the Gnostic Gospel of Phillip:

What is the bridal chamber,
if not the place of trust and consciousness in the embrace?
It is …. Union,
beyond all forms of possession;
here is where the veil is torn from top to bottom;
here is where some arise and awaken.
The powers [archons] can do nothing against those
who are clothed in Light;
they cannot see them.
All will be clothed in Light
when they enter into the Mystery of the sacred embrace.

To know the grace of true communion with Him,
one must be clothed in Clear Light.
In this Light we can see His Light.
Before leaving this world, we must become human beings
inhabited by the Breath [Spirit].

I began to see religion as union with the Divine instead of rules and regulations. Religion is my personal mode of worship, not where I go to church. Sex has often been used as a metaphor for mystical encounters. When Hildegard of Bingen described her experiences, she often used erotic imagery. A nun became wife to Christ in an ecstatic ascetic passion. I become united with the Divine through ecstasy with my lover.

According to Osho’s history of the Red Tantric teachings of Asia, a Hindu Brahman who became a Buddhist monk, but found Nirvana in Samsara, Heaven on Earth, living on a dung heap with a woman of the streets. I find it a glorious story. He was ridiculed by those who adhered to ascetic-only teachings but was embraced by the multitudes who sought guidance from his wisdom.

To me, sacredness in sex is all about how we treat our partners. Of course there are times when we move within, but there is a serious feeling of contentment when my lover is reveling in my actions. Joseph Campbell said the direct path to the Divine, to God, is through Bliss. If the Divine has entered my lover, I want Him to feel as wonderful in the physical realm as He might in Heaven. If we were to treat each other as if we were experiencing the Divine, we might be more careful about what we say and do.

Groans are like applause to a lover. I take the “What Would Jesus Do?” approach whenever I’m in a position of power. Sex is the greatest power we possess. I treat my lover the way I want to be treated. I follow the rules Christ proposed as loving behaviors.

Because I needed to change myself, I started with my surroundings. I decorated my bedroom into something that felt luxurious and comfortable. I also use this room as my office for writing. The creativity works in my favor for both my sensual experiences as well as my work.

I light candles and burn incense… Frankincense for Him, Sandalwood for Her… to enhance the feeling of this being my sacred space. Massages are wonderful for relaxation and bringing forth the meditative attitude which drives away my post traumatic stress symptoms. I do a lot of yoga breathing as well.

As my lover is different from me, I learned about his body… his likes and dislikes. I’ve read a great deal on the male form and experimented on my lover over the years. The greater the pleasure, the more powerful the spiritual experience. His ecstasy builds mine.

I’ve read that some can communicate through their third eye during ecstasy, but I’ve never accomplished that. I’ve also read of women who can have extended orgasms which offer visions during these experiences. It takes a lot of energy, but many say that lovers can visit heaven during sex. Pure unity! That must be glorious.

I may not get there in this lifetime, but I keep trying.

Love to you

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I think sexuality is one of the highest levels of freedom, expressed and exercised by all living beings, except the humans. Humans are the only beings who restrict its experience on some while its expression on everyone. Unfortunately we being humans tend to give judgments on what we have understood regarding a certain thing, that understood thing by our forefathers becomes the ultimate knowledge for few, and are imposed as a sacred law on everyone. The prejudice towards sexuality is a matter related to personal freedom, what else could be the ultimate personal freedom other than sexuality. It has always been that human has restricted the experience of freedom to its person; seldom allowing others.

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