The Desire to Let Go

He was a fairly successful businessman and, as everybody thought, happily married as well. But he had a weird dark side. Just about once a month on a quiet Friday he left work early and drove aimlessly around in residential areas until he found houses he could slip into. He just wanted to stalk stay-home moms, watch them as they did their routine housework chores. He would sometimes climb into their closets and masturbate. The strange thing was, on the chosen day already at work he would feel that dark cloud descending; that pleasant feeling of letting go, the anticipation of ecstasy. By the time he got into his car he was on autopilot. There was no turning back at this point. It was literally a trance. Only when his dark business has been finished would he come to his senses again.

I remember reading this case once in a book on sexual addiction and thought that it really brings out the act of falling in a trance just by thinking about what is about to transpire. The evil act becomes a ritual; the final release in form of masturbation is just the the last step in a long process.  For hours this guy would be thinking about breaking into someone's house. The heart would be pumping at a fast pace at the very thought, the sexual and stress hormones would be surging and - like you experience bungee jumping - would create that high that he interprets as pleasurable. In contrast to an orgasm which disappears as quickly as it comes, this ritual can actually be enjoyed for hours. Repeat this procedure over and over and even the anticipation of this act will put you in a drugged state. The consciousness retreats and a dark force takes over.

Psychologically, an addiction is an act of handing over the steering wheel. Your consciousness shuts down and something else inside takes over. Erich Fromm once coined the phrase "escape from freedom"; that's what a trance really is about.

For an adult who has been crafting and maintained a persona for a few decades, it is literally hard work to keep it all going. All these conflicts that fight each other below the surface  have to be consciously overridden, day in and day out. Little psychological wounds are being incurred all the time and unfulfilled desires create ongoing frustrations. All this  accumulates to one big pain body that begs to be released. As this pressure is catching up with you, you try to escape by reaching for the bottle, by eating massive amounts of food, by releasing anger in a fit, you name it. An addiction is a more extreme case but the problem statement is really the same.  The demon whispers in your ear to hand over the steering wheel, and as you do the hormones and pleasure chemicals surge through your body and you are hooked

Experimenting with Your Shadow

In the early years of the Internet when MSN and AOL had half of America on-line, I enjoyed exchanging sexual fantasies with folks who just like me never really did anything about it, but just wanted to have a little virtual trip to the dark side. Given my liberal European upbringing I never thought there was anything wrong with my behavior, but when the Tao got a hold of me, it became clear to me that discussing sex with strangers is not really consistent with my spiritual path, so I wanted to stop but to my surprise I found it hard to break free.

I had only a few 'Conversations with God' moments along my path given that I never really trusted who exactly was talking in these conversations, but at one point I became just so I frustrated that I just asked out aloud, 'So tell me True Self, what is the problem here?' A voice responded, 'You are cycling my friend!' Wow, I was dumbfounded. That was exactly what was going on. I must have spent a couple of years in a holding pattern, alternating between who I aspired to be and the regular missteps along the way when my demon got the better of me.

This gave me the idea why not to experiment with this dark cycle altogether? You have probably heard of the 21 Day Experiment. You do something consciously for 21 days, like breaking a pernicious habit, and trust that afterwards your subconscious has taken the change on board. Try it with whatever it is that you think is holding you back from your spiritual path. You will find that the first three days are really hard. It turns out that with a changed behavior you are literally re-wiring neural pathways in your brain but after a few days the going gets easier. It is hard to believe on day one or two when the withdrawal symptoms are rampant, but a completely different person will look at the world on days 12 or 13. When you have been through a few of those cycles you actually know that this is a fact and this knowledge gives you the motivation to keep the course.

The advantage of the 21 day rule is that you are not promising that you will break free forever. Actually, you can hear the demon laughing inside when you make a statement like that - you just promise to stay away from it for 21 days! That is a very different perspective and you can certainly accomplish this plan with some willpower. The advantage of the exercise is that you are no longer fighting your dark side, you are experimenting with it and you will soon realize that in this process you gain incredible insights about the other you - the one that you do not really want to associate with.

See how your mind goes on autopilot on the day when you give in to your temptations yet again. Experience the rush when your dark side takes over. You will also realize that you are walking up and down a mental staircase in your experiments- the longer you walk down, the longer the climb up will have to be afterwards. Perhaps the term addiction is too strong to describe the struggle I went through, but I definitely got a feel for the hook that addicted people hang their hat on and an appreciation for how hard it is to unhook yourself from the robot inside.

You will learn in these experiments that the dark side tempts you on days when trouble is coming your way anyway. Initially I thought that the Universe was beating me up over my missteps, but in hindsight, I conjecture that your system just knows when you get ruffled a little and your demon gets active around that time just as your energy contracts in anticipation of the pain that is coming your way. If you repeat these cycles a number of times you will realize that these dark periods always pass very much like a dark rain cloud and before you know it the sun is shining again. You will also realize that the misfortune that hits you is perhaps not so bad per se, but that it is the lack of energy coming from the internal battle inside and the conscious effort to climb out of the hole that makes it so.

I was reminded of the opening statement of the Course in Miracles: 'Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.' Indeed, that is what these negative feedback cycle felt like: real for a couple of days and vanishing like a mirage in the days afterwards. You learn that the Tao is always out there willing to extend a helping hand; it is just that for a day or two a massive rain cloud is passing by, so that you have a tough time seeing Her hand. The longer you walk your path, however, the easier it is for you to see the Tao always in action - even on low energy days.

You will get incredible insights about your shadow when you experiment; in fact they are so intense that your experiment will not even feel like a misstep at all; it will feel like a precious learning experiment instead. Learn what the shadow really want from you. Perhaps there is something that you can adjust in your real life that is entirely consistent with your spiritual path. In my case I learned that by becoming more assertive in my dealing with people, the sexual fantasies lost their appeal. I also learned that body building was a great real substitute for my mental longings. Apparently my demon just wanted me to become a little more manly; why should that be inconsistent with my spiritual path?

You will outgrow your struggle for the very reason that you will get a comparison of the short-lived excitement versus the loss of energy and connection with the Tao afterwards. No thrill ride in the world can compensate you for the pain of being disconnected with the Tao, albeit only a day or two. Everything that was meaningful to me I couldn't do after I had indulged my dark side. I couldn't go to the gym for about a week, didn't have the mental peace to write a blog entry for a few days and more often than not, fell outright sick as my immune system took a beating. Of course I asked myself, is this just my super ego acting up or is this a message from the Tao until the day when I decided that it doesn't really matter. I miss my connection with the Tao way too much so I simply stopped one fine day altogether with these dark experiments when I felt that I didn't really learn anything new about myself any longer. I venture to say that the same will happen to you. Once the Tao has gotten a hold on you cannot help doing what you have to just because you realize that any resistance is futile.

We all admire Jesus and Buddha so much for their resolve to withstand their final temptations. Just don't forget that both also traveled a spiritual path before. Get the stuff that holds you back out of your system, find that creative outlet that appeases your demon and enjoy the day when you finally will break free!

Mind Sex: 21 Days to Serenity

Watch a pornographic movie, masturbate, get drunk, chat with others in adult web communities and see what happens in the following days. Observe how you perceive people you  see and meet in the street; do you see them as bodies or as spiritual beings? Watch your thoughts, are they replaying the events of the night before? Wean yourself from all sexual activities for 21 days and see what happens. Do sexual scenes still capture your imagination afterwards? Do you perceive people that you see and interact with any differently. Our scientific folks would perhaps conjecture that your sexual drive is going up after 21 days of days of abstinence. My claim, the opposite is true. Try for yourself' just understand that 21 days of abstinence is a steep climb. But once you have made it you will perhaps see for yourself, passion and serenity is a choice. You  can have peace of mind or the spice of life, the choice is up to you.

The Spiritual Literature Leads You Astray

C. G. Jung's shadow work was his biggest contribution to our spiritual community in my opinion: if you like to live up to the potential of your so-called True Self, then all you will do is to negate your real self and blow your shadow up in proportion to your attempts to 'Become the Better You'. Own the negative stuff that exists in you instead and make something creative out of it. After all, you were born to do it.

Let me give you an example of a spiritual writer who struggled for years for enlightenment and spent an equal amount of his time in sexual chat rooms as he did with his holy literature - an apparent contradiction to himself and all the readers - if they knew about it. No matter how hard he tried, not matter how much he beat himself up to be his holier self, his sexual fantasies followed him wherever he went. After a lot of soul searching he realized that his sexual fantasies actually had a message for him: he was lacking assertion and aggressiveness in his day to day interactions. Once he let go of some of his Christian ideals, the shadow become smaller - still present, but suddenly manageable.

There is no alternative, own your impurities, make something creative out of them and move on. If afterwards you realize that being a light worker is your mission, enjoy and let humanity enjoy your true True Self.