Just Say Om

Feelings are much like waves; you can't stop them, but you can decide which one to ride. (Unknown)

The so-called ego is really an energy field; it wraps itself around our unique personality structure and helps us to express the longings of our soul. The opportunity though, there comes a time when you wake up to the fact that a feeling and a thought is just an energy wave; it doesn't have to be part of you. 

Caroline Knapp in her book, "Appetites - Why Women Want", described one such tsunami wave that may have battered her system on a bad day: "I hate my body, I hate my thighs, I ate too much. I can't believe I spent so much money. I haven't been to the gym in weeks. I shouldn't have said that. I am such an idiot. I am such a piece of shit!" That is the yin version of the cancerous ego drive. Yin is the energy that goes inwards, the submission, the sacrifices, the anger directed against oneself. You can hear it in Caroline Knapp's outburst; she wants to be attractive, slim, smart, economical, only to find that she somehow can't have what she wants. 

The yin aspect of the ego madness is quite relevant for us spiritual travelers. We want to be holy and we are willing to suffer, to be trampled on in the name of spirituality. Unfortunately, submission and sacrifice always implies subconsciously, and sometimes openly, hostility against others: how dare they have what we are unwilling to grant ourselves? The yang version of the ego drive we also know well. The desire to conquer, to take, to step on other people's toes. Neither energy form is part of the Way. Whenever we ride any of these energy waves, be they incoming or outgoing, we deviate from our Self.

So what exactly can we do? It is not that hard really, just become a seasoned surfer in the ocean called life. Friends always surround us. They are here to lift us up when we beat ourselves up and remind us of who we truly are. Friends and family are also there in the other side, when we are tempted to abuse others, blinded by our greed, aggression or fears. Life is beautiful this way. The solution that works for everyone, your Self included, is always just around the corner. Seize the moment and don't forget to just say "Om" at times, whenever one of these energy waves wants to take you on another wild-goose's chase.

Dancing Along the Wheel

Think of a wheel and you understand where the power base is: the axle. Yet it is the rubber that meets the road, isn't it? Similarly, in the whirl wheel of life there are times when you have to let your intellect override your emotions, just as there are times when you have to listen to your emotions at the expense of the voice in your head. Similarly, life sometimes asks you to take the initiative and lead others while on other occasions the Tao encourages you to react passively to events. It takes a while to master the right and left and the to and fro, but eventually you get the hang of it. The Tao Master does everything instinctively; you are a perfect product of the divine environment that always surrounds you. Yet, despite all these movements, the center of everything is the perfect balance in the center of the wheel. No matter what, you are always resting in Her.

                            Intellect

Defense                   O            Offense

                           Emotion

Sex and Spirituality: The Dance of Yin and Yang

 You probably have found for yourself, when it comes to sex, men and woman are quite different. As they say, men are from Mars while women are from Venus. We are wired differently biologically, we role-play differently, we are powered by different hormones. Men are yang energy while women are yin. Men are inherently assertive, direct and to the point; men represent an outgoing energy. Women are receptive, consensus building and emotionally more intelligent; women symbolize the ingoing energy. Yet in all the differences men and woman are the same in that they aspire to find out who they truly are, away from the norms of the society and even away from the notions of religion and spirituality. Yin and yang energies are part of a homecoming journey. When they truly express themselves they will always find love and wholeness in the process.

You can to be in harmony with yourself; you can be in tune with your nature and sex drive. Unfortunately society has expectations about how this dance of yin and yang should look like, as have our spiritual leaders. If you are a man, perhaps you criticize yourself for your urge to chase women; perhaps you mind that you "always want it". Man's sexual nature tends to be more aggressive and that may be be hard to accept especially if this view conflicts with your notion of spirituality. We don’t mean to imply that you should do whatever you want to do, but try to express yourself in the bedroom the way you truly are and not how you want to be. You will learn a lot in the process. Sexual repression doesn't help yin, it doesn't help yang and may also not help God much. Men are attractive to women when they display their "nature". When men embrace their masculinity they are affirmative, active, assertive and strong. The same principles apply to women as well. When a woman is in tune with her feminine side she will become most attractive to a man. She is tender and gentle, passive, colorful, loving and beautiful. She embraces her body and is tune with her hormonal fluctuations.

As a rule of thumb, whenever you are aware of who you are, when you are in tune with your nature, you will be in harmony with yourself, with life and with the Tao. But whenever you have opinions about yourself, whenever you try to be what society or your notion of spirituality tells you, you are in conflict with yourself, your bedroom partner and the Tao.

Sexy men and women are those who are aware of their nature and are in harmony with themselves. They naturally attract more people to their life because that is how Tao works. The Tao is an energy exchange and if you open up to your true nature you activate every ounce of energy within yourself. You can observe that when the opposite sex meet with each other, the women becomes even more feminine while the men become more masculine. That is how the energy balance works. In this way, they are attracted to each other and complement and help each other to fulfill their respective roles. Both sexes need each other to become whole.

When men and women meet each other and become one, they re-experience and rediscover the taste of oneness with God. When they love each other, devote themselves to each other and forget about themselves, they are in the Now - they travel the Tao. As a matter of fact, it can't get any more spiritual than that. There only is the Now, and the dance of yin and yang gets you there. You experience true love, harmony and creation. The biologists are right in their view that the "selfish gene" works hard in the background to propagate itself. But this is only part of the story. The other part is that the Tao works with this drive and leads you straight to love, to wholeness and with it, to God.

Yin and yang will always be a dance of different energies. This even holds true with homosexuality. When two partners of the same gender meet in the bedroom, someone will be passive and someone assertive, someone will be yin and someone yang. It takes two to tango and in this dance someone will always lead while someone will follow, just as in the bedroom someone tends to lie on top, while someone will be on the receiving end of this sexual energy. That is the eternal dance of yin and yang.

However, don't confuse aggression with assertiveness and don't mix abuse with submission.The dance of yin and yang holds the ticket to manifesting love. If you use the creative powers of sex to throw - symbolically or real - dirt on love, you will cut into your own power base and you will naturally deviate from the Tao. Have a look at pornography and see the ego symbols at display in most of them. Instead of a merger of souls it becomes a battle of body parts. The power of men over women is an ongoing theme that the ego gets exited about. They say that once the power of love transcends the love of power, (wo)man will be God. Make this your spiritual yardstick for everything and say consciously no to the power game when it conflicts with respect and love for your partner.

Discovering the love for power in pornography is not hard to do and, as a rule, men fall more easily into this trap than women to. Yet women are also at risk to fall into the power trap, beautifully ornamented by the appearance of love. Women are attracted by status and by looks. Men go out and conquor the world while women go out and conquer the men who conquer the world. Women are in love with the "alpha male" , the top male in looks, sports, entertainment, business, politics or society and they find all kind of reasons for themselves why it is not about power, but about love instead. If you use your body to get something you are neglecting your soul and you violate the spiritual harmony that way. But you know what, fall in love with whoever you think you love, and use your body however you like. TheTao will always show you the way to true love. Some relationships will lead to marriages, some marriages will lead to soul partnerships. You may "fall in love" for the wrong reasons, but life will always give you a change to heal and be healed. Don't condemn the "selfish gene", just observe and adjust and let the Tao lead you straight to true love and with it to God.

Enjoy the dance of yin and yang, and enjoy it in the bedroom as well. Find the true sexual expression of who you are and overcome the rules of society and your own notions of how yin and yang should behave. Let your body teach you who you are and not your mind. But don't get enslaved by your passion. Observe your ego in action and be mindful when the ego wants to throw dirt on love. Discover for yourself that we can understand our biological roots and our evolutionary strive for power. Be mindful of the chemicals in your brain that get released as you start the physical dance of yin and yang, the hormones that drive your actions and your mood, and the blood that is rushing through your system. 

Power symbols may show up in the bedroom, aggression may meet submission in the bedroom at both party's delight. You have to accept what turns you on, yet understand that this just reflects a power imbalance in the rest of your life. Find out the authentic need expressed by your demon in the bedroom and work on it. Perhaps it is a wake-up call to be more assertive in your interactions, perhaps it is a reminder to ease up a little and to get in touch with your feminine side. Your bedroom can help you find who you truly are. Enjoy the dance of yin and yang, embrace sexual healing and find out for yourself how the power of love can replace the love of power.

This note is part of " A Demon in the Bedroom" series. Please also look for 

"Sex, Love and Power" 

http://zeitgeistinma.blogspot.com/2013/03/sex-love-and-power.html

" Don't Confuse Mind Sex with Mind-Blowing Sex"

http://zeitgeistinma.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-confuse-mind-sex-with-mind-blowing.html

By Christian and Su Zhen

Sex, Love and Power

When the power of love replaces the love of power, (wo)man will be God

Our spiritual community has wrapped a big super ego around sex and given that many of us have encountered a "dark side" in the bedroom, we are somehow afraid that our spiritual leaders are right in their claim that sex stands in the way of experiencing God. This is not so. In fact, we very much have God's approval when it comes to sex. God says in Neale Walsch's Conversations with God " I am in every bedroom." Sex is the ultimate physical expression of love, yet, every path traveler will have to explore and make peace with this energy differently and will probably have to face a demon in the bedroom as well.

A demon has always something to teach us. He helps us getting in touch with our animal instincts and will show us the image that we have of ourself and of others deep down inside. Whenever power symbols appeal to us in the bedroom, changes are that we haven't yet claimed our authentic power base in other areas of our lives. So the demon can in fact show us who we truly are and by claiming our authentic power base elsewhere, we are finally free to discover sex as physical expression of our love.

When we just repress our animalistic drive, we will never understand what sex truly is. George Gurdjieff was an influential spiritual teacher who tried helping people wake up from their hypnotic "sleep walking", as he called it. He would get his disciples completely drunk and would then encourage them to reveal their true colors. For example, he would suddenly shout "rooster" at someone and his drunken disciple would spontaneously let out a loud "Cook-a-Doodle-Doo" while everyone would collapse on the floor roaring with laughter. This is just one way of shadow work when you openly admit to yourself and everyone who you think you are deep inside of you. Perhaps sex can be thought of as a similar eye-opening experience. Your fantasies and your bedroom partners activate a side of you that you normally don't have access to.

Shadow work is hardly a "card blance" for doing everything you fancy doing. You can discover for yourself that if you always do what you want to do, you will face many situations when you cut yourself off the divine energy. Shadow work is pretty straight-forward: do whatever your heart desires and observe how you feel in the process and what kind of energies you carry around in the aftermath. When you fully experience something and afterwards understand what it stands for, you have brought a subconscious drive to the surface. You now know what will happen if you engage in these behaviors, physically and spiritually.Try to understand the meaning of everything you do. Every action, every graphic image that you perceive is a symbol. Try to understand what it really implies for you personally and make your choice.

Sex permeates everything we do and are about so we have to bring this drive to the surface. You can see it so clearly how many dimensions are intersecting in this single desire: our genes, our upbringing, our neurological wiring, our psychology and spiritual norms. Biologically, there is no denying that we are all driven by the "selfish gene" that wants to propagate itself as it has been doing successfully for millions of years. We may aspire to be a monk but our ancestors haven't been monks since otherwise we wouldn't have been around. We have to accept our drives and have a great chance exploring and realizing who we really are and understand other people as well. Let's be happy with the drive that we have in us and be proud of the distance that we already have traveled.

Sex is divine energy. When you fall in love with someone you have that natural desire to have sex. It is an expression of intimacy. The dance of yin and yang, male and female, push and pull, is divine. Symbolically, we celebrate the divinity of our partner physically. During sex we can experience a glimpse of Oneness. Yin and yang merge literally during the act of ejaculation. During the orgasm, for a brief moment, you experience Samadhi, the union with God. With this oneness, you both are able to create like God.

There is spiritual beauty in the physical act of two bodies joining, but we should not lose sight of the darker aspects of sex. In fact, the shadow comes out at night especially if we only look at our bedroom in rose. Sex can also be a pure expression of power. The evolutionary biologists are right. Our body combines million of years of gene competition. Psychologically, pretty much everything about us is power hunger even though we certainly don't like to put it that way to ourselves.

Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam in their fascinating book A Billion Wicket Thoughts, analyze 400 million internet searches between 2009 and 2010. Do you know what the second most popular heterosexual sex interest was? It was Cuckold porn, the fantasy of being dominated in the bedroom by an alpha male who has sex with your partner while you watch helplessly. Interesting, isn't it?And can you guess what - by far - the most popular sex search was? It was Lolita sex, the fantasy of sexually robbing the innocence of a young girl. Dominated by stronger bodies while dominating weaker bodies in return; you can see the capriciousness of your ego - the power hunger - right here. The ego whispers in your ear that you lack the power to fully satisfy your partner, but it shows you the appeal of dominating weaker bodies and spirits to compensate for it.

You can tell from these researches that men lust after power in the bedroom with the fear of impotence as its mirror image. How easy it is to impress a young woman who doesn’t have any sexual experience. They feel empowered when they are able to dominate and satisfy their partner in bed. However, sweeping an experienced woman off her feet instead requires authentic power. The fear of impotence always lingers, but few men are willing to face it. By repressing it they grow more distant from their bedroom partners and the sex life is getting more disappointing for both sides. So men express their sexual frustrations with porn instead and rarely realize how different mind sex is from actually having sex. Mind sex in all forms is about power while earth-chattering sex is a physical expression of love.

Do not immediately condemn power and aggression when you see it. The whole point of shadow work is that you reflect on what exactly the demon wants to communicate to you. Our spiritual community wants to embrace the power of love and looks down on the love of power. Yet, all the demon says is please look again. There is something that you currently disown about yourself. While dealing with dark forces is always very confusing and can be quite destructive for us spiritual travelers, try nevertheless to find out why these dark symbols appeal to you. First, understand what these symbols truly stand for, and second, find a creative way to make them your own in real life without undermining your spiritual journey in the process. No matter how scary your demon may look to you, there is always a creative way to express your natural power base without undermining your spiritual path.

All ego fantasies in the end boil down to the fact that you have not yet found your authentic spiritual power base and your demon brings this insight home in steamy images. Learn from your bedroom demon what kind of adjustments likely lie in store for you and work on expressing them. Perhaps you are simply too aggressive in your day to day dealings and your demon encourages you to get more in touch with your caring feminine self. Perhaps you are not assertive enough, so your demon wants you to stand up for yourself. Perhaps there is fear inside you that you are not able to satisfy your partner. Shadow work assumes that you will always find a creative outlet for your authentic needs and as you do, the demon will naturally fade into the background.

We are not condoning sexual fetishes, but we also don't condemn them. Just observe what is going on in your bedroom and explore how you can manifest your authentic power base in real life. Sexual fetishes are certainly not helping your spiritual path but at least the problem statement is out in the open. Suppressing your darker desires in the name of spirituality may just mean that the rude wake-up call still lies ahead. Experiment with your partner and discover how with her help the love of power naturally evolves into the power of love. Love and power do not have to clash at all. Wherever love is you will command natural power. But you may have some work ahead to claim it for yourself.

This note is part of "A Demon in the Bedroom" series. Please also look for
"Sex and Spirituality: The Dance of Yin and Yang" and
" Don't Confuse Mind Sex with Mind - Blowing Sex"

By Christian and Su Zhen