A Criticism of Sexual Spirituality

[Katrine]

Welcome to the forum, Yogibear

And thank you for the great post!

[Richard]

Welcome to the forum yogibear.

Lovely first post

Thank you for sharing

[yogibear]

Thanks Katrine and Richard.  Good to be here.

[Naz]

Yes, thanks Yogibear, also from me. A great post undeniably. One of the few here I find little to add to. I concur with almost everything in it. I like its style of expression. There are some minor issues I might criticize, but I don’t even feel like starting, as the general atmosphere and the ideas you put forward are so well balanced.

I wish I could write that kind of posts… But, alas, my mind is not capable of that. My predominant tendency is the one of criticizing, and that’s what I do, more or less successfully. That is what helps me go on and improve myself. I am finding the ‘bad’ (or, more exactly, the ‘unbalanced’, ‘faulty’) features of my own mind and try to replace them with better ones. I also do this with all my relationships and people (theories, ideas, beliefs etc.) I encounter. I am more capable of destruction than of construction. That’s my damnation. I give a kick and get a kick. And I repeat time after time, that what I do is not the best approach and one should prioritize the light and positive side, while letting the dark tendencies gradually transform and die away naturally, but even in the process of telling it and preaching it to the others I myself go the path of predominantly fighting the ‘bad’ things, rather than giving myself up to the light. Oops! That’s the best I can do. And that’s why I like to repeat: “I am not a teacher. I have an overgrown Ego. I wish only for my own egotistic progress and I can’t help despising others and looking at them from above (even though sometimes I am really quite below)”. It’s like in that song Michael Jackson was singing long time ago: “I’m bad, I’m bad. Really, really bad...”.

Does it sound like puritan Christian in the bad way (self-torture in the name of God) to you?

The posts like yours are what I am looking for and what I need to balance my approach. The things I discover in my deep spiritual research are of no (or of very little) value to the most (if not all) readers of my messages, including those positively minded and trying to help me. These discoveries are mostly out of their range of spiritual study for this and most probably for a few next lives. What I do here is mostly speaking out (releasing) into words the thoughts I dwell upon, as this helps me structure and review my own logic and mentality. I also do some of the ‘playing’ along the way, to get the replies and energy response of the readers, reacting to the things they are capable to read from my messages. These things they do read have mostly nothing to do with the things I am really occupying my mind with, but regardless of that I’m getting some energy readings and have a suitable material for contemplation and experiments. Posts like that of yogibear make me smile happily and bright up the bloody, burning horizon of the mental battlefield I constantly dwell on. Finally, there are some well-wishing, balanced people I am destined to meet on my path, in spite of all the destructive tendencies coming from me.

Thank you, God, for such people.

[Scott]

Hey there Booboo!

[Christi]

Hi Naz

 

quote:I wish I could write that kind of posts… But, alas, my mind is not capable of that. My predominant tendency is the one of criticizing, and that’s what I do, more or less successfully. That is what helps me go on and improve myself. I am finding the ‘bad’ (or, more exactly, the ‘unbalanced’, ‘faulty’) features of my own mind and try to replace them with better ones. I also do this with all my relationships and people (theories, ideas, beliefs etc.) I encounter. I am more capable of destruction than of construction. That’s my damnation. I give a kick and get a kick. And I repeat time after time, that what I do is not the best approach and one should prioritize the light and positive side, while letting the dark tendencies gradually transform and die away naturally, but even in the process of telling it and preaching it to the others I myself go the path of predominantly fighting the ‘bad’ things, rather than giving myself up to the light. Oops! That’s the best I can do. And that’s why I like to repeat: “I am not a teacher. I have an overgrown Ego. I wish only for my own egotistic progress and I can’t help despising others and looking at them from above (even though sometimes I am really quite below)”.

Wow Naz, what a remarkably open and honest post! Something has really shifted eh? Maybe venus just came out of the earth's shadow and saw the golden light of the sun .

Thanks for being so courageous.

Christi

[Katrine]

Hi Naz

 

quote:I wish I could write that kind of posts… But, alas, my mind is not capable of that.

Well......your heart just did, Naz
Thank you for being so honest.

 

quote:And I repeat time after time, that what I do is not the best approach and one should prioritize the light and positive side, while letting the dark tendencies gradually transform and die away naturally, but even in the process of telling it and preaching it to the others I myself go the path of predominantly fighting the ‘bad’ things, rather than giving myself up to the light

Yes...
It is the very choosing one over the other that keeps me locked in the inner fight. If I choose light (which is really just another mental procedure....it still keeps me stuck in my head), then I turn my back to darkness. I disown myself. How then,  can the darkness be transformed.....if I keep it out of touch with the light?  The light is not apart from me.....it is not over there somewhere.....it is always right here. Here - where I am.

I don't have to choose darkness either. But it is crucial that I allow it. Since I am both.

If I allow the darkness in me to surface......if I can manage to stay open and not cast away and replace myself with something I judge to be better (which are always mental concepts)......then the very opening up to myself....this very allowance.... also frees the light to shine on whatever it is that surfaces. The light is in the openness. Openness and light is the same "thing".

You already face yourself, Naz. You are very courageous. The facing is all it takes. You don't have to replace yourself with something else. You already are this light.

If I can manage to look and allow myself (all of it) - the light will see to the rest. It can't be helped!

Thanks again for sharing!

[david_obsidian]

Naz said:
Well, David, I thought you were smarter than that. At least I had that impression half a year back. I’m wondering, is it your ‘healthy and fulfilling emotional-sexual life’, that contributed to your mental development and spiritual sharpness so remarkably, or had I overestimated your discriminative level from the very beginning?

Actually Naz,  I think it's more underestimation that is happening now rather than over-estimation earlier.  But the details of that are off-topic.

Don’t you feel I’m just playing with you? Giving some extra emotional flavour, so the dogs have something to bark at? Where is he actually, that loud and angry one, LeDog? Chasing the rabbits on the Fields of spiritual combat? Fighting the Ego (have I told you already, Ego actually enjoys to be fought with, it thrives when pushed hardly into a corner, because this ensures an opportunity for it to receive the maximum attention and engage into the never-ending conflict)?

Your original post isn't even directed at me at all. My insight for you is that you aren't just 'playing' with the forum in general, never mind me.  It isn't as pure and good as you are pretending.  Truth be told Naz, this is obvious. Why don't you actually start playing?  Which means behaving as if people are not your enemies.

That is what helps me go on and improve myself. I am finding the ‘bad’ (or, more exactly, the ‘unbalanced’, ‘faulty’) features of my own mind and try to replace them with better ones. I also do this with all my relationships and people (theories, ideas, beliefs etc.) I encounter. I am more capable of destruction than of construction. That’s my damnation. I give a kick and get a kick.

Fair enough.  In this case, you gave an undeserved kick to sexuality, and got a deserved kick in response.  

If you are more capable of destruction than construction, I understand, and I don't mean that in a bad way.  The practice of tearing down the inadequate can be very positive.  But it isn't what you do it's the way that you do it.  You have to choose your battles and fight them with skill.  In the right place, at the right time,  with the right attitude and motivation -- impeccably.  That will make the difference between a real 'spiritual warrior' and a renegade soldier.  

Anyway, let this skirmish pass us as a summer's cloud, and play on![]

[Naz]

Thanks everyone.

There was a very polite and respectfully asked question from Bewell I haven't replied yet. So, let me deal with this first of all.

The Wet Dreams. Privately I had a very few of what can be called a full ‘wet dream’ and it was quite a long time back (actually mostly when I wasn’t a mature person yet). However, when (from time to time) I closely energetically relate with people who have excessive sexual energy and related thoughts, I do sometimes get somewhat overwhelmed with their energy and get an echo of that kind of experience. Since the mental plane is releasing and expressing the phenomena of the day life during the Dream State, in such cases I occasionally get what can be called an echo of a wet dream. I haven’t had an echo which I wouldn’t be able to deal with and calm down relatively easily within a few hours since many years. Within these years there were a few people I met who had very strong sexual energy. I felt their energy (was touched by it) and some extra excitement during a maximum of few days, but it never was even remotely capable to significantly influence any of my deeper energy levels and become a lasting phenomenon against my will. It went away, just like a passing breeze.

On the other hand, in my younger years, as I mentioned, I had a few sexual relationships I willingly entered. I did this mostly for experimental purposes and I always knew these relationships are not going to last for long. It was my mistake to have entered them (as from my current point of view). All of my partners were trying to extend and continue these relationships with all the efforts they were able to apply. I always felt bad afterwards about having given them a hope of something I knew in advance they would never receive from me – a lasting loving emotional relationship. During these relationships my mind was actually focused on the sexual issues and sexual energies for some time (a few of my younger years roughly, with maybe several months of more intense focus on certain persons). I used to feel and to intentionally strengthen and shape out the emotional energy exchange and sexual flavours I wished to add to my relationship with a certain partner (also during the Dream State). But in these cases I always had a level of energy control which allowed me to handle my sexual energy exchange the way I wanted. Be it during the Waking, or Dreaming, I never had the energy so much out of control as to get it into an undesired ‘Wet Dream’. I was able to direct all my energy to the sexual exchange (mostly remote, not physical sexual exchange, which allows accumulating considerable amounts of sexual energy in the related centers and makes the following time-limited physical contact explode with emotions and sharp experiences).

Generally to someone on ascetic path (practicing celibacy) and having the problem of the ‘Wet Dreams’ I can tell, that, in my current opinion, if the sexual energy overpowers you so much you can’t handle it in your dream state, it is still much better to have a ‘release’ in the ‘Wet Dream’, rather than engage into physical contact. A ‘release’ in the ‘Wet Dream’ is not a good thing and is a sign you have to work on your energy control skills, but it’s much easier to come over and balance out than a physical relationship with a real person. It does not create those deep and lasting Samskaras a real sex would bring about. It remains purely on the energy level, and can be fully compensated for on this level.

In the Hindu ascetic tradition you may find many references to great ascetics being eventually overpowered by the sexual energies of the higher levels during their ascetic practice. Like Visvamitra being seduced by apsara (the heavenly girl and danceress) Menaka. Or the Story of the Birth of Rishyasringa (the son of Vibhandak, the great ascetic), who was born from the semen released by his ascetic father under the influence of an apsara in the form of a deer female.

A general thread can be figured throughout the ascetic approach: go the path of celibacy and do your best to keep your mind pure and chaste; but if you are to lose the battle of balance with some stronger unchaste energies, fight your battle till the end, try and make conclusions and observations about why and how you'd lost your balance (or eventually your semen), so you can improve your results the next time. If you go this way, no extra sin of your own will be there to blame you for. The main thing is to move on the path you’ve chosen with all of your heart and mind intent on it. It’s not about winning or losing a single battle or two. It’s about gaining the skills to do better the next time.

[Naz]

David, Thanks a lot.

Of course I am not playing with the forum or with you in the first place. I’m playing with my own mind. And of course, my ‘playing’ is neither perfectly pure nor perfectly good, which I also never pretended here. I occasionally try and make it possibly pure and good, or at least try and go into that direction, but as far as I remember my posts here, I’d always admitted myself being imperfect, impure, and full of ‘bad’ emotions. I’m working hard to get rid of them gradually in as far as I am able to.

As to my ‘playing’, I experiment with my mind in the first place, and use the reaction of people to certain energy combinations as helpful laboratory equipment to measure and evaluate the results my energy modifications bring about. In that process I make my own mind an object of temporary transformations and, being interested in the objective evaluation of the energies at first place, I am ready to go as far as make my temporary expressions imbecilic, stupid, useless, promoting enmity and anger etc. I prioritize the broad experiment and not the temporary good or bad results I achieve in my transient relationships. That’s a natural way any researcher goes. A car designer can’t help crushing a hundred cars in tests and experiments to finally build one that is one level better than all the others. In spiritual terms this is a never-ending process of improvement through negation of mistakes.

When I speak to this (and many other) audiences, I don’t even bother trying to be nice and getting some positive reactions. I focus all my attention on the observation of the pure effects (both bad and good) or the subtle energy changes I always experiment with. Moreover, I told this already, I intentionally overemphasize the unclear, dark, or ‘questionable’ energy expressions to get a better view of them and have more material for research. It’s like intentionally injecting a virus into my own veins in order to better understand all the details and phenomena related to the disease I’m currently experimenting with.

If I really wanted to be ‘nice’ with everyone here, I could do much better than I currently do, you know this, David. But being ‘nice’ has a lower priority for me than being ‘wise’, being knowledgeable about both good and bad things and all their peculiarities.

Now, let me ask you a question.

What do you think requires more courage and ‘warrior’ skills:

* to do things in front of the audience which you know in advance the audience is going to heap dirt upon, to despise; the things you know would make you an idiot in the eyes of an audience; the things you know perfectly well would make the people your enemies – and all this just to test some of the theories (or even just small details of the theories) you find important on your spiritual path; or

* to humiliate oneself in front of the audience knowing in advance this is going to bring positive reaction and will do good to all your relationships with the people you humiliate yourself in front of.

Well, a warrior must be impeccable (as far as he/she can). But it is the impeccability related to following your chosen path, rather than impeccability required to make a good impression in the society. I’m not after the brilliant (seemingly spiritually perfect) facade of my soul. I’m after the inner perfection/wisdom, which, first of all, is the field of endless improvement, and which includes the profound understanding of all the imperfections and their functioning.

[Naz]

Now, Christi and Katrine,

So nice to have your positive emotional support.

Yes, Christi, something has really shifted, or rather I came to the conclusion to make a next shift of energies I experiment with. Since today I switched off the Mithuna and Meena energies. If you remember, when I wrote that ‘open and courageous’ message, my Mithuna energy was in the 3rd Bhava incl. to 2nd. It’s a natural expression of this energy location. 3rd Bhava is about courage and braveness. But my observation was that for the Mithuna energy there’s actually a bit too much of this courage coming forth from this combination. The expression becomes unstable and tends to jump the gun. It has a few other serious drawbacks, typical for an energy not belonging to the lower plane being placed into the Dusthana.

Currently I feel it is the time to outline another three groups of the energies available within the 12.

There are 4 energies representing the mentality of pure castes.

These are the:

Dnanu (the Brahmin);
Simha (the Kshatriya);
Karka (the Vaishya) and;
Kanya (the Shudra).

There are another 4 energies representing the mentality of the mixed castes:

Meena (Brahmin/Vaishya);
Vrishabha (Brahmin/Vaishya);
Mithuna (Kshatriya/Shudra);
Mesha (Kshatriya/Shudra).

And there are another 4 energies representing the mentality of the outcastes (fallen mentality):

Tula (Brahmin degraded to Vaishya);
Vrishcika (Kshatriya outcaste, gains some unbalanced Brahmin-substitute qualities);
Kumbha (Shudra outcaste, gains some unbalanced Kshatriya-substitute qualities);
Makara (Vaishya outcaste, gains some unbalanced Shudra-substitute qualities).

From today morning I fully activate the first group of 4 energies. Feel the difference!

*****

As to those details you tend to like in my openness, I am sorry to say they are just incidentally getting into tune with your mental concepts of how spiritual evolution should be. It’s not that your concepts are bad, they are not. But you are not even getting close to the outer gates of the castle of my soul in your remarks.

For you, Katrine, if you be kind enough to accept my humble opinion, you are being hopelessly trapped into a simplified illusion of being on the deeply spiritual path. Your remarks are correct, in general. However, you underestimate the value of bringing the Light to the level of the Budhi. Yes, it’s kind of true that once you get in touch with some Light the transformation goes automatically, but it’s not that candy-like and all-round simple. You have to make effort to develop (build) a bridge between the Absolute (which is the source of Light) and your lower levels of mentality. You have to consciously rebuild, reconstruct and improve the structure of your Budhi, with the helpful infusion of Light you get in your transcending. Yes, once you catch some Light it’s like letting it go and following the flow. But it’s not like lazily bathing forever in the waves of the Light (if you are doing that, you are quite likely bathing in the waves of an illusion of being in the Light), it’s more like following the Light’s orders and directions. And these orders and directions can sometimes be quite demanding and hard to accomplish, might require a lot of logical work and mental (or even physical) effort on the lower planes of your inner world.

Basically, Katrine, I find your expressions very promising. You are going the right way, just move on. There’s lots of new things for you to discover and accomplish. Follow the Light, bring it into all the levels of your mind. Just don’t indulge into thinking about how great it is to be in the Light.

All the best.

[Naz]

There’s one more thing I find worthwhile mentioning here regarding the philosophical concepts of the Gunas (Sattva, Rajas, Tamas). From Scott’s message I get an impression that many people here might have a very vague understanding of what these Gunas actually are and how they work.

Well, they (the Gunas) are very important in understanding how our mentality works and I often refer to them in my explanations. The Gunas are actually an adequate philosophical concept and language of definition of energy transformations to describe the changes of human psyche. The Western concepts of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are too relative and foggy, changing from one context to the other to provide adequate description of the upward and downward directions of mental evolution. The Gunas, on the other hand, are very reliable, exact and relating to the real energy phenomena being an excellent improvement and substitute to refer to those things we previously named ‘bad’ or ‘good’.

Before giving more information on the Gunas, I’d like to ask if maybe someone has some personal, deeply felt through and understood on the level of experience knowledge to share with us about the Gunas?

[Katrine]

Hi Naz

 

quote:For you, Katrine, if you be kind enough to accept my humble opinion, you are being hopelessly trapped into a simplified illusion of being on the deeply spiritual path.

Yes, Naz.
I am aware of this. But after all - the pathless path is a paradox. That is why I am more attracted to simplicity than complexity. But thank you for reminding me that all paths are illusions.

 

quote: However, you underestimate the value of bringing the Light to the level of the Budhi.

I just don't think I can do that, you see. In my experience, the light doesn't need my help. It only wants the space to flow in. It is pure intelligence; it always knows what it is doing. I don't. So, I'd rather bow to it, and hope that the sincerity of my bakhti will one day fuse the two.

 

quote:...it’s more like following the Light’s orders and directions. And these orders and directions can sometimes be quite demanding and hard to accomplish...

Absolutely. Mostly due to my resistance to seeing that "my way" has nothing to do with it.

 

quote:Basically, Katrine, I find your expressions very promising. You are going the right way, just move on. There’s lots of new things for you to discover and accomplish. Follow the Light, bring it into all the levels of your mind. Just don’t indulge into thinking about how great it is to be in the Light.

Yes...I will do my best to let the light bring itself into all levels. And I agree - thinking about the light, is not the same as being in it.

I wish you all the best too

[Naz]

Good reply, Katrine. The power is with you. I’m touched.

I definitely intellectualize and obstinately follow ‘my way’ too much. Can’t help it.

Allow me to spare you of the elaborate verbose explanation of why this happens and which energies contribute to such an effect.

Thanks for staying with me. I didn’t expect you would. I do not deserve it.

You are being too kind with me.

[Katrine]

Hi Naz

 

quote:I definitely intellectualize and obstinately follow ‘my way’ too much.

I do too.

quote:Thanks for staying with me. I didn’t expect you would. I do not deserve it.

Neither do I.
Yet - real connection happens. In spite of these opinions