Deep Sensuality as Essential "Good Earth" Spirituality
"When we recognize consciousness as the central theme of the universe, it becomes clear that creativity is our lifeline to that consciousness." -- Amit Goswami, Ph.D.
Who can look at a mountain river and not feel a quiver of delight in one's heart? Who can sit in rapt wonder at a glorious sunset and not worship Infinite Possibility? Who can hand a sandwich to a hungry child and not rejoice in an opportunity to give selflessly? Who can enter the embrace of one's lover and not hunger for a complete abandonment in the give and take of Sweet Pleasure? The Divine Consciousness tickles our soul and skin -- every inch and crevice and secret -- with kisses of Divine Adoration: without end... who can fall into this contemplative embrace and not die before dying and resurrect before the resurrection? This deep sensuality is the key to the creative life: as it is to the contemplative... The Mystery of Incarnation is the mystery of Being and Consciousness finding It's Self-Expression in you and you and you and you... without end...
And yet, and yet... we have been taught to agree to the separations that define "reality": matter is separate from spirit or consciousness, as good is separate from bad, and the beautiful from the ugly, and the body from the soul... We have been told to reign in our desires, to put a limit on our courage and our child-like willingness to love with a wild abandon... We have been taught that the Divine is a Being of Judgment and Retribution: more so than a revelation of mercy and kindness without end... We have been taught to fear women's sexuality just as we have been taught that men are the chosen keepers of the Divine: and we have constructed systems of domination, power, and privilege to prove the point... "True believers" feel threatened by every difference and every call for equality: choosing to see in equality the bugaboo of a denial of "religious liberty": terrorists blow up temples they don't understand; the Taliban shoots girls who want to go to school, books are banned or burned by the righteously rabid ; and stone monuments with the Ten Commandments are erected everywhere: not as a call to remember the sublime, but as a threat or promise to "crush" the unrighteous: the different, the strange, the "other": and perhaps you...
And yet, and yet again... there is an antidote to the cultural "madness" of the practice of every separation: and that is a deep sensuality as essential "good earth" spirituality... While many people talk about "core values", the deep sensualist doesn't forget that the core values that are the genuine foundation of civilization and spirituality both are the desire and the will to guarantee one's community (and by extension the entire world) happiness, safety, health, and the "welcome home" of being wanted. This place is the beginning of wisdom as it is for policies that really could lead to rapid social transformations: the freedom that is found in desiring the satisfaction of happiness, safety, health, and "welcome home" for everyone is the actual Christ-life being lived! If you desire to someday smile like the Buddha, practice this! If you want to surrender to the heart of Islam, practice this! If you want to sing to Krishna, practice this! If you think all religion is a load of hooey, practice this! If you want to deepen you meditation practice and intensify your orgasmic experiences at the same time, practice this! You see, "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." (Simone Weil) It is only by loving that we can become Love!
There are practices that can facilitate transformation and a deep "good earth" sensuality... but it is very important to begin with a further clarification: it will be only be possible to save this precious blue Planet and take a next step in conscious evolution if the Divine Feminine is re-united with the Sacred Masculine: for somewhere in the range of 5,000 years we have been skewed towards a "Dominator Paradigm" in religion which requires for its continuation all of the divisions that we witness around us. Wisdom (Sophia: the Mother aspect of the One) requires a resurgence of our devotion and commitment: this is not about replacing patriarchy with matriarchy, but instead a turn towards fraternity or partnership... This is also much more than a political / economic / religious agenda of equality between women and men (which is an absolute requirement of a just civilization): but it is about a re-creation of the very dynamics of our spiritual, psychological, personal, and social relationships: the Dominator politics and religion that believes "Jesus will return when the last tree falls" (James Watt, President Reagan's Secretary of the Interior) or that a "heaven" of streams of wine and virgins await the true believer are, at worst, asinine justifications for exploitation and violence, and at best, horrible metaphors for an "enlightened consciousness"... We really need to do better than this...
Kill the Buddha
Why did the sage say, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him"? Why is the metaphor of the death and resurrection of a God-Man consistent through many ancient cultures and religions? Of course, any group of blind folks, touching a different part of an elephant, would define that elephant differently: this is exactly true for religions as well (why that doesn't provoke an increase in humility instead of arrogance is another mystery of the Dominator Paradigm). The wisdom of "death" is the surety of leaving every attachment behind: what are any of us attached to more so than our bodies and our breath? This "radical" (to the roots) non-attachment practice is the beginning point of all authentic religion: "awe" necessarily follows after non-attachment: it is never a case of "I think, therefore I am", just as it is never "I believe, so I am right"... How do we practice "non-attachment"? (This is perhaps especially challenging for men!).
We practice by considering each one of our relationships as "partnerships": we are not given our too few breaths to manipulate, control, exploit, harm, or dominate any other being! We are here, though, to remember our divine origins and vocation: "We have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love." (Simone Weil) We practice by lifting up our partners and families: we are kind! We are forgiving, gentle, and time-givers (not consumers). We create sacred spaces for safe creativities and personal explorations. We acknowledge the wonder and gift of sacred pleasure (women equal to men and alternative sexual practices equal to heterosexual: why? Because we are each and all divine beings who have the same sacred responsibility to remember: and remembrance always includes every seeming opposite and difference...) -- without harming, controlling, exploiting, or dominating any other. We learn to listen and to talk in reverence with our partners and others. We un-learn the social / religious constructs that inhibit our freedom to love. And at the same time, we can allow for the remembrance of divinity in our every relationship: especially with wisdom and with the Earth... Non-attachment is the daily practice of spiritual humility: "Just maybe, I do not know everything! Just maybe, I do not have to be right! Just maybe, I do not have to win!" Non-attachment is the beginning of applied wisdom...
To "kill the Buddha" is to accept the responsibility required for a life worthy of giving birth to the Buddha: within one's own consciousness... Why do fundamentalist Christians seek to erect stone monuments engraved with the Ten Commandments -- instead of building homes for the Homeless Christ -- and instead of quoting his response to the question, "What is the greatest commandment?" Notice that his answer was quite simple, "Love the One with the fullness of your being, and your neighbor as yourself." THAT is the living essence of all true religion, economics, politics, and culture! Of course, that is also the end of religion, economics, politics, and culture: therein lies the essence of the Dominator Paradigm: when we love, its power loses all of its power! When we love: when our skin and our soul is a living refuge of non-attachment: we become the "Mothers of God", in our time and in our place! Whew! And what exactly did you want other than this? The Dominator Paradigm requires our allegiance through our attachments! We so pledge through our service of money, our passion for exploitation, our acceptance of injustice, and our justification for violence: breaking free is, first of all, a humble desire to live sane in the madhouse of despair... Neither "Buddhahood" nor "salvation" is anywhere "out there". It is always right here, right now: in our practice of non-attachment in partnership: this, loving-in-action, is our will for the true, the good, and the beautiful...
When we detach from our desires for control and domination, that spiritual condition of "not two", will begin to breathe within us... When we can relax into the incoming and outgoing breath of the Universe, "Only One" will steadily become the reality of our lives... From here, the Buddha, the Christ, the Oneness, becomes our freedom to be... In relationships it is always all about remembering "right" relationship: "it" is not about "me", rather it is always about "us": when conversations that include as much listening as it does with speaking are the daily norm, then the holding of hands and the bliss of "anytime" kissing make love-making a 24 / 7 experience: when "I am You, You are Me, and We are All Together: One" then everything vibrates with a steady orgasmic rhythm... So, why not proceed into an "Orgasmic Economics"? Or an "Orgasmic Politics", or "Orgasmic Religion", or even an "Orgasmic Culture"? Oneness is the bliss of orgasm: the disappearance of "self", and the surrender into "Only One" and Divine Pleasure: even masturbation hints at divine possibilities... But "we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love" and Love always requires the annihilation of "self" and the merging of Self into That Identity: Love-without-Limits...
Becoming God-Awe-Full
It is very helpful to think of ourselves as "mirrors of the Divine": yes, that specifically means you! With that wonderful quote from Simone Weil as the "holy scripture" of our mystical faith, we work on this most radical acceptance: we are "God-Awe-Full": okay, perhaps that is a weak play on words, but it is a means to an important point: we are beings with a seemingly near infinite capacity for wonder, delight, cultivated epiphanies, and vistas of orgasms: we come this way! Straight out of the chute, we are ready to play! We are, right now, good, strong, and capable... Mysticism, compassion, and pleasure are the "sacred trinity" of well-adjusted adult human beings: if not for the not-so-original-sins foisted on us by the Dominator Paradigm, every child could potentially advance into an evolutionary leap! Now practice: "With this breath, the Universe is breathing through me... with this breath I am expanding love in the Universe"... Repeating these words audibly with your incoming an outgoing breath... and then with a whisper... and finally, in the silence of your heart-consciousness... rest there for a few minutes... and then reverse the process, silent first, then whisper, and again, finally, audibly...
Awe is the shock and wonder of our first orgasm... awe is the stupendous silence of a gaze upon a long-sought mountain vista... awe is the reverence one might feel when standing before a painting by Vincent Van Gogh... awe is the well-spring of interior identification with Oneness... awe is entering the embrace of one's lover... awe is "God", the Divine Consciousness, looking at the world through your eyes, serving the broken with your hands, working for justice with your passion, and loving with every single breath and gift of your love... This is absolutely true because you are "God-Awe-Full"! [Of course, this is a problem when religious authorities think it their job to control awe-epiphanies: when economic systems only want to market cheap replicas for mindless consumption: and when politicians want only "happy" servants of their privilege and power...]
The secret to awe is to assiduously work at putting yourself -- often as you can -- in the proximity of accessing its possibilities... Base sex can happen anywhere at any time: good sex makes use of both place and time: mind-blowing sex requires the cultivation of each of the "virtues of ecstasy"... Consciousness, as the First Cause and "foundation" of all matter, is our beginning point: as it is also our end: we need to alter our consciousness (at least on occasion!). Women, bohemians, artists, musicians, meditators and bhaktis, might have a head start, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us shouldn't make a quality effort! Again, we place ourselves in the "proximity to possibilities"... So the first "virtue of ecstasy" is to create a sacred space in your life: an altar, a picture that inspires, perhaps some incense and a candle: but most importantly, some time! If all you were to ever do or say before your little altar was "I love You and I thank You" that would be enough... Meditate if you can. If you are homeless, a child-care provider, an exhausted worker, or anyone else who can't come up with an altar or time to meditate, you are still breathing, right? Wherever you go, what ever you do, and whomever you are: ultimately, you are the altar and the Holy One is praying through you: so relax (this is the second virtue of ecstasy): "I love You and I thank You" is still enough...
The third virtue of ecstasy is simply kindness: kindness is expressed as respect, gentleness, compassion, empathy, caring, justice, honor, reverence, thoughtfulness, awareness, and a vital sense of anticipation... We don't wait for someone to notice before we are kind! We don't wait for our lover to apologize first! We don't quietly sit by when the world is burning! Kindness is a principle of creative and daring action: "I see you!" The actualization of this spiritual insight is the liberation of kindness-in-action. With enough "I see you's!" the world -- and our relationships -- will be completely transformed: which brings us to the fourth virtue of ecstasy: holy competition!
"Holy Competition" is the "fool's errand": the attempt to love more than Love Itself! This competition is the mystical dynamic of Yeshua's suggestion "Love one another as I have loved you". This loving, without agendas or attachments to results, is the true marriage of souls. This loving, without a tracking of outcomes, is pure gift: the utter graciousness of the Universe revealing It's Love through your very specific loving. To begin and conclude each of your days with this sacred intention, this holy competition, will be to rock your opinions, viewpoints, attitudes, beliefs, and limitations to their roots: only to free you! Giving everyday-evidence to "I see you", with the vigor of your new practice in holy competition, is to place yourself within the "proximity to possibilities" (which is nothing other than "God-Awe-Full"!) Practice: for one minute, for five minutes, for fifteen minutes, for however long you are inspired: sit facing your lover, a friend, or even a willing stranger: knees inches apart: saying nothing whatsoever: just sit and look into the eyes of the person in front of you: do nothing, just gaze: blink as you need: just gaze: don't look around, just gaze into the eyes of the person looking into your eyes: conclude with "Namaste": "The Divinity within me adores the Divinity within you"...
Cultivating the feminine is the fifth virtue of ecstasy... in other words, "What does God do everyday? God is lying on a maternity bed giving birth." (Meister Eckhart) "By your thoughts and actions, become the Mother of God." (St. Francis) The sacred feminine is this birthing: the deep sensuality of soul birthing... the deep sensuality of an ecology of the soul... the deep sensuality of recognizing the virtues of ecstasy in one's daily life, home, work, religion, economics, politics, and culture... the deep sensuality of knowing the Earth is a living inter-being... the deep sensuality of touching the Earth and every being with reverence... the deep sensuality of organizing for everyone's happiness, safety, health, and "homecoming"... the deep sensuality of feeling the breeze and sun kissing your naked body... the deep sensuality of kissing your lover similarly as the breeze and the sun... the deep sensuality of loving seven generations forward: in this, in all of this and more, we re-incarnate the Divine Feminine: all the while becoming the Mothers of God... Perhaps not a bad way to live?
Acts of Disappearance: a Play in Infinite Parts
"Deep Sensuality" is synonymous with "Contemplative Union"... certainly a perspective at odds with historical presentations of "religion". It is perhaps shocking to learn anything at all of "When God Was A Woman" (Merlin Stone), and yet in peeling back the pages of time, for quite a while now we have been discovering a very different story of our human "interaction" with the Divine. The adage that "the victors get to tell the story" is so very true for religion: reading Riane Eisler's books "The Chalice & the Blade" and "Sacred Pleasure" are as a baptism of fire. Reading Margaret Starbird's "Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile" is revelatory... but perhaps the most "explosive" reading material is in the Hebrew Scriptures, "The Song of Songs"! Read these books and watch your "old self" begin to disappear... there is so much more to every story that you've been told... But let's take a look into the eighteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita...
I recommend that you get a copy of the Gita, if you don't already have one. (The Gita translation by Eknath Easwaren is my personal favorite: very closely followed by that of Graham M. Schweig. Both have extraordinary -- and very helpful -- notes and explanations.) Why the Gita? Most especially for these six words: "You are dearly loved by me." After all of the "explanations" of yoga -- how to achieve union with the Divine -- we are succinctly told by Krishna (the representation of the Divine in the Gita) that we are "dearly loved" by the One! Do you remember the Simone Weil quote: "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love"? After pondering these words, go back and re-read "The Song of Songs". Note that traditional commentators could be right: the Song is about the love affair of the soul with the Divine (or of the Divine with a gathering of devotees). But also note, that the Song is also a very erotic, very human, love poem. We can celebrate that we don't have to choose one interpretation over another: both are holy! Every expression of love is, as it were, an exploration into our "divine humanness"... Oneness is "Ananda": endless bliss. Oneness is Pleasure: endless loving.
Loving is, essentially, an endless series of lessons, or acts, in disappearing. Jacob Boehme, the Rhenish mystic, wrote of the need to "cease from the thinking of self and the willing of self." Thomas Merton, the Trappist mystic-poet, is said to have muttered, "And so I will disappear", after concluding his final speech in Bangkok and shortly before his tragic death. In the throes of orgasm, the sense of an isolated "self" is merged in a sort of "cosmic communion": the boundaries between lover and beloved merge and disappear: and there is only "one skin", "one delight"... So too, in deep meditation, all sense of an isolated ego are subsumed by an in-flood of "nowhere-ness": of an expansion that leaves every sense of "me" literally "ditched in time": and there temporarily remains only the boundless Oneness... And finally, when love as compassion is activated, the lover can find herself "on the loose": every moment begins to present itself as an opportunity to love: and the lover finds "echoes" or "pieces" of everyone and of everything within herself. If there are "virtues of ecstasy", there are also many "acts of disappearing"...
Every experience and every desire can become a step towards Oneness: applying the energy of our passions to the pursuit of happiness, safety, health, and a homecoming for everyone is Oneness-in-Action... It is natural, as "good earth mystics" to seek Beauty, to seek Pleasure, to seek Sexual Delights, to seek Social Justice, Equality, and Peace: it is natural to seek Family, to seek Tribe, to seek the Company of Companions... It is natural to seek a Place, a bit of Land, and the Purpose of Vocation.... It is natural to seek Music, Art, Poetry, and Literature... It is natural to be Curious about everything and to explore those Interests... It is natural to look beyond one's Limitations and Borders and to always seek newer and deeper Communions... The natural is true, good, and beautiful: but that which is Key to Everything is Empathy... Empathy is that which keeps us Human and at the very same time, makes us Divine...
"Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself" (Mohsin Hamid). Practice: think about someone outside of your daily circle -- perhaps a Muslim, a radical feminist lesbian, a farmer, an illegal immigrant, a black mother in Detroit, a monk alone in his hermitage, a hungry child, a youth in an emergency room with several bullets in his body, etc. -- what thoughts and feelings would you project upon this stranger? What hopes, fears, or dreams might animate this person? How is this person both like and different from you? Form a complete mental picture of this person in your mind: what would this person say to you if she / he were to write you a letter? Write that letter...
Empathy, like every other form of loving, is both the practiced disappearance of self, and the manifestation of our true Self. If you can't feel everyone else's pain as your own pain, you are still evidentially confined within your very teeny-tiny self: there is no happiness there, at least no happiness that is not very fleeting. It is, of course, always an option to hunker-down and stay right there: many people do just that! But, since "We were made by Love, for Love, to become Love", we were also made for endless expansion! Dying or disappearing to our "little self" we become Infinite: part and parcel of Every Self: indeed, Only One! "I am You, You are Me, and We are All Together: One": this is empathy, meditation, prayer, justice, reverence, peace, equality, and every other good thing unleashed!
Perhaps our single greatest task in life is to learn how to allow the Universe to leave It's mark, or "bite", of Love upon us -- even as we struggle and ultimately, perish... While it is true that the mystical path is one of discovering our true Self, it is at the very same time, a steady surrender into the Dark (which is Light) and the Nothingness (which is All): like the rock dove in flight, we are suddenly stricken and in the talons of the Falcon: our Lover and our Destroyer... At best, these words can only hint at the Journey: but the Dream is real: it is possible to awaken... Practice: extend an invitation to others to form a Sacred Circle: gather to meditate together, listen to one another's stories, and share insights, dreams, and meals... Walk together, play together: honor your diversity... Activate your compassion together: serve without needing anything in return. And network / organize for justice, peace, equality, reverence of Earth, etc. A life of spiritual / mystical activism requires the formation of intentional community: eco-reverence of Earth requires circles of compassion extending outward in waves of transformational possibilities...
Lie in the sun naked... practice yoga: breathing oneness with your every breath... in a world of horrible injustices and violence, practice truth and harmlessness... cultivate the gardens of your world... embrace trees... love animals, especially the defenseless ones... Sing and chant the Holy Names of the One... It is the sum total of a nonviolent life that will contribute to sustainable personal and social change... make music... make art... What is all of this about, you ask? Everything -- absolutely everything -- is about surrender: learning how to die before you die, so as to practice resurrection before the resurrection...
As you gather in Sacred Circle, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you build community, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you activate your compassion, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you organize for justice, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you lie naked in the sun, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you sing and chant the Holy Names, you learn the grace of sacred intentions: just a shift of perspective can open the doors of your perceptions... Everything is One Love in an endless manifestation of delight and bliss... Deep sensuality is life at its core: contemplation is making love as making love is contemplation...
A Conclusion... Possibly...
Deep "good earth" sensuality is essential spirituality that makes use of desire, instead of rejecting it out of hand. The tendency of religious teachers and practitioners is that of "doing division" into "good" and "bad" and so on. But if we begin -- and end -- with our intentions clarified with a theme of "surrender", we can learn to set aside every idea of separation. When Rumi wrote, "The way you make love is the way God will be with you", he might have been proposing something very much like this. To "surrender" is to live awakened: every moment is profoundly ripe for adoration! The body of your lover is a living altar of the Divine: so your trail of kisses are gentle and kind, sensuous and loving... The earth upon which we all live is a living altar of the Divine: so we preserve and protect the web of life, looking to the well-being of those who will be alive seven generations forward... If everything that we do is known to be our "way of making love": do you not see how absolutely everything would change?
This "making love" as essential spirituality means to "identify with the Holy One" in all of our thoughts, words, and actions: like in the throes of a passionate love affair: when everything is about the Beloved! To "identify" is to revolutionize! The Beloved is everyone and this precious blue Planet! If Yeshua the Poet said, "Love the One with all your being... and love your neighbor as yourself"... and... "Love one another as I have loved you"... and... "Beautiful are you poor!"... and... "How lacking in Beauty are you rich!"... and... "I was hungry and you fed me: welcome home!"... and... "Whatever you do to the very least person on Earth, you do to me!"... and... "Love your enemies!"... and... "Beautiful are you who show mercy!": then this is exactly who you want to be, right? If Yeshua is your Divine Lover then you automatically want to identify with him and his message, right? To live as a devotee of the Divine, the One Love Consciousness, that was localized in Yeshua is to become a radical living worship.
Finally, deep sensuality and essential spirituality is to advance in the condition of remembrance and offering. Rev. Ellen Grace O'Brian teaches a summarized version of the Perennial Philosophy: "1. It is. 2. We are It. 3. We forget. 4. We remember." This is the path of Oneness. Remembrance is facilitated by mindfulness, by meditation, by kindness, by the pursuit of eco-reverence, and by the practices of feminist consciousness, justice, and peace. As we remember our sacred divinity, and work to create the conditions for everyone to fully develop and to likewise remember, we are offering the fruits of our efforts and labor to the Holy One, the One Love Consciousness... This is the way of an awakened life!
Now, what do you think? How do you feel in pondering these words of "deep sensuality as essential "good earth" spirituality"? What practices of yours do you think might be helpful to others? Are you interested in forming a Sacred Circle? What does the "Divine Feminine" mean to you? Perhaps through your comments on the "Contact" page, we might have a conversation! Blessings to All!
Who can look at a mountain river and not feel a quiver of delight in one's heart? Who can sit in rapt wonder at a glorious sunset and not worship Infinite Possibility? Who can hand a sandwich to a hungry child and not rejoice in an opportunity to give selflessly? Who can enter the embrace of one's lover and not hunger for a complete abandonment in the give and take of Sweet Pleasure? The Divine Consciousness tickles our soul and skin -- every inch and crevice and secret -- with kisses of Divine Adoration: without end... who can fall into this contemplative embrace and not die before dying and resurrect before the resurrection? This deep sensuality is the key to the creative life: as it is to the contemplative... The Mystery of Incarnation is the mystery of Being and Consciousness finding It's Self-Expression in you and you and you and you... without end...
And yet, and yet... we have been taught to agree to the separations that define "reality": matter is separate from spirit or consciousness, as good is separate from bad, and the beautiful from the ugly, and the body from the soul... We have been told to reign in our desires, to put a limit on our courage and our child-like willingness to love with a wild abandon... We have been taught that the Divine is a Being of Judgment and Retribution: more so than a revelation of mercy and kindness without end... We have been taught to fear women's sexuality just as we have been taught that men are the chosen keepers of the Divine: and we have constructed systems of domination, power, and privilege to prove the point... "True believers" feel threatened by every difference and every call for equality: choosing to see in equality the bugaboo of a denial of "religious liberty": terrorists blow up temples they don't understand; the Taliban shoots girls who want to go to school, books are banned or burned by the righteously rabid ; and stone monuments with the Ten Commandments are erected everywhere: not as a call to remember the sublime, but as a threat or promise to "crush" the unrighteous: the different, the strange, the "other": and perhaps you...
And yet, and yet again... there is an antidote to the cultural "madness" of the practice of every separation: and that is a deep sensuality as essential "good earth" spirituality... While many people talk about "core values", the deep sensualist doesn't forget that the core values that are the genuine foundation of civilization and spirituality both are the desire and the will to guarantee one's community (and by extension the entire world) happiness, safety, health, and the "welcome home" of being wanted. This place is the beginning of wisdom as it is for policies that really could lead to rapid social transformations: the freedom that is found in desiring the satisfaction of happiness, safety, health, and "welcome home" for everyone is the actual Christ-life being lived! If you desire to someday smile like the Buddha, practice this! If you want to surrender to the heart of Islam, practice this! If you want to sing to Krishna, practice this! If you think all religion is a load of hooey, practice this! If you want to deepen you meditation practice and intensify your orgasmic experiences at the same time, practice this! You see, "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." (Simone Weil) It is only by loving that we can become Love!
There are practices that can facilitate transformation and a deep "good earth" sensuality... but it is very important to begin with a further clarification: it will be only be possible to save this precious blue Planet and take a next step in conscious evolution if the Divine Feminine is re-united with the Sacred Masculine: for somewhere in the range of 5,000 years we have been skewed towards a "Dominator Paradigm" in religion which requires for its continuation all of the divisions that we witness around us. Wisdom (Sophia: the Mother aspect of the One) requires a resurgence of our devotion and commitment: this is not about replacing patriarchy with matriarchy, but instead a turn towards fraternity or partnership... This is also much more than a political / economic / religious agenda of equality between women and men (which is an absolute requirement of a just civilization): but it is about a re-creation of the very dynamics of our spiritual, psychological, personal, and social relationships: the Dominator politics and religion that believes "Jesus will return when the last tree falls" (James Watt, President Reagan's Secretary of the Interior) or that a "heaven" of streams of wine and virgins await the true believer are, at worst, asinine justifications for exploitation and violence, and at best, horrible metaphors for an "enlightened consciousness"... We really need to do better than this...
Kill the Buddha
Why did the sage say, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him"? Why is the metaphor of the death and resurrection of a God-Man consistent through many ancient cultures and religions? Of course, any group of blind folks, touching a different part of an elephant, would define that elephant differently: this is exactly true for religions as well (why that doesn't provoke an increase in humility instead of arrogance is another mystery of the Dominator Paradigm). The wisdom of "death" is the surety of leaving every attachment behind: what are any of us attached to more so than our bodies and our breath? This "radical" (to the roots) non-attachment practice is the beginning point of all authentic religion: "awe" necessarily follows after non-attachment: it is never a case of "I think, therefore I am", just as it is never "I believe, so I am right"... How do we practice "non-attachment"? (This is perhaps especially challenging for men!).
We practice by considering each one of our relationships as "partnerships": we are not given our too few breaths to manipulate, control, exploit, harm, or dominate any other being! We are here, though, to remember our divine origins and vocation: "We have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love." (Simone Weil) We practice by lifting up our partners and families: we are kind! We are forgiving, gentle, and time-givers (not consumers). We create sacred spaces for safe creativities and personal explorations. We acknowledge the wonder and gift of sacred pleasure (women equal to men and alternative sexual practices equal to heterosexual: why? Because we are each and all divine beings who have the same sacred responsibility to remember: and remembrance always includes every seeming opposite and difference...) -- without harming, controlling, exploiting, or dominating any other. We learn to listen and to talk in reverence with our partners and others. We un-learn the social / religious constructs that inhibit our freedom to love. And at the same time, we can allow for the remembrance of divinity in our every relationship: especially with wisdom and with the Earth... Non-attachment is the daily practice of spiritual humility: "Just maybe, I do not know everything! Just maybe, I do not have to be right! Just maybe, I do not have to win!" Non-attachment is the beginning of applied wisdom...
To "kill the Buddha" is to accept the responsibility required for a life worthy of giving birth to the Buddha: within one's own consciousness... Why do fundamentalist Christians seek to erect stone monuments engraved with the Ten Commandments -- instead of building homes for the Homeless Christ -- and instead of quoting his response to the question, "What is the greatest commandment?" Notice that his answer was quite simple, "Love the One with the fullness of your being, and your neighbor as yourself." THAT is the living essence of all true religion, economics, politics, and culture! Of course, that is also the end of religion, economics, politics, and culture: therein lies the essence of the Dominator Paradigm: when we love, its power loses all of its power! When we love: when our skin and our soul is a living refuge of non-attachment: we become the "Mothers of God", in our time and in our place! Whew! And what exactly did you want other than this? The Dominator Paradigm requires our allegiance through our attachments! We so pledge through our service of money, our passion for exploitation, our acceptance of injustice, and our justification for violence: breaking free is, first of all, a humble desire to live sane in the madhouse of despair... Neither "Buddhahood" nor "salvation" is anywhere "out there". It is always right here, right now: in our practice of non-attachment in partnership: this, loving-in-action, is our will for the true, the good, and the beautiful...
When we detach from our desires for control and domination, that spiritual condition of "not two", will begin to breathe within us... When we can relax into the incoming and outgoing breath of the Universe, "Only One" will steadily become the reality of our lives... From here, the Buddha, the Christ, the Oneness, becomes our freedom to be... In relationships it is always all about remembering "right" relationship: "it" is not about "me", rather it is always about "us": when conversations that include as much listening as it does with speaking are the daily norm, then the holding of hands and the bliss of "anytime" kissing make love-making a 24 / 7 experience: when "I am You, You are Me, and We are All Together: One" then everything vibrates with a steady orgasmic rhythm... So, why not proceed into an "Orgasmic Economics"? Or an "Orgasmic Politics", or "Orgasmic Religion", or even an "Orgasmic Culture"? Oneness is the bliss of orgasm: the disappearance of "self", and the surrender into "Only One" and Divine Pleasure: even masturbation hints at divine possibilities... But "we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love" and Love always requires the annihilation of "self" and the merging of Self into That Identity: Love-without-Limits...
Becoming God-Awe-Full
It is very helpful to think of ourselves as "mirrors of the Divine": yes, that specifically means you! With that wonderful quote from Simone Weil as the "holy scripture" of our mystical faith, we work on this most radical acceptance: we are "God-Awe-Full": okay, perhaps that is a weak play on words, but it is a means to an important point: we are beings with a seemingly near infinite capacity for wonder, delight, cultivated epiphanies, and vistas of orgasms: we come this way! Straight out of the chute, we are ready to play! We are, right now, good, strong, and capable... Mysticism, compassion, and pleasure are the "sacred trinity" of well-adjusted adult human beings: if not for the not-so-original-sins foisted on us by the Dominator Paradigm, every child could potentially advance into an evolutionary leap! Now practice: "With this breath, the Universe is breathing through me... with this breath I am expanding love in the Universe"... Repeating these words audibly with your incoming an outgoing breath... and then with a whisper... and finally, in the silence of your heart-consciousness... rest there for a few minutes... and then reverse the process, silent first, then whisper, and again, finally, audibly...
Awe is the shock and wonder of our first orgasm... awe is the stupendous silence of a gaze upon a long-sought mountain vista... awe is the reverence one might feel when standing before a painting by Vincent Van Gogh... awe is the well-spring of interior identification with Oneness... awe is entering the embrace of one's lover... awe is "God", the Divine Consciousness, looking at the world through your eyes, serving the broken with your hands, working for justice with your passion, and loving with every single breath and gift of your love... This is absolutely true because you are "God-Awe-Full"! [Of course, this is a problem when religious authorities think it their job to control awe-epiphanies: when economic systems only want to market cheap replicas for mindless consumption: and when politicians want only "happy" servants of their privilege and power...]
The secret to awe is to assiduously work at putting yourself -- often as you can -- in the proximity of accessing its possibilities... Base sex can happen anywhere at any time: good sex makes use of both place and time: mind-blowing sex requires the cultivation of each of the "virtues of ecstasy"... Consciousness, as the First Cause and "foundation" of all matter, is our beginning point: as it is also our end: we need to alter our consciousness (at least on occasion!). Women, bohemians, artists, musicians, meditators and bhaktis, might have a head start, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us shouldn't make a quality effort! Again, we place ourselves in the "proximity to possibilities"... So the first "virtue of ecstasy" is to create a sacred space in your life: an altar, a picture that inspires, perhaps some incense and a candle: but most importantly, some time! If all you were to ever do or say before your little altar was "I love You and I thank You" that would be enough... Meditate if you can. If you are homeless, a child-care provider, an exhausted worker, or anyone else who can't come up with an altar or time to meditate, you are still breathing, right? Wherever you go, what ever you do, and whomever you are: ultimately, you are the altar and the Holy One is praying through you: so relax (this is the second virtue of ecstasy): "I love You and I thank You" is still enough...
The third virtue of ecstasy is simply kindness: kindness is expressed as respect, gentleness, compassion, empathy, caring, justice, honor, reverence, thoughtfulness, awareness, and a vital sense of anticipation... We don't wait for someone to notice before we are kind! We don't wait for our lover to apologize first! We don't quietly sit by when the world is burning! Kindness is a principle of creative and daring action: "I see you!" The actualization of this spiritual insight is the liberation of kindness-in-action. With enough "I see you's!" the world -- and our relationships -- will be completely transformed: which brings us to the fourth virtue of ecstasy: holy competition!
"Holy Competition" is the "fool's errand": the attempt to love more than Love Itself! This competition is the mystical dynamic of Yeshua's suggestion "Love one another as I have loved you". This loving, without agendas or attachments to results, is the true marriage of souls. This loving, without a tracking of outcomes, is pure gift: the utter graciousness of the Universe revealing It's Love through your very specific loving. To begin and conclude each of your days with this sacred intention, this holy competition, will be to rock your opinions, viewpoints, attitudes, beliefs, and limitations to their roots: only to free you! Giving everyday-evidence to "I see you", with the vigor of your new practice in holy competition, is to place yourself within the "proximity to possibilities" (which is nothing other than "God-Awe-Full"!) Practice: for one minute, for five minutes, for fifteen minutes, for however long you are inspired: sit facing your lover, a friend, or even a willing stranger: knees inches apart: saying nothing whatsoever: just sit and look into the eyes of the person in front of you: do nothing, just gaze: blink as you need: just gaze: don't look around, just gaze into the eyes of the person looking into your eyes: conclude with "Namaste": "The Divinity within me adores the Divinity within you"...
Cultivating the feminine is the fifth virtue of ecstasy... in other words, "What does God do everyday? God is lying on a maternity bed giving birth." (Meister Eckhart) "By your thoughts and actions, become the Mother of God." (St. Francis) The sacred feminine is this birthing: the deep sensuality of soul birthing... the deep sensuality of an ecology of the soul... the deep sensuality of recognizing the virtues of ecstasy in one's daily life, home, work, religion, economics, politics, and culture... the deep sensuality of knowing the Earth is a living inter-being... the deep sensuality of touching the Earth and every being with reverence... the deep sensuality of organizing for everyone's happiness, safety, health, and "homecoming"... the deep sensuality of feeling the breeze and sun kissing your naked body... the deep sensuality of kissing your lover similarly as the breeze and the sun... the deep sensuality of loving seven generations forward: in this, in all of this and more, we re-incarnate the Divine Feminine: all the while becoming the Mothers of God... Perhaps not a bad way to live?
Acts of Disappearance: a Play in Infinite Parts
"Deep Sensuality" is synonymous with "Contemplative Union"... certainly a perspective at odds with historical presentations of "religion". It is perhaps shocking to learn anything at all of "When God Was A Woman" (Merlin Stone), and yet in peeling back the pages of time, for quite a while now we have been discovering a very different story of our human "interaction" with the Divine. The adage that "the victors get to tell the story" is so very true for religion: reading Riane Eisler's books "The Chalice & the Blade" and "Sacred Pleasure" are as a baptism of fire. Reading Margaret Starbird's "Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile" is revelatory... but perhaps the most "explosive" reading material is in the Hebrew Scriptures, "The Song of Songs"! Read these books and watch your "old self" begin to disappear... there is so much more to every story that you've been told... But let's take a look into the eighteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita...
I recommend that you get a copy of the Gita, if you don't already have one. (The Gita translation by Eknath Easwaren is my personal favorite: very closely followed by that of Graham M. Schweig. Both have extraordinary -- and very helpful -- notes and explanations.) Why the Gita? Most especially for these six words: "You are dearly loved by me." After all of the "explanations" of yoga -- how to achieve union with the Divine -- we are succinctly told by Krishna (the representation of the Divine in the Gita) that we are "dearly loved" by the One! Do you remember the Simone Weil quote: "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love"? After pondering these words, go back and re-read "The Song of Songs". Note that traditional commentators could be right: the Song is about the love affair of the soul with the Divine (or of the Divine with a gathering of devotees). But also note, that the Song is also a very erotic, very human, love poem. We can celebrate that we don't have to choose one interpretation over another: both are holy! Every expression of love is, as it were, an exploration into our "divine humanness"... Oneness is "Ananda": endless bliss. Oneness is Pleasure: endless loving.
Loving is, essentially, an endless series of lessons, or acts, in disappearing. Jacob Boehme, the Rhenish mystic, wrote of the need to "cease from the thinking of self and the willing of self." Thomas Merton, the Trappist mystic-poet, is said to have muttered, "And so I will disappear", after concluding his final speech in Bangkok and shortly before his tragic death. In the throes of orgasm, the sense of an isolated "self" is merged in a sort of "cosmic communion": the boundaries between lover and beloved merge and disappear: and there is only "one skin", "one delight"... So too, in deep meditation, all sense of an isolated ego are subsumed by an in-flood of "nowhere-ness": of an expansion that leaves every sense of "me" literally "ditched in time": and there temporarily remains only the boundless Oneness... And finally, when love as compassion is activated, the lover can find herself "on the loose": every moment begins to present itself as an opportunity to love: and the lover finds "echoes" or "pieces" of everyone and of everything within herself. If there are "virtues of ecstasy", there are also many "acts of disappearing"...
Every experience and every desire can become a step towards Oneness: applying the energy of our passions to the pursuit of happiness, safety, health, and a homecoming for everyone is Oneness-in-Action... It is natural, as "good earth mystics" to seek Beauty, to seek Pleasure, to seek Sexual Delights, to seek Social Justice, Equality, and Peace: it is natural to seek Family, to seek Tribe, to seek the Company of Companions... It is natural to seek a Place, a bit of Land, and the Purpose of Vocation.... It is natural to seek Music, Art, Poetry, and Literature... It is natural to be Curious about everything and to explore those Interests... It is natural to look beyond one's Limitations and Borders and to always seek newer and deeper Communions... The natural is true, good, and beautiful: but that which is Key to Everything is Empathy... Empathy is that which keeps us Human and at the very same time, makes us Divine...
"Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself" (Mohsin Hamid). Practice: think about someone outside of your daily circle -- perhaps a Muslim, a radical feminist lesbian, a farmer, an illegal immigrant, a black mother in Detroit, a monk alone in his hermitage, a hungry child, a youth in an emergency room with several bullets in his body, etc. -- what thoughts and feelings would you project upon this stranger? What hopes, fears, or dreams might animate this person? How is this person both like and different from you? Form a complete mental picture of this person in your mind: what would this person say to you if she / he were to write you a letter? Write that letter...
Empathy, like every other form of loving, is both the practiced disappearance of self, and the manifestation of our true Self. If you can't feel everyone else's pain as your own pain, you are still evidentially confined within your very teeny-tiny self: there is no happiness there, at least no happiness that is not very fleeting. It is, of course, always an option to hunker-down and stay right there: many people do just that! But, since "We were made by Love, for Love, to become Love", we were also made for endless expansion! Dying or disappearing to our "little self" we become Infinite: part and parcel of Every Self: indeed, Only One! "I am You, You are Me, and We are All Together: One": this is empathy, meditation, prayer, justice, reverence, peace, equality, and every other good thing unleashed!
Perhaps our single greatest task in life is to learn how to allow the Universe to leave It's mark, or "bite", of Love upon us -- even as we struggle and ultimately, perish... While it is true that the mystical path is one of discovering our true Self, it is at the very same time, a steady surrender into the Dark (which is Light) and the Nothingness (which is All): like the rock dove in flight, we are suddenly stricken and in the talons of the Falcon: our Lover and our Destroyer... At best, these words can only hint at the Journey: but the Dream is real: it is possible to awaken... Practice: extend an invitation to others to form a Sacred Circle: gather to meditate together, listen to one another's stories, and share insights, dreams, and meals... Walk together, play together: honor your diversity... Activate your compassion together: serve without needing anything in return. And network / organize for justice, peace, equality, reverence of Earth, etc. A life of spiritual / mystical activism requires the formation of intentional community: eco-reverence of Earth requires circles of compassion extending outward in waves of transformational possibilities...
Lie in the sun naked... practice yoga: breathing oneness with your every breath... in a world of horrible injustices and violence, practice truth and harmlessness... cultivate the gardens of your world... embrace trees... love animals, especially the defenseless ones... Sing and chant the Holy Names of the One... It is the sum total of a nonviolent life that will contribute to sustainable personal and social change... make music... make art... What is all of this about, you ask? Everything -- absolutely everything -- is about surrender: learning how to die before you die, so as to practice resurrection before the resurrection...
As you gather in Sacred Circle, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you build community, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you activate your compassion, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you organize for justice, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you lie naked in the sun, you learn the grace of sacred intentions... as you sing and chant the Holy Names, you learn the grace of sacred intentions: just a shift of perspective can open the doors of your perceptions... Everything is One Love in an endless manifestation of delight and bliss... Deep sensuality is life at its core: contemplation is making love as making love is contemplation...
A Conclusion... Possibly...
Deep "good earth" sensuality is essential spirituality that makes use of desire, instead of rejecting it out of hand. The tendency of religious teachers and practitioners is that of "doing division" into "good" and "bad" and so on. But if we begin -- and end -- with our intentions clarified with a theme of "surrender", we can learn to set aside every idea of separation. When Rumi wrote, "The way you make love is the way God will be with you", he might have been proposing something very much like this. To "surrender" is to live awakened: every moment is profoundly ripe for adoration! The body of your lover is a living altar of the Divine: so your trail of kisses are gentle and kind, sensuous and loving... The earth upon which we all live is a living altar of the Divine: so we preserve and protect the web of life, looking to the well-being of those who will be alive seven generations forward... If everything that we do is known to be our "way of making love": do you not see how absolutely everything would change?
This "making love" as essential spirituality means to "identify with the Holy One" in all of our thoughts, words, and actions: like in the throes of a passionate love affair: when everything is about the Beloved! To "identify" is to revolutionize! The Beloved is everyone and this precious blue Planet! If Yeshua the Poet said, "Love the One with all your being... and love your neighbor as yourself"... and... "Love one another as I have loved you"... and... "Beautiful are you poor!"... and... "How lacking in Beauty are you rich!"... and... "I was hungry and you fed me: welcome home!"... and... "Whatever you do to the very least person on Earth, you do to me!"... and... "Love your enemies!"... and... "Beautiful are you who show mercy!": then this is exactly who you want to be, right? If Yeshua is your Divine Lover then you automatically want to identify with him and his message, right? To live as a devotee of the Divine, the One Love Consciousness, that was localized in Yeshua is to become a radical living worship.
Finally, deep sensuality and essential spirituality is to advance in the condition of remembrance and offering. Rev. Ellen Grace O'Brian teaches a summarized version of the Perennial Philosophy: "1. It is. 2. We are It. 3. We forget. 4. We remember." This is the path of Oneness. Remembrance is facilitated by mindfulness, by meditation, by kindness, by the pursuit of eco-reverence, and by the practices of feminist consciousness, justice, and peace. As we remember our sacred divinity, and work to create the conditions for everyone to fully develop and to likewise remember, we are offering the fruits of our efforts and labor to the Holy One, the One Love Consciousness... This is the way of an awakened life!
Now, what do you think? How do you feel in pondering these words of "deep sensuality as essential "good earth" spirituality"? What practices of yours do you think might be helpful to others? Are you interested in forming a Sacred Circle? What does the "Divine Feminine" mean to you? Perhaps through your comments on the "Contact" page, we might have a conversation! Blessings to All!
