Is Sacred Sex Possible?

Is Sacred Sex Possible?

This seems to be an interesting question. It is certainly not a trivial question.

I should note that I conjecture that true sacred sex will be the most pleasurable form of sex. That said, if you make that pleasure your goal, it will tend to elude you. Making your partner's pleasure a goal, however, may often move you in the correct direction. I suspect that when sex truly becomes sacred it is totally secondary to either a profound sharing of love, a mystical experience or very likely both.

I also suspect that the general classification of sacred sex can take a multitude of forms. Several possibilities were explored in my story "Driving in Snow," but I expect that there are many others which I haven't even considered. I am very open to suggestions here, especially if you are actually speaking from experience.

It needs to be pointed out that the spiritual viewpoint expressed in "Driving in Snow," incomplete as that description is, represents my present understanding of how the universe actually works and our place in it.

Central to that is the idea that we are spiritual beings, ultimately the divine in disguise, having the experiences that unfolds the universe. This is one way, probably a very inadequate way, of describing divine purpose. At the level of soul it becomes a growth process. Just as we as humans grow and develop from year to year the soul grows and develops from lifetime to lifetime. Thus living can be viewed as experimenting in a laboratory, creating in an artist's studio or inventor's workshop, both learning and teaching in a classroom and last but not least playing in a playroom. We tend to make much more spiritual progress when we start to view all of life including sex in these terms. Sexual activity is far more than just playing in a playroom.

I generally do not view that divine as a God who is a person, although that concept/simplification is very useful for much of our journey and for much of what happens here. Instead I see a more abstract something which seems to be both pure intelligence and pure love. A divinity which defies description or explanation but something which, if we are very fortunate, very open to it, can be experienced.

The vast majority of stories on the Literotica website contain descriptions of sex acts and most of them lead to orgasm. None of those descriptions capture what an orgasm really is. That can only be experienced. If you haven't had one, no explanation is possible and if you have then no explanation is necessary. The same is true of the mystical experience.

It seems that there are some definite similarities between the two.

Some of the Tantric literature talks about meditating during sex. I never tried to do that and I don't remember it ever becoming that although it seems to me that sometimes the sex act has been almost a meditation. Likewise I don't think I've ever had one cross over into a conscious mystical experience. I will not rule out a subconscious one however.

When we are at orgasm we are generally totally in the moment, in the experience.

We aren't thinking about it, that comes later. The same tends to often, but not always, be true of the mystical experience.

I have had a number of mystical experiences in my life. Most are very calm and serene. Often very intense at another level. One early one (1963) was different. I don't really remember many details now other than that it was something extraordinary and put me into a state of tremendous awareness which lasted three days. Three days of calm understanding which I felt at the time was so obvious that I could not understand how I had ever missed it or how the people around me weren't seeing it too. There was a strong sense of beauty - An awareness of the perfection of the world, just as it is. At the time I assumed it would be permanent - It wasn't. There was power in this awareness, psychic power. When I was in this state I tried to share it but as much as you try and mystics do try, it is always beyond words. The explanations become riddles and paradoxes. At their best they are poorly put hints.

However, I found some notes from that period where I described the beginning of this event as being: "...like an orgasm but more intense, more pleasant, and it lasted half an hour." As I said above: "If you make that pleasure your goal it will tend to elude you."

It may be that both the sexual experience and the mystical experience are operating with differing aspects of the same spiritual energies. If we view the material world as Maya, illusion, then sexual activity can draw us deeper into that illusion or it can provide a means of piercing that illusion.

For many people an orgasm is as close as they ever get to a true spiritual experience.

A central part of the ordinary human experience is feeling incomplete, alone and lonely. We seek to be whole, to be one with what we are missing. This longing seems to be met when we 'fall in love' but that generally turns out to be a temporary phenomena, the romance fades. Likewise the sex act masks this longing. Almost any sex act does this to some extent but the more loving the act the greater the effect.

Thus a sex act may actually be a symbolic version of a more profound answer. It may be that, as personality, what we really want is to be in connection with our soul and ultimately through that to be in connection with "that which is" as universe, as cosmic consciousness and/or as divinity.

This connection is really always there, It is the real structure of the universe but we generally operate from a perspective where this connection becomes invisible.

I find generally that I see both the soul and all the structures above it as being asexual (neither male, female, or having any real interest in those divisions - other than as a tool.) but there was a time many years ago where I played with a different image. I saw myself, as a male, as having a Goddess within just as women each have a God within. In this context having sex becomes, at its best, the man making love with his Goddess within mirrored by his partner while she is making love to her God within mirrored by the man. Wow.

Nonetheless there does seem to be a distinction between male and female forms of spiritual energy. These are often called Yin and Yang. These two energies are actually in perfect balance in the universe as is represented by the Taoist symbol of the Yin Yang where each is pushing into the other, each is yielding to the other and each has a bit of the other at its center.

Namaste is a common greeting in India and means "I salute the divinity at the center of your being." Sex at its best can become a very intense way of saying "Namaste."

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Tantra is treating everything as sacred. This is using the ordinary as a way to attain the extra-ordinary, the mundane to find the supra-mundane. It is also using the senses to get past the senses. This comes out of a tradition which sees man not as sinner but as disguised divinity. Thus the process is one of discovering or perhaps remembering our true nature. Tantra is not an easy path or necessarily a joyful one - especially in the early stages. It is not easy to see all the pain and suffering in our lives as sacred too and embrace it lovingly. Eventually however we may see the purpose of these things and find that the pain just falls away.

The human experience is played out over much more than a single lifetime. We have total free will throughout the process and yet we keep being offered exactly what we need. Sometimes what is offered will be painful, sometimes joyous and sometimes both or sometimes neither. Most of the action is occurring over multiple lifetimes and we shift roles such that everything is balanced at the end. The personality does not reincarnate, the soul does but each personality is shaped by all of our past experience, particularly by our recent experience and especially by our outstanding karma.

As an aside, this provides an explanation for homosexuality. Souls can reincarnate as either sex but will often have a string of lives as one sex or the other. The first opposite lifetime will still feel the energy of having been the other sex. At some places in the spiritual journey it will be proper and indeed helpful to embrace one of the various gay/lesbian/etc. lifestyles and at other times it will be best to avoid them. As in most of life there are no simple answers here. This is another call to be mindful.

As we become aware of the larger picture we find that we travel in groups and we often (I suspect usually - if not almost always.) manage to find each other. It is generally safe to assume that everyone who is significant in your life is someone you have known before and at least part of your interactions are shaped by past life events. There are often karmic ties between parents and the people their children are dating or otherwise in relationships with.

Generally, we bring some amount of past life baggage but that baggage can be pleasant as well as painful. That baggage often takes the form of karma. For most of our spiritual journey karma, the unfinished story, that which we have unbalanced, that which looks like debts and credits but really isn't, will predominate. At other times our mission will come to the fore. Sometimes the mission is quite mundane, such as being the parent of a specific other soul, or helping another soul with a specific lesson and at other times the scope may be more expansive, all the way to world changing. As we setup a new lifetime we often collaborate with one or more other souls about what we want to accomplish in the next lifetime. The soul or souls know the mission but the personalities, in general, do not. The personality does receive hints from the soul but is free to ignore or misinterpret those hints. Usually these hints are quite subtle and give us no reason to believe that they are hints about our mission. Both our fears and our fascinations often have a past life/ karmic/ dharmic basis.

One thing about karma. Most of the time we are creating much more 'good' karma, if we want to characterize it that way, than 'bad' karma. However, we tend to burn it off mindlessly while being much more aware of and mindful about our negative karma. Life is much more beautiful when we decide to live mindfully, all the time.

Another aspect to all of this is that when we first step into a path of spiritual awareness we sense the power in it and the love. There is a tendency to believe that everything is now going to work out just fine, our problems will all disappear. In reality it is working just fine but our problems have not disappeared. Sometimes they seem to get worse. Our problems are often our tools of spiritual exploration - we need them. Also our soul is aware of our karmic imbalances, they are uncomfortable for the soul. As we move onto a spiritual path the soul tries harder to clear karma because it knows we can now do so even though we haven't developed the wisdom to clear it painlessly. This aspect is generally quite temporary.

Our missions are each unique, as different 'as day and night.' Sex is often a way of bringing us together with those we need to work with. Our employment is another. I believe that most marriages, in fact most relationships in general, are karmic workshops. Sometimes we resolve our karmas and sometimes we add to them.

The interactions may be lifelong or they may be quite short. They may be very intense or not. If they are karmic in nature they may or may not be loving. Dharmic relationships are more apt to be very loving but not always sexual. At the level of soul it is all loving but the personality often won't see that.

When we meet for the first time as personalities there is often some level of subconscious recognition. Sometimes that recognition is conscious instantaneously and sometimes it develops over time.

Note: We do choose our parents but younger souls receive a great deal of help and guidance in making their decisions while older souls have great freedom in their choices. Older souls do not necessarily have easier lives than younger ones.

Different soul ages will have very different goals in terms of how they live their lives. Young souls like to make lots of karma as a learning tool while old souls want to minimize karma generation. Sometimes an old soul will just want to tie up their loose ends and leave the human classroom behind. At other times an old soul will be working to advance the spiritual growth either of the individuals he or she is interacting with or reaching out to be more general. Some old souls are here strictly to act as teachers and guides. Be thankful if you have one in your life.

We find that we really love all the souls we are traveling with and that fear and hate are just part of the illusion, created to make the game more interesting. This is a subtle point but an important one: Souls will often volunteer to take on a painful role as a way of helping another soul in their journey. At the highest levels of our being we are actually all one anyway.

Sex comes into this picture as a powerful force to 'stir the pot.'

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So, what is sacred sex? That question can be answered many ways, but one answer is something like this (from "Driving in Snow"):

The conversation slowly morphed into a discussion of sex and some aspects of it's role in a spiritual universe.

Connie [who, at this point, is a virgin] was surprised by this discussion. All she had ever been told related sex with sin. The idea that sex, especially sex outside of marriage, could be sacred was new to her.

She asked: "Just what is sacred sex?"

I answered: "Having sex in a way that increases your spiritual awareness and/or that of your partner."

Connie responded: "That simple?"

Mary replied: "If only it were that simple."

I said: "If you can really see your partner as a spiritual being in human form and see sex as a way of expressing love for that being, as a way of honoring that being then this can create a profound connection between self as personality and self as spirit. Perhaps I can put it better by saying: Creating an awareness of the unity between self as personality and self as spirit, self as divinity.

A big part of this is intention. If you approach the act as a celebration of life, a celebration of self and partner as spiritual beings, even as Gods or united as God, then it can and does become sacred. For most people however the shift to considering self as spirit, becoming aware of self as spirit, is a huge leap. The energy of Eros can push in that direction or act to block it according to our true intention.

A funny story, in some ways perhaps a tragic one: I once called my first love a 'Goddess' and she objected saying: 'Oh, Don't put me on a pedestal.' She said it in a way that I felt attacked such that I did not or maybe could not explain that I was calling her a Goddess because she was making me feel like a God. I think that at that time I was feeling Godlike more as a recognition of Godlike power rather than Godlike virtue, Godlike wisdom, Godlike Teh. Maybe if I had had even a little more wisdom I would have been able to explain where I was coming from. Maybe if I had been able to explain this it would have changed our dynamic in a way that would have allowed us to stay together, maybe not. Small things often have large consequences.

I need to make a point here: Virtue is very different from morality. Virtue is based in love while morality is based in fear. That fear may be as fear of God as judge or as fear of what others will think of you or of what you will think of yourself. But ultimately, morality is doing what man says is appropriate. Virtue is doing what our soul knows is appropriate and with full acceptance of the consequences. Teh is living to the highest in our nature. Teh makes all of life sacred, specifically including sex if we so choose. Remember: Sex symbolizes creativity and creation. It also is a powerful way of expressing love."

This increase in spiritual awareness will often take the form of a conscious mystical experience. I have even experienced waking visions of past lives - very like dreams but I was wide awake. At other times it may be quite subtle. Sometimes new insights will show up as 'knowings,' new knowledge which appears almost as memories.

The first time I saw my first love nude was both a sexual experience and a mystical one but I did not recognize the mystical part at the time, only a very strong feeling of love for her.

Sacred sex is first and foremost a celebration of life and a celebration of love. It is reaching to touch the best in the beloved with the best in self. In this the sex as sex is just a tool, a means to a greater end, a means to create beauty.

An interesting thought: What is God? God is that which creates beauty.

In my story Matt experienced a different form of psychic sex with each of the three sisters. I've never experienced any of them, except in my imagination, although I do believe that that kind of thing does occasionally really happen. If it does, it can lead to huge increases in spiritual awareness. It can also be a trap if you then think of yourself as special, as someone extra holy. The point becomes that we are indeed holy but so is everybody else. Likewise it can draw you deeper into the illusion or help you penetrate it.

Yet (again from "Driving in Snow" with Matt speaking on his last night in the Wells home):

I talked about all that had happened and what was likely to follow, how the feelings of euphoria, of bliss would fade away, we would go back to normal. Later the psychic stuff was likely to fade away too, but that the love was real, our history together was real, and how this week had made me much more aware in terms of experience that I was really a spiritual being living as a human, how we were all spiritual beings working together, loving together to unfold a beautiful experience.

We continued discussing how we were becoming aware of how this lifetime fit into a much larger picture. We were starting to appreciate the incredible beauty of that larger picture.

...

I pointed out that: "Tantra is ultimately about using sensation to move past sensation. As wonderful as Tantric sex is eventually we need to let it fall away but that we should not try to get past it by force of will. Instead when we, as personality, become sufficiently integrated with the upper parts of our being, it will cease to be important. Eventually it may just fall away effortlessly.

Exploring past lives can be very helpful. It can explain a great deal and by so doing heal a great many emotional wounds. There can be great beauty in seeing the larger picture but only if you can look at your past with detachment. There can be a huge trap in getting caught up in past life guilt.

The girls seemed comfortable with all of this but Mary seemed to be in overload. Mary was playing with some past life guilt.

I responded: "Remember that a past life is a different personality and it is the personality that makes the choices which creates the karma. Our present personality is different, even though it may be shaped by the sum of all of our past lives. We need to look at the choices made by past lives with compassion, but with detachment, and understand that karma is not punishment but a chance to choose again, to choose more wisely, a chance to restore balance. We do not suffer now because of bad karma, karma only sets the stage. We suffer now because of the choices we are making now. We are free to choose to live without suffering. Doing that, however, means being in complete sync with our soul and our soul's purpose. If and when we achieve that complete synchronization we don't need to be here anymore. Until we get there, different choices merely mean different future problems to face. We need to remember: What the personality sees as a problem, the soul sees as a project, a way to explore and by exploring grow in wisdom. So there is no need for guilt."