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Love & Relationship Why
Sex is Sacred Thanks to Tantra, the essential unity of sex and spirit seems so obvious to me that I almost forget the rest of the world doesn't necessarily see it that way. The Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan said, “Love is the sign of Spirit,” and to me this always included erotic love. When invited to give a talk on Sacred Sexuality, I realized I would have to find a way to explain this. Here is what I said: Why is sex sacred? The dictionary defines sacred as “made or declared holy, dedicated or devoted exclusively to a use, purpose, or person worthy of reverence or respect.” The word itself comes from the Latin 'sacra' meaning “sacred, holy, consecrated,” that is, blessed or revered. The noun (singular) is sacrum, meaning a holy thing or place. While patriarchal religions have defined sacred and spiritual as being separate from the body, from nature, and certainly from sex, the ancient roots of our language imply a different understanding. It is no coincidence that the word sacrum is also the anatomical term for the triangular bone at the base of the spine, the very place which Tantra tells us is the seat of the sleeping kundalini or Shakti energy. When aroused through Tantric practice, the kundalini rises up the spine to awaken the spiritual centers in the brain. So our language suggests that once upon a time, Western Civilization understood the sacred nature of sex. This wisdom was lost during the Inquisition, in fact, one might say that this was the purpose of the Inquisition: To create a cultural shift from sex as sacred to sex as sinful. Now it is time to return to the ancient wisdom of worshipping life rather than death. Sacred is understood differently in indigenous cultures where the concept of sacred is one of relationship rather than edict. In native cultures, humans, animals, plants, and especially the Earth herself are sacred because we are all part of the Whole. No one and no thing have to be proven worthy to be considered sacred. All of creation is inherently sacred because it is part of the interconnected web of ecology that sustains life. In this worldview, Earth is not only seen as sacred but as a living being. Sacred is a kind of awareness, not a function of ego, of the logical mind, but more of an intuitive or direct awareness of patterns running through everything around us. This is sometimes called synchronicity, or the Tao. Here is another meaningful coincidence! It just so happens that tantric lovemaking turns on the “Right” Brain - that part of the brain that perceives patterns. So we have two different ways of looking at the meaning of Sacred Sex which are totally complementary. Just as the love of the Mother and the love of the Father are complementary, the Western and the indigenous understanding of sacred are two sides of the same coin. Sacred Sexuality is a part of virtually every spiritual tradition around the world. Recently, elements of Tantra have been blended or fused with elements from Taoism, Native American, African, Christian, Pagan, and Jewish paths as a basis for re-visioning sexuality. In the pre-Christian view, sex is sacred simply because it's part of life. In the Christian view sex must be shown to be deserving of reverence. No problem! Here's why it's worthy! First, Sacred Sexuality, implies an awareness that sex is the inception of life, of all that is. Without the sexual act, none of us would exist. Sacred Sexuality acknowledges that our life force and our sexual energy originate from the same source. Sex is sacred because of its role in bonding. Mutually satisfying sexual exchanges naturally intensify bonding, but sex can take place without bonding if we're careful to keep our hearts closed. Sex opens the heart only if we bring the energy up. The Tantric attitudes of slowing down, awakening all of the senses, tuning in to subtle energy, letting go of judgment and blame, expressing gratitude for the gift of life, and savoring the present moment are wonderfully supportive tools for intimate relating. To bond with someone is to form an enduring connection - to feel a strong sense of mutual caring, intimacy, and appreciation. Not only is bonding critical to survival for many species, it supports health and happiness. What else could motivate us to overcome the difficulties we encounter in intimate relating? Sex is sacred because of its role in accessing peak experiences of love, oneness, and healing. Humans have an innate need for peak experiences of bliss, merging, and ecstasy. We have a deep longing for the (re)union of sex and spirit, for union with the Divine. Tantra and other paths of Erotic Spirituality teach us to embrace and honor the body as a temple of Spirit, rather than trying to deny our natural sexual impulses. So when we bless, purify, or honor the body as part of a sexual encounter, when we bond more deeply as a result of lovemaking, or when sexual union catapults us into higher consciousness, we make sex sacred. Deborah
Anapol, Ph.D., is the author of Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits.
Yoga
for Partnerships “There is no pain like relationship pain.” A modern-day yoga master made this statement in a talk in Europe. She said further: “Unless you find out who you are, there will be no end to this pain for you, not in this world and not in the next.” Several years ago a friend of mine who is a pastor in a very popular church in Harlem, NYC, came to visit me in Germany. A group of friends got together, and we had a wonderful dinner for him. It so happened that several couples were among us that night, and because they had heard about his beautiful and meaningful wedding ceremonies, the conversation very soon focused on the subject of why people are getting married. He laughed and said: “Mostly for the worst reasons, for example, because they want to be happy.” Everyone became silent. And he laughed some more and explained to us that if we really were in it for love and happiness, we would strive to uncover these inside ourselves. “To hope to get happiness and love from someone else is a guarantee for lots of pain and crises in relationships.” So why, why do we get together, what attracts us to each other? Many people wrote about this and will write about this. Some offer wise words, others witty concepts, like men and women are from different planets (so what?!) or, that we just bring our childhood abuses back to life to heal them in our adult intimate relationships. There is truth in all of these theories, but what are we to do with these truths? Why do we feel this pain, this despair, this longing, and most importantly, how do we reconcile these intense feelings in our hearts? Some of us, maybe wisely, give in and just accept the fact that there is no real long-term happy intimate relationship, some use strong religious rules to get along with each other. We strive for a good-old family happiness but statistics tell a different story: Only 20% of all families in the U.S. are mother-father-and-their-children families, the other 80%, most of us that is, are in many shades of mix-ups, of not-so-orthodox family makeup. Often these situations have arisen from partnerships which did not “work” (and quite often, with a lot of pain involved). Again, yoga tries to take the emphasis away from the partner and toward ourselves and the real roots of our attractions to certain people. How much of our partners do we really understand? How can we avoid being caught up in our world, our values, our expectations? If we could just understand what many of the ancient yogic texts have told us again and again: The world is as we see it. We create our own heaven and hell, our own saints and devils. Our own inner reality forms our experience of people around us. Sometimes this is so clear, so obvious (especially when others clearly just project their own “stuff” onto us!). Where do we go from there? Yoga guides us to inquire into what really brings us together. Our intimate partners are great servants for us (that is where the love really comes in) as they can make us aware of inner walls and limiting concepts which do not allow us to ever meet anyone in our hearts. We use them to point out to us our greatest fears and deepest longings. We use them to help us to get rid of our own limited self-awareness. We use them to free ourselves from painful patterns of behavior. So just getting out of a relationship in which we are really getting into the deeper issues of our own inner bondage is a sad step deeper into unhappiness. Of course that does not sound so great. But unless we have found out what led us into a certain relationship with experiences we cannot bear, we can be most certain to repeat our pattern of partnership choices. How can we get out of this cycle of pain? By finding out who we really are, by understanding how our own experience keeps producing similar results. We need to work on overcoming our own inner misunderstandings, our own powerful self-limitations. So unless you know what inside of you brought you into a certain relationship it makes no sense to move on to the next disaster. Without any knowledge about who you really are, about your own inner greatness and glory, there can never be a real meeting of hearts. Without inner stillness, our own inner jewel will not shine, lighting up all the hidden corners of our fears and thus eliminating them. Yogic practice will support your relationship, because it helps you to discover your own root of happiness and love in your own heart. Without that discovery, partnerships remain the greatest source of sorrow on this planet. The Yoga of Partnerships is the yoga of self-inquiry, of self-discovery, of great promise. Vamdev
Uwe Franz, has taught yoga and
New
Outlooks on Love The New Couple Maurice Taylor, M.A., and Seana McGee, M.A., a married couple, are psychotherapists specializing in couples counseling. They are internationally known relationship experts and founding directors of New Couple, Int'l., a seminar and lecture organization for couples and singles in Sausalito, California. Their book, The New Couple: Why the Old Rules Donšt Work and What Does, demonstrates how love should be in the 21st century. Today, most couples try to function with their egos out of control. The least obstacle or problem gets blown up into something more and more difficult, destroying communication and ultimately leading to divorce. Not realizing or understanding how they have contributed to this situation, they go off in search of exactly the same kind of relationship, where they will repeat the same mistakes. Then what is happening? Disillusioned, people blame “bad luck.” We know that we should not be looking outside of ourselves or our relationships to try to find something better. If we keep hoping to find a relationship that will be like a utopia from some Hollywood movie, we are definitely living in an illusion. It's good to remember that no relationship is ever truly acquired, that we must work every day to preserve the couples relationship. A good relationship or marriage requires quite a bit of hard work. This is one of the biggest accomplishments we can achieve in our spiritual evolution. Another key is balance. The authors show how because we are not perfect, perfect relationships do not exist. Instead of condemning each other for our differences, we can adopt an attitude based on love and compassion. Then, we will associate the differences as positive, bringing to the matrimonial relationship a perfect balance. One of the signs of a good relationship is when you keep your individual identity. Too many people lose their own identity when they get lost in the dynamics of being in a couple. Some actually seek a relationship in order to define themselves, which is unhealthy. For a happy and harmonious marriage, the authors advise us to stay true to ourselves, to keep the channels of communication open at all times, and to apply a realistic view of life. We keep coming back to the same answers that work in all areas of our lives: a constructive and positive attitude can resolve any problem. By changing our own perceptions, we automatically “change” the person who is close to us. This book is a real pleasure, offering sound, practical advice. I recommend The New Couple as a perfect book to read or to give as a gift for Valentine's Day. Elders on Love Elders on Love, by Kenneth R. Lakritz, Ph.D. and Thomas M. Knoblauch, Ph.D., is also a book that I recommend as a gift or for reading on Valentine's Day. It expresses how love can accomplish anything, whether it's love in the romantic or sexual sense, or if it's other levels of love, such as spirituality and the love we feel for family. In this book, written by two clinical psychologists, men and women from different social, professional, and religious backgrounds, and from different generations, talked about what love is and how it should be expressed. The stories are particularly rich, and the diversity of experiences adds to the interest. For example, here's what one man said about love: “Take a chance. Tell somebody of your love. Don't miss an opportunity to express love. Maybe you won't see that person again, but expressing that love could really influence both your lives for a long, long time. Be brave, take a chance, and tell somebody of your love. If somebody says 'I love You,' or expresses love, or is kind to you, receive it. Don't be suspicious of love. Just accept it and see what happens.” In this refreshing approach to the subject of love, the authors present the wisdom of each interviewee. The main message of the book is that it's important to express love. In order to do so more freely, we need to learn how to put aside our fears (especially our fear of appearing silly), our egos, and our frustration. Some people also need to give up their resistance to being happy and their resistance to accepting love. The authors vividly demonstrate how love creates miracles, and love is everywhere, all kinds of love: romance, as well as love that expects nothing in return, unconditional love, and universal love. I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to understand love better. Marie-Claire
Wilson, author of the Spiritual Tarot:
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