Spirituality and Sexuality: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Have you ever looked back on your own life and not quite believed how you got what you always wanted?  And I don’t mean the things we achieve or set out to “get” through hard work and determination.  I mean those things which come to you from a state of being.

We all suffer from ego.  While the ego plays a critical role in keeping us alive, helping us to navigate society, coping with our internal traumas, it also plays an insidious role in hiding us from our own shadows.

I am just as capable of wishful thinking as the next person.  Just as capable of telling stories, of bending the truth to make me look better.  Or rather, even more, to make me feel better.  And what a disservice it does to me, to those around me.  A temporary thrill?  A sugar high?

This kind of behaviour and thinking shows up most when we are trying to impress people.  And what a sad thing to do.  As if by impressing people they will desire us more.  But we have also all known someone like that, and invariably think how boorish they are.  Or worse, deluded, narcissistic.  Take your pick.

But we still do it ourselves.  I do.  Why?  Do I somehow believe that I am so good at dissimulating that nobody will notice how boastful I am?  Gross.

What do they say about ego death?  That we are confronted by our own filth.  There is no Band-aid to tear off, unfortunately.  It is rather a long, drawn-out process.  

What is this post about? 

I found myself in a situation with a group of attractive women having sex with all of them.  We are not swingers, I am not a swinger, it was not a swinging event or even a sex party.  This is not your fantasy.  It is not mine either.    And yet, if I could imagine a fantasy from the future looking back, this was what it might feel like.  

It was pretty innocent, at least to start.  A previous version of me might have fantasised about what unfolded, but would have never found myself in the situation I ended up in.

And it is counterintuitive to stop wanting things and to just let life take its course.  And no, it doesn’t help to take this idea and think, “if I do that, then I will get what I want.”  After all, that is just as bad as the starting point, or perhaps worse.

And I think how genuinely hard it is to let go.  I was invited to something recently that old, needy me would have never been invited to.  Not because I was less interesting, but because letting go of ulterior motives is what truly makes us interesting.  And that means that certain aspects of life become aimless.  Drifting.

These words we might say have a negative connotation.  But they don’t.  At least not in this context.  What happened.  I was walking down the hall on my way to a shower and a group of women who I didn’t know particularly well invited me to shower with them as I walked by.  What followed was straight out of an erotic movie.  I barely knew them.  It happened because I was in my genuine power, a non-needy, ego-dead version of myself.

And there is a powerful life lesson here for me.  The Ego is always there.  Ready to pounce, take over, insert itself.  It takes real vigilance to simply be with people as you, naked and free of neediness, of a desire to put hooks in people.

I noted to someone who is a sister and fellow traveller that we had never played together despite having both noted that we would like to.  Her response was that I was being needy.  My immediate reply was, “no, not needy, just observing.”  There is truth to my desire to play with her.  But also a belief that it doesn’t matter.

After, I noticed her looking at me several times from across the room.  Pensive.  I had made her think.  And me knowing that I am not fantasizing about her, having romantic dreams, tells me that I am in my truth.

And when we are in our truth, what happens, happens.  And what doesn’t happen was not meant to happen.  Other things will take its place.

And what can I say about all this?  We can let go, not to get more, or for a specific outcome, but to recognise that the process of life itself is the destination, the meaning, the purpose.  And how we feel about it, our joy, is directly dependent on the unexpected joy of receiving what we want without ever having wanted it.