Modern Day Tantra

I've just been looking at some modern tantric teachers, because I've got some sexual blocks and relationship blocks, and am looking for ways to deal with and heal these things.

It's a mixed bag. There is truth mixed in with untruth, which is always a dangerous combo. All I know is, my inner voice tells me to steer clear. Which is sad, for mr. happy.

Here is the basic dichotomy I face, dealing with modern tantrics:

Sex in general, as it's dealt with today, is generally a spiritual no-no. There is definitely spiritually awesome, God approved sex. And it's the best sex you'll ever have, far and away, because it's not just a physical thing, but a union of all levels of two people. But that's not too common.

Repression of sexuality, is also a spiritual no-no. And whereas meaningless sex is kind of a wast of time, sexual repression is a serious problem that can lead to deep imbalances and suffering.

I'm looking for the balance point, and I think it might not be halfway between the two ends of the sex spectrum, but up on the Y axis of me just being authentic with myself. I think people who say all sex is good and you should have as much of it as possible, are very unbalanced, but just as unbalanced are those that say sex is a bad bad thing and should never be done out of wedlock. That's retarded. I can't express how retarded that is.

"Marriage" as a legal or religious institution is a hollow shell of something real and organic that has been forgotten long ago. Fuck the law. I guess it's necessary, cus our relationships are so screwed up, people who marry each other end up often hating each other's guts and need police officers to make sure the money is divided up properly. I guess I need to give a bit of respect to the current systems, as "the worst system out there, except all the others." that is, it's pretty fucked up, but so are we, and that's why it's in place.

That said, the system is for the median of the population, minus the 20 years it takes for the law to change. But individuals should remember that as they grow and exceed the evolution of the median, they should not lower there spiritual IQ by following general consensus. I think there's something to be said for lifetime pair bonding. However, having a law constrain someone else to behave how you want them to, is stupid. If the only thing stopping your significant other from pursing sex with other people is a law, then you've got some basic problems with the relationship. You shouldn't need a law for that, in a functional relationship.

Now, I'm sure true Tantra can work for enlightenment, via sex. I don't think I've heard from a true tantric master though. And that means, mixed in with the truth of what is being taught, is egoic desires. Which is fine and business as usual, as long as they are honestly recognized as egoic desires, attachements, stuff that needs work, needs healing, needs light. But when you use your spirituality to say those issues are "ok", then you've just diverged from the path of truth, and taken a side trip down ego-penis lane. Which, hey, fine, if that's what you want to do, enjoy the trip.

But I don't want to divert from truth.

And frankly, it's not super appealing, at this point, because it is crystal clear to me, at this point in my growth, that there ain't anything in this world that's going to make me happy in that deep sense my heart longs for. Whether it's the craziest orgasm you can imagine, or being worshiped as a sexual god. Hey, shit, that would be fun, no doubt. But, like everything, it would get old. For some people, that takes a while, maybe years. For me, usually a few seconds is enough.

Now, I can enjoy things. But that is secondary to my inner state. Which is determined not by what I'm enjoying, but by what I'm believing. By the inner parts of me that are hurting, constantly. And no outer thing is going to make those inner parts change. It will at best feed them, for a while, or maybe make them find a different thing to feel bad about.

Look at people at the top of the world, physically, financially, etc, and you'll see a lot of unhappy people. maybe even more than average.

There's still a voice in me that says, "go have sex with hot women, then you'll be happy." The difference between now and five years ago is, I'm clear now, that this voice is mistaken.

What is it we are really looking for? What is it we are really afraid of?

You have to answer this question for yourself, but when I look for it, there is a deep, deep as time itself, yearning for something truly meaningful. For something full of love and gratitude and kindness. For something beautiful. And the fear is one of meaninglessness. Emptiness.

That is not something a new toy can give me, it's only something I can give me. It's like, the problem's not in the object seen, it's in the lens. I've got vaseline on my glasses, and I'm looking for some tasty food. I see sex, and that looks tasty, the way the vaseline warps it, but I try some and it's good, but not filling, and I look at other stuff and it looks really gross. When I wipe my glasses clean, I see that everything before me is part of a delicious feast, and I am full because everything within arms reach nourishes me.

This is the phrase: the wise are content with that which comes to them, unasked.

Simply, you are able to enjoy, appreciate, whatever comes to you, in life. And in that state, you can be established in perfect integrity with yourself, because there is nothing specific that you want so much you are willing to give up integrity to get it. Which means your life gets to feel fulfilling and meaningful and 'right'.

well, it's late and I've got a big day tomorrow.

love, to all you random voyeurs out there. And to my friends.

i

I'm tired

it's been a busy week. lots of adventures. but I'm not going to tell you them now, because I want to sleep 40 minutes ago.

instead I will say what is on my mind:

I'm tired of reading/hearing advice from people who have not lived what they suggest. People like me. it pisses me off. And they even want to make money off of there unproven ideas. It's akin to people who go up to directors and say, "hey I have this great script idea" (why don't you do all the hard work of turning it into a movie and then give me money if it's a success).

This is why I don't give people advice, unless they directly ask me for it. This is why this blog is not an advice column. It is a diary, a journal, of my attempts to live well. it is a relatively spotty, incomplete journal. perhaps I'll do something about that. frankly, I'm busy learning and living now, so that takes precedence for me.

I'm in a hurry. I want to get to a place of experience, somewhere that can really be deeply useful to the world. Some way of living that feels worthwhile. Any time I spend "teaching" before I get there is just fearful stalling via public masturbation. Sometimes I have conversations that could look like teaching, but I don't seek them out. It's just someone nature pushed in front of me because I have a bit of experience that would be useful to share with them. And I'm grateful for an opportunity to give, and to learn myself, because if I fail to learn at least as much as the person I'm helping, then I've been an unmindful student. Everyone and everything has things to teach you. And you know they have something to teach you right now when they show up in front of you.

Grandfather says, they best teacher always learns more than the student.

The lesson for today is:

what decides whether you have energy or are tired?

A dirty hobo for truth

someone heard that I was writing a lot, I guess from my parents, and sat down with me and told me about how to make money from a blog.

I listened, because they wanted to talk, but I wasn't personally interested, though i enjoy learning new things. This blog is not about making money. I don't have adds, and as far as I can tell, I don't have a place in the search engines. aside from a little link in my facebook profile, I have no idea how anyone would find this. In fact, I don't even tell my parents how to get on to this. I don't want them reading this.

Perhaps this is a hang-up, yeah, I think so, but I am violently opposed to the distribution and sale of spirituality. It makes me angry. Like prostituting out your children. You are taking something of immeasurable value, beyond money, and you are forcing it to do unnatural things, things it shouldn't do, for the sake of dollars and cents.

fuck that.

I will do manual labor for you, as long as I'm not exposed to hazardous chemicals. I will do mental labor for you, as long as it is not destructive to my creativity. I will not talk about spirituality with any purpose other than Truth, for any reason. Talking about these things is sacred to me. when you step into a room with me and talk about God, Truth, Reality, Good, we are in a holy communion, where no falsehood may be willingly uttered, at least by me. Remember Jesus physically throwing the money lenders out of the temple? That is how I feel about that matter.

I'm not actually against other people making there living via spirituality. I do not care what other people do, for the most part. Except when people force they're beliefs on others, or are violent, etc.

But as far as I'm concerned, money, if involved in spiritual pursuits in any way, must be totally subservient to the spiritual purpose. That is, I've got some directive from spirit, and I'm going to carry that out, and if money is required as a means, fine, but compromising morals based on money is totally out of the question for me.

I will not lie to you intentionally about anything related to the quest for God, Truth, Meaning, Joy. I will not throw in a link or name that I would not put in otherwise, with the hopes that you will make me money off it. I would rather live in the woods and live off grubs, or beg for my food.

It's not that you can't be integrious and deal with spirituality, its just that, it is so much easyier to distinguise the real from the fake by asking if they will do what they do, without any personal benifit to them, aside from the helping itself.

Removing possible alterior motives.

I cannot help but lie to you unintentionally, as I talk about this stuff, since I don't have the full picture.

I'm not doing this blog for my own ego masturbation. i don't spend enough time making this look good and polished, or deleting uninteresting entries. I'm trying to learn how to effectively express truth, and at the same time I am trying to uncover truth.

I think Gandhi had a quote to the effect of, "my God is Truth."

I relate.

Though my MO now moves more towards something like Love.

There are spiritual people who do it as a job, make money out of it, and are integrious.

but the very best, the hidden masters, cannot be paid for. cannot be bought.

another quote I heard somewhere, in regards to finding martial arts teachers: "in China, you pay in character. In America, you pay in cash."

With the best, the personal teachers, I strongly suspect that they will only accept the currency of character.

so if you want an ok teacher, do your research, and get your money ready. But if you want a great teacher, do your homework, and get yourself ready.

my intuition says here is one of the places where you cross the line into the miraculous.

Nutshells

I love the simplistic.

How I am these days:

I am overwhelmed by the gifts of the universe. I am given more abundance than I could ever earn. And yet as far as my vision goes, my development is at the state of a baby. maybe a year old, still crapping myself. And I want more. Much much more.


What I want:

Very simply, I want to be successful in action. Not in an egoic, anger or fear motivated way, but in a non egoic, perhaps love motivated way. Success in action in this case means being able to start something, and stick with it to it's conclusion and success, or mastery, and fully enjoy the process of doing it.


Other notes:

there seems to be something wrong with my basic definition of successful action, that is too subtle for me to grasp at this moment, though I feel like I have understood it briefly and forgotten it, many times. However, the paradigm I have now is at odds with the wisdom, and so I cannot live the wisdom currently, nor can I even remember it, on command.

This seems to always be the case with wisdom that slips from my mind like fine sand in one's hands. I am not living the wisdom, and so realizations of the wisdom are momentary, not established. Eventually they are lived, and they don't have to be thought about or remembered.

The "wrong" thing is something fundamental, like my whole world-view is upside down.


I just recently realized that my main motivating belief for the last ten years is not true. It is, to try to put it into words: I need to work on my issues for them to go away.
This is an egoic way of trying to get enlightened. It served me well for ten years, but it is now a hindrance. Embedded in this belief is the world view that I am responsible for "making" myself enlightened. I do not know what comes next. But it will be free-er, closer to Truth.

the begining of the new journey

I think the best way I could describe what some people called my 'awakening experience' three years ago is:
The beginning of the New Journey.

I do not know what it was in relation to all the various descriptors of progressing spiritual evolution. From various traditions. It only half-fits any of them. But from that point on, I have been walking half of a new path, searching for the other half.

Or you could say, walking the same path, in a new way.

many things changed with that, changed profoundly and for good. Some immediately, some gradually, as the initial shock wave reverberated throughout my psyche and my life.

And many things did not change. As I said, it feels like I walk half a path. If I was living in hell before, this is purgatory, journeying towards heaven.

It's lonely here, thus the title of the blog. The loneliness being unnecessary, but the distinct aloneness inescapable. No road, no map, no teacher, but my heart, my heart, my heart.

If I were to try to cram this into the description of "higher states of consciousness" that I am most familiar with, Maharishi's model, I would have to say that his description of Cosmic Consciousness to God Consciousness to Unity Consciousness, is not sequential but more simultaneous. Like the limbs of a baby growing. And even those limbs are external to something primary and indescribable by me, being in the midst of it and without perspective at the moment.

The one consolation I have from all this frightening uncertainty is that I know I am not making this up: this is not like anything I had imagined. This is not in anybody's maps. Though certainly many of the descriptions that other people gave and give of there journeys, are familiar. At least for now, more and more, where I'm going is becoming less and less known. No words I've heard prepare me for my next step.

I go into mystery. naked and alone, clutching my arms and shivering.

Nobody would do this unless they realized there was no other option, then nobody wouldn't.



and I would call my recent understanding of surrender, the beginning of finding the missing half. It's interesting, the only important ends I find are always beginnings. And mostly it's just cycles: up and down, clarity and confusion, happiness and depression. It seems useless to try and stop that wheel, demanding only the upstroke of the cycle. I don't spin that wheel, I can't stop it. My control is always indirect. I seek truth, I follow my heart, I surrender, and things improve. I try to control, and things deteriorate.

why wouldn't you surrender if you saw clearly that non-surrender accomplished nothing, and surrender accomplished everything?

Answer: because 'you' aren't in control of surrendering or not.

Don't act as if you have no control though. Your effort is extremely important on this path, though why and how, I do not comprehend. Grind your teeth and put in every ounce of yourself that you can into this, and pray passionately for the desire for realization that will drive you to put forth the effort necessary.

This sounds ballsy and manly, but it's not, in practice. Often what is required is not pushing yourself to extremes, but maintaining balance, and being honest.

bah. why listen to me? just a fellow traveler.

One for the Price of Two

I've just passed away.

The morning mists of the last remaining Connecticut forest clear, leaving their wet parting kiss of dew before disappearing, like all human life, into the light and heat of day. What can remain long when looked at by the unblinking eye of the Sun?

My Grandfather is dead. My Grandfather is alive. I've never seen anything die, but as society counts it, He is dead. I have trouble understanding the difference, though I know there is one. Maybe because I cannot hold his hand? But I can, I do. I feel his familiar squeeze back. Because I cannot see his face? But I see it reflected back in all those that deeply loved him. In pictures of him, in my own heart and mind.

Where has he gone?

A man goes to the store, leaves his dog at home. Thinks fondly of his living dog as he buys groceries. But the dog died as soon as the man left. Where is the death then? Where but in the head, in the thought, in the belief. In the man and not the dog.

Change I see, but death I've never met, save as the necessary first half of change. The second half being birth.

The Truth

If you are, like me, a devout seeker of Truth, you are going to have to spend a lot of time first getting to know Truth's slutty younger sister, Unknown. The Unknown is like the town bicycle, she's always available, everyone has been with her, and she never says no if someone wants more.

The Truth, on the other hand, is beyond your reach. She's busy with older guys, often orientals with large beards. Passing her in the hallway, you barely manege to mumble out a word of greeting with your face down, which she doesn't even hear. At night you have wet dreams joining with her and living happily ever after with your beautiful children Joy, Purpose, Power and Greatness.

In the morning you wake up with an False Concept in bed with you that the harsh light of day is not flattering to, and a sense of remorse for being unfaithful to your crush.

If you become friends with Unknown though, something very few have the courage to do, she will eventually introduce you to her sister, who it turns out is just an ordinary person after all. Your preconceptions of her shattered, you can finally become friends with Truth, the real Truth, not the idealized concept you had in your head.

She's extraordinarily needy and jealous, it turns out, and I'm starting to wonder if I can handle her. I suppose there's always her willing younger sister ;)