You harbor extreme likes or dislikes for people you barely know .Getting rid of projection is critical if you want to be able to tell true love
from false, as either the giver or the receiver . Projection always hides a feeling you don’ t want to look at. If you examine any negative trait you insist is present in anothe r person,
you will find the same trait hidin g in yourself. The more you deny this trait,
the more strongly you will have  to project it. Thus if you habitu ally defend
yourself before being accused, you feel guilty . That guilt needs  to be faced
in order to stop the projection. If you feel that the man or woman you love
is consta ntly looking at others with sexual interest, you are the one who
cannot be trusted. If you think your boss secretly hates you, look at the
possibility that you have hidden rage against authority . The following
exercise is a good step toward honest self-evaluation. Make a list of three people whom you intensely dislike, disapprove of, or
have had strong  conflicts with. Put down four qualities for each that you
find most of fensive. A typical list might look like this:
Father -in-law:  arrogant, greedy , small-minded, bullheaded
Boss : unfair , temperamental, unappreciative of my work, inef ficient
Hitler:  sadistically cruel, hateful, prejudiced, fanatical
Now look at the list, and for each trait say, “I acted like that when I . . .”
Finish the sentence with an example of your own behavior . When were you
arrogant? When  were you greedy? The point is not to wallow in self-
criticism but to bring home feelings that need reclaiming instead of
displacing them onto others. If you have been honest with your list, you will find it very difficult to
finish some sentences. Hitler ’s sadism, for example, may seem far removed
from your behav ior, or your boss’s unfairness in not promoting you may be
too fresh a wound. But by persevering you will discover that what you hate
most in others you most strongly deny in yourself. This is a spiritual truth
that we try to evade by projecting, blaming, and making excuses for
ourselves. When you are able to see yourself in what you hate, you come
closer to realizing that you contain everything, as befits a child of spirit.OceanofPDF .comIN OUR LIVES
Cinderella for Sale
THE FIRST DAY that Dana came  to work for Stephen, a spark passed between
them. Fifteen years older than she and a highly successful plastic surgeon,
Stephen didn’ t stand on ceremon y. He told Dana that she didn’ t have to call
him “Doctor” unless a patient was present, and when he asked about her
background, he showed flattering interest. Dana had returned to
technicians’ school in her midtwenties. This was her first job since
graduation, and the fact that Stephen offered her a generous pay package
increased her eagerness to work for him. Within a month he asked her for a date. Dana was nervous, afraid that the
other women in the office would  be antagonized, but Stephen put on a full-
court press. After dinner at a fine French restaurant, he sent flowers the next
morning. More dates followed , and although Dana found it difficult to
warm up to an older man as a romantic partner , she had to agree with him
that age is only in your head. Being around her seemed to make Stephen
young again, as he was fond of telling Dana. But regardless of the good it
did him, Stephen made sure that his wooing put Dana in the spotlight. He sent flowers to her apartm ent nearly every day, and bought her
expensive jewel ry, which at first Dana was embarrassed to accept; she gave
in only because her refusal caused Stephen such obvious pain. In time they
made the transition to sexual partners. Stephen was an attentive lover ,
although Dana got the impressio n he would be sensitive to any criticism or
even suggestion  about his performance. She therefore was more passive and
compliant than she would have been with another man—it seemed a small
sacrifice to make. Stephen had grown children by his first marriage, which had taken place
in medical school. Neither of them seemed eager to meet Dana, who was
little more than ten years older than Stephen’ s son, a freshman in college.Stephen’ s divor ce had been granted three years before, but Stephen had
little to say about his first wife, even when asked for detai ls. Nothing
seemed to exist for him outside Dana, and she couldn’ t help but be
immensely flattered. They had met in June, and by early autumn a wedding date was set for
Christmas. After buying Dana a huge engagement ring, Stephen urged her
to buy the best of everything for the ceremony . They planned a lavish
honeymoon in Paris—or rather , Stephen planned it and sprang the news on
Dana. She was a little distresse d by not having been consulted , but it was
hard to utter the slightest complaint in the face of Stephen’ s overwhelming
generosity . The bubble didn’ t burst all at once. The first hint that something went
wrong came when Stephen gave Dana an exercise video for tightening the
muscles of her bottom—women were prone to softness there, he said, even
when they looked as sensational as Dana. A week later he nonchalantly
asked if she had ever considere d having a little corrective surgery. Despite
herself, Dana was shocked—she had no intention of letting Stephen make
her over . Stephen backed of f, but he was clearly displeased. W alking around
a corner in the office the next day, Dana overheard a receptionist remark,
“Looks like Cinderella is in for a little liposuction.” She acted as if she
hadn’ t heard it, but doubts had begun to creep in. They had their first fight when Dana broke down and related the snide
remark to Stephen, who got furious and threatened to fire the receptionist
on the spot. “I don’t think that’s the point,” Dana said. “I’m afraid you don’t
want me unless you get to turn me into someone I’m not.” She knew all too
well where her face and figure fell short of ideal, but how important was
that to him? Stephen evaded the question and treated her coldly  for the rest
of the day. When Friday came, the night they usually spent together, he said
he was too busy, but Dana got the distinct impression he was withholding
sex to punish her . The comparison to Cinderella was an apt one, but there was to be no
fairy-tale ending. A week before they were to be married, Dana accidentally
pressed the wrong phone button at the office, only to overhear Stephen
talking to another woman. The tone of his voice and the subject of the
conversation left no doubt that they were on intimate terms. Terribly hurt,
Dana walked out of the office and never came back. She refused to takeStephen’ s calls, which quickly stopped. He protested that he still loved her,
but Dana thought it sounded like an act to preserve his self-image. When he
lamented how much money would be lost if they didn’ t go throu gh with the
ceremony , she burst into tears and hung up. Stephen never called again. On the surface it would be difficult to imagine a courtship that came
closer to the romantic ideal. Far more than most men, Stephen had the
means and the desire to sweep a woman off her feet. He made Dana feel
special and important, lavishing  all his attention on her. But lovely as it
seemed, this courtship had little to do with love and almost nothing to do
with trust. What was really happening? The key word here is image. Stephen was mainly interested in enhancing
his self-image as a magician who could turn ordinary women into
goddesses. Not only did he do this professionally but in personal
relationships he had to be the star—he would probably have tried to
“correct” the looks of the most beautiful woman on earth given the chance. His paying court, from the gifts to the sex, was a performance; Dana was
quite right not to utter the slightest criticism of his sexual abiliti es, since he
would have reacted badly . If they had gotten married, he would have lost
interest in her and gone on to have affairs. One has only to note how
completely he had excluded his first wife from his life to realize how much
he needed new conquests to support his inflated self-image. The only way Dana could have succeeded with Stephen would have been
to allow  herself to be bought; fortunately , her sense of self was based not on
image but on her feelings. Bein g swept off her feet never felt quite real. Young as she was, she could tell that Stephen wasn’ t interested in
connecting with her inner self and that he was even less interested in
sharing his own. In a way this story describes almost the perfect courtship—all we have to
do is reverse everything that happened in it. A perfect courtship unfolds like
a flower , as each partner becom es more comfortable exposing their inner
world. It is a shared experie nce, with decisions made mutually and
boundaries respe cted. One partner doesn’ t try to push the other beyond their
boundaries, knowing that stretching a boundary is a gradual, delicate matter . The essence of courtship is communion, which this one totally lacked. As hurt as she was, Dana was also secretly relieved that the wedding to
Stephen didn’ t come off. Being turned into Cinderella had not fulfilledinner needs that I would call spiritual. Spiritually we all need things such as
forgiveness, love, and compassion, but before any of these can be realized,
we need  to satisfy the most basic spiritual need: support on our path. You
cannot expect another person to immediately understand your experiences
as you enter into new and often confusing stages of spirituality , but if
sharing is to take place, you must build a basis for satsang. This basis must
include equality , sensitivity , and communication. Equality . Being seen as equally important to your partner is a right many people
cannot assert. Because we are all unequal in terms of intellige nce, status,
money , skills, and talents, these factors can become dominant in a
relationship. A woman may feel, as Dana did, that the man who courts her
has earned so many of life’s advantages that she should be grateful for his
success. The happiness she could expect in such a marriage, however ,
would have little spiritual validity . In spirit everyone is equal. This isn’t just an abstract concept; it is the one
perception that can overcome ego. If I feel superior to you, my superiority
is roote d in self-image. A self-image based upon money , for example,
would make me think that I should be appreciated for all I have  given you,
which puts you at a disadvantage, since your own right to be appreciated
doesn’ t have a comparable basis . When Stephen took Dana to an expensive
restaurant, he put himself on a superior footing in his eyes. Thus he was
protected from any criticism she might make, giving himself the right to
say, “Look at what I’m providing. How can you be unhappy with me?”
Equality isn’t based upon external factors or images. We all have an
equal right to be appreciated, respected, and understood. Some  men find it
hard to extend this concept to a woman’ s emotions. They were not taught to
value their own feelings, which get expressed only as a last resort. But to
accept another person means accepting her emotions—there is nothing
more basic or intrinsic. If this equality doesn’ t exist, how can spirit really
grow? Spirit isn’ t an emotion, but it provides an opening to our inner selves. You have to feel that your partner wants to understand you and your
feelings before you can share experiences you barely understand yourself. Sensitivity .Being able to sense what is going on inside another person is a skill that
has to be developed like any other. It isn’t an easy one to acquir e; you have
to feel secure on the level of intuition, and you need to be able to accept
complexity and conflicting emotions. The question “What are you feeling
right now?” always has the answer “More than one thing.” Sensitivity
requires setting aside your notions of what the other person is feeling, what
you think she should feel, and what you hope she isn’t feeling . Whenever
the ego intrudes, sensitivity cannot be present. Sensitivity is easily crushed, but there is also social prejudi ce which
holds that women are too sensitiv e (as men see it), and that sensitivity in a
man makes him less masculine. Men therefore can find a ready excuse for
shutting out others by claiming, “I don’t understand why you feel this way”
or “I don’t have the slightest idea what’ s going on with you.” If your
mission in life is to protect your self-image, then opening up to another
person’ s feelings runs contrary to your mission. To be sensiti ve you will
have to abandon  being right all the time, being in control, havin g needs that
must dominate over the needs of others, and so forth. In terms of Dana and Stephen, it was vital for Stephen not to be sensitive
to any sign of discomfort from the woman he was wooing. He knew only
one mode of courtship—Prince Charming sweeping Cinderella  off her feet
—and princes don’t have flaws. If he sensed that Dana wasn’ t satisfied with
his lavis h generosity , he would have had to face the fact that everything he
was doing was a performan ce. Most of us are made  extremely
uncomfortable by extreme generosity; it has a suffocating effect and makes
the receiver feel inadequate compared with the giver . Dana felt all these
things, but Stephen couldn’ t afford to be sensitive to them; he had no other
way to “love” her, and to have allowed her to say how she wanted to be
loved would have taken power out of his hands, which would have been
intolerable. Communication. Communion  is the root word in communication , reminding us that to
communicate with another person isn’t to pass on information. It is to draw
another into union with yourse lf. Women tend to have a more intuitive
grasp of how communication works, for both positive and negative reasons. On the positive side girls are typically taught from a young age to valuebonding, especially on an emotional level, whereas boys are typically
taught to compe te. In a competi tive situation, silence is often equated with
power . On the negative side, women often don’t expect to have power;
therefore, they can “afford” to expose their feelings and inner conflicts. By
contrast, if a man in power communicates too much of his inner fears,
insecurities, or conflicts, his right to power may be questioned. These social expectations have a large influence on relationships. A man
may sincerely feel that he has nothing to say about his feelings, and
conversely that women don’t talk reasonably about situations. A woman
may feel “stupid ” when what she has to say is consistently emotional, and
she may conversely feel that the absence of emotional communication from
men means that they are stronger . In Dana’ s story , communication was
confined by the rules of the Cinderella fairy tale. Dana couldn’t easily
express anything outside the boundaries of the story of a working woman
meeting a prince and being carried off by him to great heights of wealth and
power . Stephen’ s vision of what was going on took preceden ce over her
perceptions, reflecting both a breakdown in communication and a loss of
equality . By the time two people are marr ied, they both know the limits of what to
expect from each other in terms of equality , sensitivity , and communication. By establishing these factors in the courtship phase, you find out what you
are getting into before limits are drawn. If you find yourself in a long-s tanding relationship, think back to your
courtship days. Ask yourself what you wanted from a mate back then and
compare it with what you have. Inevitably you will find that equality is
something you both can work on, sensitivity can always be made deeper ,
and communication must be worked at every day. Keeping these  alive is the
basis for spiritual growth together , whether you have only just emer ged
from infatuation or have been married for years. INTIMACY :  
THE INNOCENCE OF DESIRE
The issue hovering over intimacy , the next phase of romanc e, is desire. Desire is a driving force behind love, but it isn’t the same as love, andwhere the two diver ge, many conflicts arise. The ancient Sansk rit word for
desire is Kama , made famous by the book of erotic lore called Kama Sutra ,
the “teaching about desire.” But Kama  is a much broader term; it applies to
desires or wishes of every kind. A formula I learned in my childhood in India, inherited from the ancient
scriptures, holds that life is perfected by achieving four things: Artha,
Kama, Dharma, and Moksha. Artha is wealth, kama is the fulfillment of
one’s desires, dharma is right livelihood or work, and moksha is the
liberation of the soul. On the path to love, all four aims of life get fulfilled, and this is where
issues arise, since it is still difficult for many people to accept that desire is
legitimate. Desire remains tainted with implications of selfishness and
“lower” drives. The one place in our lives where most of us feel free to
express kama is romance. The erotic longing that is part of romantic love
inspires every lover to merge with the beloved; this is the natural
consummation of attraction between two people. The great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote delicately erotic
verses in his adolescence, and one says,
Leaving their homes, two loves have made a pilgrimage to the confluence of lips. In the law of Love, two waves have swelled, breaking and mingling on two lips. This may seem like a chaste poem comparing two lovers to religious
devotees making  their way, as Indian pilgrims are wont to do, to the sacred
confluence of two holy rivers. If you understand Tagore’ s original Bengali,
however , you would know that the word for confluence is the same as the
word for the act of making love. Now the poem seems almost sacrilegious,
when in fact it is an unembarrassed blending of flesh and spirit. In the West
we might say that the sacred has met the profane, except that to Tagore, and
for anyone who has fallen deeply in love, the profane is sacred. The insights of the intimacy phase pertain to the union of flesh and spirit:
Fulfillment is natural and not to be ashamed of. Ecstasy is a state of the soul transmitted thr ough the body . Union consists of two people opening to the same Being.These insights are based on approaching desire without guilt or
inhibition. In traditional cultures, however , sexual consumma tion wasn’ t
permitted immediately after two people fell passionately in love, out of a
belief that desire should be postponed. There were many reasons for
imposing a waiting period, but one was the belief that love and desire are
not compatible. Either desire is of the flesh and therefore sinful or else it is
a prize not to be given by a woman until the union is signed  and sealed
through marriage. Today , in modern society , the consummation of desire comes early ,
awaiting nothing but the consent of a man and a woman. Courtship is not
nearly as bound by convention as in the past; it can be as long or as short as
two people want. However , this doesn’ t mean that the issue of desire has
been resolved. Emotional residu es linger from the traditional view , which
by holding out a woman’ s virginity as a sacred prize had a built-in conflict. You cannot say that desire is sinful while at the same time holding out
sexual fulfillment as a prize. Why would love ever accept a sin as its prize? Traditional religious teaching has blinded us to the fact that flesh and
spirit are two poles that belong together . Romantic love is undeniably
sexual; yet it contains the potential for great spiritual experiences. The
beauty of sensuality has its own spiritual significance witho ut resort to
“higher” values. An ancient Sanskrit text exults in the joy of intimacy:
When we have loved, my love,
Panting and pale from love,
Then from your cheeks, my love,
Scent of the sweat I love:
And when our bodies love
Now to relax in love
After the stress of love,
Ever still more I love
Our mingled breath of love. The frankness of this declaration of passion is refreshing, for it reminds us
that the spiritual union of lovers isn’t separate from the sweat and mingled
breath of sexuality . Sex allows you to blend the needs of the self with the fr eedom of the Self.The word kama  is used to describe not just sexual desire but the desire to
be unite d with God. By implica tion this is the same kama that makes you
want to be united with your Self. If you could listen to the voice of spirit at
every moment, you would hear that your divine nature longs for you as you
long for it. A N EW INTIMACY : 
INTIMACY WITH THE  SELF
What raises romantic love above lesser pleasures is that it stirs our deep
erotic natures. This is yet anothe r source of anxiety for modern people, who
are obsessed by sex without being willing to lose control, without being
able to surrender to real passion. Passion must contain surr ender in or der to be authentic. But surrender to what? To the conver gence of all the aspects  of your
being that need to flow into the erotic moment. Physical sensual ity, spiritual
ecstasy , erotic flowering—when all these conver ge, the sexual act becomes
sacred, and what is sacred contains the deepest pleasure. Thousands of
years ago, Lord Shiva murmur ed to his consort, “While being caressed,
sweet princess, enter the caress  as everlasting life.” This remai ns the ideal
of intimacy . Because intima cy is now so totally identified with the sexual act,
fulfillment has become confused  with performance. Orgasm is pursued with
a devotion that would put most religious zealots to shame. The assumption
for a long time was that men are most anxious about their ability to
perform, but now that nonor gasmic women have become more frank and
open about their predicament, it appears that the anxiety is fully shared. Intimacy in the physical sense is usually taken to be the same as having
an orgasm. But no matter how exciting it is, an orgasm is a sensation
centered in the ego. True intimacy is shared self-expression. For a man to
be intimate with a woman, both have to be able to release themselves into
the special state that orgasm brings, even though they cannot literally share
the same sensat ions. Orgasm isn’t a fixed thing. For some people it is a
release, for others an opening, for still others a contraction. In all cases,though, there is a shift of experience that is not only pleasurable but in some
way deeply transforming. Spiritual masters tell us that the state of
enlightenment, which is totally free, ecstatic, and unbounded, is glimpsed
very closely in or gasm. Or at least this is its potential. Although there is a certain loss when intimacy is entered hastily , our
present approach to sexuality has the advantage of removing outworn
taboos. More than any time in the past, couples today are experiencing
sexuality frankl y and openly before making a commitment to proceed
further in their relationship. Desire isn’t so highly prized anym ore, yet its
spiritual potential remains intact. When two peop le become physically intimate, they do not necessarily
become united. Physical union can coexist with separateness, because for
both partners the ego can remain  involved. The ideal of stepping  into shared
ecstasy isn’t reached by practicing some technique that raises orgasm to the
heights of bliss. Having sex with another person is really just one way to
make an agreement. The agreement may be serious or trivial; it may
betoken a deep commitment or little more than a passing encounter . To see intimacy as an agreement is a very healthy thing,  because
otherwise the sexual act becom es entangled in hidden agendas. Fantasy is
never more powerful or more misleading than where sex is concerned. For a
woman the hidden agenda often  takes the form of believing that having sex
equals love. A man’ s hidden agenda is more likely to equate sex with
power . This was particularly true in times when the man was the pursuer ,
ardently offering  his love, whic h the woman would reject or accept. The
ultimate token of acceptance was for her to “give in” to the sexual act. In
doing so she accepted love at the same time. Many women still harbor this
belief in fantasy form. For his part, the man knew that sexual surrender meant that his pursuit
had been successful; the hunter had struck his mark at the same moment
that the lover was embraced. In the past it seemed only natural for both
sexes to use the aggressive image of the hunt as symbolic of the quest for
intimacy , yet looking back we can see a good deal of hidden fear and
insecurity in this analogy . Why should the act of love be linked to
aggression at all? These symbols and images were part of a social code, therefore they
required no agreement. It wasn’ t possible for either men or women toexempt themselv es from the code. Today the opposite is true. If a man feels
himself to be a hunter , conquero r, or ardent pursuer , that is his own choice. If a woman sees herself as prey, prize, or unattainable love object, that is
her decision. No single code operates anymore, and by making intimacy an
agreement, both parties can approach sexuality openly as something they
mutually want. Having sex with someone else does not imply that you have
entered his belief system or will fulfill her expectations. You are not
implicitly playing a part in his fantasy or expecting your versio n of love to
match hers. But there is a price to pay. In. many ways sexual freedom is frightening
because of the loss of boundarie s. The old social code linked love and sex. For a woman to believe that a man loved her because he desired her was
unchallenged. For a man to believe that having sex secured a woman’ s love
was just as natural. Now that this is a matter of agreement, it can also be a
cause of disagreement. Love and desire are essentially separate, a matter
open for discussion. It is surprising how many people enter sexual intimacy with no idea of
what they are agreeing to. It is still common for both men and women to
bring expectatio ns to bed. Because these expectations are founded on
images from the past, they defeat the possibility of passionate surrender . You cannot surrender to an image but can only play it out, and the more
often you play it out, the less spontaneous sex becomes. To rob sex of its spontaneity makes it both false and ugly. Sexua lity is the
most spontaneous aspect of our lives. It is the one place where we do not
have to put at risk our abilities, intellect, and social personae. Playing a part
is a necessity none of us can completely escape in everyday life. We all
have roles as workers, family members, citizens, and so forth. Undeniably
this places strain  upon many other urges that would like to gain expression
but are not permitted to do so. You cannot give way to every  impulse of
anger at work, much less walk out at will. You cannot decide to stop
supporting a family on a whim, since the very fabric of society depends
upon bearing one’ s share of responsibility . Duty hems in desire at every turn, to the point that most people come to
believe that suppressing their desires, holding themselves in check, is good. Suppression is not good, howeve r; it is only expedient. Society requires that
we draw  limits on the expressi on of desire, which makes it all the morenecessary to have at least one area of life that is completely free and
uninhibited. Intimacy is meant to be just such an area. What is it that makes
sex free or inhibited, loving or merely pleasurable? FREEDOM AND  INTIMACY
Many people deny themselves free, loving sex—even if they are not aware
of doing so—because they appro ach the sexual act in terms of results. They
assume that any orgasm is good, and a good orgasm is better . Not only do
we evaluate whether sex was “successful” but we hold up physical pleasure
as the primary goal. Pleasure is a natural thing but it is also an elusive one. For some people  the pleasure of sex is that it promises a release for anxiety
and stress. For them “success”  is actually negative, being defined as the
escape from tension. Other ingredients can be mixed into the sexual act that are far from
loving. Someone who has bottled-up rage inside will usually make love in a
way that is overly aggressive or competitive. A fearful person will typically
find it difficult to allow anything like a full release into bodily sensations;
his or her holdin g back is a passive way to act out fear and at the same time
miss any encounter with love. There are many variations on this theme, for as much as we would wish
to be good lovers, we all bring our conflicts and needs to bed. Whatever
blocks our pleas ure also blocks love, because in sex pleasure is the doorway
to love. Even though sex is meant to be uninhibited and free, there are always
degrees of freedom. Rarely do we believe that we deserve pleasure without
limits. How , then, can we give love without limits, or receive it? Rather than examining the results of the sexual act, we need to consider
its begin nings. Intimacy starts not with a physical approach but with a set of
beliefs. The primary beliefs that defeat pleasure include the following:
Sex is too powerful and has to be controlled. Sin is attached to sex, making it guilty and shameful. Asking someone else to give you pleasure is greedy and selfish. Surrendering to pleasure is the same as surrendering your power .What all of these beliefs have in common is that they provide a reason to
suppress desire. When sex is deprived of its spiritual connection, some aspect of desir e is being suppr essed. The spiritual dimension of sex is its joyfulness and ecstasy , its
communication of love between  two people. These qualities do not require
effort; they appear spontaneously when sex itself is spontaneous. However ,
a great deal of spiritual teaching  has been openly antisexual. As long as the
credo “It is better to marry than to burn” was in effect, spiritua l value was
assigned not to intimacy but to chastity . When spiritual teachers held up
chastity as a virtue—as they have in every tradition East and West—the
intention was not to make pleas ure a sin but to elevate a highe r virtue that
by implication led to higher pleasure. One feels the truth in Krishnamurti’ s
words, “Trying to suppress sexual urges is a form of ugliness that in itself
cannot be chaste. Chastity of the monk with his vows is worldliness as long
as the urges are present. All walls of separateness turn life into a
battlefield.”
Chastity in the sense of purity is a spiritual good, but it should not be
mistaken for suppression of desire. When he asks why people try to repress
their desires, Krishnamurti makes the following beautiful  argument:
resisting the sexual urge has been held up as something good to do, but if
we look at it, resistance is born of fear. We are afraid of being wrong, of
stepping out of line. Society , anxious to make us conform, tells us that if we
don’t resist our sexual ur ges, we will go out of control. Yet is this really true? If sex is natural, why does it have to be controlled? In fact the whol e conflict over sex, the problems of neurosis and deviancy ,
and sexual misbehavior , can be traced to resistance, not to sexual urges. Resistance is always mental; it implies a judgment against what is actually
being felt. Sex becomes a problem when it gets mixed with hidden
emotions such as shame, anger , and guilt. Under those circumstances the
sexual impulse is confusing. When people ask questions like “Is it all right
to have  sex with anyone you want to?” or “Is it natural to be
monogamous?” the implication is that an outside judgment must enter into
the issue.Values are personal; each situation that has sexual energy in it involves
the whole human being. If you understand where you are in a sexual
situation—meaning that your emotions and values are in your awareness
with clarity—the sexual drive doesn’ t stand apart like a raging intruder . It is
part of you; it is acceptable and loved. If you can walk through life without resistance, you will discover that life
in itself is chaste. It has a purity that includes both love and sex—there is no
division between them except in society’ s misguided conditioning. This argument has a very deep spiritual basis. Most of the time our
worries over sex involve thinkin g and talking about it, yet sex isn’t a word
or a thought. It isn’ t divided in any way from the flow of life; its ur ge arises,
asks for fulfillment, and disappears without leaving traces of guilt and
shame unless we add those trace s by our beliefs. If sex gets tied down to the
mere pursuit of pleasure, it will result in pain, for pleasure cannot be kept
up forever; it will lead only to meaningless repetition and frustration, to a
compulsive craving for sensations that can only dwindle in satisfaction. As Krishnamurti says, the mere pursuit of pleasure throws life out the
window . By “life” he means the sacred Being at the heart of existence, the
mystery that can be known only by not resisting, by being natural. The
difference between sex, love, and chastity doesn’ t exist; they are one. In a world where  imitating other people’ s ideas and values is forced on us
in thousands of ways, sex is left as a means of escaping ourselves. It is a
form of self-for getfulness that is many people’ s only real form of
meditation. Such is the promise of intimacy that it can deliver us into a
place where experience of the spirit is genuine and undeniable. OceanofPDF .comLOVING  PRACTICE
Freeing Sexual Blocks
IF YOU WANT to improve your sexual experiences, the last place to start with
is pract ice in the bedroom. Sex is naturally spontaneous; it is both
expression and release, excitement and relaxation. The best sex is the most
open and unplan ned; therefore planning for the unplanned is more or less a
self-contradiction. There is no way to practice being spontaneous. To impr ove your sexual experience, first get rid of your expectations. Sexual energy is neutral; you can associate it with anything, positive or
negative, in your life. Whatever you expect sex to be, it will tend to
become. So-called sexual problems are actually ingrained behaviors that
block the free flow of sexual energy. In both men and women the
physiology of sex is very delicate and easily influenced by the mind. It is
your mind that judges “good” and “bad” sex; it is your mind that intervenes
to prevent orgasm or potency (leaving aside disease conditions that impose
physical limitations). The dilemma is that coming to bed without expectations seems to be
impossible, given how the mind works. When sexual experience was new, it
contained a quality of surprise and innocence. Even if we cannot remember
our first orgasm , most of us can remember how different orgasm was from
other pleasurabl e sensations. Its newness and intensity caused  us to want
more, but as you repeat any sensation, it becomes familiar , and familiarity
leads to dullness. For many people sex becomes associated with
performance. The question “How well am I doing?” hovers over the
bedroom. For other people sex is associated with sensation. The question
“How am I feeling?” is uppermost in their minds. And for still others,
security is dominant; the quest ion “Do you really love me?”  is in their
minds while making love.As soon  as sex becomes bound  up in these secondary associations and
needs, it is no longer free. There is nothing bad about pursuin g unrelated
needs in sex. Orgasm is a psychological package, not a physical reflex. But
no matte r how well you perform  or how terrific you feel, laying orgasm into
a certain groove separates it from any spiritual significance. Sex is mechanical when it is without spiritual meaning. For many reason s, it is difficult  to align our sexual and spiritual natures. The following exercise is aimed not at making sex more spiritual but at
removing the obstacles that prevent spirit from entering into it. PART ONE
Look at the following list of statements and write “Agree” or “Disagree”
beside each. Be honest and keep in mind that having expectations isn’t
something to feel bad about—this is an exercise in self-knowledge. 1. Sex is better if it lasts a long time. 2. Orgasm should be intense. 3. It’s not sex without or gasm. 4. I’m pretty insistent on getting sex when I want it. 5. The more or gasms, the better . 6. The best sex I ever had wasn’ t with my present partner . 7. Impotence lets my partner down. or
Not having an or gasm lets my partner down. 8. My partner isn’ t as open about new positions and techniques as I am. 9. I’ve gone along with sexual experiments I didn’ t feel comfortable with
just because my partner asked me to. 10. I aim to please. I rarely let my partner down. 11. My partner disappoints me a lot more often than he (or she) knows. 12. I wouldn’ t like anyone to think I get too carried away over sex. 13. I’m too embarrassed to discuss some of the things I’d like to do in bed. 14. We have sex more (or less) often than I’d like. 15. I miss the way our sex used to be. 16. I really don’ t think about sex that often.17. Our sex isn’ t so great, but the rest of our marriage makes up for that. 18. I have fantasies I don’ t share with my partner . 19. My mind wanders during sex. 20. I’m not such a great lover . These very common statements indicate that everyone has less than healthy
sexual expectations at least some of the time. If you agr eed with five statements or fewer , you are likely to be very
present with your sexuality and appreciative of sex as it is happening. You don’ t have many fixed expectations or adherence to values outside
yourself. If you agr eed with six or mor e statements , you are bringing issues to
bed that are interfering with the free flow of sexual ener gy—your sex
is beset by ego concerns and expectations. If you agr eed with none of the statements , either you are a highly
evolved lover or you haven’ t answered as honestly as you could. Now let’s discuss how you felt while reading these statements. Some are
much more likely to trigger emotional charges than others. Reread the list
and check your emotional reactions. Do you feel very uncomfortable
reading certain sentences? Do you feel nothing? To be at either extreme
implies that sexual energy is being held inside—any repressed feeling keeps
sexual energy from flowing. Among the most powerful sexual blocks are
shame, guilt, doubt, discouragement, and embarrassment. If you feel stron g emotion over “I’m not such a great lover ,” for example,
it’s not difficult  to see that lack of self-worth is an issue. Someone who
strongly agrees with “I aim to please. I rarely let my partner down” is
equally prey to self-doubt, only less consciously . If you probe your feelings
of discomfort and release them,  you will do more for your sex life than if
you focus on the mechanics of sex. You can release your sexual blocks in the following way:
1. Pick a statement that you feel strongly about, either positively or
negatively . 2. Lie down, take a deep breath, and let yourself feel what is going on
when you think about the statement.3. Ask to be guided to the meaning of the statement. If nothing comes to
mind, ask for blocks to be removed. A helpful technique here is to pant
in quick, shallow breaths—this distracts the mind from holding on to
its blocks. 4. When you have some kind of answer—an image, an insight, a strong
wave of feeling—ask for release. T ake a deep breath and let go of
whatever wants to come out: a sob, a scream, physical movement, a
deep sigh, or simply a wave of fatigue. 5. Relive any memories that want to surface. 6. When you feel that you are fully in touch with the emotional char ge
behind the statement, ask for a clearing of the char ge. Breathe evenly
until you relax and any tension associated with the statement has been
released. When blocks ar e removed, sexual ener gy has no choice but to flow . Each statement in the questionnaire has a wide range of possible
meanings that may or may not apply to you, but here are the types of blocks
generally indicated:
1. Sex is better if it lasts a long time. Fixed expectations from sex, comparison with others, social norms
more important than personal experience
2. Orgasm should be intense. Comparison with the past, valuing of physical sensation over
emotions, self-absorption, addictive personality traits
3. It’s not sex without or gasm. Performance anxiety , compari son with past, valuing of physical
sensation over emotions
4. I’m pr etty insistent on getting sex when I want it. Hidden anger or sadism, self-absorption, competitiveness
5. The mor e orgasms, the better . Performance fixation, wandering attention (counting instead of being
present), comparison with social norms, emotional immaturity6. The best sex I ever had wasn’ t with my pr esent partner . Disappointment, anger toward partner , discouragement, inability to be
present
7. Impotence lets my partner down. or
Not having an or gasm lets my partner down. Performance anxiety, low self-worth, inhibited physical release, hidden
anger
8. My partner isn’ t as open about new positions and techniques as I am. Lack of communication, fixation on fantasy or sensations, judgment
against partner
9. I’ve gone along with sexual experiments I didn’ t feel comfortable with
just because my partner asked me to. Overdependence, low self-worth, lack of communication
10. I aim to please. I rar ely let my partner down. Performance anxiety hidden by performance success, self-abso rption,
competitiveness
11. My partner disappoints me a lot mor e often than he (or she) knows. Overdependence, low self-worth, abuse background, detachment from
sexual drive
12. I wouldn’ t like anyone to think I get too carried away over sex. Valuing of social norms over personal satisfaction, detachment from
sexual desire, low self-worth
13. I’m too embarrassed to discuss some of the things I’d like to do in bed. Fixation on fantasy , distrust of partner , negative judgments against sex
from parents
14. We have sex mor e (or less) often than I’d like. Overdependence, low self-worth, lack of communication
15. I miss the way our sex used to be.Lack of communication, outside distractions, estrangement from
partner
16. I really don’ t think about sex that often. Disappointment or anger toward partner , low self-image, judgment
against sexual drive
17. Our sex isn’ t so gr eat, but the r est of our marriage makes up for that. Inertia, lack of attention to sex, distractions from intimacy
18. I have fantasies I don’ t shar e with my partner . Lack of communication, fear of sexual drive, abuse background,
distrust
19. My mind wanders during sex. Inhibition, disappointment or anger toward partner , distraction from
sexual drive, high stress
20. I’m not such a gr eat lover . Overdependence, wounded self-image, sexual trauma in the past,
judgment against sex
These are very general interp retations in what is a wide spectrum of
possibilities. To feel that you aren’ t a great lover , for example, can be a sign
of something mild, such as sexual inexperience, or something severe, such
as clinical depression. Rather than reading any of these characterizations as
a diagnosis or judgment, see if they show the way to hidden issues you may
not be facing. The point is not to make you feel that there is something
wrong with you, only to stir ener gies that need to move. PART TWO
In our culture “good sex” is usually defined in terms of technique and
performance. We overlook that sex is a creative act, which doesn’t need to
be critiqued or evaluated. Biologically , human sexuality is essential to the
process that creates babies, but the same energy contributes to many things
at levels of life that are not literally biological. Sex is creativit y itself, andwe have the capacity to create on every plane of existence, from the
biological to the spiritual. Sex is creative when it produces a new feeling, insight, or expe rience. In
this exercise some of these possibilities are explored. Look at the following list of experiences. Put a check by any you have
had at least once during sex. These are suggestive phrases, to be interpreted
as you wish—your own perception of bliss, carefreeness, playfulness, and
so on is all you need to go by . Delighted laughter
Sense of timelessness
Ecstasy
Warm flow in the heart
Merging with partner
Floating sensation, as if the body disappears
Warmth or visible light flowing up the spine
Loss of ego
Carefreeness
Playfulness
Nonattachment to your performance
Complete letting go
Expansion
Sense of wholeness, safety , belonging
Blessing
Bliss
Acute awareness of self or surroundings
Unbounded love
Contentment, peace in the center of your heart
Now look back over your answ ers; the experiences you have checked
indicate your spiritual horizon. That is, you have learned to use sexual
energy to create  these experiences. If you have some only once, these are
the envelope of your inner growth. The experiences you have had more than
once, especially  if recently , indicate the growth you have alread y integrated
into your loving personality . Go back  over the list and mark  experiences you haven’ t had but think
could happen next. These are your spiritual goals. Your desire for them is
enough to bring them about; on your inner landscape you are already
working toward them. Now go through the list a third time and mark the experie nces you
believe are out of reach or impossible for you. These could be interpreted as
blocks to spirit. Since nothing is truly out of reach in the creative use ofsexuality , naming what you see as “impossible” experiences holds up a
mirror to your current belief in the limits of love. On the path to love impossibilities are resolved by turning non-love into
love. With spiritual growth comes new creative potential—whi ch can take
the form  of sexual expression— leading to the realization that you are pure
potential, able to fulfill any creative impulse. OceanofPDF .comIN OUR LIVES
The W orn-out Lover
FOR A LONG  time, ever since his early teens, Guy had been a lover , and a
very active one. The singles bar scene had been his second home for a
decade, and he considered hims elf a born appreciator of women, unable to
comprehend why other men seemed to resent or ignore them. To Guy
women were intoxicating creatures, and giving them pleasure was
something he felt proud of. He never called himself a woman’ s boyfriend;
he was always her lover . He took the sexual revolution for grant ed—he was
open to almost any sexual experiment proposed by the women he dated, and
he could quickly take his partner to a place where she wasn’ t embarrassed
to express her fantasies. When asked how he felt about his many conquests, Guy said, “I loved
every one of them. Nothing makes me happier than a grateful woman.” He
was sincere when he claimed that none of his former flames resented him in
any way, despite the fact that his liaisons with them lasted only a few nights
or a few months—six at most. Caroline was the first woman Guy had ever met whom he did not want to
take to bed immediately , despit e the fact that he was strongly attracted to
her. She was in her early twenti es—Guy was about to turn thirty—but she
radiated the demure, innocent quality of a much younger girl. Enchanted,
Guy thought of Caroline as a fawn, with her large, trusting eyes and slight
air of aloofness. For her part, Caroline seemed to adore Guy; he was only her third serious
boyfriend (she definitely preferred this term over lover ). Shaki ng off his
reluctance, Guy soon entered an intimate relationship with Caroline. All
went smoothly until one night when he found himself, quite unexpectedly ,
waking up in tears at two in the morning. An uncontrollable emotion—wasit grief? remorse?—swept over him. Mystified and shaken, Guy went back
to sleep. The next time he took Caroline to bed, however , Guy found  himself
performing far below his usual high standards. His mind wandered, and for
the first time he felt that he might not be able to reach orgasm. This
impossibility wasn’t allowed to happen, but afterward he felt fatigued and
joyless. Caroline made no comment; she held Guy for a long time before he
fell asleep. Their relationship deepened. In many ways Guy felt that he was going
through the happiest time of his life. Caroline’ s light heart and innocent
manner came as a revelation to him; he sometimes felt by comparison that
he had been working very hard at life. This was undoubtedly true in his
career—Guy worked long hours creating databases for a prestigious
commercial realtor. His goal was to be a millionaire in five years. Caroline
was the first woman who had ever distracted him from this ambition. When Guy decided to propose  to her, his ears burned in disbelief as
Caroline asked for a little more time. Disbelief turned to shock when she
hesitantly said that she wanted  their relationship not to be intimate for a
while. Pressed for reasons, Caroline hesitated even more, but finally she
half-whispered, “I don’t think you really like it. You just don’t want to let
me down.”
It was the most troubling and yet the most honest thing a woman had
ever said to Guy. That night he stormed out in hurt pride, but he knew in his
heart that he felt worn out. Certain things about sex had never occurred to
him. For instance, he had never thought that more isn’t necessarily better . For ten years he’d had sex nearly every day, and the need behind this
obsession struck  him now as something like addiction. It had also never
occurred to him that other voices could speak during the act of sex. He had
obeyed the voice of desire so completely that now he found it difficult to
hear expressions  of sadness, pent-up anger , and grief. Reflecting on it, he
realized they must always have been present. When Guy came back to Caro line, he loved her enough to be able to
thank her for having propose d a waiting period. The two started to
reconstruct a sexual relationship, beginning with simple touch. They would
lie together and easily ask each other for a gentle touch on some part of
their bodies, directing where to touch next, how long to stay in one place.Rather than finding this erotic, Guy often discovered that some touches
aroused anxiety ; at times he felt like crying. Gradually he realized that
feeling safe with women had been rare for him, and that because he felt safe
with Caroline, old wounds could be released. He found that as pent-up
emotions began to surface, he wanted to tell Caroline about incidents from
his past that he had never shared with a woman—in fact, talking to women
had never been his strong suit. He began to make links between his need to
perform in bed and his demanding, critical mother . In time it became clear
to him that at some level he felt all women were demanding, and by being a
skillful lover he could defuse  in advance their contempt for him as
inadequate. Guy was fortunate that so much  love remained in him—many men could
have taken a decade to achieve the insight he was gaining in a few months. Caroline did not set herself up as teacher or therapist; she follo wed Guy in
his self-discovery , allowing him to withdraw when he needed to. It became
clear to him that she had given herself permission to withdraw  as well. To
him having sex had always been a sign of intimacy; for Caroline intimacy
emer ged slowly , and agreeing to have sex with him had been only a first
step. Some hard times followed for Guy. There were nights when he felt
aggressive or angry during sex, which led to deep bouts of guilt. His image
of himself as “lover” frayed as he came to feel the underlying rage he had
suppressed, compelling him to act out sexually what he idealized as his
inner personality . He wasn’ t the sensitive, generous, caring lover he had
fashioned himself into but a complex, and sometimes contradictory , bundle
of feelings and drives. In time this was good enough, since it was real. Caroline realized that it was important to support Guy in his spiritual
progress; as it turned out she was quite serious about her own spiritual life,
so she was able to view this transition as more than psychological. She
believed that all the changes in their relationship were serving to bring Guy
and her into unity . To help chart their progress, she made a list of
experiences she wanted to have with Guy, noticing each one and discussing
it with him as each occurred. I want to feel needed for who I am. I want to feel vulnerable. I want to feel you won’ t ever hurt me.I want to feel your strength. I want to feel I can tell you what I most desire. I want to feel open. I want to feel a gentle wildness. I want to feel one with you. I want to feel nothing was ever better than this. I want to feel lightness bubbling in my heart. I want to feel profound. I want to feel at one. This was more than a wish list; it sent a message of desire to the universe
that she expected to be fulfille d as events unfolded. Caroline encouraged
Guy to make his own list. They didn’ t bring these lists to bed or think about
them while in bed. The point was to articulate clearly where they wanted
their path together to lead. Marriage came a year later, by which time Guy had changed many of his
most basic attitudes toward sex. He no longer performed it without love,
and he felt able to say when his emotions made love difficult. He thought
not of sexual excitement but of being comfortable. He found that the
strongest turn-ons were silent, peaceful surroundings, tender expressions,
deep looks of desire, sparkling eyes, tentative touches, and modesty . There
were moments when he forgot about sex, lost in the sheer freedom and
openness of his own being, and these were the most sexual mom ents of all. For someone who had spent his growing-up years drowned in sexual
experience, Guy was on his way to recovering the one thing  experience
cannot bring—the freedom of innocence. OceanofPDF .com4
HOW TO SURRENDER
SPIRITUALL Y, NO ACTION  is more important than surrender . Surrender is the
tenderest impul se of the heart,  acting out of love to give whatever the
beloved wants. Surrender is being alert to exactly what is happening now,
not imposing expectations from the past. Surrender is faith that the power of
love can accomplish anything, even when you cannot foresee the outcome
of a situation. But surrendering  to another person’s ego, even your beloved’ s, is not a
spiritual act. There is a deeper , more mystical meaning to surrender . At the
level of ego, two people cannot want exactly the same thing all the time. Yet at the level of spirit, they cannot help but want the same thing all the
time. Your ego wants material things, predictable conclusions, continuity ,
security , and the prerogative to be right when others are wrong. By
definition, pursu ing these goals shuts out another person unless she falls in
line with “my” agenda or he realizes that “I” am the important  one around
here. Your spirit is not involved in such concerns. It wants being, love,
freedom, and creative opportun ities. This is an entirely different level of
desire, and when you reach it you can share yourself with another person
without conflict. Such sharing is the core of surrender . Most people are raised to pursu e ego goals, often without question. The
choice to remain on this level is always open. But you also have the choice
to move  onto the plane of spirit, with its very different goals. The gap
between ego and spirit is unavo idable. It would seem impossible to close
this gap, since spirit and ego are total opposites. Bringing them together is
achieved through surrender , and the only force that can accomplish it islove. Surrender , then, is the next phase on love’ s journey , whic h you enter
as soon as you choose to be in relationship. The majority of people find themselves not in romance but in a long-term
relationship, usually marriage. This phase occupies much more of our lives
than falling in love ever could. If falling in love is a brief openi ng to spirit,
long-term relationship is the broad plateau that follows—we will simply
call this plateau commitment. Commitment is extremely difficult for many
people, and countless psychological reasons have been given for why this is
so. But the spiritual difficulty of commitment is that it throws you directly
into the gap between ego and spirit. Each person brings into a marriage a
complex bundle  of ego needs; the husband may be loving and kind, but his
ego demands that life turn out according to certain expectatio ns, and the
same may be true for the wife. A relationship based on need is not love. Either the two egos must live in an uneasy truce or they must find another
way—surrender . Throughout the earlier phase of romance there has been a sense of being
chosen, as if an irresistible force has invaded your heart, but in relationship
the path to love is not automatic. One must choose, day to day, to stay on it. Rather than seeing surrender in terms of another person, we should call it
surrender to the path. The insights that arise in a committed relati onship
therefore are those pertaining to the path:
You ar e on a unique path cr eated between you and your beloved. You find your path not by thinking, feeling, or doing but by surr endering. Surrender r eveals the impulses of spirit beneath the mask of ego. The path to love uses relationsh ip to move you out of your limited sense
of “I,” “me,” “mine” into an expanded identity—this is the growth from self
to Self. DHARMA IN  LOVE
There is a fundamental mystery to the soul, that its integrity is not violated
by merging with another person . The blending of two spirits brings more to
the union than each partner started with. The process of soul-making thatused to be for “me” is now for “us.” Rumi expresses this beautifully in a
few heartfelt words:
My soul glowed from the fire of your fire. Your world was a whispering water
At the river of my heart. The realization that two can be as one is the essence of surrender; if
marriage were just the conjunction of two people who never departed from
the walled camp of their isolation, human existence would not be able to
scale the spiritual heights. And yet it does. Although they may not admit it, most people secretly mourn the
transition from romance to commitment. Being in a relationship, since it
requires patienc e, devotion, and persistence, is much more difficult than
falling in love. Its spiritual rewards are won through dedication to inner
growth. What this implies to many people is work. Romance is recess,
relationship is school. Becaus e it is hard, marriage often dwindles in
passion; it brings conflict, disap pointment, and pain. It can result in total
mistrust and betrayal if it ends badly . Yet this whole story is an ego story . The only real difference between romance and relationship, spiritually
speaking, has to do with surrend er. Surrender comes naturally to two people
when they first fall in love. Being lost in the deliciousness of romance, they
have no time to be selfish, no will to distrust. Marriage doesn’ t proceed on
that basis. The mask of fantasy is stripped away once two people have
engaged in intimacy over a period of time, and the grace period of
selflessness is up. The ego returns with a vengeance, insistin g on “my”
needs; therefore , surrender has to become a conscious goal—it is no longer
a given. This isn’t to say that surrender is hard work; it is conscious  work. As such it can bring the same joy and delight as falling in love, the same
sense of play that releases new lovers from their ego burdens. Making your r elationship as extraor dinary as falling in love is the gr eat challenge of this stage. In one of his poems D. H. Lawrence speaks of passionate romantic love
as being like a flower while marriage is like a hard gem that endures. That is the crystal of peace, the slow hard jewel of trust, the sapphire of fidelity . The gem of mutual peace emer ging from the wild chaos of love.Why should you be committed to someone else? Peace, fidelity , trust—
the key words are given in these  few verses. The most profoun d reason for
committing to another person is also the simplest: marriage is sacred. When
they are fully committed in love, the husband sees God in the wife and the
wife sees God in the husband. On this basis they are able to surrender to
each other , because they are only surrendering to the spirit in everything. These words sound almost shocking in a modern context. Surrender is a
remote possibility in relationsh ips today . Most marriages struggle just to
establish basic personal trust. Psychologists hold that the first ten years of a
marriage are spent resolving differences of thought, habit, ways of doing
things, likes and dislikes. “I want orange juice in the morning, but you
bought apple juice.” “I prefer the right side of the bed, but so do you.”
“This color isn’t right for the living room, even if you do like it.” The
magnificence of a sacred relationship crashes on the rocks of trivial ego
conflicts. In all this chaos the spiritual meaning of marriage has become as diffuse
as the meaning  of love itself. Is commitment worth it anymore? Can
surrender be possible amid so much battering conflict? If you set aside the
present social context for a moment, a sacred marriage, in which both
partners surrend er to each other as expressions of spirit, is natural. It is the
ripening of love’ s fruit after the blossoming of romance. Romance is a temporary state of the sacr ed. Relationship makes it permanent. The ancient Indian word Dharma  describe s much more completely what
I mean by “sacr ed.” The noun dharma  comes from the root verb meaning
“to sustain or uphold,” and like many words in Sanskrit, this one has layers
of meaning. Whatever upholds a person’ s life and keeps it on a proper
course is considered dharmic. It is dharmic to tell the truth and not to lie, or
to be faithful in marriage instead of straying. Dharma  is also translated as “law” or “righteousness.” In India today
someone who follows the family tradition of work, worship, and social
behavior is also said to be in his dharma. Modern Western society is not
dharmic in any of these ways, since our children feel free to choose very
different occupa tions from their parents’, along with new codes of behaviorand new places to live. In both East and West the rootedness of a dharmic
society has been undermined in this century . However , dharma is more than a social convention; it is a living force
that can bring you through the many threats and challenges of life. Your ego
does not believe  this, for it cannot find dharma; ego is not guided by love,
and dharma is intimately tied to love. In the West the closest concept to
dharma is grace, the loving presence of God that keeps humanity under
divine protection . When Jesus spoke of God seeing the fall of a sparrow , he
was referring to dharma. In Chin a the same concept emer ged as Tao, or “the
Way,” which was seen as an invisible but real power that organizes all life. Being in tune with “the W ay” is the same as living within dharma. Every spiritual tradition has taught that success in life depends upon
finding the Way and ignoring the distractions of external things. Your ego,
however , insists that your survival depends upon paying total attention to
the outer world. Its primary tactics—vigilance and defensiveness—are the
very antithesis of surrender . Surrender in r elationship is valuable only as surr ender to spirit. Marriage based  on differences can never lead to spiritual surrender . Therefore you need to reframe your perception, training yoursel f to find the
blessing that lurks within conflic t. You are blessed when you can find unity
with your beloved. The spiritual purpose of differences is to lead you out of
separation. Your ego causes you to believe  that separation is necessary . You push
your beloved away whenever you make statements such as these:
I don’ t care what you think. I don’ t care what you want. This is how I’m going to do it. Y ou can do it your way if you want. I’m responsible for my own needs. Y ou should be, too. If you do that, I’m going to do this. These may seem like brutal, confrontational statements, but I’ve simply
stripped ordinary  ego talk to its bare essentials. Of course we’ve all learned
to be polite about our ego needs, unless we’re pressed to the wall. It isn’t
possible to cover up the way ego creates separation, however , as it asserts
“I” over “you.”Being in dharma heals separation by making “us” a reality , not as a unit
of two but as unified spirit. You are acting in dharma whenever you allow
rather than oppose. Allowing results in statements such as these:
Is there something you need? How can I help? I see what’ s going on with you. I want you to know it’ s okay . Go ahead. I’ll be here. I know exactly what you mean. You’re right. When you come  from love, these are not just verbal formulas. Unity makes
another person’ s viewpoint completely clear; you understand someone who
is outside yourself. What make s this possible is the realizatio n that your
beloved isn’t outside yourself— she is only outside your ego, he is only
expressing needs that are not the core of himself. At the core you and your
beloved are not separate, since needs, likes and dislikes, desire s, and lack
are all outside the core. Dharma is a vision of spiritual equality .
The_Path_to_Love_by_Deepak_Chopra.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        You harbor extreme likes or dislikes for people you barely know. Getting rid of projection is critical if you want to be able to tell true love
from false, as either the giver or the receiver. Projection always hides a feeling you don’ t want to look at. If you examine any negative trait you insist is present in anothe r person,
you will find the same trait hidin g in yourself. The more you deny this trait,
the more strongly you will have  to project it. Thus if you habitu ally defend
yourself before being accused, you feel guilty. That guilt needs  to be faced
in order to stop the projection. If you feel that the man or woman you love
is consta ntly looking at others with sexual interest, you are the one who
cannot be trusted. If you think your boss secretly hates you, look at the
possibility that you have hidden rage against authority. The following
exercise is a good step toward honest self-evaluation. Make a list of three people whom you intensely dislike, disapprove of, or
have had strong  conflicts with. Put down four qualities for each that you
find most of fensive. A typical list might look like this:
Father -in-law:  arrogant, greedy, small-minded, bullheaded
Boss : unfair, temperamental, unappreciative of my work, inef ficient
Hitler:  sadistically cruel, hateful, prejudiced, fanatical
Now look at the list, and for each trait say, “I acted like that when I. ”
Finish the sentence with an example of your own behavior. When were you
arrogant. When  were you greedy. The point is not to wallow in self-
criticism but to bring home feelings that need reclaiming instead of
displacing them onto others. If you have been honest with your list, you will find it very difficult to
finish some sentences. Hitler ’s sadism, for example, may seem far removed
from your behav ior, or your boss’s unfairness in not promoting you may be
too fresh a wound. But by persevering you will discover that what you hate
most in others you most strongly deny in yourself. This is a spiritual truth
that we try to evade by projecting, blaming, and making excuses for
ourselves. When you are able to see yourself in what you hate, you come
closer to realizing that you contain everything, as befits a child of spirit. OceanofPDF. comIN OUR LIVES
Cinderella for Sale
THE FIRST DAY that Dana came  to work for Stephen, a spark passed between
them. Fifteen years older than she and a highly successful plastic surgeon,
Stephen didn’ t stand on ceremon y. He told Dana that she didn’ t have to call
him “Doctor” unless a patient was present, and when he asked about her
background, he showed flattering interest. Dana had returned to
technicians’ school in her midtwenties. This was her first job since
graduation, and the fact that Stephen offered her a generous pay package
increased her eagerness to work for him. Within a month he asked her for a date. Dana was nervous, afraid that the
other women in the office would  be antagonized, but Stephen put on a full-
court press. After dinner at a fine French restaurant, he sent flowers the next
morning. More dates followed, and although Dana found it difficult to
warm up to an older man as a romantic partner, she had to agree with him
that age is only in your head. Being around her seemed to make Stephen
young again, as he was fond of telling Dana. But regardless of the good it
did him, Stephen made sure that his wooing put Dana in the spotlight. He sent flowers to her apartm ent nearly every day, and bought her
expensive jewel ry, which at first Dana was embarrassed to accept; she gave
in only because her refusal caused Stephen such obvious pain. In time they
made the transition to sexual partners. Stephen was an attentive lover,
although Dana got the impressio n he would be sensitive to any criticism or
even suggestion  about his performance. She therefore was more passive and
compliant than she would have been with another man—it seemed a small
sacrifice to make. Stephen had grown children by his first marriage, which had taken place
in medical school. Neither of them seemed eager to meet Dana, who was
little more than ten years older than Stephen’ s son, a freshman in college. Stephen’ s divor ce had been granted three years before, but Stephen had
little to say about his first wife, even when asked for detai ls. Nothing
seemed to exist for him outside Dana, and she couldn’ t help but be
immensely flattered. They had met in June, and by early autumn a wedding date was set for
Christmas. After buying Dana a huge engagement ring, Stephen urged her
to buy the best of everything for the ceremony. They planned a lavish
honeymoon in Paris—or rather, Stephen planned it and sprang the news on
Dana. She was a little distresse d by not having been consulted, but it was
hard to utter the slightest complaint in the face of Stephen’ s overwhelming
generosity. The bubble didn’ t burst all at once. The first hint that something went
wrong came when Stephen gave Dana an exercise video for tightening the
muscles of her bottom—women were prone to softness there, he said, even
when they looked as sensational as Dana. A week later he nonchalantly
asked if she had ever considere d having a little corrective surgery. Despite
herself, Dana was shocked—she had no intention of letting Stephen make
her over. Stephen backed of f, but he was clearly displeased. W alking around
a corner in the office the next day, Dana overheard a receptionist remark,
“Looks like Cinderella is in for a little liposuction. ” She acted as if she
hadn’ t heard it, but doubts had begun to creep in. They had their first fight when Dana broke down and related the snide
remark to Stephen, who got furious and threatened to fire the receptionist
on the spot. “I don’t think that’s the point,” Dana said. “I’m afraid you don’t
want me unless you get to turn me into someone I’m not. ” She knew all too
well where her face and figure fell short of ideal, but how important was
that to him. Stephen evaded the question and treated her coldly  for the rest
of the day. When Friday came, the night they usually spent together, he said
he was too busy, but Dana got the distinct impression he was withholding
sex to punish her. The comparison to Cinderella was an apt one, but there was to be no
fairy-tale ending. A week before they were to be married, Dana accidentally
pressed the wrong phone button at the office, only to overhear Stephen
talking to another woman. The tone of his voice and the subject of the
conversation left no doubt that they were on intimate terms. Terribly hurt,
Dana walked out of the office and never came back. She refused to takeStephen’ s calls, which quickly stopped. He protested that he still loved her,
but Dana thought it sounded like an act to preserve his self-image. When he
lamented how much money would be lost if they didn’ t go throu gh with the
ceremony, she burst into tears and hung up. Stephen never called again. On the surface it would be difficult to imagine a courtship that came
closer to the romantic ideal. Far more than most men, Stephen had the
means and the desire to sweep a woman off her feet. He made Dana feel
special and important, lavishing  all his attention on her. But lovely as it
seemed, this courtship had little to do with love and almost nothing to do
with trust. What was really happening. The key word here is image. Stephen was mainly interested in enhancing
his self-image as a magician who could turn ordinary women into
goddesses. Not only did he do this professionally but in personal
relationships he had to be the star—he would probably have tried to
“correct” the looks of the most beautiful woman on earth given the chance. His paying court, from the gifts to the sex, was a performance; Dana was
quite right not to utter the slightest criticism of his sexual abiliti es, since he
would have reacted badly. If they had gotten married, he would have lost
interest in her and gone on to have affairs. One has only to note how
completely he had excluded his first wife from his life to realize how much
he needed new conquests to support his inflated self-image. The only way Dana could have succeeded with Stephen would have been
to allow  herself to be bought; fortunately, her sense of self was based not on
image but on her feelings. Bein g swept off her feet never felt quite real. Young as she was, she could tell that Stephen wasn’ t interested in
connecting with her inner self and that he was even less interested in
sharing his own. In a way this story describes almost the perfect courtship—all we have to
do is reverse everything that happened in it. A perfect courtship unfolds like
a flower, as each partner becom es more comfortable exposing their inner
world. It is a shared experie nce, with decisions made mutually and
boundaries respe cted. One partner doesn’ t try to push the other beyond their
boundaries, knowing that stretching a boundary is a gradual, delicate matter. The essence of courtship is communion, which this one totally lacked. As hurt as she was, Dana was also secretly relieved that the wedding to
Stephen didn’ t come off. Being turned into Cinderella had not fulfilledinner needs that I would call spiritual. Spiritually we all need things such as
forgiveness, love, and compassion, but before any of these can be realized,
we need  to satisfy the most basic spiritual need: support on our path. You
cannot expect another person to immediately understand your experiences
as you enter into new and often confusing stages of spirituality, but if
sharing is to take place, you must build a basis for satsang. This basis must
include equality, sensitivity, and communication. Equality. Being seen as equally important to your partner is a right many people
cannot assert. Because we are all unequal in terms of intellige nce, status,
money, skills, and talents, these factors can become dominant in a
relationship. A woman may feel, as Dana did, that the man who courts her
has earned so many of life’s advantages that she should be grateful for his
success. The happiness she could expect in such a marriage, however,
would have little spiritual validity. In spirit everyone is equal. This isn’t just an abstract concept; it is the one
perception that can overcome ego. If I feel superior to you, my superiority
is roote d in self-image. A self-image based upon money, for example,
would make me think that I should be appreciated for all I have  given you,
which puts you at a disadvantage, since your own right to be appreciated
doesn’ t have a comparable basis. When Stephen took Dana to an expensive
restaurant, he put himself on a superior footing in his eyes. Thus he was
protected from any criticism she might make, giving himself the right to
say, “Look at what I’m providing. How can you be unhappy with me. ”
Equality isn’t based upon external factors or images. We all have an
equal right to be appreciated, respected, and understood. Some  men find it
hard to extend this concept to a woman’ s emotions. They were not taught to
value their own feelings, which get expressed only as a last resort. But to
accept another person means accepting her emotions—there is nothing
more basic or intrinsic. If this equality doesn’ t exist, how can spirit really
grow. Spirit isn’ t an emotion, but it provides an opening to our inner selves. You have to feel that your partner wants to understand you and your
feelings before you can share experiences you barely understand yourself. Sensitivity. Being able to sense what is going on inside another person is a skill that
has to be developed like any other. It isn’t an easy one to acquir e; you have
to feel secure on the level of intuition, and you need to be able to accept
complexity and conflicting emotions. The question “What are you feeling
right now. ” always has the answer “More than one thing. ” Sensitivity
requires setting aside your notions of what the other person is feeling, what
you think she should feel, and what you hope she isn’t feeling. Whenever
the ego intrudes, sensitivity cannot be present. Sensitivity is easily crushed, but there is also social prejudi ce which
holds that women are too sensitiv e (as men see it), and that sensitivity in a
man makes him less masculine. Men therefore can find a ready excuse for
shutting out others by claiming, “I don’t understand why you feel this way”
or “I don’t have the slightest idea what’ s going on with you. ” If your
mission in life is to protect your self-image, then opening up to another
person’ s feelings runs contrary to your mission. To be sensiti ve you will
have to abandon  being right all the time, being in control, havin g needs that
must dominate over the needs of others, and so forth. In terms of Dana and Stephen, it was vital for Stephen not to be sensitive
to any sign of discomfort from the woman he was wooing. He knew only
one mode of courtship—Prince Charming sweeping Cinderella  off her feet
—and princes don’t have flaws. If he sensed that Dana wasn’ t satisfied with
his lavis h generosity, he would have had to face the fact that everything he
was doing was a performan ce. Most of us are made  extremely
uncomfortable by extreme generosity; it has a suffocating effect and makes
the receiver feel inadequate compared with the giver. Dana felt all these
things, but Stephen couldn’ t afford to be sensitive to them; he had no other
way to “love” her, and to have allowed her to say how she wanted to be
loved would have taken power out of his hands, which would have been
intolerable. Communication. Communion  is the root word in communication, reminding us that to
communicate with another person isn’t to pass on information. It is to draw
another into union with yourse lf. Women tend to have a more intuitive
grasp of how communication works, for both positive and negative reasons. On the positive side girls are typically taught from a young age to valuebonding, especially on an emotional level, whereas boys are typically
taught to compe te. In a competi tive situation, silence is often equated with
power. On the negative side, women often don’t expect to have power;
therefore, they can “afford” to expose their feelings and inner conflicts. By
contrast, if a man in power communicates too much of his inner fears,
insecurities, or conflicts, his right to power may be questioned. These social expectations have a large influence on relationships. A man
may sincerely feel that he has nothing to say about his feelings, and
conversely that women don’t talk reasonably about situations. A woman
may feel “stupid ” when what she has to say is consistently emotional, and
she may conversely feel that the absence of emotional communication from
men means that they are stronger. In Dana’ s story, communication was
confined by the rules of the Cinderella fairy tale. Dana couldn’t easily
express anything outside the boundaries of the story of a working woman
meeting a prince and being carried off by him to great heights of wealth and
power. Stephen’ s vision of what was going on took preceden ce over her
perceptions, reflecting both a breakdown in communication and a loss of
equality. By the time two people are marr ied, they both know the limits of what to
expect from each other in terms of equality, sensitivity, and communication. By establishing these factors in the courtship phase, you find out what you
are getting into before limits are drawn. If you find yourself in a long-s tanding relationship, think back to your
courtship days. Ask yourself what you wanted from a mate back then and
compare it with what you have. Inevitably you will find that equality is
something you both can work on, sensitivity can always be made deeper,
and communication must be worked at every day. Keeping these  alive is the
basis for spiritual growth together, whether you have only just emer ged
from infatuation or have been married for years. INTIMACY :  
THE INNOCENCE OF DESIRE
The issue hovering over intimacy, the next phase of romanc e, is desire. Desire is a driving force behind love, but it isn’t the same as love, andwhere the two diver ge, many conflicts arise. The ancient Sansk rit word for
desire is Kama, made famous by the book of erotic lore called Kama Sutra,
the “teaching about desire. ” But Kama  is a much broader term; it applies to
desires or wishes of every kind. A formula I learned in my childhood in India, inherited from the ancient
scriptures, holds that life is perfected by achieving four things: Artha,
Kama, Dharma, and Moksha. Artha is wealth, kama is the fulfillment of
one’s desires, dharma is right livelihood or work, and moksha is the
liberation of the soul. On the path to love, all four aims of life get fulfilled, and this is where
issues arise, since it is still difficult for many people to accept that desire is
legitimate. Desire remains tainted with implications of selfishness and
“lower” drives. The one place in our lives where most of us feel free to
express kama is romance. The erotic longing that is part of romantic love
inspires every lover to merge with the beloved; this is the natural
consummation of attraction between two people. The great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote delicately erotic
verses in his adolescence, and one says,
Leaving their homes, two loves have made a pilgrimage to the confluence of lips. In the law of Love, two waves have swelled, breaking and mingling on two lips. This may seem like a chaste poem comparing two lovers to religious
devotees making  their way, as Indian pilgrims are wont to do, to the sacred
confluence of two holy rivers. If you understand Tagore’ s original Bengali,
however, you would know that the word for confluence is the same as the
word for the act of making love. Now the poem seems almost sacrilegious,
when in fact it is an unembarrassed blending of flesh and spirit. In the West
we might say that the sacred has met the profane, except that to Tagore, and
for anyone who has fallen deeply in love, the profane is sacred. The insights of the intimacy phase pertain to the union of flesh and spirit:
Fulfillment is natural and not to be ashamed of. Ecstasy is a state of the soul transmitted thr ough the body. Union consists of two people opening to the same Being. These insights are based on approaching desire without guilt or
inhibition. In traditional cultures, however, sexual consumma tion wasn’ t
permitted immediately after two people fell passionately in love, out of a
belief that desire should be postponed. There were many reasons for
imposing a waiting period, but one was the belief that love and desire are
not compatible. Either desire is of the flesh and therefore sinful or else it is
a prize not to be given by a woman until the union is signed  and sealed
through marriage. Today, in modern society, the consummation of desire comes early,
awaiting nothing but the consent of a man and a woman. Courtship is not
nearly as bound by convention as in the past; it can be as long or as short as
two people want. However, this doesn’ t mean that the issue of desire has
been resolved. Emotional residu es linger from the traditional view, which
by holding out a woman’ s virginity as a sacred prize had a built-in conflict. You cannot say that desire is sinful while at the same time holding out
sexual fulfillment as a prize. Why would love ever accept a sin as its prize. Traditional religious teaching has blinded us to the fact that flesh and
spirit are two poles that belong together. Romantic love is undeniably
sexual; yet it contains the potential for great spiritual experiences. The
beauty of sensuality has its own spiritual significance witho ut resort to
“higher” values. An ancient Sanskrit text exults in the joy of intimacy:
When we have loved, my love,
Panting and pale from love,
Then from your cheeks, my love,
Scent of the sweat I love:
And when our bodies love
Now to relax in love
After the stress of love,
Ever still more I love
Our mingled breath of love. The frankness of this declaration of passion is refreshing, for it reminds us
that the spiritual union of lovers isn’t separate from the sweat and mingled
breath of sexuality. Sex allows you to blend the needs of the self with the fr eedom of the Self. The word kama  is used to describe not just sexual desire but the desire to
be unite d with God. By implica tion this is the same kama that makes you
want to be united with your Self. If you could listen to the voice of spirit at
every moment, you would hear that your divine nature longs for you as you
long for it. A N EW INTIMACY : 
INTIMACY WITH THE  SELF
What raises romantic love above lesser pleasures is that it stirs our deep
erotic natures. This is yet anothe r source of anxiety for modern people, who
are obsessed by sex without being willing to lose control, without being
able to surrender to real passion. Passion must contain surr ender in or der to be authentic. But surrender to what. To the conver gence of all the aspects  of your
being that need to flow into the erotic moment. Physical sensual ity, spiritual
ecstasy, erotic flowering—when all these conver ge, the sexual act becomes
sacred, and what is sacred contains the deepest pleasure. Thousands of
years ago, Lord Shiva murmur ed to his consort, “While being caressed,
sweet princess, enter the caress  as everlasting life. ” This remai ns the ideal
of intimacy. Because intima cy is now so totally identified with the sexual act,
fulfillment has become confused  with performance. Orgasm is pursued with
a devotion that would put most religious zealots to shame. The assumption
for a long time was that men are most anxious about their ability to
perform, but now that nonor gasmic women have become more frank and
open about their predicament, it appears that the anxiety is fully shared. Intimacy in the physical sense is usually taken to be the same as having
an orgasm. But no matter how exciting it is, an orgasm is a sensation
centered in the ego. True intimacy is shared self-expression. For a man to
be intimate with a woman, both have to be able to release themselves into
the special state that orgasm brings, even though they cannot literally share
the same sensat ions. Orgasm isn’t a fixed thing. For some people it is a
release, for others an opening, for still others a contraction. In all cases,though, there is a shift of experience that is not only pleasurable but in some
way deeply transforming. Spiritual masters tell us that the state of
enlightenment, which is totally free, ecstatic, and unbounded, is glimpsed
very closely in or gasm. Or at least this is its potential. Although there is a certain loss when intimacy is entered hastily, our
present approach to sexuality has the advantage of removing outworn
taboos. More than any time in the past, couples today are experiencing
sexuality frankl y and openly before making a commitment to proceed
further in their relationship. Desire isn’t so highly prized anym ore, yet its
spiritual potential remains intact. When two peop le become physically intimate, they do not necessarily
become united. Physical union can coexist with separateness, because for
both partners the ego can remain  involved. The ideal of stepping  into shared
ecstasy isn’t reached by practicing some technique that raises orgasm to the
heights of bliss. Having sex with another person is really just one way to
make an agreement. The agreement may be serious or trivial; it may
betoken a deep commitment or little more than a passing encounter. To see intimacy as an agreement is a very healthy thing,  because
otherwise the sexual act becom es entangled in hidden agendas. Fantasy is
never more powerful or more misleading than where sex is concerned. For a
woman the hidden agenda often  takes the form of believing that having sex
equals love. A man’ s hidden agenda is more likely to equate sex with
power. This was particularly true in times when the man was the pursuer,
ardently offering  his love, whic h the woman would reject or accept. The
ultimate token of acceptance was for her to “give in” to the sexual act. In
doing so she accepted love at the same time. Many women still harbor this
belief in fantasy form. For his part, the man knew that sexual surrender meant that his pursuit
had been successful; the hunter had struck his mark at the same moment
that the lover was embraced. In the past it seemed only natural for both
sexes to use the aggressive image of the hunt as symbolic of the quest for
intimacy, yet looking back we can see a good deal of hidden fear and
insecurity in this analogy. Why should the act of love be linked to
aggression at all. These symbols and images were part of a social code, therefore they
required no agreement. It wasn’ t possible for either men or women toexempt themselv es from the code. Today the opposite is true. If a man feels
himself to be a hunter, conquero r, or ardent pursuer, that is his own choice. If a woman sees herself as prey, prize, or unattainable love object, that is
her decision. No single code operates anymore, and by making intimacy an
agreement, both parties can approach sexuality openly as something they
mutually want. Having sex with someone else does not imply that you have
entered his belief system or will fulfill her expectations. You are not
implicitly playing a part in his fantasy or expecting your versio n of love to
match hers. But there is a price to pay. In. many ways sexual freedom is frightening
because of the loss of boundarie s. The old social code linked love and sex. For a woman to believe that a man loved her because he desired her was
unchallenged. For a man to believe that having sex secured a woman’ s love
was just as natural. Now that this is a matter of agreement, it can also be a
cause of disagreement. Love and desire are essentially separate, a matter
open for discussion. It is surprising how many people enter sexual intimacy with no idea of
what they are agreeing to. It is still common for both men and women to
bring expectatio ns to bed. Because these expectations are founded on
images from the past, they defeat the possibility of passionate surrender. You cannot surrender to an image but can only play it out, and the more
often you play it out, the less spontaneous sex becomes. To rob sex of its spontaneity makes it both false and ugly. Sexua lity is the
most spontaneous aspect of our lives. It is the one place where we do not
have to put at risk our abilities, intellect, and social personae. Playing a part
is a necessity none of us can completely escape in everyday life. We all
have roles as workers, family members, citizens, and so forth. Undeniably
this places strain  upon many other urges that would like to gain expression
but are not permitted to do so. You cannot give way to every  impulse of
anger at work, much less walk out at will. You cannot decide to stop
supporting a family on a whim, since the very fabric of society depends
upon bearing one’ s share of responsibility. Duty hems in desire at every turn, to the point that most people come to
believe that suppressing their desires, holding themselves in check, is good. Suppression is not good, howeve r; it is only expedient. Society requires that
we draw  limits on the expressi on of desire, which makes it all the morenecessary to have at least one area of life that is completely free and
uninhibited. Intimacy is meant to be just such an area. What is it that makes
sex free or inhibited, loving or merely pleasurable. FREEDOM AND  INTIMACY
Many people deny themselves free, loving sex—even if they are not aware
of doing so—because they appro ach the sexual act in terms of results. They
assume that any orgasm is good, and a good orgasm is better. Not only do
we evaluate whether sex was “successful” but we hold up physical pleasure
as the primary goal. Pleasure is a natural thing but it is also an elusive one. For some people  the pleasure of sex is that it promises a release for anxiety
and stress. For them “success”  is actually negative, being defined as the
escape from tension. Other ingredients can be mixed into the sexual act that are far from
loving. Someone who has bottled-up rage inside will usually make love in a
way that is overly aggressive or competitive. A fearful person will typically
find it difficult to allow anything like a full release into bodily sensations;
his or her holdin g back is a passive way to act out fear and at the same time
miss any encounter with love. There are many variations on this theme, for as much as we would wish
to be good lovers, we all bring our conflicts and needs to bed. Whatever
blocks our pleas ure also blocks love, because in sex pleasure is the doorway
to love. Even though sex is meant to be uninhibited and free, there are always
degrees of freedom. Rarely do we believe that we deserve pleasure without
limits. How, then, can we give love without limits, or receive it. Rather than examining the results of the sexual act, we need to consider
its begin nings. Intimacy starts not with a physical approach but with a set of
beliefs. The primary beliefs that defeat pleasure include the following:
Sex is too powerful and has to be controlled. Sin is attached to sex, making it guilty and shameful. Asking someone else to give you pleasure is greedy and selfish. Surrendering to pleasure is the same as surrendering your power. What all of these beliefs have in common is that they provide a reason to
suppress desire. When sex is deprived of its spiritual connection, some aspect of desir e is being suppr essed. The spiritual dimension of sex is its joyfulness and ecstasy, its
communication of love between  two people. These qualities do not require
effort; they appear spontaneously when sex itself is spontaneous. However,
a great deal of spiritual teaching  has been openly antisexual. As long as the
credo “It is better to marry than to burn” was in effect, spiritua l value was
assigned not to intimacy but to chastity. When spiritual teachers held up
chastity as a virtue—as they have in every tradition East and West—the
intention was not to make pleas ure a sin but to elevate a highe r virtue that
by implication led to higher pleasure. One feels the truth in Krishnamurti’ s
words, “Trying to suppress sexual urges is a form of ugliness that in itself
cannot be chaste. Chastity of the monk with his vows is worldliness as long
as the urges are present. All walls of separateness turn life into a
battlefield. ”
Chastity in the sense of purity is a spiritual good, but it should not be
mistaken for suppression of desire. When he asks why people try to repress
their desires, Krishnamurti makes the following beautiful  argument:
resisting the sexual urge has been held up as something good to do, but if
we look at it, resistance is born of fear. We are afraid of being wrong, of
stepping out of line. Society, anxious to make us conform, tells us that if we
don’t resist our sexual ur ges, we will go out of control. Yet is this really true. If sex is natural, why does it have to be controlled. In fact the whol e conflict over sex, the problems of neurosis and deviancy,
and sexual misbehavior, can be traced to resistance, not to sexual urges. Resistance is always mental; it implies a judgment against what is actually
being felt. Sex becomes a problem when it gets mixed with hidden
emotions such as shame, anger, and guilt. Under those circumstances the
sexual impulse is confusing. When people ask questions like “Is it all right
to have  sex with anyone you want to. ” or “Is it natural to be
monogamous. ” the implication is that an outside judgment must enter into
the issue. Values are personal; each situation that has sexual energy in it involves
the whole human being. If you understand where you are in a sexual
situation—meaning that your emotions and values are in your awareness
with clarity—the sexual drive doesn’ t stand apart like a raging intruder. It is
part of you; it is acceptable and loved. If you can walk through life without resistance, you will discover that life
in itself is chaste. It has a purity that includes both love and sex—there is no
division between them except in society’ s misguided conditioning. This argument has a very deep spiritual basis. Most of the time our
worries over sex involve thinkin g and talking about it, yet sex isn’t a word
or a thought. It isn’ t divided in any way from the flow of life; its ur ge arises,
asks for fulfillment, and disappears without leaving traces of guilt and
shame unless we add those trace s by our beliefs. If sex gets tied down to the
mere pursuit of pleasure, it will result in pain, for pleasure cannot be kept
up forever; it will lead only to meaningless repetition and frustration, to a
compulsive craving for sensations that can only dwindle in satisfaction. As Krishnamurti says, the mere pursuit of pleasure throws life out the
window. By “life” he means the sacred Being at the heart of existence, the
mystery that can be known only by not resisting, by being natural. The
difference between sex, love, and chastity doesn’ t exist; they are one. In a world where  imitating other people’ s ideas and values is forced on us
in thousands of ways, sex is left as a means of escaping ourselves. It is a
form of self-for getfulness that is many people’ s only real form of
meditation. Such is the promise of intimacy that it can deliver us into a
place where experience of the spirit is genuine and undeniable.
To recognize that you exhibit the same qualities in yourself, and to confront your own guilt and shame.
According to the text, what is the purpose of the exercise where you make a list of people you intensely dislike and then fill in the reasons why they exhibit those qualities?
Stephen's attempt to control and manipulate Dana, rather than truly connect with her on a deep level, and his inability to accept her as she is.
What is the main issue with the courtship described in the story of Dana and Stephen?
Surrendering to one's ego and accepting one's own feelings and desires, rather than trying to control or manipulate others.
According to the text, what is the key to intimacy and spiritual growth?
The text states that romance is a temporary state, while long-term relationships are a choice that requires dedication and commitment.
What is the main difference between romance and long-term relationships, according to the text?
The author suggests that dharma is a spiritual concept that promotes unity and equality in relationships, and that it is not compatible with the ego's need to be right or in control.
What is the author's view on the concept of "dharma" in the context of relationships?