It's all about energy

I recently came across a blog that I contributed to about creativity and libido or sexual energy. And I thought it was time to revisit my thoughts on this subject mainly because I feel that in the past I have seen sexual energy as something very precious. I have always said to myself that sex is a spiritual thing. But something has changed, in me that is.

I think that sometimes, I used spirituality as an excuse for a good appetite for sex and high doses of sexual energy. But now I feel like the schoolgirl moving to university and realising that there is a lot she doesn't know. I have a sense, a feeling that to think of sexual energy as a spiritual thing denotes a level of unconscious incompetence. Now I do believe that a truly spiritual person channels this wonderful and powerful sexual energy into higher social and spiritual goals. Of course, not to say that sex is not part of a spiritual 'pilgrims' life, but in a way akin to 'bramacharya' or moderation, that it becomes less dominating and perhaps more sublimated.

There is a very interesting dialogue between Deborah Anapol, Ph.d and Taber Shadburne, MA on this topic: 'Love without Limits'. Sex, like meditation, is a trance state, an altered state of consciousness; and as such I believe it plays a significant part in spirituality, but only if there is freedom from ego and attachment or vairagya (non reaction) so that we don't get attached to sex for bodily pleasure only. And therefore get stuck in the sensory based world and the false sense of self and consciousness. I guess this is why most religions and a good proportion of spiritual traditions have had an uncomfortable relationship with sex. And also perhaps this is why, the indian notion of bramacharya often gets translated as celibacy (aka Ghandi). But actually it means moderation or not getting overly 'into' something (and not just sex either).

Perhaps tantra came about as a backlash to this repression of sexuality in spiritual traditions? But if you consider other spiritual modalities such as chakras or even Grave's spiral dynamics I find more evidence to back up my feeling that people who are overly concerned with the sexual have their spiritual energy somehow stuck. See the following excerpt from the interview above:

"I'm thinking that if I had tried to do 10-day Zen retreat ten years ago, I would have just been sitting there staring at the wall and struggling with my sexual desire. Has that happened for you or people you talk to? I meant I would be overwhelmed by pure sexual energy. Of course this might have something to do with the fact that in the past most of the time that I would go into a deep meditative state, I would have some kind of psychedelic in my body, so that may have exaggerated the energy and sexual direction of my experience. ..... and having kundalini going up my spine, having kriyas, and probably wanting to release it in some way and not being able to get there through pure meditation."

Sure we have all been there, but we progress and the energy evolves and moves through the body into higher levels and thence into higher levels of consciousness. There are reasons we can get stuck here though!

Freud is the psychoanalyst most oft quoted on sexuality (repressions, id, superego all abound!). Yet Jung seemed to have a more evolved notion of this (in my humble and not particularly well-informed opinion). The relationship between sexuality, spirituality and the libido lay at the heart of Jung’s theoretical differences with Freud. In 'Psychology of the unconscious', Jung sought a broader definition of libido as psychic rather than just sexual energy.

Jung’s core process of individuation leads us towards a unity with the Self, but only after experiencing and finally transcending the 'opposites' of masculine/feminine and sexuality/spirituality. And I feel, that once you get to taste this 'transcendence' the whole language and experience of sex and spirituality changes so dramatically.