song of the day: Hold Me Now / Thompson Twins

word of the day: ana / in equal quantities (hmm, you learn something new each day, "ana" is [phonetically] also a word is also a word in IS that means individuated form, sort of like "body", it's etymology comes from the upper right quadrant, it also means embodied Love. apparently in English it means in equal quantities. i didn't know it was an English word.

my friend Eric sent me an email that characterizes several of the emails i've received about the sex blogs. he wondered if i might contextualize the following passage:

** that FACT of FUCK is this: unless you find yourself in one of those extraordinarily rare instances when TWO fully awakened, healthy beings mutally consent to whatever sex it is, you are creating karma and violating a fundamental premise of the bodhisattva's vow. this goes double for all the scum sucking, bottom-feeding spiritual teachers who fuck their students. yes, including the FAMOUS ones, and yes, including the famous ones who say they're practicing crazy wisdom, or TANTRA, or whatever the hell the convenient tradition is they hijack in order to transact their gross / subtle / causal abuse. **

he noted, as others have, that i have some charge around this subject, and wondered if i might flush it out a bit to orient us (why am i so hot about this subject)? i think that's a good idea. the answer to why i have such energy behind this is two fold:

1, most of my contempt for this stuff comes from MY life, from MY experiences. there was a time, well, more like a period, where i definitely wandered off the path and claimed it to be a deepening of the path, and it had to do with sex. i was sleeping with women who i knew in my heart-of-hearts, were actually attracted to the Mystery, the Dharma, God, whatever you want to call it. but they had not contacted or made the recognition that what they were attracted to, what they were being pulled toward was their OWN divinity, their very own higher Self was acting as a magnet. but since they weren't- for whatever temporary reason- able to consciously recognize that, they unconsciously projected or translated that attraction onto to me. it's very, very common in all sorts of spiritual circles to have this confusion around the very REAL, powerful impulse of our souls toward the always-already present, and the myriad ways it gets distorted and confused through the lenses of Samsara. but anyway, i KNEW their perception was affected by just such abberations, that they were making decisions (sexually) that didn't come from their clear mind. obviously it would be unethical to fuck someone in those circumstances. so, my solution was to give them that whole disclaimer speech i've written about "now, you have to realize A, B, and C, blah blah blah" and tell them all those things very explicitly which were unconscious to them, so they wouldn't be sleeping with me without full knowledge, etc. this, i hoped, would satisfy the moral / karmic quotient in the exchange (on my part).

but that's ridiculous, and it does not work. openly admitting all that, and having total disclosure, is the same as reading someone their rights who speaks a different language than you. they will nod, listen, but it doesn't matter, they won't receive it. and that's exactly what the person would do with me in those situations, they would nod, listen, say yes at all the right places, and then we'd sleep together, and then afterward the karmic and ethical fallout would ensue, and i would be like "but, remember when i said X, and you agreed and understood, and...". then i would realize that the aspect of the person i had spoken to was, of course, the deluded, confused part. again, i want to stress here it's not like i was running around jumping from bed to bed with crack whores and schizophrenics. these were bright, intelligent, articulate, perceptive people, and truly, most of the time i had sincere feelings for them that went beyond sexuality. it's just that those feelings were coupled with my own narcissism and utter fear of commitment and responsibility. when you factor in that i was supposed to be a sincere practioner, you can see how this whole thing was a quagmire. i look back on the millions of women i slept with (just kidding), i look back on the tens of thousands of farm animals i (just kidding) when i think of the thousands (just kidding) dead bodies i (j.k.), when i consider the thousands of times i masturbated...

SO... when i look back at the kind of practioner i was then, here's the picture i get: very hard core meditation practice (3-4 hours a day). very charismatic (performer, witty, charming, etc). very horny. unethical, prone to avoidance, self-absorbed, and willing to contort and rationalize the Dharma, the Way, in order to gratify what were very, very clever selfish impulses.

now, the UPSIDE to having gone through all that self-created bullshit, is that you develop a very sensitive, accurate capacity to recognize it in yourself and in others later on, when you've sincerely given it up as a way of life, and you no longer identify with that (still present, still nagging) part of you that wants to bypass all the hard work and responsibility of working in the Mystery. therefore,

#2, when i see teachers, gurus, charismatic spiritual figures doing whatever they want, however they want (sex with students, money, drugs, etc), i get very, very pissed off. it is its own category of violence to take what is a human being's sincere desire for Truth and Freedom and manipulate that for the sake of indulgence. in my view (and of course this is all just my opinion), the instances where the MOST beneficial, most expeditious, most helpful route to awakening is to involve sex, drugs and the like- those instances are so statistically rare so as to be inconsequential and not even germain to the work of the Mystery on Earth. this planet is a fucking broken, messy swamp of people struggling with food, water, shelter, war- and equally so with happiness, stability, connection, family- and Love. the real problem with so much of the "Spiritual" stuff is that it can make us just want to float in the clouds, and by-pass the shit storm by saying "Everything is always, already Spirit, so don't sweat it man". There are two truths: Absolute and relative. when we awaken to the absolute truth that just IS, it spontaneously (in its healthy realization) expresses itself as Love-In-Action in the relative world- engaged in whatever is needed- the quickest way to help all other Dreamers wake up to that ever-present Self. that includes our small self, which nods back to sleep every few seconds. an authentic realization of IS does not manifest itself as a fucking free-for-all shopping spree of subtle materialism.

i just want to conclude by saying again i'm sure that there ARE instances where sex between teacher and student is what is in the highest interest of all beings, there ARE instances where drugs can be in the highest interest of all beings- BUT those truly authentic instances are so rarefied as to be statistically inconsequential and not relevent to our work here. 99% of claims to "spirituality" in that regard are episodes of hijacking, mis-reading, rationalization- ego masquerading as seeker. in the Absolute, IS is always IS and that IS is not other than what ISn't and all its Chimeras- but in the relative, let's get over ourselves and do what needs to be done for the 6 billion people who are not battling with wildy abstract, theoretical frameworks. first, basic needs. then, love, security, belonging, and inclusion, then, we have the great gift and opportunity to perhaps wake up from the dream and serve our Self as it unfolds as other people. my charge around this topic pretty much comes from my enduring adolescence. if anything i regret that i waited so long to accept the gift and responsibility of Love of the kind I have with my daughter and wife, and that i missed chances earlier in life to truly help people instead of subtly using them. it's not like i was pure evil or anything, but just kind of lazy and self-absorbed. and that's what i recognize in some of the famous teachers / gurus / spiritual figures: they're not pure evil, they're just lazy and self-absorbed, with a very sophisticated theology that can be used to justify it.