I would like you to join me in an exploration of sexuality and spirit. You will not be embarrassed, I promise you; I am a companion who does not easily cause discomfort. But I do like adventure in both words and thought—and erotic ideas. I’m a good guide for this sort of thing! Trust me…

I’m not going to talk about technique, because everyone is different. Some people like to kiss; others like to be stroked; some like to be touched on the shoulders or back; others like fondling of the nipples; reaching for the inside of the thighs or the English call the bum (backside); some like early genital contact.

Sometimes all it takes is nudity, to make one aware that the mood has switched to one of sexual arousal.

We cannot standardize these things; but I do urge you to talk to your partner about what turns you on. Make sure your partner knows what arouses you the most. Also, of course, make sure you understand what arouses your partner the most. Don’t make assumptions!

You might even need to experiment and get to know yourself better. Maybe you have changed since high school petting! Sometimes stroking the neck in a certain way is far more provocative than fondling the breasts!

Instead of technique, we are going to talk about the mental and spiritual aspects of sex. One thing that has been very clear to sages and mystics throughout the ages is that sex and spirituality go very closely, hand in hand.

The Christian leaders I think have got this wrong; but if you travel to other parts of the world—India for example—you can see many beautiful carved statues on temples, depicting men and women engaged in glorious and complex erotic acts, often with several partners at once, and you need to be clear: these are considered proper and holy ways of worshipping God!

The only sin is that which is brought there in the distemperate mind of the observer who cannot face such frank and free sexuality.

Something else I shall be sharing, an important truth, is that: contrary to most peoples’ beliefs and opinion, sex is not just the brief act of intercourse or petting that results in orgasm. Rather, it is a crescendo, that builds and builds over the space of hours, days or weeks.

I call this “waves that thrill”.

The feeling of arousal rises like a wave—just a whisper at first—and then, when it has peaked, it dies away slowly, like the ebb of the tide, only to begin the slow process of rising to crescendo again. If your sex doesn’t last for days or weeks in this way, you are missing out, trust me!

You could be missing out on 95% of sex, because 95% of it is in the slow roll and crescendo that builds, not just the sex act itself. The after-wave, or sigh and echo, is also precious, once you learn to experience it and cherish it.

So, come with me now, on a journey of self-discovery and indulgence. Let us take pleasure in the self and learn to use it to reach out to spirit and Higher Power, to connect with our non-Earthly self, using our bodies as a sublime spiritual tool. After all, was it not the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, who said that we are spirits having a human experience, not humans having a spiritual experience.

There is little more sublime and spiritual than the sensation of pleasure given to us, if we respect and reverence it.

If you have no sex partner—you are alone or widowed—don’t be afraid of masturbation; don’t be bashful. Almost everybody does it but won’t admit it. Medical science shows that it is very healthful to masturbate. You will be doing yourself a favor and enjoying better health!

Ignore the religious condemnations that come from folly and ignorance. It was given to us as a gift; please use it!

Why else would it have been made so pleasurable for us? Animals masturbate, did you know? Lots of species have been spotted doing it—and not just in zoos but in their own wild habitat, where they are innocent and natural, untouched by human morality.

Even more surprising, did you know that human fetuses in the womb have been caught having a “wank” or “spanking the monkey”? (on ultrsound video scanners) Don’t believe me? Check out Mary Roach’s TED talk here:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mary_roach_10_things_you_didn_t_know_about_orgasm.html

Just ignore the cranks who have the belief that anything pleasurable is wicked. They are sick and clearly have no understanding of Nature’s compassion and wisdom, or Her purpose for us, here on Earth.

Follow me now in a meditation, just for you, inside the privacy of your own head. You can relax your inhibitions and think, or visualize, whatever you wish, without shame or reticence. Nobody will ever know. Let’s do it!

You can use the power of mind and spirit to create virtually any sexual scenario you like, without remorse or embarrassment. Why settle for less? You can have the most spectacular orgasmic sex with any creative partner you wish!

It’s wonderful, Please indulge yourself. You have my permission and you also have the Almighty’s permission, by the way.

Come with me now on a journey through body and soul.

Let me once more announce my theme, which is that sex is not intercourse or orgasm. Sex is far more than that.

The moment of penetration and subsequent orgasm, for all its exquisite intensity, is but a small aspect of sex. True sex is not merely an act but a mind process which pervades all our conscious thinking. At times it is a faint tremor, at other moments it swells to an urgent and demanding feeling. It becomes an imperative. There are many degrees to sex.

It rolls to and fro like a tide. High water may be the times of nakedness and caress, with tumescence and ultimate release. But sex is there even in the ebb. It is an echo, a sigh, a fading chord which breathes its blessing on all our hours spent together.

When my love is not there, I feel the rhythm of the tide. When I know she is coming towards me, I feel the current beginning to stream. There is excitement, a tremble, vibration in the waters. I feel her before she is there. These are moments of intense anticipation that are as meaningful as the full message. To want only the roaring high tide is to miss the beauty, the lust, the magic which is present there at low water also.

The peace, the trust, the comfort, contain the voice of distant longing and earlier fulfillment or that which is to come.

Love speaks to us in these rise-and-fall rhythms, as a kind of music. But it is never truly absent. A brief silence, indeed, may a part of the melody, in the same way that a pause in the music can add poignancy and meaning to a tune.

Love Facilitates

Love helps one work better. It generates energy, especially the creative sort. This is surely connected with the procreative drive.

One’s product and results are bettered. The environment is made more whole and secure. The healing power of love is undisputed.

There is thus a responsibility for those in love. Love is so powerful; you hurt others when there is a storm. Remember to fix it quickly afterwards. Even better, try to avoid strife in the first place. Give out your goodness and make a fruitful show of it.

Making Sexual Waves

The loved one is your all, your everything. You need to show them that. The touch, the gesture, the word that fills you up starts an energy reaction. It emanates outwards, like ripples in a pond, and can be passed on to others. It is nurturing for them too.

It’s great to see people light up around love. A special couple with that particular feeling for each other have a kind of radiant light, a warmth, an energy that can inform others around them. Have you observed the reactions of the faces turned towards such a couple? There can be no doubt that something is passed on.

Don’t hide it. Make waves!

Plants and Sex

The lovely book The Secret Life Of Plants tells us about the work of US scientist Cleve Baxter, who tested and verified that plants have considerable powers of perception [I’ve met Clive and have a photograph of him and me standing next to that very plant—which was still alive in 2007!]

But you may not have noticed the work of another scientist, Pierre Paul Sauvin, an electronics expert from Patterson, New Jersey. Sauvin demonstrated, using plants connected to sensitive electronic instruments, that his laboratory plants reacted strongly when he and his girlfriend were having orgasm in the forest 80 miles away (he repeated this many times on different occasions in order to be sure!).

This is often quoted with hushed reverence, to show the sentience and psychic awareness of plants. I say yes to that. But it shows something equally magical and amazing about us! Surely it is an awesome thing if our good feelings and reactions spread outwards into the world to the extent of a sphere that is 80 miles (or more) across? By the way, it has not been possible to show similar emanations for negative and hurtful feelings. That’s a relief. It also substantiates my theory that negative energy by definition has no power. It can only take its force by riding on the wave of good feelings.

Here then is a kind of scientific proof of “The Power of Love” that people talk and sing about.

What else might feel the impact of our deepest thoughts, for both good or ill? Be careful what you think. Carry no malice, for you may be polluting our psychic environment.

How do you recognise you are cherished?

How do you know you are loved? No, that’s not such a silly question. Love is very abstract. Someone can say “I love you” but how do you recognize it is true?

The NLP people talk about the key concept of representing experience; it’s a mental structuring that tells you what’s happening and even how it feels.

Happiness itself is an abstraction. How you do you know you are experiencing happiness instead of, say, fear or depression? Most people would say there is a warmth, relaxedness, a lightness in the head and chest, an energy that feels good and an outgoing feeling that embraces most of the current experience without censorship.  But then what’s a “good energy feeling”? Note that all these references for happiness are feelings. You experience something that you know means you are happy.

Try to figure out for yourself what you experience that tells you you are happy! You can begin to comprehend how we create and structure our own reality, how we are arbiter of what is right or wrong for us, what is good or bad for us, what is pleasant and unpleasant for us, and so on. This is an important lesson.

Now, to return to the main question of this section: how do I know I am loved? What has to happen in the real universe for this sensation to cease being an abstraction and become concrete reality for you? This is obviously a very important question for everyone alive. Yet it is one that most people have never even considered.

The necessary mind-structure varies greatly. For some, it’s a certain way of touching or feeling; for others it’s the words – what is being said, or the way it is being said (the sound of the voice); yet another group responds to gestures, posture or emotions (all related). Of course this is all mixed up with eroticism and biology – nothing wrong with that.

It is still crucial to our happiness that we get what we want.

It is vital for loving couples to express these sentiments and desires to each other and take on board what the beloved partner is asking for. If not, you face the rather sad situation of him or her saying repeatedly “I love you”, yet he or she isn’t listening or responding because, for him or her, that isn’t the critical signal that rings the bell.  Maybe he or she is longing to be touched in a certain way or a certain place. So both partners flounder around and feel frustrated. They may even begin to feel “this relationship isn’t working”.

So it is vital we learn each other’s “love signals” and do not make assumptions. You’ll likely be wrong.

For a feast of delight, do the following: in bed, in the jacuzzi or sauna, any place where you can respond at once in the manner desired…

Make sure each is clear about their own message box: how do YOU know you are loved? What gives you that ever-so-special feeling? Tell your loved one and have him or her do it to/for you until you are sure they have got it right. Discover their magic secret in turn and reciprocate; give them a delight.

If you get it right you will both melt into each others’ arms in a frenzy of arousal. Those of you who saw the movie A Fish Called Wanda will remember the scene where John Cleese’s character is talking to Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in Russian. The effect of his spoken accent on her is devastating, she falls apart morally and mentally and is ravening for his caress; she starts to chew the furniture in her lust. Yet the man doesn’t even notice he’s thrilling her body and soul.

We see it and he doesn’t, which is why we laugh. But for her, it isn’t funny.

There are a couple of important things to note:

You are not asking the person to like you any more or less, you are just asking him or her to do something that makes you feel hugely loved. That’s empowering for you. This goes from your partner to you. It could even be a chore for your partner but if they are loving and sincere, he or she will not show it and deliver the goods for you. In the end, the reward is what comes back from the other person when he or she has been melted into the floor.

By the same logic, if you are representing for another person, you may not feel comfortable that this is the way you personally would choose to show your affection. But you must fully grasp that he or she may not respond well to what you choose to give out either. Each has to think of the other person’s needs.

For better strategies in life we need to change our maps, remember? This is an important shift from your viewpoint to your partner’s and you will find it incredibly rewarding.

Get a better map. Indeed, draw up the map for your lover’s heart territory, maybe for the first time.

This may not be the same list as “What turns you on”, despite the John Cleese  example above. There is nothing wrong in being clear with your partner what these actions are, however. Each can make a list of what turns the other on, sexually. Be sure there is no judgment and be sure that you fully understand and can learn to do what it is the other wants.

Remember, it may not be an action. It may be a fantasy. That’s fine.

If you haven’t addressed the issue together before, it’s time you did. Making love without such a list is like driving a car without knowing the Highway Code.

If you want to be a better driver in sex, learn the rules!

Science of Sexuality

Now, before closing, let me leave you with a few scientific notes. This will not spoil the magic, I’m sure.

The fact is that science has shown that the physical changes which take place at the intense moment of orgasm are very close to spiritual experiences. A persuasive article published in Scientific American in July 2011 showed just how close and interrelated the two things are, exactly as I have been telling you.

Measuring different physiological events, including brain scans, scientists have shown that, at orgasm, we undergo a transformation, just like that of intense meditation bliss.

A clear portrait of pleasure is now emerging. Bliss, both sacred and profane, shares the reduction or vanishment of self-awareness, alterations in bodily perception and decreased sense of pain. And while the left frontal lobe may be linked to pleasure, the other three characteristics are bilateral, affecting right and left brain equally.

Pleasure is linked to a disappearance of the sense of the boundaries of our body, and this, too, involves both sides of the brain. We become less focused on self. The meditator is trying to disconnect from the ever-present self, as an intellectual exercise, to free us from emotional traps and to create greater awareness.

At orgasm, we also take delight in a great sense of self-forgetting, which is wallowing in the experience and in the relationship. Unlike meditation, orgasm seems a heightened sense of being within one’s body, rather than the sense of being outside of it.

Well, so the scientists say. I hope you enjoy sex fully and often, till the end of your days and learn to love it and share with others, if you can.

Make sure you check out the Rumi post too; it’s very relevant here:

Rumi, sexuality and mysticism, eye gazing