On Sex and the Karmic Ties of Human Sexuality

Reddit Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/enlightenment/comments/1rk5f30/on_sex_and_the_karmic_ties_of_human_sexuality/

Hi everyone. I was walking around the pier in San Francisco the other day and wanted to write this both as an internal reminder for myself as I translate experiences into written word and embed them into my memory, as well as for those who resonate with these words, as a possible beacon for a moment in time. There will be those who this doesn’t make sense or doesn’t connect; it need not need to necessarily, simply observations on an individual’s path that perhaps you have superseded or found elementary, or simply is not part of your path.

This is likely to offend, and so I apologize ahead of time as words are difficult to use to convey internal-subjective experiences that cannot be translated beyond one’s inner state. For this, I may have to use very terse language to hold the same effect in my own mind but perhaps has a different meaning-effect in yours. I am a male, so I can only speak to the male perspective of sexuality. I don’t pretend to have any answers, but if somehow this provides guidance, for myself and for others, that will be enough.

I will refer to an individual as oneself or one, which could be a placeholder for me, or it could be a placeholder for you the reader. I just like the shorthand because using I and me statements always feel rather self-focused, especially for sensitive topics such as this. I offer that you provide your own object-subject nouns within your mind as you read that best suit your way of viewing the world.

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At conception, one finds themselves drawn to a specific type of energy that is both comforting and irritating at the same time, something like a tight, warm, wet blanket that is suffocating but also safe. Very few of us have a memory of this initial experience, and certainly if one did it would fade in time through the process of growth and development. But ultimately, there is some aspect of the moment in which one’s parents come together to engage in sexual intercourse that sparks life into existence, whether from the biological-materialistic perspective or from the spiritualistic perspective.

Something occurs, something is activated. That initial coming together of love, or at least biological lust, draws two people of male and female bodies together, and for that moment in time when orgasm occurs, that immense energy and bliss flows into the genital region.

And that is the start of one’s journey. The primordial inception, the first taste of being, where one’s first state is a reflection of that sexual energy forged between two parents. And whether one is shaped by that sexual energy through that moment, or through the ongoing presence of one or both parents, there is some imprinting that occurs. Much of one’s psychosomatic contortions are shaped very closely to this channel of energy. It is as though the complexes become inherited, with the mother occupying some element of the primordial feminine and the father the primordial masculine. It need not be the case, as some individuals invert their energetic being, but for most cases this may be how one experiences those energies from birth.

But as an infant and as a child, one does not need experience these energies in any meaningful way, unless some tragic trauma occurred which created a very strong karmic imprint of extraordinary pain. For the most part, these energies dwell dormant until sexual maturity occurs and one begins to have a felt-sense experience of these energies in a very large way, or at least because of the newness of the experience and the need for the biological system to reconstruct the flow of hormones and tissues at that sexually-maturing age, there is a significant amount of turmoil that occurs.

This adolescence is a very challenging time, as an individual being has never experienced that degree of chaos internally. So many, many complexes can begin to form, whether in relationship with the opposite energy or self-reflectively. This is also the beginning of the formation of many tensions and cloistering of energies in the genital region and beyond to maintain stability, to be able to function within the culture, society, and family structure that one has been dealt.

These tightened knots can become increasingly dense through repetition of sexual acts or thoughts, whether positively or negatively, because holding a view creates a channel for which the energies flow. To put it bluntly, both pain and pleasure require neurotransmitters and biological energy to construct the experience in our minds. They both use the conduits of our neurocircuitry. Whether that is done alone through masturbation or sexual daydreaming, or through lustful or desirous, it is like an aperture that opens and closes, but each time that network of tensions gains strength.

It’s the habituation, especially combined with very intense emotions, that can become the inception, the seed of something much greater in terms of the dampening of awareness. Whether that is through masturbation to pornography, culturally and religiously inherited shame or stories regarding the negativity of sexuality, sexual acts with a partner without conscious awareness, patterned memories of special moments in time with a lover, or generalized discursive thinking that bind one to their genital region, one begins to build up a continuous tightening and loss of awareness of that space.

As one progresses through life, especially as the individual begins a spiritual practice and has initial experiences that point the way, the sexual-somatic space can become a very problematic area due to these powerful energies and forces. One begins to find that interactions with the opposite sexual energy can be marred with certain complexes – whether that comes from the initial encounter and asking them out on a date, challenges in sexual encounters in bed, issues in communication with those perceived more powerful or less powerful than oneself, arguments and coldness with a partner, familial tensions especially with parental figures, or even minor moments of lustfulness for a beautiful figure if only for a brief second.

But challenges are also present with one’s own sexual energy and members of the same, with aggressiveness or anger, power struggles, and other hierarchical tensions being an omnipresent challenge when dealing with individuals of the same biological gender. Without the awareness from which these facets of suffering arise, these can become a source of great psychic pain.

That said, somehow the promise is that the poison is actually the antidote. As one progresses further on their spiritual journey, one can begin to see that there are actual fetters and contortions. How this actually happens appears to be a mystery, a sort of grace. It’s not automatic, but could occur through extensive meditative retreat, the widening of awareness offered through psychedelics and entheogens, some kind of breaking point in life that creates an opening, or other spiritual-formative experiences outlined in the scriptures and noted by individuals throughout the ages.

It truly is unclear this particular change in viewpoint, as it is very difficult to convey to others and has only pithy aphorisms to point the way, like the eye looking at itself or the edge of the blade that cuts nothing and everything. Regardless, at some point in the journey, there is a sudden realization that suffering is somehow a command system with a very complex series of controls, and experienced first as visuals and emotional energies, but then beneath these exist some sort of etheric contortions that live in the body. But they are truly experienced in a felt-sense way, like having your calves experience a Charlie horse or your back having a fit of tightness.

And of those contortions, the ones in the sexual-genital regions can be some of the most potent in terms of the amount of energy they contain, but also the most challenging to address. Why? It seems like there’s some autonomous self-protective system. Like anything in existence, there is some kind of self-selection through existence; what exists now only exists because it has some measure of protecting itself from elimination that removed its cousins.

Those contortions are powerful and present because during one’s conception and development, they were the most difficult to see. Anything else that was healed or dealt with, must be relatively easy to deal with. There are all sorts of ways these energies are shielded from the conscious psychology, whether through distraction or irritation, visuals of sexual acts and activity consumed through pornography, memories with forgotten lovers and pleasurable times, or the sheer density of habit, whether one is bored, tired, or frustrated and going through the act of masturbation or other way of releasing that sexual tension.

Except, that tension becomes stronger and one is only enhancing its strength through habit. What is released is the surface energy that generates those feelings, visuals, anxieties and such, but it does nothing to actually weaken those contortions. And for some, those contortions may be very difficult to discern or observe even in deep meditation, as the entire region can be blank or feel numb. There may be signs, such as pain or tightness, that one can use as an anchor point, but it requires strength of will to sit through a full meditation and place all one’s observation on those points, without distraction, as the release of energies can stimulate very enticing, seductive, or painful memories and psychosomatic experiences.

Back to the idea of the antidote. So, the interesting aspect of all this is that once one can see these contortions in a meditative or non-dual state, one can actually slowly whittle them down with awareness. At first, it is a slow process, like taking sandpaper to grind down a boulder. There is some initial excitement in knowing that the process can occur, that the tensions can actually be broken, and one finds it’s easier for some than others, especially if one practices great courage, patience, gratitude, faith, and other such virtues in real life. But it is still difficult regardless. These are almost like practice points to help weaken what you can see in a meditative state.

One can apply small antidotes to the energies of sexuality, such as the view that all bodies, beautiful and ugly, will eventually decay and become nothing but a fetid, bloated carcass filled with worms. Or that all bodies are composed of matter and energy and light. Or that dissecting the body with the mind’s eye reveals that the vast majority, even those of extraordinary beauty and sexuality, is composed of blood, pus, bile, bone, tissue, and organs; that the lustful element is just simply the psycho-visual element of seeing a pleasing exterior or sexually-engrossing energy, like a car versus its engine and mechanical aspects. But purely witnessing seems to be the least contrived and most effective in the long-term, as it can be applied without remembering or applying significant effort.

Regardless of the methodology used to continuously shine light and undo those knots, again, the fascinating aspect is that this can be done at all. That if one continues the practice, over and over and over again, again like applying sandpaper to a boulder, slowly the region reveals itself. It may be a brief moment, maybe a second at best, but it allows an opening to exist where one can continue to revisit that region and slowly relax and widen the view.

The most powerful though, or at least can be for some, is to take the energies of loss of a loved one and redirect it into the genital region. That if one has the concentration, will, and strength, one can take the entire energy poured out from sadness, pain, longing, grief, and so forth, and concentrate it into a complete moment of clarity that shatters the entire framework of that sexual space, such that there is a permanent view of the energies coming from that area. Particularly the loss of one of the primordial sources of sexual energy, one’s parents.

Why? Again, it is unclear the reasoning behind this, but likely because the relationship between oneself and the parent was the original source of that sexual energy, that first inception point, inverting that energy through the death-relinquishment process seems to be very effective to dissolve the constituents of the contortions in that area. One may speculate that this is how one slows down or even stops the reincarnation process, because awareness of the original space where conception occurred may free up the thought-being that comes into existence and passes out of existence, to have choice and control over where they reside. Without that awareness, return to an incarnate body become a choiceless act, a sort of gravitation and attraction to a particular energy that cannot be viewed with precision like a moon falling into a planet without the momentum of its orbit.

So what good is finally seeing and viewing this genital area? How is it different from other regions of the body seen through meditative equipoise or non-dual awareness? This appears to be the joke of the universal consciousness, so to speak. One finds, as that genital region becomes lit with full awareness and consciousness, that those facets of sufferings previously referenced – arguments with spouses, fears and anguish with sexuality, the fear and anxiety of speaking to a beautiful form of the opposing energy, the pain of loneliness, sexually-mediated power dynamics, lustfulness, habituation of masturbation or pornographic thought, experience of guilt or sinfulness with sexuality, and other such challenges associated with sexuality – dissolve. They dissolve.

Or at the very least, they weaken in a substantial way where the original irritation is more manageable. Let it be known that these aspects themselves are empty and have no particular issue themselves (one can masturbate with a free view uncontrived and unconstrained by the contortions, for example), but rather if one experiences suffering from them, then that is the issue. There is no sense of right or wrong here, but rather one’s own subjective state and experience with the situation.

It is a rather bizarre consequence of something like this process, which is that not only is one’s view of the situation changed such that the situation no longer affects them in the same manner as historically, when the contortions existed. But that actually, the relationship with others, and with reality at large, reshapes itself to conform to the new situation. For example, one may find that not only is there an unconstrained courage and freedom to act and speak with the opposite gender, where perhaps one may have experienced fear and anxiety, but that actually the opposite gender becomes increasingly attracted to the individual who finds actually themselves unmoved by the situation (where perhaps there was once great excitement and attachment at the prospect). When one has not lived such a reality, such an experience can feel rather overwhelming at first but then there is a sort of normalcy to it.

Dating and sexually-infused conversations are unhindered, uncontrived, and continuously spontaneous. Sexual activities become more spontaneous, fruitful, and unhindered by discursive thought or emotional blockages. Speech is unhindered and filled with a force and energy that can be felt throughout a room, and is uncompromised by circumstances such as being at a platform or in a loud space. Sexual habits and thought patterns that once crippled the individual are evaporated and forgotten, and one is not burdened by an overwhelming need, lustfulness, or desire that cannot be satiated even with consummation with sexual activity. Relationship arguments right themselves in the moment spontaneously and with great precision, the very energy of the argument itself almost correcting itself as it experiences the intensity of the awareness, as if nothing occurred at all. Again, here the poison is the antidote. One walks through spaces and reality unhindered by fear, at least within this domain. There is a lightness and humor associated with these aspects of being.

This is not always the case, as the spacious view is not always available even if the witnessing still occurs and a certain “practicing” still needs to be implemented, but the frequency and intensity of these situations is heightened to a level that cannot be ignored or reduced to a specific change in habit. It truly does appear to be a shift in the somatic-consciousness-reality axis.

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I offer this written treatise first as a way for me to habituate my mind with certain experiences that I feel require solidification for myself, as such a transformation seems remarkable given the historical state of my being in this domain, as well as a window for others to consider and reflect on if such experiences resonate with them. I wish not to prove a point nor to find a way to brag about any exploits; what I see is much like a moment of grace, a gift of sorts, to be put in a way. Again, what has been written is not for everyone, and I do not expect that it will connect with all individuals.

But my hope, for those who greatly struggle and suffer with sexuality as I have, that this provides some tiny modicum of clarity and guidance within their spiritual journey. I share in good faith and gratitude for all that I have learned from others through the writings of their journey. Again, if I have offended, written carelessly about the subject, or presented myself in a false light, I apologize in advance. Please forgive me.