David Deida

[markern]

The way I see it Deida says a lot of goood stuff. I agree in general about men finding their purpose, that being very attractive to women and the value of men being able to stay ventered and strong in a relationship and how women respond to that etc. However, I have huge problems with how he describes womens testing of men. The type of testing he often describes I would characterize as very emitionaly unhelathy bordering on evil and bullying. Dieda uses the example of the man coming home proud because he made a million at work. Instead of giving the man positive feedback the Dieda woman starts bitching about lack of attention or something wich isen`t realy true in his example but done in order to see if she can push the man of center or if he will stand strong wich will make her feel good. Thain my opinion is just sick.On a broader and lighter level I agree with parts of what he says about testing. I know about it and how to handle it from the pickup community so I am familiar with the dynamic, I know its there and I know it does not ever stopp completly. But, the realtionships I see with strong loving men who has a clear purpose and healthy women do not work like that. Testing is extreemly unfrequent, when it is done it is much more moderate and inocent. If the man is in a bad financial situation for a while the women do not see if they can get him off center by picking on his insecurities in this regard but support him as any healthy person would do. The only realtionships I see that have such and extreeme and harsh testing dynamic are were the woman is quite disturbed often with a bad relationship to her father and she is dating a realy not good badboy and they have an intense dymnamic of conflict and passionate resolution. You could argue that if the mand responded with the right kind of loving reply it would be different but what I observe is that healthy women test little, and in a much more inocent and less evil way. Anything else would be bullying. In general I find that in realtionships between strong loving men and healthy females the women settle in to a comfort because of the mans masculinity and do not continue with these ridiculous paterns. Deida celebrates the continuing and intensifying og such patterns in its harshest form in terms of what the women do.

 

I also have a huge problem with the lack of ordinary communication skills and conflict resolution as taught in a lot of more normal couples therapy. This sort of thing works wonders if taoght eraly on and is a well resaerched finding amoung couples who stay together.

 

Someone saud that since such a man makes the wopmen happy and men are happy to be such men it is not a problem that so much more work is demanded by the men. I would say that a man of such quality would not put up with Deidas little brats with no self esteem and find a real quality women that puts as much into the relationship as he does. David shade I think speaks well on this.

 

I also have problems with Deidas "loving" aproach. When women, or anyone, act as badly as they do in his examples they need to be ut in their place. That can be done with a clear communication of an underlying love, but they should be met with a quite forcefull but fair verbal response in my opionion. The way a zen master or Ajhan Cha scolded people harshly but still communicated a lot of love would be a good example of the genral aproach. In milder cases of testing a milder aproach is in order. Deidas respnse seems to me to be more in line with replying "someone needs a hug" when to woman belitles you for having a smal penis or something like it.

 

It was said that the womans role of surrender was equaly hard work. When met by such a strong and loving response to ones bitching surredering is what most women do easily so no. Still huge task for the man and no work for the women.

 

I also have a problemn with the way women are robed of agency in Diedas relatuinshipmodel. In reality I see happy and juicy couples with masculine men and feminine women often having a much more complex and often different dynamic. That the man always has to be the first to show love because he is yang just does not put up to reality testing of what happens in such good relationships. Maybe there should be about 70/30 or something but as a genreal rule this just is not the case in succesfull realtionships. It belitles women (or any feminine partner) and men to say that they are not able to make the mans harshnes melt by meeting it wioth strong love.

 

I also have problems with Deidas ideal for men being to be always strong, never vulnerable, never resting, always centered always loving. To me this is totaly inhuman and a borderline fascistic ideal. It should be the way of superman rather than superior man. What happens when the man is weak for a while, a very human thing, does the woman start despising him, closing of her love, and testing hiim by pushing his buttons about his weakness?? I think a good analogy can be found in the pickup community. David Deangelo, Mystery and many others preach presenting and ideal of yourself that is always strong, always masculine, never weak etc. always alpha. Juggler on the other hand says that being alpha is never being afraid of being yourself including being week and he is a mcuh better pickup artist

 

I am open to the possibilty that I have Deida wrong and I will read his books again to give him a second chance but I do think the fact that many of his former followers are very critical of exactly these things. Anyway I do find a lot of value in his stuff just not in following his exact advice or ideals.

[Taoist81]

Exactly, women put up with more crap from men that men do from women because there is more at stake for a woman to lose. Women on the whole are on a higher spiritual plane than men according to the kaballah. I think thats why its much easier to find a woman who is a "10 inside and out" than it is to find a guy who has his life together financially, spiritually and is not playing video games all day or beating off to porn in his free time. Good average men are much, much harder to find than fantastic, beautiful women are!

 

What Kabbalah have you been looking at? In all the old texts the primal Adam is high on the tree than the primal Eve.

 

And to be fair, some women put up with more crap than men, just as some men put up with more crap than women. The crap levels are high on both sides, they just tend to be different flavors of crap.

It should be said, though, Darin, if you are getting that impression about how easy it is to find 10 in and out women, you are hanging out in the right places. That is not the case everywhere (GF is one like you describe, so don't take that the wrong way), just like the crap levels, in most places "good" men and "good" women are equally rare.

[JEN_A_KINS]

[三江源]

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Edited March 26, 2015 by 三江源

[Deepbluesea]

Wow ... just wow. It sounds really good on its face.

 

But I am easily impressed until someone smarter than me can make the rebuttal.

 

Not having read him, and I intend to, I am assuming he teaches specific techniques like someone mentioned earlier to "imitate yang." Wouldn't an equal if not better course be to encourage yang growth and then the rest would fall into place. It sounds like he is teaching men to "imitate yang" and after acting the part for a while it will become real (but is it ever real or is it just a persona?) instead of true yang cultivation where everything with the yin partner is then balanced.

 

It also sounds like he is rather exteme ... either you give up women and the world or you make women and the world yours. Is there no moderation between the two.

 

Great stuff! Thanks

[gendao]

Get your point but I still see this as the man being required to do a enormous amount of work and the woman to do the bare minimum of what is required of a person. Actualy still less. What is the work a woman is required to do that is as demanding as what the man is required to do?

Well, I think there is a generation gap here and 51-yo David Greenberg is a product of his outdated times - the male guilt-ridden, "superior female" feminist 70s.

 

Although, there may still be some good sexual energetic stuff in his courses, from what I hear...

 

But, I'm not sure his overall approach would work on young women today - who tend to be teenage bad boys trapped in female bodies (the Britney Spears/Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton archetype). And also anything but spiritual. In fact, a number of young women I've talked to over the past year get freaked out by any spiritual talk, and are far more obsessed with celeb gossip and video games. True story.

 

Well, the proof is in the pudding and I'd like to see the type of women he has relationships with today? Who is this guy dating/married to right now?

[markern]

I have been reading Deida today to see if I had him wrong and I think I did. I have been reading finding good through sex and in it he has advice for women and for men. In the enlightened sex manual which I read years ago he, I think, only has advice for men. In finding God through sex it is pretty clear to me that what he demands of women is equal to what he demands of men. He also give them an equaly active role to women in helping men opening up to love by themselves being open. Not at all does he say that men always has to take the first step. Maybe in some instances he thinks this is so, but in the pages I have read he gives women an equaly active role in being open to men when the men hurt them or are not being strong enough or clear on their purpose or are losing focus of their integrety etc. This is completly different from the impression I had of him but also completly different from what has been said here by some about men having to take the first step in pening up because they are yang by nature. I will write the page numbers were he writes this tomorow or during the weekend. What I read years ago was the enlightened sex manual. Possibly I just got him wrong, or possibly it is easy to get such an impression when you only read the, quite demanding, advice given to men, or maybe he frased himself differently or thought diffrently then. I am still pretty sure his examples of testing in that book would still be something I view as unhealthy but I will see when I read it again. Anyway in finding God through sex he is very clear that most good testing will not be hurtfull and will not be the type of payback bitching that many women put their men through a lot. He writes a lot about how women shal works towards not doing that but being more generous. It also seems clear to me that being open in love towards your partner during such an incident does not rule out being quite harsh in the respons if they cross the line of deacency. It seems one can easily tread wrong trying to do these things. He also writes about how, as they grow spiritualy both the man and the woman will need these things less and less from each other but be much more self contained. This duality will still be apreaciated but less and less needed.

[markern]

There has been a few claims here about womens suposed moral, personal and spiritual superiority. I find that ridiculous. A very intereseting experiment was done to test male and female tendensies towards aggression. People were asked to play a video game where they bombed people and how fiercly they bombed was noted by the researchers. There was a clear difference with the men bombing people a lot more. However, this was when other people were present. When people did not think they were being watched the women were in fact more aggressive with the bombing than the men. It turned out it was just social control that made the women less agressive in playing the game. Being more likely to vield to social pressure is not in my ind spiritualy very mature. A number of other experiments have found the same. Also studies to see how much agressive thoughts men and females have during the day have found women to have slightly more so then men.

 

Another interesting fact is that while women supposedly are nicer, men are much more likely, according to researchers, to help strangers on the street etc. This holds true for very smal acts of help but especialy for interwiening to rescue someone in dramatic instances. However, researchers also found women to be more helpfull towards people that they were frinds or neighbours with. It seems niceness is very contextual and that might be a large part of why popel belive women are nicer.

 

A striking fact almost no one knows is that most children who get hit by a parent get hit by their mother, not the father. This has some to do with who sees the children the most, but if you see your children at all and are likely to hit them you are probably going to and as such end up in this statistic so we could probably presume men and women have about an equal tendency to hit their children. Interestingly that is completly different from what almost everyone belives and from how violence against children are portrayed in the media.

 

Another interesting fact is that although the men are in most cases responsible for the domestic violence that has serious physical consequences, women are slightly more likely to hit their partner. If you look at homosexual and lesbian copules you find a pattern extreemly similar to heterosexual couples with the number of people who hit their partner without serious damage (a slap or a single punch) being about the same and the number of people that inflict serious damage and terorizing their partner being about the same. That means that women (lesbians) have the same likelyhood of being responsible for the extreeme violence that some men do to their wifes. What this shows is taht when women are the physicly strongest partner, as one of the two always will be in a lesbian relationship, they are as likely as men to peform also the extreeme violence. With women then being more inlcined to hit their men with a single slap or punch and as likely to inflict the extreeme levels of violence if they are physcly the strongest it is clear that one of the most important myths about men and females, their level of violence, is a lie and that should lead people to seriously reconsider how they see women. Not only in this regard but also in others because when the reality in such a serious case is completly different from what most people think in this instance, it is likely to be comletly different in others as well.

 

Other interesting facts that counter conventional wisdom is that altough men are more likely to kill their own children when they are older women are more likely to kill them when they are very young. An other interesting fact is that women (in western Europe at least) cheat as much as men do.

 

If women were on a higher spiritual plane than men they would progress a lot quicker spiriutaly. Jack Kornfiled writes that in Monastaries in Thailand the women progress slightly quicker than the men. Not much but slightly. More women are also interested in these things then men are. However, men are much much more likely to go al out and realy do the work required to get somewhere with meditasion. Women tend to spread their priorities on many things while men focus most of their energies on a few things. I see this, for example, in hte fact that although few, there are disproportionaly many men teraching yoga or having an advanced practice compared to how many men there are amongst the students.

 

Saying something general about women and men in this gegard is just stupid anyway as the men I know that have taken an active role in spirituality are so much more evolved then the average woman is that somehow seeing the average disinterested woman as being on some sort of higher plane then these guys is just plain stupid. And you do end up with something almost like that if you realy strongly emphasize that women are not just perhaps a bit more inclined to spirituality but actualy on a different plane altogether.

 

Interestingly enough Deida says that although men have a harder time then women connecting their sexual and emotional energies, once they are there the men usualy are much more inclined to take that further to a more universal, spiritual conciousness than women who more easily get stuck on the personal level. Although I don`t realy have an opionion on that in particular I think such a view, with women a nd men having slight tendencies to progress at different paces at different levels of practice to be quite plausible.

 

So much for matriarchy!

[Pietro]

I'm not a very great fan of David Deida, (I think he encourages men to act in imitation of true yang, rather than actually express it), but this point is raised about other writers too.

...

Hi Ian, I'm on the iPhone, so I'll be brief. There is always this problem in dividing between true and false. It's like an allornothing. Since you can't have it all you start with nothing. You risk never to start because you are never pure enough. The teacher is never good enough, the girl never perfect enough, and the meditation room silent enough.

 

But those are the starting points.

 

In short I have consistently found out that all or nothing has been a failure strategy in my life. If instead of living in a discrete Boolean world of 0 and 1 we live in a continuous space we can reach our aim through continuous approximation. The woman who only gives herself to the True Yang will die virgin, probably out of ovarian cancer. And all this because she confused the inner world with the outer world.

 

Peace to all the human beings

[Ian]

Hi Ian, I'm on the iPhone, so I'll be brief. There is always this problem in dividing between true and false. It's like an allornothing. Since you can't have it all you start with nothing. You risk never to start because you are never pure enough. The teacher is never good enough, the girl never perfect enough, and the meditation room silent enough.

 

But those are the starting points.

 

In short I have consistently found out that all or nothing has been a failure strategy in my life. If instead of living in a discrete Boolean world of 0 and 1 we live in a continuous space we can reach our aim through continuous approximation. The woman who only gives herself to the True Yang will die virgin, probably out of ovarian cancer. And all this because she confused the inner world with the outer world.

 

Peace to all the human beings

 

I see what you're saying. And I don't disagree that being true yang is a matter of small steps, gradual effort, even trial and error. My problem with Deida is that I reckon he is taking those steps in a false direction, and will never get closer. It's the difference between getting as close as you can and pretending you're already there.

 

And neither man nor woman will give a monkeys about true yin or true yang until they've had enough experience of meeting the false and having their heart broken or body abused to get fed up with it. So there's little danger of virgin death.

 

All I'm saying is that your aim has to be for 100%, and the first step has to be humble, accurate evaluation of where you are now.

[Mal]

[三江源]

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Edited March 26, 2015 by 三江源

[Pietro]

This is true. And having sexual relationships that arent quite right,just for the sake of it.... remind me again why one would do that? Is it instead of going to the cinema?

because in the cinema you are running away from reality, in a sexual relation you are embracing it.

[三江源]

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Edited March 26, 2015 by 三江源

[Ian]

because in the cinema you are running away from reality, in a sexual relation you are embracing it.

 

Strongly disagree, as they say in the surveys. A good 95-98 percent of relationships and sexual interactions, in my opinion, represent a headlong flight from reality, without even the honesty of the cinema, where it's at least evident what's going on.

 

But maybe we have a different definition of "reality". What a wonderful idea for an interminable thread !

[Pietro]

that is very naieve, Pietro.

 

The layers of ersatz, the layers of attrition, the layers of fantasy, the domination of the head and it's fabrications, the ego complexes that have tied sexualities to fetishistic rituals or repressed it etc etc etc....all of this is present in many sexual relationships. most sexual relationships. practically all sexual relationships.

 

to call such stuff 'reality' as if it were any more real than an honest fiction.. well... that is questionable.

 

A true relationship where all that is stripped away is something else again. I dont know about the popcorn availability in such cases, though, which could be quite a drawback.

Yes, we disagree. From my pov the complexity of the relation IS the reality. With the various levels dancing.

 

Strongly disagree, as they say in the surveys. A good 95-98 percent of relationships and sexual interactions, in my opinion, represent a headlong flight from reality, without even the honesty of the cinema, where it's at least evident what's going on.

 

But maybe we have a different definition of "reality". What a wonderful idea for an interminable thread !

Or maybe I am able to make love to a woman without requesting from her the need to be perfect, and from the relationship to be perfectly fitting.

[Mal]

[Ian]

Or maybe I am able to make love to a woman without requesting from her the need to be perfect, and from the relationship to be perfectly fitting.

 

Emphasis mine. This is the crux. If a bunch of people got together and built a factory to make the product glunk, would it make any sense to say you were making glunk to your fellow workers? No.

 

And if two people get together to make love with their bodies, does it make any sense to say one makes love to the other ? No. You can only make love, actually produce more love, with someone. You don't need to be perfect, you just have to do your best.

 

Making love to someone is all about the greater glory and satisfaction of Pietro, as established through his delight and hers. Am I wrong?

[Mal]

Making love to someone is all about the greater glory and satisfaction of Y, as established through Y's delight and hers. Am I wrong?

 

o.k. cool, I think I see now. (caution rude words perhaps )

 

To be really blunt,

 

I have no problem with it being all about me as long as they realize that is the objective and they are looking for the same thing. I.e fuck buddies rather than lovers.

 

I have females that:-

 

I have sex with once and never again. (just not the right match up)

I go from having sex with to making love, enjoying their delight and doing things just for them.

I have long term friendships with, and make love with (there have been only a few of those)

 

Its sort of like an evolution up a scale. The last one happens infrequently as it's not my goal at the start. If I throw in a generalization most people are looking for a loving relationship. That's not what I want. The long term life partner loving relationship roll is taken, unfortunatly sex is not part of her "job description" but it's also a stupid reason to sack someone So I'm not interested in "man traps" using sex to snare a relationship. I want sex, do you want sex, lets see if we hit it off (obviously not a pick up line )

 

But if you are cool, interesting, independent people, with similar interests and together long enough, that sort of loving relationship does tend to develop over time because their is no point having sex with someone that you don't like.

 

Also once you have had enough sex with enough partners it does start to become pretty similar. Then making love "to" or eventually "with" someone becomes much more pleasurable. Hence the multi orgasm and tantric weirdness that most people can't be bothered to attempt.

[Fire Dragon]

Hi

 

I have read some of Deidas books, but it was a while ago. For me personally I'm not shore if I am a yang kind of man, so according to Deida I am not totally included in what he writes about. The thing is that I am not shore, I might be a yang kind of man also.

 

Anyway to see the pressure woman puts you on as a test that is equivalent to how you deal with society might be a good way to challenge yourself. We should notice that Deida also writes that if your woman puts you out of ballance she realy helps you, beacase you will have to search for your center vision again. She does it when she feel that you are not following your path. For me that seems to be reasnable beacase woman have a mission to create the best possible environement for theire kids. And if they are able to help theire men to develope the best part of themselves and not just play around in an childlike way, theire husband will autumatically do theire best and create an environement that is good for theire children.

 

But I feel also that the model Deida uses in most of hes books is all to simplified descripion of humans. I think that the description of woman testing the man is right in many situations, but it is not always that way. I also think that men would learn things if they try to follow the advises in Deidas books, to increase your awareness is a good thing. I feel that many things are missing in hes theories though and can't realy see that hes descriptions is more than a special situation. Anyway it is refreshing to read hem beacase the most voices about the genders comes from the feminists views that tend to be even more trapped in theire models of how the society in its structure is patriarchaly built. Then you always have the right to pity woman and not men apriory, which I feel is ridiculous. So Deida adds a model that is grounded in spirituality and that honour the good things that is inherent in masculine men and that so strongly needs to be upliftet after the ill treatment by so many feminists in our time.

 

For me personally I should like hem to also write about relationships between more mixed hetero relationships where the male is not masculine or yang dominant and the woman not is feminine or yin dominant. Then perhaps hes somewhat rigid models should develope further.

 

Conclusion

 

I feel that David Deidas work is important in our time and that it is an important step of investigation of the good masculine male function and role in society. It is a somewhat simplified model that we have to develope further. It probably contains more truth than the most other popular believes system out therire for now and will evolve our relationships ans understunding for eachother to a new level. We will reach a new platform to climb much further from. The model he work with is somewhat mechanical. When he says that when your woman are critisising you she does it for a specifik reason to see how you are able to react to society. I do think it often is so, but women are much more complex beings than that and might have several reasons for theire reaction, sometimes built upon personal complexes and reasons.

 

 

F D

[Taiji Bum]

Davids books are like most self help ones where you definately have to take the info and apply it to your situation as your situation demands. You have to think on your feet and not do it all exactly like he says. Just like Men are from Mars/Women are from Venus, you need to take the great things it says and then apply it your life which is constantly changing. These kinds of books are great for learning the "principles" but learning techniques and skills must be "hands on" in real life.

[JustARandomPanda]

Wow. This thread is one big Dieda fan thread. I've read some of his stuff but just found too many things he's described and advised to be off-kilter. I can't seem to drink the Dieda Kool Aid so many other folks do. Basically it's philosophical differences I have to a lot of the things he says. Some of the examples in the books he gives of a man standing strong to a woman being bitchy or a woman putting up with a man being contemptuous and angry...ouch (yes...you guys who picked up on that message weren't getting him wrong).

 

Dieda could've just shortened one of the 'insights' he's selling to one sentence but since he's a writer in love with his own flowery words (it's his marketing schtick) I doubt that will ever ever happen.

 

It is:

 

In any relationship we get everything we tolerate.

 

Whatever we tolerate will be the outer bounds of the behavior we see within it - whether of ourselves or others. That's true of men or women. And it's why so many people get stuck (to their own bemused surprise) in relationships that are unhealthy. I've never seen a relationship between two people start off where the unhealthy outweighed the healthy. It almost always grows gradually - but by then we're in pretty deep and things we never would've tolerated in the beginning we now do.

 

It's why I disagree with a lot of his philosophy even though I know he means well. [i see him as a Flower Power Child version of the PUA community - just with a different selling angle.] I think some of the guys in here got their impression of Dieda putting more work on a man's shoulders because he doesn't really make it a point to illustrate how following his advice can turn sour as much as it might be for good. He focuses so much on working on your inner spiritual being I think sometimes he forgets there's a world 'out there' too. Sometimes a man standing 'masculine' and showing fierce "spiritual acceptance and love' backfires. Since we are not omniscient beings we can never really know in advance when following that advice will land us in a field of flowers or the fire instead (however - if there is a Tao Bum here who has obtained Omniscience - I want to meet you so please PM me! ).

 

I got what Ian was saying about Dieda and pretty much agree with him. Dieda might have some interesting things to say but I think there are better places to go for the kind of info he's selling.

 

Just my 2 cents (YMMV).

[Pietro]

Emphasis mine. This is the crux. If a bunch of people got together and built a factory to make the product glunk, would it make any sense to say you were making glunk to your fellow workers? No.

 

And if two people get together to make love with their bodies, does it make any sense to say one makes love to the other ? No. You can only make love, actually produce more love, with someone. You don't need to be perfect, you just have to do your best.

 

Making love to someone is all about the greater glory and satisfaction of Pietro, as established through his delight and hers. Am I wrong?

good morning Ian,

Sometimes you make love to, sometimes you make love with, and sometimes you are being made love to. Like saying that I can prepare you a nice meal, we can prepare it together, or you can prepare it to me.

 

I used 'to' because I am yang, thus I am often the active side. But you always have all three. And often in each love session.

 

Saying that the yang side is the only one getting the glory and the satisfaction is imprecise. If I make (so in this example I am being the active yang side making love to) a woman feel very good, I might get some satisfaction, but only in the measure she is getting it too.

 

If I were to have a woman making love to me, doing her best to make me feel good, you would say that she is the one getting the satisfaction? I don't believe so. So I think you are going out of your way to show I am being wrong. I think this has nothing to do with my argument but with some preconceived notions you have about me and my ways with women. Am I wrong?

 

Edit: iPhone grammar issues solved

Edited May 10, 2009 by Pietro

[Ian]

good morning Ian,

Sometimes you make love to, sometimes you make love with, and sometimes you are being made love to. Like saying that I can prepare you a nice meal, we can prepare it together, or you can prepare it to me.

 

 

If I were to have a woman making love to me, doing her best to make me feel good, you would say that she is the one getting the satisfaction? I don't believe so. So I think you are going out of your way to show I am being wrong. I think this has nothing to do with my argument but with some preconceived notions you have about me and my ways with women. Am I wrong?

 

Edit: iPhone grammar issues solved

 

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. From my perspective, you cannot make love to someone. It's meaningless, nonsensical.

 

I see that that you use the term to mean taking an active role. For me the term "making love" means something diametrically opposite to what I mean by "having sex". In making love, the literal making, generating, of love, is paramount.

 

But enough. It's a lovely day. I'm going outside to wave my arms.

 

(Also I did not mean to seem like I was criticising you personally. It was meant to sound just like a general example with your name in it. My apologies.)

[Taiji Bum]

I love doing things "to" my girlfriend and its for love, out of love, its loving, I love it and she loves it. Such as I love to caress her body parts. Last night watching a movie I had her hand and I started with a short hand massage and then ended up just stroking her arm. I did that "to" her on and off for more than 2 hours. I do things "to" her because I love her.

 

So why would making love "to" her be grammatically incorrect? I still dont get it.