Practices to reduce or eliminate the influence of lust

[Non]

Wow, this is an incredible post, and I have to commend hajimesaito (and all other who posted) for having the awareness to realize the dynamic that is taking place with regards to porn and mind/body connection.

 

I have been contemplating this for the past several years and have made some great discoveries and found some powerful concepts and techniques to transform lust into sexual drive and sexual love.

 

The most powerful technique that I have used specifically for lust is called the Releasing Technique, and its similar to what a few others here have recommended.

 

The Releasing Technique

Step 1. Set aside 20 minute alone, and sit in a comfortable chair

Step 2. Close your eyes, place your hands on you legs with palms up (or whatever is comfortable)

Step 3. Focus on the feeling of lust in your body. Become extremely curious about it: Where do you feel it? What is it doing? How would you describe it.

 

For example, when I did this for the issue of lust for money, I felt a pulling sensation in my solar plexus/stomach area. It felt like I was trying to "get" or "suck in", as if I was flexing my stomach to try to get fed.

 

Step 4. Let go of all thoughts that arise, just let them pass by. Continually re-focus on the feeling and sensation of this particular issue. Also, continually bypass the descriptive wording and go straight to the experience.

 

For example, "I feel neediness", ok so what is neediness, "it feels like pulling", ok what is pulling, "well its a tensing in my stomach", ok what is a tensing in my stomach "well its this tight sensation"...keep doing this until you have no more words and are instead directly focused on the experience.

 

Step 5. Maintain this relaxed focus for as long as you can, until all the emotion is dissipated.

 

All emotion is limited.

It is energy that is stuck in the body. By feeling it consciously, we are processing it.

 

What most of us do is, as soon as we feel a negative emotion is we freak out and try to ignore it, suppress it, or distract ourself. The emotion just gets lodged into one or more of our organs and causes problems later.

Step 6. Allow all feelings/sensations/emotions related to this to arise. If you are up to it, you can even say "Bring it on! Give me all you got! I want to feel it all." Don't get stuck on any thoughts, just keep re-focusing on the feelings in your body.

 

It may feel stupid "Oh I am just feeling this damn feeling and nothing is happening, this is pointless".

 

No, you are processing all the energy, and as you do it is being re-distributed to the rest of your body and re-establishing balance.

 

It may take 20 minutes, it may take 90 minutes, but it will work.

 

You may have to repeat this process a couple of times to fully release it all. It will release lust.

 

Not only that, it will free up that energy for you to do other things, productive things like repairing other organs, digesting food, producing sexual hormones, etc.

 

There are so many other techniques, ideas, concepts that I could really write about much more (I already have 6 hours of video that I am recording for an upcoming training course called "Sexual Mind Mastery").

 

Basically, lust is a psychological addiction. When you combine it with porn, you get a vicious cycle.

 

It splits the mind and body, and severs the neural-wiring between the brain and the genitals, resulting in a "desensitization" effect in which:

more porn = harder to get aroused + increased craving for porn.

 

Eventually, you could have a hot naked woman dancing on your lap and have ZERO arousal (this is what happened to me).

 

I could go much more in depth but this should help for now. Practice the exercise and let me know how it goes. I can give you a second exercise if you want. Also, let me know what is your biggest sticking point/challenge.

 

Just the other day, I was at a halloween party and saw this young woman in a very hot costume. I felt a tingling sexual arousal jolting me in my genitals and I felt very aroused (yet I did not feel any neediness, I felt fulfilled at the same time, it was a beautiful and amazing feeling).

 

It was a feeling that I had not felt since being a teenager, and in that moment I could see how all the practice had been successful at restoring my mind to a healthy sexual balance.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Ryan

 

Oh and P.S. I have written a free eBook based on Taoist principles that helps you accomplish this mind/body restoration process relating to porn. It's called Revive Your Sex Drive: The Yang Man's Guide to Increased Sexual Energy, Power, & Confidence. You can download it here http://www.ReviveYourSexDrive.com (it does require a name an email to access).

 

Heh, that's similar to what I've read just recently from the book Your Hands Can Heal You by Master Stephen Co.

[island]

Step 6. Allow all feelings/sensations/emotions related to this to arise. If you are up to it, you can even say "Bring it on! Give me all you got! I want to feel it all." Don't get stuck on any thoughts, just keep re-focusing on the feelings in your body.

 

Fully agree....accept it don't reject it.

 

Nice post

[King Kabalabhati]

 

Mantak Chia's sex practices are rajasic. Neo-tantra and karezza is sattvic. And the mixing of rajas with sattvas makes well, tamas.

 

I have understood this interplay of the gunas a bit differently.

 

In this context rajasic could be thought of as utilitarian. Tamas would be hedonistic. Sattvic would be the perfectly balanced dynamics of both, and this I could also describe as the Taoist way.

 

Now for a sage or a hermit this could mean celibacy or strict regulation since he is not much around women and seems to be transmuting most of his jing anyway. For a family man this could mean a deeply loving and well regulated sexual relation with his wife, with or without ejaculation control, depending on preference and natural ability. The key words here are love and mutual surrender.

 

As soon as we start to make a problem out of spending moderate amounts of Jing (moderate would be different for each man) as semen we start to approach the rajasic pole. Things can get overheated here.. lots of sharp judgment may follow too. If we over-indulge in sexuality even when we feel it's draining our energy and distracting our attention, that would be tamasic behavior. This will simply make us foggy, out of focus, ina a haze.The balance of these two creates clarity, ease and a natural foundation for spiritual work.

[King Kabalabhati]

sorry double post

Edited December 1, 2010 by King Kabalabhati

[Maddie]

Basically, lust is a psychological addiction

 

This I have found to be more true than I could have ever imagined. I began doing the cold draw a few months ago with the goal of eliminating my sex drive, and for the physical aspect of this it was very effective. So I thought "ok problem solved" .... wrong. I then began to experience how much of our sexuality is not physical (even though that is a component) but psychological. I had no physical desire yet my mind kept right on trucking. I then had to begin a new process of dealing with the pyscho/emotional aspects of sexuality even though I had no real physical desire so to speak of.

[RyanO]

Wow...

 

Hey Ryan, cool to have you on this site, good advice!

 

I remember visiting your site a while back and getting your ebook, great stuff, very cool you give it out for free.

 

Good luck with your endeavors and welcome!

 

Cool name btw

[Maddie]

Just read that e-book, it was very interesting :-)

[Non]

This I have found to be more true than I could have ever imagined. I began doing the cold draw a few months ago with the goal of eliminating my sex drive, and for the physical aspect of this it was very effective. So I thought "ok problem solved" .... wrong. I then began to experience how much of our sexuality is not physical (even though that is a component) but psychological. I had no physical desire yet my mind kept right on trucking. I then had to begin a new process of dealing with the pyscho/emotional aspects of sexuality even though I had no real physical desire so to speak of.

 

I dont think it's all psychological.

 

It might begin as something psychological, but even so, it can be grounded in the physical. Nothing is solely "immaterial".

 

So it might begin as something psychological but it can and does become a Physical addiction, whereby your mind may not even care for sex, but your nervous system is addicted, causing irritation and the 'turning inside out' of the energetic sexual organs, and even the down and outward pull of the physical organs.

 

It can also manifests in the subconscious.

 

So it's not Purely psychological. At least, when it's gotten to the point that the body itself has come to depend on it.

 

If there is energy stuck on the sex chakras, then it can't be purely psychological. If there is tension held in their it can't be purely psychological. It is psychosomatic, and then it becomes part of the body until it has a "mind of it's own".

 

BUt that it is "addiction" is true.

Edited December 1, 2010 by Non

[Ryan Randolph]

I feel so warmly greeted, I think I'll have to hang out here more often

 

Hey Sean, yeah man it's great to hear from you and glad that your doing well. Thanks for showing me and my buddies around in Costa Rica, that was a lot of fun. If you ever come to southern California, give me a ring and we can chill.

 

Mattwads and RyanO, thanks for the welcome and good feedback. Glad I could help.

 

---

 

The Psychological Aspect of Lust (and how to overcome it)

 

As far as sex drive goes (in my experience), it's not so much that we want to eliminate it but simply transmute it into a higher form.

 

That feeling that we call lust, the feeling of unquenchable sexual desire, is amplified by porn in any form (especially internet porn).

 

Why does this happen?

 

Because we are perceiving what appears to be a real sexual encounter, and our body mobilizes its sexual hormones, energy, and semen as if it were a real encounter....but it's not real.

 

What's missing in the experience of Porn?

 

What's missing is the human element, the body element. Touch. When we remove the body element of human touch, we create an imbalance in our brain in which we get extreme highs and lows of dopamine (the craving chemical that accounts for states of depression and anxiety) and we lose out on a chemical called Oxytocin which soothes craving and relaxes the body (also called the cuddle hormone).

 

Oxytocin is what we get when we pet a cat, hug a friend, or caress a lover in bed. When we watch porn, we get blasted with dopamine (which amps up desire), but we fall flat later because we don't generate any oxytocin in our brain.

 

Then, since there is no oxytocin to balance us out, we get depressed, which leads us to porn again, and the cycle becomes more progressive.

 

There is one key trick to getting out of this trap.

 

To stop this cycle, we have to obviously unhook ourselves from porn, but we have to also do one other thing.

 

Anytime we are sexual pleasuring ourselves (aka masturbating), we must consciously let go of using the image of a woman (or a woman's body) to get turned on.

 

Well how the hell are we supposed to get turned on?

 

Frankly, we must refocus our mind onto the sensations in our body. Focus on every touch, every caress, we can speak to ourself, basically have foreplay with ourself.

 

As we do this, our mind is focused on the here and now reality (not some made up fantasy that leads us to be stuck in our head and mental ungrounded).

 

What we may find when we do this technique is that we have very little ability to arouse ourself in this way.

 

This is because our neural wiring has been cut from all the porn use. We must practice it to re-establish all the brain connections to physical-sexual touch.

 

As we are doing this, we are becoming more present in our body and more loving of physical self instead of going into our head and living in a fantasy (which is a subtle form of self-rejection).

 

The irony, of course, is that as we do this, when we actually get in bed with a woman after practicing this type of conscious self love and physical presence, we will act this way with her and be more present and loving to her.

 

It's amazing. Plus all sorts of other sensations will be available to us; things will taste better, our smell will be better, things will feel better. We will be more physically integrated and connected and grounded.

 

Anyway, so there's a second technique and mindset shift to help you as you progress down this path.

 

Let me know any challenges you are facing and I will be happy to respond with something to help you.

 

Ryan

[Ryan Randolph]

I dont think it's all psychological.

 

It might begin as something psychological, but even so, it can be grounded in the physical. Nothing is solely "immaterial".

 

So it might begin as something psychological but it can and does become a Physical addiction, whereby your mind may not even care for sex, but your nervous system is addicted, causing irritation and the 'turning inside out' of the energetic sexual organs, and even the down and outward pull of the physical organs.

 

It can also manifests in the subconscious.

 

So it's not Purely psychological. At least, when it's gotten to the point that the body itself has come to depend on it.

 

If there is energy stuck on the sex chakras, then it can't be purely psychological. If there is tension held in their it can't be purely psychological. It is psychosomatic, and then it becomes part of the body until it has a "mind of it's own".

 

BUt that it is "addiction" is true.

 

Yeah absolutely, anything held in mind shows up in the body and creates a physical momentum of addiction.

 

When I use the term psychological, I mainly referred to both thoughts (within mind) and emotions (that show up as chemical imbalances in the body). I don't mean that it is only mental, as anything mental will eventually show up in the physical.

 

However, if it is in the body, then it MUST be in the mind as well. It may not be in the conscious mind (it may be in the unconscious), but it will be in mind IF it is occuring in the body.

 

The body is an expression of our subconscious mind. Any thought that occurs outside of our awareness shows up in our emotions.

 

Thoughts are the language of the conscious mind whereas emotions are the language of the subconscious mind.

 

If you really want to gain leverage on yourself for any area of your life, address all the emotions that are blocking you, and eventually it will become effortless, like the next natural step.

 

Thanks for bringing that up though, as I can see how it can be confusing.

Edited December 1, 2010 by Ryan Randolph

[Maddie]

I dont think it's all psychological.

 

 

 

Nor do I, but I do think that it plays an important role, as I have found after eliminating the physical aspect (which definately was an aspect)

 

*edit: thought this BF article was appropriate to this thread

http://www.taichimaster.com/taoist-sexual-practices/sex-for-seniors/

Edited December 2, 2010 by dmattwads

[Aaron]

Hello Ryan,

 

I liked what you had to say about sex and self. I think the one thing that you also need to consider is that if one looks at too much pornography, they begin to see people as object, rather than people. Sex, as you stated, stops being a sensual encounter, and instead becomes simply a stimulus. Sex isn't supposed to be simply about sex, it's an intimate experience between two people, one that is meant to strengthen, not only the physical bond, but also the emotional and spiritual bond. Pornography can't really do any of these things.

 

With that said, there's nothing wrong with masturbation, especially if you're aroused. In fact it is a healthy way to relieve tension. There's a reason most people learn to masturbate shortly after puberty, because it helps us to prepare for sex with another person and also become comfortable with our sexuality. Most people who have hangups about sex, started to have those hangups at an early age because they were taught this very natural behavior was wrong.

 

I would say, that eliminating the influence of lust is unnatural, and rather, what one really needs to do is become comfortable with themselves and their sexuality. Once that is achieved, I think you'll find that your desires will be diminished and you wont be as influenced by lust. Also remember, lust isn't bad, rather lust is our bodies and minds telling us that we are attracted to someone else.

 

Aaron

Edited December 2, 2010 by Twinner

[Maddie]

Hello Ryan,

 

I liked what you had to say about sex and self. I think the one thing that you also need to consider is that if one looks at too much pornograhpy, they begin to see people as object, rather than people. Sex, as you stated, stops being a sensual encounter, and instead becomes simply a stimulus. Sex isn't supposed to be simply about sex, it's an intimate experience between two people, one that is meant to strengthen, not only the physical bond, but also the emotional and spiritual bond. Pornography can't really do any of these things.

 

With that said, there's nothing wrong with masturbation, especially if you're aroused. In fact it is a healthy way to relieve tension. There's a reason most people learn to masturbate shortly after puberty, because it helps us to prepare for sex with another person and also become comfortable with our sexuality. Most people who have hangups about sex, started to have those hangups at an early age because they were taught this very natural behavior was wrong.

 

In his ebook he does say that the problem with porn is that it makes people into objects, and he did not say its wrong to masturbate.

[Aaron]

Hello Non,

 

In the world of addiction, physical addictions are characterized by those addictions that result in physical withdrawals when one stops using them. In the case of alcohol and heroine, if one stops cold turkey and they have reached a certain degree of use, then they can actually go into shock and die. I've never heard of this happening with sex, so I wouldn't classify it as a physical addiction, rather a psychological one.

 

Aaron

Edited December 2, 2010 by Twinner

[Aaron]

In his ebook he does say that the problem with porn is that it makes people into objects, and he did not say its wrong to masturbate.

 

Hello Dmatt,

 

Thanks for the clarification. I'm not sure where I said he said that, perhaps you misunderstood my intentions?

 

Aaron

[Non]

I feel so warmly greeted, I think I'll have to hang out here more often

 

Hey Sean, yeah man it's great to hear from you and glad that your doing well. Thanks for showing me and my buddies around in Costa Rica, that was a lot of fun. If you ever come to southern California, give me a ring and we can chill.

 

Mattwads and RyanO, thanks for the welcome and good feedback. Glad I could help.

 

---

 

The Psychological Aspect of Lust (and how to overcome it)

 

As far as sex drive goes (in my experience), it's not so much that we want to eliminate it but simply transmute it into a higher form.

 

That feeling that we call lust, the feeling of unquenchable sexual desire, is amplified by porn in any form (especially internet porn).

 

Why does this happen?

 

Because we are perceiving what appears to be a real sexual encounter, and our body mobilizes its sexual hormones, energy, and semen as if it were a real encounter....but it's not real.

 

What's missing in the experience of Porn?

 

What's missing is the human element, the body element. Touch. When we remove the body element of human touch, we create an imbalance in our brain in which we get extreme highs and lows of dopamine (the craving chemical that accounts for states of depression and anxiety) and we lose out on a chemical called Oxytocin which soothes craving and relaxes the body (also called the cuddle hormone).

 

Oxytocin is what we get when we pet a cat, hug a friend, or caress a lover in bed. When we watch porn, we get blasted with dopamine (which amps up desire), but we fall flat later because we don't generate any oxytocin in our brain.

 

Then, since there is no oxytocin to balance us out, we get depressed, which leads us to porn again, and the cycle becomes more progressive.

 

There is one key trick to getting out of this trap.

 

To stop this cycle, we have to obviously unhook ourselves from porn, but we have to also do one other thing.

 

Anytime we are sexual pleasuring ourselves (aka masturbating), we must consciously let go of using the image of a woman (or a woman's body) to get turned on.

 

Well how the hell are we supposed to get turned on?

 

Frankly, we must refocus our mind onto the sensations in our body. Focus on every touch, every caress, we can speak to ourself, basically have foreplay with ourself.

 

As we do this, our mind is focused on the here and now reality (not some made up fantasy that leads us to be stuck in our head and mental ungrounded).

 

What we may find when we do this technique is that we have very little ability to arouse ourself in this way.

 

This is because our neural wiring has been cut from all the porn use. We must practice it to re-establish all the brain connections to physical-sexual touch.

 

As we are doing this, we are becoming more present in our body and more loving of physical self instead of going into our head and living in a fantasy (which is a subtle form of self-rejection).

 

The irony, of course, is that as we do this, when we actually get in bed with a woman after practicing this type of conscious self love and physical presence, we will act this way with her and be more present and loving to her.

 

It's amazing. Plus all sorts of other sensations will be available to us; things will taste better, our smell will be better, things will feel better. We will be more physically integrated and connected and grounded.

 

Anyway, so there's a second technique and mindset shift to help you as you progress down this path.

 

Let me know any challenges you are facing and I will be happy to respond with something to help you.

 

Ryan

 

Heh, I actually thought of this very same "method" a couple weeks ago

 

it was more along the lines though that... masturbation itself is not the same as sex. The touch is definitely different, the feel is not the same. There's no real connection going on. Therefore, to me, I would think that it's impossible to actually be "at peace" being alone, while still masturbating as masturbation itself would cause lust. I thought.. the only way masturbation could aid (as you seem to put it) in the elimination of lust is to masturbate in a way that mimicks the actual feel of sex, ie the same touch and feel, even connection. But that would seem pretty feminine to me so I just chose to opt out of masturbation and practice lots of qigong, tibetan rites of rejuvenation plus #6, MCO, self aware meditation and deep breathing with mulah bandha. Eventually the lust subsided and I still had sexual feelings but they were quite different. Not lusty and 'stagnant' feeling in the sexual organ. After masturbating, and particularly after I get the initial pc muscle contraction that occurs before orgasm (not going all the way of course), I develop a blockage that feels pretty physical and tense in the same general area the PC muscle contracts.

 

So the way I acheived this state is to just not masturbate at all. That eventually made the physical aspect subside, and then the mental pretty much followed as I found real no desire to even think of it, or rather waste my time on it. I also had a feeling of my sexual organs coming into my body, so I focused on that. Well not necessary but at least not coming out which I referred to before as "feeling inside out, or inverted."

 

I once did try to just masturbate but only to just before those PC muscle contractions but yea.. lol that never worked.

 

The other thing that helped is to not focus on excessive sexual thoughts. It was ok to have some and when I felt it's unavoidable, even after I tried all the meditation and qigong I could do. If I felt I must then I just focused on it until it subsided, or did some exercise or something to keep my mind busy. But after the initial period of about 2 weeks to a month it got steadily easier. My energetic sexual organs did not feel inverted anymore, the energy didn't either and they were not draining.

 

I could still get an erection after this but the sex energy just felt different.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Non

[Non]

Hello Non,

 

In the world of addiction, physical addictions are characterized by those addictions that result in physical withdrawals when one stops using them. In the case of alcohol and heroine, if one stops cold turkey and they have reached a certain degree of use, then they can actually go into shock and die. I've never heard of this happening with sex, so I wouldn't classify it as a physical addiction, rather a psychological one.

 

Aaron

 

When the neurochemical and nervous system faculties of the body begin to depend on sex I think its physical. Perhaps your definition of physical is not the same as mine?

 

Keep in mind there are dopamine receptors in the sexual organs too not just the brain.

 

As for the not dying part, maybe that's because sex focuses on a different mechanism in the body than does alcohol and heroine. Perhaps also it does this to a different degree. If you see that people are willing to risk their lives for sex then that's something.

 

For me, the way I saw fit to get rid of this "physical aspect" was to just stop masturbating altogether no matter how much it bothered me and turn my focus to something else. Eventually the physical irritation, the craving, subsided and Then so did the emotions and thoughts about it. This is just me though.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Non

[Maddie]

When the neurochemical and nervous system faculties of the body begin to depend on sex I think its physical. Perhaps your definition of physical is not the same as mine?

 

Keep in mind there are dopamine receptors in the sexual organs too not just the brain.

 

As for the not dying part, maybe that's because sex focuses on a different mechanism in the body than does alcohol and heroine. Perhaps also it does this to a different degree. If you see that people are willing to risk their lives for sex then that's something.

 

For me, the way I saw fit to get rid of this "physical aspect" was to just stop masturbating altogether no matter how much it bothered me and turn my focus to something else. Eventually the physical irritation, the craving, subsided and Then so did the emotions and thoughts about it. This is just me though.

 

I think that just like we has humans have more than one dimension so does sexuality. I think that it has a physical side (obviously) emotional, spiritual, ect... To say its either/or is missing the point. I do believe that there is a very strong physical aspect to sex as any dr. will tell you in regards to the hormones n such. I don't believe that the only indication of physical withdraw is death, but there can be other sypmtoms of withdraw. I believe I have/had been experiencing these symptoms over the past few months as I stopped "cold turkey" and began to experience extreme fatigue to a degree I have rarely encountered.

The next thing I experienced after I did not have the contiunal distraction of lust to numb me I then began to realize how much of sexuality was also emotional. Keep in mind that at this point the physcial drive was no longer much of a factor, yet this seemed to make the emotional aspect all the more LOUD. So I have experienced lately both aspects of this multifaceted subject.

[Non]

I have a problem with Ryan Randolph's "masturbate without fantasy" method.

 

Ideally, or in theory it should work.

 

The problem is can we Really truly not fantasize when we are having an orgasm?

 

I would imagine, that I get images in my mind as I masturbate, regardless of if I'm just keeping my mind focused on feeling. These may not be fantasy but simply my mind trying to visualize what's going on. Even so, if I keep the image of myself firmly placed in my field of vision while masturbating do I really want to? The reason why I say it seems "feminine" is for one.. the images that would appear are images of myself masturbating. Do I really want to be turned on by images of myself masturbating? Of a male masturbating?

 

Lol, sounds strange doesn't it. But I imagine that with enough time I would start to associate horniness with the image of a male masturbating, and not with the woman I desire.

 

That and well, it just seems odd to imagine touching myself.

 

Ok, so let's say I try my best NOT to indulge in any imagery that has to do with my own while masturbating. Let's say.. I just focus on pure blackness. Will I start to associate blackness with sexuality and horniness?

 

Can I just choose to focus on something external, like money? Lol will it manifest more money in my life like magick?

[RyanO]

 

Can I just choose to focus on something external, like money? Lol will it manifest more money in my life like magick?

 

Haha yep!

 

Sex Magic

[Ryan Randolph]

Haha, this is discussion is cracking me up. So I guess if I am masturbating and I am stroking my own dick, does that mean that I like to stroke dicks? That I am gay?

 

hehe, I am playing with you a little.

 

You are right, it is a feminine approach, but it a male feminine approach. Feminine does not mean female, each male has a feminine pole within him; it is in his heart.

 

If he does not balance this part of him, there is mainly only one other source for this type of sensual feminine energy: Women.

 

For a boy, this source of feminine emotional nourishment is Mother. As he transitions to manhood, this source transfers over to a Woman sexual partner.

 

He will seek out an emotional/energetic "food" source through sex. Because he is operating out of the illusion that this source of "food" is out there (in women), he will experience Lust.

 

What is lust, exactly?

 

Lust = Desire + Belief in not getting that desire

 

So we want something but don't believe its possible to get it, that is lust at its core.

 

So you can either reduce the desire (which I don't recommend because desire is part of life and healthy, and leads us to create and grow and enjoy life), or we can change our own belief or perception of lack.

 

How do we change this belief?

 

We discover the source of feminine "food" within our own heart.

 

By opening our heart, we unlock our feminine core. By connecting this energy center to the sexual center, our craving is dissolved and sex takes on a whole new meaning.

 

It's no longer about feeding ourself and getting our needs met, it's about something much different.

 

Mainly, about sharing our companionship, growing, sharing our gifts of physical/emotional/mental/spiritual energy.

 

Sex becomes a means to create a new energy field that is the combination of both person's energy. This creates a living orb of energy that both partners operate in (you can call this the relationship, but when sex is involved it is much more).

 

As far as masturbating or not, either way is ok (as I see it). It's really about coming into more self love and honoring of self. Will excessive masturbating drain your energy, probably in most cases. Can masturbating give us energy and balance us, sure.

 

My current thinking about masturbation is that in most cases, it is a product of not fulling being "initiated" by an older male.

 

By receiving the "blessing" of an older man who shows you the male world, the male mode of feeling, the male way of interacting with the world; your cells receive a energetic food from the man.

 

Its as if each of the initiate man's cells are being "tuned" to the male frequency, and his entire sexual energy centers are transformed.

 

I have begun to receive this initiation experience from many men (as is probably true of everyone participating in this forum), but none were as powerful as from Eben Pagen when I was at one of his training seminars.

 

I had struggled with trying to not masturbate or use my sexual energy and then masturbating, back and forth for some time.

 

After going to his 2 day seminar, I did no ejaculate for 6 months, and it was not hard to do at all. I felt as if I was being rejuvenated from within.

When I finally did end up ejaculating, the feeling was so incredible and exquisite, it was unlike anything I ever experienced before. It was like an orgasm that lasted for an hour, showering down from my head into a relaxation of bliss.

 

I sense that this was not simply from "avoiding masturbation" but from utilizing the sexual energy and bringing it up to the higher centers.

 

As useful as these books, and trainings are, I believe there must be a body element in the training in which one receives the presence of the teacher, and comes in contact with their energy field.

 

Anyway, that is my unique experience and perspective so far, and each man will have his own path to discover.

[Aaron]

Hello Ryan,

 

I think for me, this conversation ties into the "Celibate for eight weeks" thread in that it is talking about something that is completely natural and presenting it in an ugly light, not because there is a logical reason for it, but because it is generally agreed to be true.

 

I always recommend to people, especially budding Taoists, that if you hear someone tell you something is right or wrong and most people agree, then it's time to examine it for yourself, without preconceived notions, to be sure that it's true, or you can continue to blindly accept everything people tell you as truth and not have to worry about anything shaking up the pretty pink cloud that you're living in.

 

Aaron

[Ryan Randolph]

Hello Ryan,

 

I liked what you had to say about sex and self. I think the one thing that you also need to consider is that if one looks at too much pornography, they begin to see people as object, rather than people. Sex, as you stated, stops being a sensual encounter, and instead becomes simply a stimulus. Sex isn't supposed to be simply about sex, it's an intimate experience between two people, one that is meant to strengthen, not only the physical bond, but also the emotional and spiritual bond. Pornography can't really do any of these things.

 

With that said, there's nothing wrong with masturbation, especially if you're aroused. In fact it is a healthy way to relieve tension. There's a reason most people learn to masturbate shortly after puberty, because it helps us to prepare for sex with another person and also become comfortable with our sexuality. Most people who have hangups about sex, started to have those hangups at an early age because they were taught this very natural behavior was wrong.

 

I would say, that eliminating the influence of lust is unnatural, and rather, what one really needs to do is become comfortable with themselves and their sexuality. Once that is achieved, I think you'll find that your desires will be diminished and you wont be as influenced by lust. Also remember, lust isn't bad, rather lust is our bodies and minds telling us that we are attracted to someone else.

 

Aaron

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. You are speaking from wisdom (knowledge + experience) and it shows through. The one thing is that I use the term "lust" as in the context of an unhealthy craving that leads to imbalance. Pure desire is not only normal, it is the basis of all life and growth so yes we definitely do not want to deny or repress any of our sexual instincts, we just want to direct them consciously.

 

I really enjoy hearing perspectives like these because it helps to refine our discussion and clarify all the meanings behind the words. Thanks.

[RyanO]

Hello Ryan,

 

I think for me, this conversation ties into the "Celibate for eight weeks" thread...

 

 

Actually the thread is "Celibacy for eight MONTHS !!!"

[Non]

well, Aaron sees that lust is good and healthy.

 

There are many traditions that view lust and sexual desire as being completely different. Lust being negative of course, while sexual desire is ok.