The Spiritual Significance Of Sexuality

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings and blessings for everyone of you here. Every human manifestation has a deep spiritual significance. It does not matter whether this manifestation is natural, instinctual, or whether it is man-made, as it were. No matter what the human experience, it is always symbolic of a wider, deeper, and fuller meaning.

Tonight's lecture will deal with the spiritual meaning of sexuality. A long time ago, in one of the early lectures, I discussed three aspects of the great universal creative force: the erotic, the sexual, and the love force, as manifest in the human experience. These three forces are, of course, not really separate forces, but subdivisions of the same force. They manifest differently only within the realm of the ego-confinement where they can be split. Now I will use the term "sexuality" as a whole and I will discuss primarily its manifestation in the human realm: its purpose, its spiritual meaning. Sexuality manifests differently in every human being according to the development of each human being. We shall discuss the principle of sexuality in the totally self-realized individual, in the average person, and, down the scale, in those who are perhaps still on a very low level of spiritual development, and therefore severely blocked and split.

The sexual force is an expression of consciousness reaching for fusion. You all know that fusion is the purpose of creation. You can call it integration, unification, oneness. But whatever the term may be, the final aim of all split-off beings is the reunification of the individualized, separated aspects of the greater consciousness with the whole of consciousness. The split-off particles of entities form an integral part of a great motor force that governs these entities to strive toward unification. This pull is irresistibly strong and exists in all organisms -- even in inanimate ones, although at this point human intelligence cannot yet perceive it.

In the human realm the power of sexuality can, in its most ideal form, be the greatest "representative" of spiritual existence. There is no other human experience that conveys so fully what spiritual bliss, oneness, and timelessness are: the timeless Now, beyond the confines of time. In the total sexual experience man breaks through the confines of time and separateness to which his limited mind has bound him. Through such an experience man is reminded of his true existence in the eternal.

The union, the fusion, the blissful experience and the sense of timelessness in the sexual union all depend on the unification of the individuals in question, and therefore their attitudes on all levels. If the sexual experience is an expression of all levels of the parties involved -- the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual; if these levels are at one with each other and in no way conflicting; if the people, on all these levels, express their being in concord with spiritual law, which is love, truth, and positive expression toward life, then the sexual experience is as complete, as fulfilling, as rich, as joyous, as nourishing, as sustaining, as furthering, and as reminiscent of spiritual reality as any human experience can be. In that blissful experience the fulfillment transcends personal satisfaction and enrichment. This means that by and through this fulfillment the individuals involved are fulfilling a task in the universe. This may seem strange, for the human brain is used to associate the fulfillment of tasks with something arduous and more or less difficult and unpleasant. In reality, the more total are joy, pleasure, bliss, ecstasy, the more is added in creative power into the universal reservoir. Each such experience is like a new star lighting up somewhere in creation and becoming yet another torch in the darkness of the void that is finally to be filled.

Let us now discuss these various levels in regard to our topic. What is the meaning of the sexual experience on the physical level? What does the urge to physically unite say, as it were? The usual answers, such as procreation, perpetuation of the race, and the need for pleasure, are only partial answers and rather superficial at that. When two human beings are attracted to each other, we might say, translating this manifestation into concise language, that the parties involved yearn to know each other, to reveal themselves to each other, to find the other, to let themselves be known and found, to find the true being of the other person. By revealing itself to another being, this true being can enter the realm and circumference of the self that is thus seeking unification, and vice versa. This desire, that is energized by an involuntary force, creates the electrifying blissful feeling and longing.

Needless to say, if this attraction exists merely on the physical level, without the other levels entering into the expression as well (at least to some degree), the ensuing experience must be disappointing; it must leave a lot to be desired; it can never be more than the most infinitesimal and superficial representation or foretaste of what the soul really longs for but is too blind to understand and pursue. Pursuing this state requires, of course, a process of purification and unification, such as your Path.

Since the human consciousness is limited, blind, and merely gropes in the dark, very often such an attraction for another person is not directed to the actual person, but rather to an image, fabricated in the mind, of what the other person should be in order to fulfill the desiring person's real or imagined needs. The real person is often totally ignored and willfully denied. The desiring person insists on his illusion and is angry when the illusion cannot be made to come true. Usually this is mutual -- both parties seek someone else, as it were, and do not know it. The measure of fulfillment is a good gauge to what degree the real person is sought. The absence of bliss indicates the illusory nature of the search, the willful superimposition of another person over the real person. When the attraction is truly genuine and springs from a real and whole foundation, it is directed to that specific, particular person, and not to the symbolic image of someone else, perhaps a parent figure. Then it is indeed that person to whom one wishes to reveal oneself in a most intimate way, and with whom one wishes to be as closely connected as is possible.

The longing for close connection never ceases in the human soul, but it takes different forms in an infant and in an adult. In the infant closeness is an entirely passive experience: the child takes in, receives, soaks up as a merely receptive organism (the feminine principle), while the mother is the giver and dispenser -- and in that capacity the truly feminine woman expresses her masculine principle. In the adult, closeness can be consummated successfully only when the experience is mutual, when both participants actively reach, give, dispense, sustain, nurture, receive, take in, and give out. This organic rhythm cannot be determined by the mind, of course. This innate, self-regulating, spontaneous rhythm is the involuntary expression of a lawful process, so exacting, intricate, and meaningful that it is impossible to convey to the human scope of understanding. As you all know only too well, blocks and prohibition of true fulfillment exist because within the adult personality the infant still claims fulfillment according to its mode. It seeks a nurturing parent, rather than the specific other person, and it seeks the merely receptive, in-taking kind of closeness. The fusion thus aspired to can never take place, so that the person lives in a treadmill of perpetual frustration which, in turn, seems to justify his caution, his withholding, and his negativities. The movement toward closeness is then split off, so that a counter-movement is instituted, causing a short-circuit in the system. This short-circuit is then experienced as an involuntary block, inhibition, and deadness.

Let us now go to the emotional level. The movement toward fusion on the emotional level must be expressed in feeling-exchange, if the fusion is to take place. What does feeling-exchange mean on adult, realistic terms? We use the word "love" very freely, but only too often there is no meaning attached to the word when it is pronounced. Or, worse, the word is used as a label behind which very different "feelings," i.e., ego needs, negative aims, etc., exist. People use each other in the most exploitative way and call this "love." What is the vivid, living experience behind the stereotyped level? The experience is, primarily, the attempt to perceive the reality of the other person -- the manifold, multiple reality. Such an attempt requires that you temporarily put your own needs, your ego, your expectations, and your personal preoccupations aside and make yourself "empty," as it were, to let in what is -- the other person; to truly see, perceive, experience, and feel the various facets of this other being. What more fascinating experience could there be? When you have no stake in the illusory image of what the other person "ought" to be -- only to resent it when he or she does not conform to your image -- you will be open and sufficiently empty to let in what is. This is one way of expressing love. From that basis a feeling-exchange can be built. If you perceive in reality, you are free enough of your selfwill, of your pride, of your fears; you are sufficiently ready to deal with what is, even with pain and frustration if necessary. So reality, and ultimately bliss, can come to you. The ability to take frustration and pain is an essential ingredient in the ability to love, to give and receive, and to experience bliss. If, on the other hand, you are very threatened by and defended against pain and frustration -- the pain of not having your way, the pain of being hurt a little, the pain of having to give up an imaginary, or even a real, advantage -- to that degree you create a hard wall out of your flowing energy stream. Nothing can come into you through this wall, nor can anything flow out of you toward others through this wall. You are isolated in this self-created prison, the prison of your defense against pain and unpleasantness. You become numb and cannot be fulfilled, you cannot live. You cannot fuse, thus you can have no pleasure.

Loving, therefore the ability to give and receive, depends on the ability to perceive in reality with uncluttered vision. That, in turn, as I've just said, depends on the ability to suffer pain in an undefended way -- in a way that is free from manipulative interpretations of the pain, interpretations whose aim it is to annul the pain. Uninterpreted pain will make room for truthful interpretation of the events and the connections that bring about the pain.

Feeling-exchange, or the emotional level of sexuality, is determined by love in its real sense -- all the many aspects and manifestations of love. Another aspect of love in a real sense is letting the other be. This means more than just acceptance of where and what he is now. It means the vision of the total person, including his or her as yet unrealized potentialities. Such vision of the unmanifest is a great act of love and has nothing to do with the illusion of manufacturing another kind of person for the purposes of self-willed need. If you can give that freedom to "be who you are" to the other one, you can exchange trust. You thus gain the freedom to assert your own right to be and then you can do this without defiance and without acting out your negative games. This real assertion stems from the guilt-free state that follows the truly giving attitude. If you can say yes to wholeheartedly giving, you can also say no. If you truly give, you can also assert your inner right to receive -- and that, again, is not to be confused with demands of a childish, neurotic nature.

Not giving feelings makes mutual exchange impossible. Since in reality giving and receiving are one, you cannot give to others without also giving to yourself. Conversely, by withholding from others, you inevitably withhold from yourself. The thus resulting deprivation is then blamed on the other, as a result of your illusion that giving and receiving are two separate acts. The fusion you long for can therefore only be fulfilled if every feeling you long to receive, every single aspect of loving is richly flowing out of you: tenderness, warmth, respect, recognition of the ultimate person with the capacity for growth, change, and goodness; patience; always giving the benefit of the doubt; always making room for alternative interpretations; trust; giving room to unfold and to be -- all these aspects of loving you so passionately yearn for, you long to be given to. On the emotional level, fusion can take place only when you are fully committed to and increasingly learn to perfect the capacity of giving all these components of perfect love.

But in order to fuse emotionally -- and therefore totally -- it is equally necessary to express yourself truthfully toward the other person where this may not be welcomed or desired. Not doing so under the guise of "loving goodness" and "taking it" is sentimentality and usually dishonest. For in reality the person merely fears the unpleasant consequences and is thus not willing to risk the pain, exposure, confrontation, the hard work of finding reintegration of the relationship on a higher, respectively more profound level. This can be done without guilt and in a healthy way only when you have dealt with and eliminated your cruelty. As long as cruelty exists, you can never, never say the truth to others without hurting them. The hidden motive to hurt pervades your energies and affects your actions and your words. This, in turn, paralyzes your courage to step up and to confront a situation that requires improvement. How then can an unhampered giving of love, in all its various facets, be reinstituted and increased? It is possible that you are free from cruelty and can speak up in a totally constructive way and yet the other person is still hurt -- maybe because he or she insists on never being criticized or frustrated. But if you can deal with the hurt that thus arises in you, you can truly risk this event and battle it through so that an open exchange of feelings can be made possible. You will find that the more you act out of your sincere intention to love and feel more deeply, the more fruitful the outcome will be when you risk offending your partner. Conversely, when you "speak the truth" because you need to hurt, but you do not wish to admit it, the outcome must be undesirable. Your guilt for this hidden motivation will be a shield standing between you and the truth and between you and the other person.

The fulfillment and bliss your soul inexorably longs for, and which can only be satisfied through fusion with another consciousness, depend on your ability to risk, to confront, to work out, to admit your most guarded secrets, and, as a result, to feel free to speak up when the other person puts obstructions in the way. You must also recognize your own limitations to express your best feelings when the unexpressed negativities and hidden games on the part of your partner make this impossible. The positive assertion I speak of here is entirely different from the blaming demand. The latter truly puts the responsibility on the other person; the former does not do this, but also recognizes what the other does. When you no longer have a stake in blaming, you cam truly speak up. You are no longer too blind to fully see the emotional involvement in the negative exchange. When you perceive this negative exchange indirectly, your struggle must be painful and there cannot be peace in your recognition of your partner's part. But when your recognition of your partner's negative contribution stems from the clear vision you could only gain as a result of self-confrontation and deep honesty, you will risk and the temporary pain will not diminish you.

In order to fuse emotionally, honest exchange, at the risk of occasional crises, is necessary. This honest exchange is totally dependent on the individual's self-honesty and good will to abandon dishonest, hurtful, destructive patterns. If you are hampered, inhibited, and afraid, you also inhibit the mutual scope and depth of fulfillment, the bliss that arises from fusion. In that case you have to ask yourselves where this fear comes from. Where does this fear have its origin in both of you? And since you can only be responsible for yourself, ask especially where the fear originates in you. Where is the cruelty in you that makes you afraid of saying what you see? Where does your blindness toward yourself inevitably blind you toward the other person, so that you are unsure and defensive about what you see -- and consequently militant and hostile. Again, emotional fusion can exist only to the degree that the prerequisites I discussed here are fulfilled.

Mental fusion exists obviously on the level of the thinking mind. An exchange of the deepest ideas and thoughts, the ability to communicate them, to share them, to risk disagreement and disapproval, are basic. Mental fusion can exist only when there is a certain blend of compatibility and complementation. Two compatible partners have to share certain fundamental ideas about life. They must be spiritually more or less on the same plane of development. This does not mean that every small idea must be shared. This is quite impossible and, in fact, the divergence, in some ways, is a necessary occurrence that is not only a result of the multiplicity of the human manifestation, but also, at the same time, a necessary lesson for the purpose of further development. The need to grow toward truthful understanding of each other; the humility to search and discard if necessary; the humility to let the other, and also yourself, be right or wrong; the very act of looking for a deeper way of truth concerning even the tiniest issues, all this is wonderful fuel for growth and thus helps toward deeper fusion on the mental level. The ways and attitudes one brings to bear on the points of difference are important. Do you avoid any confrontation of ideas because it is simply too uncomfortable to stir up the water? Do you agree superficially so as to have peace because the issue is "unimportant" anyway? Can you perhaps not be bothered to think deeply about things that do not directly concern you? Or do you insist on being "right" merely for its own sake? Is disagreement a way in which you can find an outlet for the negative feelings and thoughts stored up in you and which you do not choose to deal with constructively?

The freedom to have different ideas can be granted only when you are both anchored in spiritual truth and when you aim in that direction. When spiritual reality is forever the ultimate aim, you also know that there is only one truth -- and this applies every bit as much to the vital issues on the grand scale as to the smallest everyday inanities. But you also know that this one truth has many facets, often making two apparent opposites part of one whole. With the spiritual aim as the ultimate goal, you will sit lightly in the saddle of opinions, ideas, and thoughts. This will make it possible to share and exchange them, to finally fuse them. If you always aim for the inner truth, the spiritual truth, the little disagreements or different opinions slowly disappear. First they cease to matter, then they become integrated -- fused in the all-uniting truth of spirit.

Mental sharing must not be neglected. One often sees relationships in which sexual sharing exists and, to a degree, also the emotional, but the mental sharing is strangely neglected in a world that stresses so much the importance of the intellect, ideas, and the mind. Yet people live day in and day out next to each other depriving themselves and each other of the joyousness of mental fusion; mentally exposing their innermost beings, their ideas, their beliefs, their dreams, their aspirations, their feelings, their fears, their goals, their yearnings, their insecurities, their hopes. The world of mind and ideas is an integral part of the total sharing. And it is quite impossible that one can fuse with another on one level in a truly satisfying way while on any of the other levels one keeps separate and not in tune with the ultimate movement toward fusion. For instance, quite often, when frustration is ascribed to sexual incompatibility, this sexual incompatibility may not be a result of the absence of physical attraction at all. It may be the result of insufficient fusion on any one or all of the other levels.

Spiritual fusion is always a natural result of the fusion on the physical, emotional, and mental levels. If such fusion exists on all these levels, this means that the parties involved must perforce be highly developed spiritual beings; they must actively work on and be involved in a spiritual path. They must be sufficiently awake to consciously and deliberately seek spiritual truth. The reaching of the spiritual self must be the primary aim of life if total fusion is to exist. It is therefore true that fulfillment in life, the bliss that every created being longs for, is possible to the degree that spiritual development has advanced and is advancing still; to the degree that the partners are in movement; to the degree that destructiveness has made room for constructive, outgoing, positive attitude and behavior. Only too often human beings are stuck and have no intention to move out of their stagnation. They are surprised when their yearning for oneness remains unfulfilled, and they blame others, circumstances, and life for it.

All matters must finally be related to the spiritual self and to spiritual reality. All disputes can truly be resolved and conciliated only in the spiritual self, which is one in all created beings. When two human beings fuse with the feeling that there is a spiritual world within both of them in which they can discover their oneness, then spiritual union also takes place.

The tremendous power of the sexual force that is being generated through union on all levels has a self-perpetuating life, as all creative power has -- positive as well as negative. It sets something in motion that takes on its own movement further, and further, and further. The human personality must learn to follow suit, to follow the stream which has been set in motion through the investment on all levels of the people involved.

Whatever exists within the human psyche shows up in the sexual experience. It is impossible to keep it out of it. The sexual experience is therefore an infallible indicator of where a person is: where he is liberated and at one with divine law; where he is evil and destructive; where he is stuck and stagnant because his destructiveness is hidden and not being dealt with. Hidden facets become magnetized and energized by the sexual current and they determine its direction. When this direction is negative, and therefore shamefully denied, both development and the vitality of the life force are being hindered. The powerful creative energy that is inherent in the sexual expression creates a condition in which all character attitudes, all aspects of the most hidden nature, must manifest. Unfortunately, human beings are extremely blind to this. Even the most advanced psychology is oblivious of the fact that in the way sexuality manifests (not necessarily in action, but in inclination) the whole character, all attitudes, all personality and ego trends, all problems and impurities, are revealed, as is also the already purified beauty, of course. All of that is revealed and available to him who knows how to look and find and see and recognize. All too often sexual attitudes are dealt with in a glib way by simply judging them as healthy or neurotic or by moralizing about them; or by defiantly refusing to recognize the keys contained in them; by separating them from the rest of the person as if these inclinations were purely "a matter of taste," like one person is born with blue eyes and another with brown. Labels are so often supposed to take care of the matter. The spiritual message of the inner reality is completely overlooked, no matter how clearly and loudly it speaks through the sexual inclinations -- whether allowed to exist or denied and repressed. If character defects deform the sexual drive into cruel, destructive fantasies, it is no more necessary to act them out than to act out other destructive feelings. It is the same with murderous feelings you own up to on your Path and which don't need to be acted out in order for you to be able to face them, understand them, accept and deal with them, and to recognize what their inner meaning is. It is just because the sexual energy is so powerful that every smallest, apparently insignificant attitude that exists in the human personality reappears in symbolic form in the sexual expression. The way sexuality expresses itself in an individual is a mirror to those aspects in him that he desperately needs to be aware of. Here, my friends, it is a question of learning to use this key. Look at your sexuality in a new way. What does it reveal to you about your non-sexual nature, as it were, about your person, your attitudes, etc.? Where does your sexuality show up your problems and where and how does it reveal your purified nature?

When you are not at one in the four levels we discussed, then that must show. Let us say your attractions, your needs, and your desires are strong on the physical level. Let us assume you are ready to expose yourself on that level and seek fusion there. But let us also assume that on the emotional and/or the mental level this is not at all the case. There you wish to keep separate, you do not wish to give, nor to risk, nor to constantly integrate fusion of each level on a higher plane. In that case the physical level will not only be severely restricted, but the nature of your sexual drive must, in one form or another, reveal the emotional and mental attitudes you may keep hidden and which reappear in your sexuality, sexualized, as it were, infused and magnetized by the sexual force, even though you may not be aware of it.

If the negativities of the psychic system are denied consciousness, the sexual experience must be blocked, flat, unsatisfactory, mechanical, and, in the more severe instances, even totally paralyzed. If this denial is removed, the sexual inclinations may show up the character tendencies; for instance, finding pleasure in being cruel. Many variations and details exist, and they cannot possibly be generalized. For example, if both the guilt for whatever negativity and the thus resulting self-punishment are denied and repressed, they may reappear and show up in a sexual inclination to be hurt, humiliated, rejected. There are innumerable possibilities and meanings. Each sexual fantasy must be reawakened and allowed to be, so that it can be understood. This is the only way to bring the stagnant sexual energy again into flow, even if it first means living out the fantasies -- in your mind or in actuality, in a playful way in an intimate and established relationship.

It often occurs that the deviated sexual expression is quite conscious, indulged in, and enjoyed to whatever degree this is possible in this hampered way. However, it is not being connected with its deeper meaning -- the person simply assumes "this is the way he is." At the same time, he is unwilling to "give up" this pleasure because he is convinced that is the only way he can have pleasure. This is totally untrue. The pleasure that would become available if he was to give up his limited deviated pleasure is incomparably higher in intensity and quality than the original pleasure, and the fear of giving it up is an illusion; in reality, he does not give up anything. In order to change, he first allows himself to make connections with the non-sexual aspects of his person. From there a natural transformation in the direction of the sexual current will organically take place.

You, my friends, who have been working on this path for some time have confronted your negativities. Do you believe it conceivable that these negativities do not express themselves in your sexuality? Do you for an instant assume that they do not manifest in your sexual attitudes, and therefore influence your capacity for fulfillment, fusion, and bliss? That would indeed be foolish to suppose. So, perhaps this could be a new way for you to approach your task on your path: to see what specific negativities cause what specific manifestations. To some extent, of course, this has been done, but in no way have you used all that is available for you to use in this way. This will be an extremely exciting undertaking for you, one that will yield many keys. The more specific you can be, the more revealing and enlivening your insights and your understanding about yourself will be.

You all know that making the connections between cause and effect is an important aspect of development and self-confrontation. The greatest pain and dissonance in the human personality exists due to the split not only between the four levels of personality, but also between cause and effect. Nothing is more painful than suffering an effect whose cause you ignore.

For most human beings it is still inconceivable to combine sexuality with spirituality. This concept is bound to change soon; spiritual influxes of today have already wrought a beginning of the New Era. In former times, sexuality and spirituality were considered antithetical. It was ignored that true spiritual union is a consummate result of union on all levels of being, thus also on the physical-sexual one. It was ignored that total integration and oneness must bring sexuality into alignment with spirituality. The realization of the spiritual life in you is possible only as a result of total unification, and certainly never as a result of splitting off any one part from the others. The real meaning of spirituality is oneness and wholeness, and that means it must include all there is. Satisfying relationships with others are therefore always also a mirror of the degree of inner unification of the individual. If you cannot find union with others, you are in disunity within yourself.

The difficulty that man has in unifying, even in his concept, spirituality and sexuality is due precisely to what I explained before, namely the fact that hidden evil manifests in and through the sexual expression. This is why spiritual teachings have, for centuries and centuries, postulated that sexuality is a hindrance to spiritual development. At that time, there was a reason for such postulates. They were not all wrong -- at that time. The less developed state of mankind at that time made man act out his brutality and bestiality through his sexuality -- as well as otherwise. Consciousness and conscience, the influx of the spirit, existed to a much lesser degree. Everything was acted out with impunity and in self-righteousness. The stronger ones had the rights and needed no excuses. The ability for restraint and discipline was practically nonexistent. The capacity for feeling for others, for empathy, was extremely weak and rare. In such a world the powerful drives had to be restrained in order to make any influx of the spirit possible. Thus the long eras in which spiritual exercises were used to restrain instinct and nature had their effects. On the one hand, development proceeded, on the other it also hemmed in the natural forces -- and this was temporarily necessary. Only now, as mankind enters a new spiritual era of unfoldment, is it strong enough to take out these instincts and to purify them without the danger of acting out. Still today, hardly anyone knows the fine line between safe, honest expression and admission of negative material and destructive acting out. You on this path are indeed pioneers in learning this all-important art. Only in that way can you unify the total person, purify all aspects, and safely bring out the sexual drive, in whatever way it now manifests. The current predominance of stagnation, of low vitality, and the frequency of sexual problems are a result of hemming in negative life force, because it could not be dealt with safely. You now learn a new and marvelous method of freeing your instincts for the purpose of purification and revitalization.

If the energy of the life force is concentrated in unrecognized and unfaced evil, then the energy is feared as such, and a state of stagnation is preferred as the lesser evil. This numbness may be regretted and the yearning therefore may become unbearable, but the inner person is still too puzzled and fearful to do otherwise. The evil is denied and the personality may then try to force and push the sexual force artificially, with very unsatisfactory results. The person may then resort to artificial stimulants and sexuality then becomes even more split off from the rest of the personality. The split among the various levels creates further short circuits. The dissonance among the various levels may manifest in perhaps the following way. The emotional level expresses, "I do not want to love" (denied hate). The mental level might say, "I ought to love and if I do not, then I am bad and I have no pleasure; so I force myself to love." Another mental level may simultaneously say, "I have no use for you, you are bad" (as an excuse and explanation for not loving). The sexual level may say, "I want to possess you to have my pleasure." In such a predicament, sexuality is either annulled or it functions in what is referred to as "perversion," (pleasure in giving pain, pleasure in denying the self and the other). Hating, selfish, cruel sex is always guilt-producing, a guilt which is then glossed over by accusing it of being puritanical and unenlightened, but a guilt that, in spite of all the enlightenment, still prevails. Where is the origin of such a guilt? Surely in the concealed hatred and brutality that manifests covertly in sexual expressions, whether they are being admitted or not. If the desires to put others down, to be self-serving, to be exploitative, and unmindful of others are not being dealt with directly, they pollute the holy sexuality. And it is indeed holy. When sexuality is used in the service of ego aggrandizement and the lust for power, how can it help but produce "inexplicable" guilt; or guilt that is explained away as an effect of background and early influence.

Nothing is as dangerous as to use a powerful spiritual energy in a destructive, inverted way, whether it is used in actual fact, or in mind and attitude only. When killing and hating is imbedded in sexuality, sexuality becomes vicious and antagonistic to spirituality. For millennia people acted out the most bestial drives in sexuality and this is why sexuality was, in itself, believed to be bestial. Now it is possible for man to face every conceivable evil and not act upon it. Today there is a conscience in man that makes him quite aware of his viciousness when he is being vicious. This awareness is not always on the surface, for man usually tries to avoid what he knows. But he nevertheless knows it within his psyche, therefore there is a reluctance to give in to the sexual drive, for it brings out the denied negativities, the evil, the destructiveness.

If you use this key and this tool, in the spirit of the pathwork, if you allow yourself to see and admit, you will not only gain deeper insight into yourself, make new connections, purify yourself more, but you will activate the sexual power that was so elusive for you. You will free your sexuality and simultaneously you will integrate it to your spiritual self -- without untimely, compulsive forcing, but as a natural process. You will free the sexual energy from the negative involvement it was hooked on. The awareness of where you are hooked sexually must be combined with the full understanding of the meaning of this hookup. You must account for, as it were, what the negative expression of your sexuality means. How does it reveal your selfishness, your cruelty, your lovelessness, your greed? Deal with this, my friends. The more you do this, the less blocked will you find yourself to be, the more spontaneous will the inner movement become, the more revitalized you will be by the experience of fusion, and the more will the involuntary forces function. But you must first take the risk of allowing the involuntary forces to reveal the deepest aspects of evil in you, parts that you are otherwise unable to even discover. The most secret sexual fantasies, if they are examined for what they really are, in the light of clear truth, will be your liberation. No truth is ever too much to bear. No truth, if perceived with a sense of realism, can ever diminish your spirit and your true self. Thus you become alive and you awaken from your deadness. You will free yourself from your fears.

Before terminating this lecture, I want to say just one more thing in connection with this topic. The masculine and feminine principles in the universe express themselves in every creative act. How do they express between and within the two partners? The masculine principle expresses the outgoing movement of reaching, giving, acting, initiating, asserting. The feminine principle expresses the receptive movement: taking in, nurturing. In distortion and negativity, the masculine principle manifests as hostile aggression, hitting rather than giving and reaching. The feminine principle in distortion turns from loving receptivity and nurturing to grasping, grabbing, stealing, holding tight, catching, and taking and not letting go. These principles manifest in every living act. Both principles, in harmony and distortion, exist in both men and women. They can easily be detected with a minimum of self-observation. They are manifest as soul movements that may or may not also manifest as physical acts.

These movements exist in absolutely everything that could ever be created or ever would be. They are integral manifestations in creation. Once you ascertain the manner in which both principles express in you, it is easily possible to connect the expressions with your mental, emotional, and physical levels. Allow yourself this vision. Satisfying fusion between a man and a woman is possible only to the degree that both principles work in harmony within both partners, and thus complement each other in the act of fusion. If there is no harmonious interplay within your own psychic system of the masculine and feminine principles, if there is distortion and imbalance there, then this must inevitably also manifest in your choice of partner and in the way you conduct the relationship.

Harmonious fusion builds up to a point of total fusion. Total fusion is the total fulfillment which the two movements have found in their culmination. This is, again, a universal phenomenon, to be found in every creative act, whether this be the creation of a planetary system or the creation of a simple object, or the unifying of two loving mates. This point of fusion, which you may call "orgasm," is the total fulfillment: the aim has been accomplished, as it were, in spirit, to the degree that this is now possible for the striving entities, in whatever creative act. Only to the degree that the negativities and egotistical defenses are being abandoned, and the involuntary movement accepted, welcomed, and followed, can this creative experience take place. It will continue to expand until total union with The Whole takes place. Then the entity stays at the point of fusion in unending spiritual bliss. But as long as the universe has not found its completion in filling the void with spiritual light, "orgasm" in creation can only be temporary, so that the parts find themselves separate again, and continue their striving forever more, until one is all and all is one, until there is no more darkness and only spiritual light, truth, and beauty.

If all of you could really know that you have an inexhaustible treasure of security, of love, and of light in you. The only thing that blocks you off from it is your thinking, your not knowing, your not wanting to feel, to know, and to consider this truth. Make use of this truth.

My friends, I assume there must be many questions about this topic. I suggest that you take note of all your questions and that we treat them in the following Question and Answer session. At this particular point, the energy is very beautiful, very strong, and very vital. Let yourselves be moved by it in what you say, how you conduct the further proceedings. Let the spirit move you into a freer expression; work with this energy now.

I leave you with this golden flow of energy and the feeling that has been elicited in most of you. Be blessed in the truth of life that is available at all times, in the truth of love, and in the peace of spiritual reality.

The Guide
by Eva Pierrakos
January 12, 1973

Pathwork Guide Lecture # 207
"The Spiritual Significance Of Sexuality"  1973

© Copyright 1973 by The Pathwork Foundation.