Celibacy. Balance. And The Best Life.

[eskwire]

I am considering celibacy, permanently. If you have any personal experience, advice, reading, or clues into the following questions, that would be much appreciated.

• What clues are there to know if celibacy is the right choice for you?
• What about temporary celibacy, intended to be broken at a certain point in time? Such as, after so many years or after certain goals are met.
• Is considering celibacy at all, permanent or temporary, too cut and dry?
• What clues are there to know you can handle the vicissitudes of romantic impermanence and challenge without significant damage or wasted time? 

I am considering this because the fundamentally unfulfilling nature of romantic love has become more than viscerally clear at this point. To me, getting involved in the future with anyone seems like a dangerous gamble not worth taking. The cost-benefit ratio, opportunity cost, and risk shut the whole thing down for me.  

Of course, if I am simply operating from a place of fear, I would like to know that and face it. 

Thoughts appreciated!

[Deep]

5 hours ago, eskwire said:

• What clues are there to know if celibacy is the right choice for you?
• What about temporary celibacy, intended to be broken at a certain point in time? Such as, after so many years or after certain goals are met.
• Is considering celibacy at all, permanent or temporary, too cut and dry?
• What clues are there to know you can handle the vicissitudes of romantic impermanence and challenge without significant damage or wasted time? 

I am considering this because the fundamentally unfulfilling nature of romantic love has become more than viscerally clear at this point. To me, getting involved in the future with anyone seems like a dangerous gamble not worth taking. The cost-benefit ratio, opportunity cost, and risk shut the whole thing down for me.  

Celibacy is right for you if you don't have a natural desire for sex. You shouldn't become celibate just because you are fearful of relationships. I think it's wrong to suppress your desires because you can go crazy. Temporary celibacy is alright if you want to love yourself before someone comes along. You're here to experience everything so you can definitely handle romantic impermanence. 

[aurum]

@eskwireNot saying you shouldn't do it, but It sounds like an extreme decision. Plenty of people are able to have fulfilling relationships, so is the problem really with relationships? Consider that.

 

[eskwire]

@aurum Right, are relationships a danger or are relationships in a lame state of mind a danger?

I probably should have posted this in the consciousness sub because I started considering this from that perspective. Celibacy is a path often recommended in that pursuit. Can it be said that people are in fulfilling relationships or healthy ones? 

Either way, it is a big decision. After considering it even for this brief time, my hat goes off to the people who chose it. 

[OKO]

For a while I've been asexual (neither men, nor women, nor anything). That until I better manage my mind and sharpen my reasoning without the toll of my emotions. I've since become involved with intellectualism (excercising the intellect at the expense of the emotions). I found that I could do all the things I did during emotions without emotions, and still have a content mind. Emotions are like a filter effect on your smart phone which prevents you from seeing things in actuality (or as they TRULY potentially could be. Emotions bring a sort of rashness and stupidity.

Can you begin to understand why families holds themselves responsible for a loved one? No! Because to understand involves the intellect... but they relied on emotion and conventional definitions which lack a valid premise. Why else would a country worship people who kill for land, wear uniforms, have their own language, a theme song (like rap), and their own economy (I'm talking about gangsters AND soldiers)?

I recommend observing your mind while comfortably still on the bed or ground, clearing your mind, and noting what your first thoughts are concerned with (as you begin thinking). You'll find that emotion can still become a sort of background process (like a computer) while you are exercising the intellect (thought)... but if you bother with emotion or molest it you will stimulate it (so if you don't resist emotion but merely focus on reasoning and exercising the intellect... being frank and practical... rationalizing... emotion will fade along with it's filter effect).

 p.s. trust me i'm merely content, not elated (see what I mean)

Edited February 6, 2017 by Gabriel David

[eskwire]

Thanks for the input, folks.  I've decided on celibacy for one year, then re-evaluating it.  If I meet someone within that year, we'll have to be friends for that period and that may actually be the best thing.

If celibacy isn't an objectively better path and I'm just in a cycle of dysfunctional relationships and bad psychology, then it seems that one year off from the pattern to make changes is a minimum.  There's a lot more important work I'd rather focus *all* of my energy on.  

I'll see how I've grown in a year and I will also take that time to study the phenomenon in monks, nuns, etc. 

[Principium Nexus]

When you live celibatic does that include restraining from all sexual desires or just sexual contact with other people?

Edited February 6, 2017 by Principium Nexus

[Life Coach]

10 minutes ago, Principium Nexus said:

When you live celibatic does that include restraining from all sexual desires or just sexual contact with other people?

Well I am a celibate for over a year now, and I plan to do another year. However, I cannot restrain from all my sexual desires, and I don't even think it's healthy. So I live with masturbation every once in a while, but not often. I still don't know if I actually should go full celibate and not even masturbate or if this lifestyle is ok. I have tried to abstain from masturbation and it was no good.

[Principium Nexus]

@Old Soul I once tried to do the NoFap for 3 weeks and found much improvement in my overal mood and attraction to other people. True Celibacy is probably bad for you because your body is not build for that, but restraining from desire really empowers your motivation and some people even claim it fuels the chakras.

[eskwire]

@see_on_see I think I should have worded my post differently. Either that or people are projecting onto the idea. 

It's not merely to avoid suffering but to avoid the wasted time and energy. It's a distraction from the work of spiritual purification. Hence my allusion to opportunity cost and the risk of getting stifled by one. 

I also think people responding to this post haven't themselves accepted the idea that no relationship is fulfilling. It's not that I haven't found the right fulfilling relationship or developed myself enough to have one. It's that it is an external rather than internal source of fulfillment and is therefore not what this work is all about. 

[eskwire]

People also seem to think this is way harder than it is. Love and sex are very interconnected for me. If I'm not in a relationship, I don't care about it at all. When in one, I am very active but outside of that, I just don't care. I don't desire biological children or necessarily marriage. I could take or leave the whole thing. Which is why I'm wondering if, strategically, leaving it is the smartest choice for my consciousness and growth.

I've gone a year before with nothing because I wanted to be single and didn't have a drunk one night stand like in my youth. No biggie. 

Edited February 6, 2017 by eskwire

[Life Coach]

24 minutes ago, Principium Nexus said:

@Old Soul I once tried to do the NoFap for 3 weeks and found much improvement in my overal mood and attraction to other people. True Celibacy is probably bad for you because your body is not build for that, but restraining from desire really empowers your motivation and some people even claim it fuels the chakras.

People claim a lot of stuff. I rather see for myself than trusting claims. I have done nofap for 3 months and a few times for one month. I have seen positive results, but I think doing one week of nofap or maybe two is the best. It's what works for me. When I do nofap too long I get too horny and it actually distracts me and hinders me from being at my best. So for me once in a while is best.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Old Soul

[eskwire]

@see_on_see Then why do spiritual traditions tell you to set it as a permanent rule? That path is just wrong? Or you have to naturally be celibate for so many years before you join an order?

[eskwire]

@Principium Nexus My understanding is that it means letting go of all of it.  I don't think of it in terms of restraint. 

[eskwire]

1 minute ago, see_on_see said:

Being celibate is not a requisite for consciousness growth. And I don't feel that being celibate would make for a good strategic decision if deep down you do want relationships, which again there's nothing wrong with. It may very well be that for some people, getting in a good healthy relationship is one of the things that will make them grow the most. 

I feel you're turning it into a logical/dogmatic thing. Use your intuition instead. Tap into your intuition and ask yourself if this is really your path. There's no right or wrong path, just the one that's right for you, and only your intuition knows.

Aight, the decision about taking at least a year to myself without letting anyone cramp my style stands.  That's what I really want to do.  

[alyra]

@eskwire 

last time I had sex was over 6 years ago and I have no immediate plans to change that. idk if I count as "celibate" because I do indulge in fantasy with masturbation occasionally, so in that way I behave sexually. occasionally I've created an account on OK cupid, had a little fun perusing profiles, but ultimately trying to set up a conversation with people was... weird. unfulfilling I guess. 

 

but letsee to ponder your questions. for me I figured out I "should" be celibate mostly because sex itself was kind of uninteresting. long story short... there was enough about sex that gave me reason to just hold off from it. I would occasionally think about relationships without sex, and sometimes it seemed kind of nice and like I said I've been social enough to be thinking about attractive peeps and maybe trying to talk to people in the pursuit of something but... I've basically been denying to myself that I have interest in not bothering, at least for now. 

of course, I should disclose that when I was in high school I boldly told myself that even if I never found a partner in my life I'd be happy just being on my own. and that because of that, I preferred to put off dating until college or some time around then. 

 

I suppose I've been basically temporarily celibate, but with the end date unspecified, this whole time. for two years in college I was in some relationships, but after the last one I reinstated my celibacy. (well with freedom to pine for contact I wasn't really pursuing.) 

 

by your third question. I'm unfamiliar with the language you used to ask it, but from what I read it sounds kind of like you've had a lot of relationships that are short lived for quite some time now? IMO that's a dangerous habit to fall into. it's possible that you could approach the situation, assuming that is your situation, either by mindfulness with celibacy, or by mindfulness just doing the same... trying to be fully aware as consistently as you can during that time, letting go of self-judgments and just acting like an impartial observer of the situation. either way, being mindful I trust would facilitate growth in the area of romance for you. 

 

 

33 minutes ago, eskwire said:

I think I should have worded my post differently. Either that or people are projecting onto the idea. 

It's not merely to avoid suffering but to avoid the wasted time and energy. It's a distraction from the work of spiritual purification. Hence my allusion to opportunity cost and the risk of getting stifled by one. 

I also think people responding to this post haven't themselves accepted the idea that no relationship is fulfilling. It's not that I haven't found the right fulfilling relationship or developed myself enough to have one. It's that it is an external rather than internal source of fulfillment and is therefore not what this work is all about. 

I mean I think I understand what you mean by this. but my thoughts regarding it is... if we feel as if we should avoid something, well that's moralization. it may not be the way it has been framed by others in this thread so far, but it is still being named a distraction. In Leo's video I remember he really emphasized how when we say we shouldn't do something, we actually are rejecting the true desire that we want to do it. but I also then said, that it is both - when we moralize we split ourselves - we outright deny that we actually want to do the thing by trying to say we shouldn't, as well as we unknowingly deny the fact that there are reasons we want to not do the thing. and by splitting it in this way, we are forcing various levels of unawareness on ourselves. 

 

20 minutes ago, eskwire said:

Then why do spiritual traditions tell you to set it as a permanent rule? That path is just wrong? Or you have to naturally be celibate for so many years before you join an order?

dogma. the truth is that our choices are all equal. and they are nothing. our individuality does in fact draw us to some things and away from others, and this is all we really need to make our decisions. the moralizations and dogmas of rules and expectations are a distraction from authenticity. 

 

 

generally my advice - and this is the first time I'm expressing this so I apologize in advance - is:

when we use our words and thoughts and ideas to state things, we can instead of using these ideas as beliefs of right or wrong or desired or undesired or good or evil. we could realize that our ideas are necessarily *false, not false as in not true but rather as in inherently not infinity, that they are dual in nature. that the authentic self is nondual but in our small-scale duality existence, we can only truly ponder dual thoughts, and so the enlightened path is to realize that the duality is inherent - and with a neutral perspective, allow the dual experiences to only be a guide for our pursuit of authentic existence, as nothing dual can be authentic. we cannot even reach authenticity or enlightenment, these are not destinations we arrive at or trophies we acquire - enlightenment and the pursuit of the authentic self are simply the nature in which we live life out. existence is infinity and as such our nothingness is automatically a part of that no matter what we do. but using morals and beliefs makes us stand rigid against the tide of infinity, in which we break - and awareness is how we become like the sapling who bends with the wind and therefore does not break, and becomes one with the flow. 

Edited February 6, 2017 by aryberry

[Principium Nexus]

@eskwire Restraining was probably not the best term, but I think it can get pretty tough. You could also see it as mastering how to deal with temptations and I think it will clearly improve the ability to self-actualize more.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Principium Nexus

[eskwire]

@aryberry That was actually helpful!  Love that you have some experience with this.  The idea of celibacy can be a guide and not a rigid stake, that both makes my tree grow only one certain way, while also making it weak.  Thank you.  

[Nahm]

It's relative to where you're at. Takin a break might be good for someone with sex addiction. Gettin it goin might be good for someone wanting to connect or maybe explore, or who just enjoys sex and doesn't think of it as in the PD or metaphysics category. Someone with twelve voices in their head might find celebacy cuts it down to 3. Who knows. We're all so wonderfully different, especially when it comes to sex. Maybe you're wanting to discern where you're at with your sexuality more than your spirituality. Speculating, of course. 

[Shin]

Permanently, untill I realize who I really am, and find somene else who did too, naturally without seeking.

I really think it's the only way for a relationship to really work.

EDIT: Or maybe it's just how it can work with my kind of personality. Probably that.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Shin