Valentine's Special: On Sex And Enlightenment

[Mondsee]

Soooo... I'll start by saying that i was kind of ashamed of asking this publicly, but since I haven't gotten the question out of my head for days, here I go:

I don't really know how to explain this without telling a little about how I experienced love in my life, so bare with me please. I always think back to my early teenage years with a smile on my face, specially when I remember when I started liking this one guy, and then I discovered he liked me back. We started dating for... quite a long time actually, and it was so nice just being with him, and talking about all sorts of stuff together and during that period, we wouldn't even touch each other, like... not at all, maybe just a little hug to say hi.

One day he asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend, for me there was no answer other than yes, and only then did we kiss for the first time. If being just around him was for me the best thing in the world, when we kissed I was sure there was nothing better in life. It all slowly developed and I had time to cherish every single new experience as the best thing in life, even holding hands was something extremely special and I would think about it for hours. At some point, the kisses were no longer only in the mouth haha and I thought it was amazing how every time there was really something even better out there to discover. Sad ending: we finished school, moved to different countries and after the first semester we broke up. That is a different story, but what is relevant here is that we never reached the point of having sex.

Ever since then, I've had a couple opportunities of having sex (specifically coitus) both in a serious relationships as well as in rather casual encounters, but I've never wanted to because I believe in waiting for the right person and time to make the best out of it, just the way I did with all other things that come before sex. I remember feeling a little pity for my high school girlfriends that had jumped from not even having a boyfriend to having sex and missing out and enjoying all other things around that. I thought for them, holding hands with someone would never be as special as it once was for me, because they already knew it all. I thought of it as reading the last chapter of a book before even starting it. I might be wrong, but that is what I believed.

Now you might be wandering what this all has to do with enlightenment. Well currently, I'm single, in fact, I'm single since not so long ago, and coincidently, this was the time when I started learning about enlightenment (coincidently because I started watching Leo's videos in chronological order about one and a half years ago), and I thought, well, let's assume the highly unlikely scenario of me doing all the hard work to become enlightened, and me actually getting enlightened before I ever had sex. Wouldn't it be then like skipping a middle step? I imagine sex at its best might be like... ok, maybe not the best, but one of the best experiences of the (unaware, i.e. unenlightened) human being. So if you have good sex and are not enlightened, then you might experience first as the best thing ever, and then... there is still enlightenment waiting out for you, to show you you were wrong! There was something even better! But if you get enlightened and then have sex, then I agree, sex might then be even better, but you'll never had experienced the one step before that, the "unenlightened amazing sex".

Please understand this is how the question came to be, and I know that will very likely not be my case, but I'm still interested in what you think about this. Should we seek enlightenment after enjoying the entire potential of non-enlightenment life, or just seek enlightenment right away because who wants to waist time living a limited life? Don't you see it as spoiling to yourself that all what you already knew as good, can be extremely better?

Thank you for reading up until this point! I hope it wasn't so boring! 

[Nahm]

Nice post. Since you're asking for advice....everything on the path to enlightenment is experience. You're good with either choice. Generally speaking, unless you're about to date Sting, you may be trying to weave sex and enlightenment together and making two simple things one complicated thing. Godspeed. 

 

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[jse]

@Mondsee , what a sweet story...

Personally, if I had to wait for sex and romance until I was enlightened, I would eventually die a lonely virgin.

3 hours ago, Mondsee said:

Should we seek enlightenment after enjoying the entire potential of non-enlightenment life, or just seek enlightenment right away because who wants to waist time living a limited life?

@Nahm answered this already - experience is crucial to any awakening, so live life as it flows, and incorporate your experience into any esoteric pursuit.

Happy Valentines Day!

Edited February 14, 2017 by jse

[RossE]

@Mondsee Nice story I must say and one I can relate to in terms of excitement with being someone new.

I'm guilty of over thinking too, but my advice is not to over think things! If you want to have sex with someone, denying it on spiritual grounds is ridiculous. You experience life through the human medium - you're programmed to fuck to keep the species going! The more you repress, the more you create a barrier between you and reality, exactly the thing you're trying to undo. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.

I'm not saying enlightenment won't make it better, I wouldn't know, but it will still be great if you've got the right partner and you're in the mood no matter how "unaware" you may be.

 

Edited February 14, 2017 by RossE

[Mondsee]

23 hours ago, jse said:

Personally, if I had to wait for sex and romance until I was enlightened, I would eventually die a lonely virgin.

@Nahm answered this already - experience is crucial to any awakening, so live life as it flows, and incorporate your experience into any esoteric pursuit.

Happy Valentines Day!

Yeah! haha exactly! That's the more realistic scenario and the reason why I'm actually not shutting off my effort of following the enlightenment path just 'cause I haven't had sex 

My question is a rather theoretical one... or simply the thought that it might also be very pleasant to live the unenlightened life fully, and then realize when enlightened there was something even better out there.

22 hours ago, RossE said:

If you want to have sex with someone, denying it on spiritual grounds is ridiculous.

Agree, but it was more about the opposite: should we deny spiritual growth because waiting for experiencing sex first? Again: all of this is just a theoretical idea, and not a decision I'm going to take actively, I'll just keep living as I do, accepting what comes, in whatever order it does!

[Ramu]

@Mondsee not to sound cute or contrite, but it's all Divinity in action.  You (the ego) which thinks its the body and mind, doesn't control ANYTHING.  Go with the flow of life and live from Being.  Just surrender.

[Mondsee]

@Ramu sometimes I also wonder if we should write and talk using the third person, because it's not "us" who is talking, but the ego.

Edited February 15, 2017 by Mondsee

[Ramu]

@Mondsee dont be TOO zen like Adyashanti.  I had to throw his book across the room when he said that "you don't become enlightened, rather Enlightenment has become enlightened".  Its the message that matters, not the writing style!  Yes, we must use dualistic means to communicate the non dual message.  Otherwise, we get all hung up over trivialities.  Do we want great form or do we want the MESSAGE?

[Mondsee]

@Ramu Do you mean your ego had to throw the book across the room?? haha juuust kidding, I get your point

Edited February 15, 2017 by Mondsee

[Ramu]

@Mondsee actually, yes ... My ego did.  Good point.  Let's be realistic though...you need your ego to get around in the world and interact with others.  Can you imagine the looks I'd get if I went to a meeting and introduced myself as I Am That I Am?  Here come the men in white coats with the straightjacket!

[RossE]

@Mondsee Okay I see what you're saying now, it was a lot deeper than I thought! Sorry.

It's a very fragile subject to discuss. If I had to say, I'd say, yes go for the enjoyment while on the path. If there's still some lingering patterns of discontent arising within you while you're doing these things then notice that happening. They're you'll have spiritual growth and the enjoyment in one.

[Mondsee]

On 15 de febrero de 2017 at 5:13 PM, Ramu said:

Can you imagine the looks I'd get if I went to a meeting and introduced myself as I Am That I Am?  Here come the men in white coats with the straightjacket!

Hahahaha yeah!  ...but then again, you wouldn't care, because you simply "are", right?

2 hours ago, RossE said:

Okay I see what you're saying now, it was a lot deeper than I thought! Sorry.

It's a very fragile subject to discuss. If I had to say, I'd say, yes go for the enjoyment while on the path. If there's still some lingering patterns of discontent arising within you while you're doing these things then notice that happening. They're you'll have spiritual growth and the enjoyment in one.

Right, I mean in the end both are things that are not so easy to schedule on a calendar. We cannot tell when it's going to be the right time for good sex, it'll come, or not, and same applies for enlightenment. If we're lucky and focus on it, it might surprise us some day at any time!

[Elahe]

@Mondsee I think you are comparing two different things, apples and oranges!

 

[Mondsee]

1 minute ago, Elahe said:

I think you are comparing two different things, apples and oranges!

 

Please elaborate.

[Elahe]

@Mondsee As far as I understood, enlightenment is not necessarily making "things" extremely better. It is about experiencing the Truth of it. 

[Mondsee]

11 minutes ago, Elahe said:

As far as I understood, enlightenment is not necessarily making "things" extremely better. It is about experiencing the Truth of it. 

OK, maybe I need to clarify what I meant. I don't mean sex after enlightenment will be a super amazing explosive experience, but rather that enlightenment itself changes our relation to life and all what happens in it, that the experience will be different...

More specifically, because I've heard a couple enlightened individuals say there is no thing like finding the Truth, I was thinking ok, maybe if you get enlightened, and have good sex for the first time afterwards, it kinda might be like: "meh! not bad, but enlightenment is so much better than this". Instead if you have good sex first you can be like: "wow this is so amazing!", then you get enlightened and go like: "holy sh*t! and I thought sex was the best thing ever!! little did I know..."

Edited February 17, 2017 by Mondsee
Punctuation

[jse]

19 hours ago, Mondsee said:

I don't mean sex after enlightenment...

Sooo... do you mean n'lightenment after sex?

[Prabhaker]

On 2/15/2017 at 0:31 AM, Mondsee said:

if you get enlightened and then have sex, then I agree, sex might then be even better

After enlightenment, sex is no longer a need, but you have all the mechanism: the whole body of a woman or a man. You are still eating, you are still drinking. You are still creating the energy that used to become sex when you were unenlightened.

Sex is perfect, no celibacy is needed before enlightenment. After enlightenment sex disappears, giving place to love - a far more delicate phenomenon. You can have as much fun as you like, in no way can it disturb your enlightenment. It is something bodily, chemical, physiological. How can it affect your consciousness?

The enlightened man can make love, and while he is making love he is still centered in his being.

He is just a witness, he is seeing himself and the woman making love; he is a third party. And this is what I mean when I say the enlightened man transcends sex, because he becomes a third party.

He can see his own body and the body of his woman completely as a witness. His witnessing is not disturbed by anything.

[Mondsee]

12 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

The enlightened man can make love, and while he is making love he is still centered in his being.

He is just a witness, he is seeing himself and the woman making love; he is a third party. And this is what I mean when I say the enlightened man transcends sex, because he becomes a third party.

He can see his own body and the body of his woman completely as a witness. His witnessing is not disturbed by anything.

This is exactly the reason why I was thinking maybe it'd be worthy to experience sex before enlightenment.

My point is: because what has been seen cannot be unseen (it might sound as obvious as it gets, but...) once enlightened you'll never be able to know how "unenlightened sex" was. I'm not saying this is good, I'm not saying this is bad, it's simply what would happen. In that case, also, you wouldn't be able to compare how it was before and after; again, not good, not bad, just a fact.

Another clarification: I might have expressed myself somewhat unclear in this regard, but I didn't want to say sex after enlightenment is going to be "better", just that every experience after enlightenment is going to be... I don't know... different, superior if you want to put it in those terms. The thing is: it's not going to be the same as it used to before.

So this is all about the fact that if someone has never had sex, and does for the first time after having found the Truth, it won't be possible to compare it and cherish that difference as if otherwise.

[Deep]

@Mondsee I would recommend having sex before enlightenment because your lust will decrease after enlightenment. You will still be able to tell if a man is hot but it won't be from a lustful perspective.