Chrono: I have been coasting along with some occasional pulling back. But I have not fallen back into feeling bad like before at all. I know that I simply have to feel good and that has been an easy thing. Attentiveness is optimally active. Any issue is always solved by returning to feeling good. I find that I am also able to sleep much better consistently and I no longer have any worries around it. This is a huge thing as I had a lot of issues with sleeping with anxiety and fears always getting in the way. This way back to feeling good, I don’t think that I can ever forget it anymore.
Hi Chrono,
With “attentiveness [being] optimally active” you have an excellent basis for your next adventure to unravelling the mysteries of sex, desire and intimacy.
Chrono: These past few weeks though, I have been trying to explore sex and sexual desire. Trying to sort out the two. I’ve been wondering how I can be ‘closer’ during sex and what role does sexual desire play, if any? I find that the energy of this desire overtakes and diverts the experience into a fantasy realm. Peter’s writing was very helpful and this in particular I liked:
Peter: I recognised the behaviour and feelings in myself, saw the appalling consequences both to my happiness and that of others … and then they simply disappeared. The complete and total understanding of a belief and its accompanying emotions actually results in their elimination. It took a little time, a lot of diligence, introspection and plain ‘self’-obsession – and the will to keep going, to find out. It was often very fearful and I found myself not only dealing with my fears but also with the fear of all humans now and who ever have been. And then, as though by magic, one day I realised I was no longer driven. It had been a gradual process but it had come to an end – it worked. The sex drive, or instinctual passion, had virtually disappeared from my life. (Peter, Selected Writings, Sex)
Chrono: The feeling gives the impression that I would not be able to have sex at all without it. That I must always fuel it so that it can happen. But is it true?
This “impression” may be believed to be true but it is not a fact. The many questions Richard answered from his ongoing experience regarding delighting in sexual congress without any libido bear witness to the incredulity of his correspondents that sexual enjoyment required the presence of libido (link). It is my own intimate personal experience as well that libido is not at all required for optimum enjoyment of sexuality – on the contrary it had only been in the way of perfect ongoing intimacy.
Chrono: This drive seems like it is lauded in being a ‘man’. Perhaps even central to being a ‘man’. So there’s some vested interest in maintaining it in some way. And what if I wasn’t a ‘man’ (or any such gender identity)? However, I do find over and over that it precludes intimacy. I read how sex is one of the easiest ‘gateway’ into the actual but I find it to be more difficult. Maybe there are some beliefs around it that are hindering the full experience.
It seems you are ready to deliberate and explore the social conditioning of your gender identity of what you, and society, considers “being a ‘man’”. There are lots of beliefs and unspoken rules and all are unhelpful to both happiness/ harmlessness or delightful harmony and intimacy with a person of the other gender. It’s worth keeping in mind that what you see is a consequence of the tried and failed spiritual legacy of both Western and Eastern religions.
Some information is collected in Basic to Full Freedom, #man-woman-identity and more in Richard’s Journal, Article Two as well as the Actual Freedom Library on those topics with their respective selected correspondence links.
Sexual intimacy is indeed “one of the easiest ‘gateway’ into the actual” but this of course refers to the naïve sensuousness and intimacy in sexual play. For instance –
Richard: As for your query regarding how the intimacy experience (IE) differs from an excellence experience (EE): qualitatively they are much the same, or similar, insofar as with both experiences there is a near-absence of agency – the beer rather than the doer is the operant – whereupon naïveté has come to the fore, such as to effect the marked diminishment of separation, and the main distinction is that the IE is more people-oriented, while the EE tends to be environmental in its scope.
In other words, with an EE the ‘aesthetic experience’ feature, for instance, or its ‘nature experience’ aspect, for example, tends to be more prominent, whilst with an IE the ‘fellowship experience’ characteristic, for instance, or its ‘convivial experience’ quality, for example, comes to the fore. In either type of near-PCE – wherein the experiencing is of ‘my’ life living itself, with a surprising sumptuosity, rather than ‘me’ living ‘my’ life, quite frugally by comparison, and where this moment is living ‘me’ (instead of ‘me’ trying to live ‘in the moment’) – the diminishment of separation is so astonishing as to be as-if incomprehensible/ unbelievable yet it is the imminence of a fellow human’s immanence which, in and of itself, emphases the distinction the most. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 Jan 2016)
The more you allow yourself to be naïve = guileless, artless, ingenuous, unsophisticated, open, aboveboard, direct, frank, straightforward, child-like, simple, the more you can allow sensuous intimacy without the clutter of the social identity of what a man should be, or a woman should be, for example. The sheer appreciation, amazement, marvel and wonder of the physical closeness experienced in sexual play is astonishing, to say the least.
Chrono: On a related note, I was speaking with my partner earlier about something and I started thinking about relating and what it means to be ‘compassionate’ as she talked about some of her worries from her day. I was suddenly struck out of nowhere with a huge immense fear about what I am doing by trying to becoming free. I understood at the core what this end of ‘me’ is. It’s both the end of ‘me’ and ‘her’. The end of all humanity. The end of everything. The fear for a moment almost was going to become panic. I paused and had to backtrack and remember what feeling good is. I’ve been floundering a bit since and now have renewed vigour. It’s time to apply some more sensuosity. (link)
It’s interesting to note that contemplating “what it means to be ‘compassionate’” has triggered this “huge immense fear about what I am doing by trying to becoming free”. Compassion is one of the stalwarts to keep you trapped within humanity, and contemplating to do without appeared a dangerous and therefore impossible direction to proceed.
Respondent: Is not the sense of being a human being tied up with the belief in permanence, i.e. the belief that ‘I’ am at the root of everything (as a permanent entity)?
Richard: As the (sensorial) ‘sense of being a human being’ is tied up with impermanence – as in mortality – you can only be referring to the intuitive ‘sense of being a human being’ (as in immortality) … the affective feeling of being a ‘presence’ inside the body (aka ‘being’ itself), in other words, as a psychological/ psychic entity (a metaphysical identity) rather than the sensitive feeling of being this body as a sensate/ material entity (a physical creature).
Hence spiritualism has it that, whilst the ego-self is impermanent, the soul-self is permanent and that ego-death, while the body is a living body, is essential to reveal who one really is – an immortal spirit-being – whereas actualism has that identity-death in toto (extinction) is essential to make apparent what one actually is (a mortal human being) … and therein lies the rub: as a spirit-being one is so very real, so very, very real at times, one is prepared to do virtually anything – virtually anything at all – than go blessedly into oblivion so that what is actually permanent can become apparent. (Richard, AF List, No. 54, 7 Nov 2003).
And yet you know from your PCE(s) that there is a third alternative to practicing compassion or abandonment. But ultimately it does indeed mean “the end of ‘me’ and ‘her’. The end of all humanity” and this fact takes time to digest and get used to. I’m reminded of Geoffrey’s last line in his recent contribution –
Geoffrey: When one knows what it is one wants, and when one knows what it is one must sacrifice, then only the sensible action remains. (link)
Now with “renewed vigour” (renewed pure intent?) you can see your way forward.
It bodes well for wondrous experiences in “some more sensuosity”.
Cheers Vineeto