The Spiritual Symbolism And The Significance Of Sexuality

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings and blessings for everyone of you. 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.

This 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 force, the sexual force, and the love force as manifest in the human experience. These three forces are 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 and 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 still on a very low level of spiritual development, and who therefore are still severely blocked and split.

The sexual force is an expression of consciousness reaching for fusion. Fusion is the purpose of creation. You can call it integration, unification, oneness. But whatever the term may be, the final aim of all the 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 it 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 on 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 express their being in concord with spiritual law -- which is love, truth, and a positive expression toward life -- on all these levels, then the sexual experience is just 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 associating the fulfillment of tasks with something arduous and more or less difficult and unpleasant. In reality, the more total are your joy, your pleasure, your bliss, and your ecstasy, then 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.

Now let us 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 unite physically 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, then it means that the parties involved yearn to know each other, they yearn to reveal themselves to each other, they yearn to find the other, they yearn to let themselves be known and found, they yearn to find the true being of the other person. By revealing itself to another being, this true being can enter into the realm and into the circumference of the self that is thus seeking unification, and vice versa. This desire, which is energized by an involuntary force, creates the electrifying blissful feeling, and therefore the longing.

If this attraction exists merely on the physical level, without the other levels entering into the expression as well (at least to some degree), then the ensuing experience must be disappointing. It must leave a lot to be desired, for 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 therefore does not pursue it. Pursuing this state requires a process of purification and unification, such as your Path.

Since the human consciousness is limited, blind, and merely gropes in the dark, then 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 either real or imagined needs. In other words, 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. Only they do not know it. The measure of fulfillment is a good gauge of the degree to which 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, then it is directed to that specific, particular person, and not to the symbolic image of someone else, perhaps a parent figure. Then it is 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 possible.

The longing for close connection never ceases in the human soul. However, 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 the 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: only when both participants actively reach, give, dispense, sustain, nurture, receive, take in, and give out. This organic rhythm cannot be determined by the mind. This innate, self-regulating, spontaneous rhythm is the involuntary expression of a lawful process, so exacting, so intricate, and so meaningful that it is impossible to convey to the human scope of understanding. As you all know only too well, blocks to and the 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 witholding, 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, as inhibition, and as deadness.

Let us now go to the emotional level. The movement toward fusion on the emotional level must be expressed in the exchange of feelings 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 -- such as ego needs and negative aims -- exist. People use each other in the most exploititative way and then 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 aside your own needs, your own ego, your own expectations, and your personal preoccupations and make yourself empty, as it were, to let in what is -- in this case the other person -- so as 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 -- then you will be open and sufficiently empty to let in what is. This is one way of expressing love. From that basis an exchange of feelings can be built. If you perceive in reality, then 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, in the ability to give and receive, and in the ability to experience bliss. On the other hand, if you are very threatened by and therefore 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 -- then you create a hard wall out of your flowing energy stream. Nothing can come into you through this wall and nothing can 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 therefore you cannot be fulfilled. You cannot live. You cannot fuse and thus you can have no pleasure.

Loving, therefore the ability to give and to receive, depends on the ability to perceive in reality with an uncluttered vision. That, in turn, 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 the truthful interpretation of the events and of the connections that bring about the pain.

The exchange of feelings, or the emotional level of sexuality, is determined by love in its real sense. In other words, by 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 both of where he is now and of what he is now. It means the vision of the total person, including his or her as yet unrealized potentialities. Such a 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 purpose of fulfilling one's selfwilled needs. If you can give that freedom to be who you are to the other one, then you can exchange trust. Thus you gain the freedom to assert your own right to be who you are. Then you will be able to 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, then you can also say no. If you truly give, then you can also assert your inner right to receive -- and that 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, then you cannot give to others without also giving to yourself. Conversely, by witholding from others, you inevitably withold 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. Therefore, the fusion that you long for can be fulfilled only if every feeling that you long to receive -- only if every single aspect of loving -- is richly flowing out of you: tenderness; warmth; respect; recognition of the ultimate person with the capacity for growth, for change, and for goodness; patience; always giving the benefit of the doubt; always making room for alternative interpretations; trust; giving room to the other both to unfold and to be. All of these aspects of loving that you so passionately yearn for, you long to be given to, you long to receive. 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 either welcomed or desired. Not doing so under the guise of loving goodness and under the guise of taking it is sentimentality, and is usually dishonest. For in reality the person merely fears the unpleasant consequences, and is thus not willing to risk the pain, the exposure, the confrontation, and the hard work of finding reintegration of the relationship on a higher and 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 your cruelty exists, then you can never say the truth to others without hurting them. The hidden motive to hurt pervades your energies and therefore affects both 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 therefore 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 on never being frustrated. But if you can deal with the hurt that thus arises in you, then you can truly risk this event and battle it through so that an open exchange of feelings becomes possible. You will find that the more you act out of your sincere intention to feel more deeply -- and therefore to love your partner -- 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, then 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 the bliss which your soul inexorably longs for -- and which can only be satisfied through fusion with another consciousness -- depends on your ability to risk, on your ability to confront, on your ability to work things out, on your ability to admit your most guarded secrets. As a result, you will feel free to speak up when the other person puts obstructions in the way. You must also recognize your own limitation to express your best feelings when the unexpressed negativities and the 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 the other, then you can truly speak up. In other words, you are no longer too blind to fully see your emotional involvement in the negative exchange. When you perceive this negative exchange indirectly, then your struggle must be painful and there cannot possibly 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 that you could have gained only as a result of self-confrontation and deep honesty, then you will risk and the temporary pain will not diminish you.

In order to fuse emotionally, then an honest exchange -- even at the risk of occasional crises -- is necessary. This honest exchange is totally dependent on the individual's self-honesty and on his good will to abandon your dishonest, hurtful, destructive patterns. If you are hampered, inhibited, and afraid, then you also inhibit the mutual scope, the depth of fulfillment, and the bliss that arise from fusion. In that case you have to ask yourself 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, then ask specifically 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? Emotional fusion can exist only to the degree that the prerequisites I discussed here are fulfilled.

Mental fusion exists on the level of the thinking mind. An exchange of the deepest ideas and thoughts, the ability to communicate them, to share them, the willingness to risk disagreement and disapproval, are basic. Mental fusion can exist only when there is a certain blend of compatibility and of complementation. Two compatible partners have to share certain fundamental ideas about life. They must be more or less on the same plane of development spiritually. 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 a truthful understanding of each other; the humility to search for and to discard if necessary; the humility to let both the other and yourself be either right or wrong; the act of looking for a deeper way of truth concerning even the tiniest issues -- all of this is wonderful fuel for growth and thus helps toward deeper fusion on the mental level. The ways and attitudes that one brings to bear on the points of difference are very important. Do you avoid any confrontation of ideas because it is too uncomfortable to stir up the waters? 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 destructive feelings and the negative 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, or when you aim in that direction. When spiritual reality is forever the ultimate aim, then you also know that there is only one truth -- and this applies every bit as much to the vital issues on a 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 your ultimate goal, then you will sit lightly in the saddle of your opinions, of your ideas, and of your thoughts. This will make it possible to share them, to exchange them, and to finally fuse them. If you always aim for the inner truth, for the spiritual truth, then the little disagreements or the different opinions slowly disappear. First they cease to matter, then they become integrated -- fused in the all-uniting truth of the spirit.

Mental sharing must not be neglected. One often sees relationships in which sexual sharing does exist and to a degree also the emotional sharing, but the mental sharing is strangely neglected in a world that stresses so much the importance of the intellect, of ideas, of the mind. Yet people live next to each other day in and day out, and yet they deprive both themselves and each other of the joyousness of mental fusion: of 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 the mind and ideas is an integral part of the total sharing. It is 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 therefore not in tune with the ultimate movement toward fusion. For instance, when frustration is ascribed to sexual incompatibility, often this sexual incompatibility may not be the result of the absence of physical attraction. It may actually be the result of insufficient fusion on either one or all of the other levels.

Spiritual fusion is always the natural result of fusion on the physical level, on the emotional level, and on the mental level. If such fusion exists on all these levels, then this means that the parties involved must perforce be highly developed spiritual beings and that they must actively work on and be involved in a spiritual path. They must be sufficiently awake to consciously and deliberately seek spiritual truth. If total fusion is to exist, then the reaching of the spiritual self must be the primary aim of life. Therefore, it is 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 continuing to advance; to the degree that the partners are in movement; to the degree that destructiveness has made room for constructive, outgoing, positive attitudes and behavior. When human beings are stuck, often they have no intention of moving out of their stagnation. They are surprised when their yearning for oneness remains unfulfilled. Then they blame others, circumstances, and life for it.

In the end, all matters must be related to the spiritual self and to spiritual reality. All disputes can be resolved and conciliated only in the spiritual self, which is one in all created beings. When two human beings fuse with the knowledge 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 does -- positive as well as negative. It sets something in motion which then takes on its own movement -- further, 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. In other words, it is impossible to keep it out of it. Therefore, the sexual experience is an infallible indicator of where a person is: of where he is liberated; of where he is at one with divine law; of where he is evil, and therefore destructive; of where he is stuck and therefore is stagnant because his destructiveness is hidden, and hence is 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 is therefore shamefully denied, then 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 the character attitudes -- in other words, 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 in which sexuality manifests -- not necessarily in action, but in inclination -- the whole character, all attitudes, all personality and ego trends, all problems, and all impurities, are revealed, as is also the already purified beauty. All of that is revealed and is available to him who knows how to look, how to find, how to see, and how to recognize. All too often the sexual attitudes are dealt with in a glib way by simply judging them as being either healthy or neurotic; by moralizing about them; or by defiantly refusing to recognize the keys contained in them. In other words, by separating them from the rest of the person as if these inclinations were purely a matter of taste. Labels are often supposed to take care of the matter. The spiritual message of the inner reality is completely overlooked. This is regardless of how clearly and how loudly it speaks through the sexual inclinations -- whether allowed to exist or denied and therefore repressed. If character defects deform the sexual drive into cruel, destructive fantasies, then it is no more necessary to act them out than it is necessary to act out other destructive feelings. It is the same with murderous feelings that you own up to on your Path and which certainly do not need to be acted out in order for you to be able to face them, to understand them, to accept, to 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 in which sexuality expresses itself in an individual is a mirror to those aspects in him that he desperately needs to be aware of. It is a question of learning how to use this key. Therefore, 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 and about your attitudes? Where and how 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 that your attractions, your needs, and your desires are strong on the physical level. Let us assume that you are ready to expose yourself on that level and that you therefore seek fusion there. But let us also assume that either on the emotional level or the mental level this is not at all the case. There you wish to keep separate, you do not wish to give, you do not wish to risk, you do not wish to constantly integrate fusion of each level on a higher plane. In that case your physical level will not only be severely restricted, but the nature of your sexual drive must, in one form or another, reveal the emotional attitudes and the mental attitudes that you may keep hidden and which reappear in your sexuality -- sexualized, as it were, infused with and magnetized by your sexual force -- even though you may not be aware of it.

If the negativities of the psychic system are denied consciousness, then the sexual experience must be blocked, flat, unsatisfactory and mechanical -- and in the more severe instances totally paralyzed. If this denial is removed, then the sexual inclinations may show up the character tendencies. For instance, finding pleasure in being cruel. Many variations and many 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, then they may reappear and show up in a sexual inclination to be hurt, to be humiliated, to be rejected. There are innumerable possibilities and therefore innumerable 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 into flow again, even if it at first this means living out the fantasies -- either 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 conscious, and therefore indulged in and enjoyed, to whatever degree this is possible in this hampered way. However, it is not being connected with its deeper meaning. In other words, the person simply assumes that this is the way he is. At the same time, he is unwilling to give up this negative pleasure because he is convinced that this is the only way he can have pleasure. This is totally untrue. The truth is that the pleasure whicht would become available if he were to give up his limited deviated pleasure is incomparably higher in intensity and in quality than the original pleasure. Therefore, the fear of giving it up is an illusion. In reality, he does not give up anything. In order to change, he must first allow himself to make the connection with the non-sexual aspects of his person. From there, a natural transformation in the direction of the sexual current will take place organically.

You who have been working on this path for some time have confronted your negativities. Do you believe it conceivable that these negativities do not also express themselves in your sexuality? Do you assume that they do not manifest in your sexual attitudes, and therefore influence your capacity for fulfillment, your capacity for fusion, and your capacity for bliss? That would 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 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 a very exciting undertaking for you, one that will yield many keys. The more specific you can be, the more revealing and the more enlivening your insights will be. Therefore, the greater will be your understanding of yourself.

Many of you know that making the connection between the cause and the effect is an important aspect of both your development and of your self-confrontation. The greatest pain and the greatest dissonance in the human personality exist not only due to the split among the four levels of the personality, but also due to the split 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. The spiritual influxes of today have already brought the beginning of a New Era. In former times, sexuality and spirituality were considered antithetical. It was ignored that true spiritual union is the consummate result of union on all levels of being, thus also on the physical level and on the sexual level. 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 never the result of splitting off any one part from the others. The real meaning of spirituality is oneness and wholeness. That means that it must include all there is. Therefore, satisfying relationships with others are always a mirror of the degree of the inner unification of the individual. If you cannot find union with others, then it means that you are in a state of disunity within yourself.

The difficulty that man has in unifying, even in his concept, spirituality and sexuality is due to the fact that hidden evil manifests in and through the sexual expression. This is why for many centuries spiritual teachings have 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 his bestiality through his sexuality -- as well as otherwise. Consciousness and the conscience -- which is 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 therefore needed no excuses. The ability for restraint and the capacity to discipline the self were practically non-existent. The capacity of feeling for others -- for empathy -- was extremely weak, and therefore was 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. While development proceeded on the one hand, on the other hand it also hemmed in the natural forces. And this was temporarily necessary. Only now -- as mankind enters a new era of spiritual unfoldment -- is it strong enough to take out these instincts and to purify them without the danger of acting them out. But even today hardly anyone knows the fine line between the honest admission and the safe expression of negative material and destructive acting out. You on this path are pioneers in learning this all-important art. Only in that way can you unify your total person; only in that way can you purify all your aspects; and only in that way can you safely bring out your sexual drive, in whatever way it may manifest now. The current predominance of stagnation, of low vitality, and of the frequency of sexual problems are a result of hemming in the negative life force because it could not be dealt with safely. On this Path you learn a new and marvellous method of freeing your instincts for the purpose of purification and of revitalization.

If the energy of the life force is concentrated in unrecognized and therefore unfaced evil, then the energy is feared as such. Therefore, a state of stagnation is preferred as the lesser evil. This numbness may be unrecognized, and therefore the yearning may become unbearable. But the inner person is still too puzzled and too 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. Then sexuality 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 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 will 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 so as 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 pleasure in denying 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 still prevails in spite of all the so-called enlightenment. Where is the origin of such a guilt? Surely in the concealed hatred and in the hidden brutality that manifests covertly in the sexual expressions -- regardless of whether they are being admitted or not. If your desire to put others down, your desire to be self-serving, your desire to be exploitative, and your desire to be unmindful of others are not being dealt with directly, then they pollute the holy sexuality. And it is indeed holy. When sexuality is used in the service of ego aggrandizement and of the lust for power, then how can it help but produce either inexplicable guilt, or a guilt that is explained away as an effect of background and of 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 only the in mind and in the attitude. When killing and hating are imbedded in one's sexuality, then sexuality becomes vicious. Therefore, it is antagonistic to spirituality. For millennia people acted out their most bestial drives in their sexuality. This is why sexuality itself was believed to be bestial. But 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 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 denied evil, the denied destructiveness.

If you use this key and this tool in the spirit of the pathwork -- in other words, if you allow yourself first to see it and then to admit it -- then not only will you gain deeper insight into yourself, not only will you make new connections, not only will you purify yourself more, but you will also activate the sexual power that has been so elusive for you. You will free your sexuality and you will simultaneously integrate it into your spiritual self. However, you will do this without any compulsive forcing, but as a natural process. You will free your sexual energy from the negative involvement it was hooked on. The awareness of where you are hooked sexually must be combined with a full understanding of the meaning of this hook-up. You must account for what the negative expression of your sexuality means. In other words, 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 you will find yourself to be, the more spontaneous your inner movement will become, and the more revitalized you will be by the experience of fusion. Therefore, the more your involuntary forces will function. But first you must take the risk of allowing your involuntary forces to reveal to you the deepest aspects of the evil in you -- those parts that otherwise you are 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. If it is perceived with a sense of realism, then no truth can ever diminish your spirit, 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 one more thing in connection with this topic. The masculine principle and the feminine principle in the universe express themselves in every creative act. How do they express themselves between the two partners and how do they express themselves within them? The masculine principle expresses the outgoing movement of reaching out to others, of giving, of acting, of initiating, of asserting. The feminine principle expresses the receptive movement: taking in and nurturing. In distortion and negativity, the masculine principle manifests as hostile aggression: hitting rather than giving and reaching out. The feminine principle in distortion turns from loving receptivity and nurturing to grasping, to grabbing, to stealing, to holding tight, to catching, to taking and not letting go. These principles manifest in every living act. These principles exist in men and in women both in harmony and in distortion. They can be easily detected with a minimum of self-observation. They manifest as soul movements that may or may not also manifest as physical acts.

These soul movements exist in everything that could ever be created or that ever would be created. They are integral manifestations in any creation. Once you ascertain the manner in which both principles express themselves in you, then it becomes possible for you to connect these expressions with your mental level, with your emotional level, and with your physical level. Allow yourself this vision. A satisfying fusion between a man and a woman is only possible 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 of the masculine principle and the feminine principle within your own psychic system -- in other words, if there is distortion and imbalance within you -- then this must also inevitably manifest both in your choice of a partner and in the way in which you conduct the relationship.

A harmonious fusion builds up to a point of total fusion. Total fusion is the total fulfillment in which the two movements have found their culmination. This is a universal phenomenon that is to be found in every creative act. This can be the creation of a planetary system, 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 in spirit, as it were -- to the degree that this is now possible for the striving entities -- in whatever creative act. To the degree that both the negativities and the egotistical defenses are being abandoned and the involuntary movements are being accepted, welcomed, and followed, to that degree this creative experience can 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, then orgasm in creation can only be temporary, so that the parts find themselves separate again, and therefore continue their striving forever more, until one is all and all is one, until there is no more darkness and only spiritual light, only truth, only beauty.

If only you could know that you have an inexhaustible treasure of security, of love, and of light in you! The only things that block you from this treasure are your false thinking, your not knowing this truth, your not wanting to feel this truth, your not wanting to know this truth, your not wanting to consider this truth. Make use of this truth.

My friends, I assume that 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, in 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 with 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 the spiritual reality.

January 12, 1973