An invisible Erotic dimension exists within all of life that cannot be known until the mind is attuned to its frequency. The process is not dissimilar to being able to make out a shape in an optical illusion. First, there is confusion, even frustration, then we come to see it and once we do, it is obvious.
Once we see it, what once held no meaning or caused confusion, now offers a noncontradictory complexity, a dual way of seeing the image. The trained Erotic faculty sees, hears, senses this dimensionality in life and can bypass a lot of the confusion, operating in accord with the simple underlying truth that reveals itself. In a sense, it’s like being privy to the inner expression of life in a genuine and direct way.
We do not have to rely on word of mouth, intermediaries, and guesswork. It is right there in front of us. We have only to see it or sense it for ourselves. Then we can confirm what we have witnessed with those who have awakened the same faculty within themselves. The world we sense through the Erotic faculty can best be described as illuminated from within. When we have activated that life force within ourselves, it can sense through the material to this inner dimension of pure animation within all.
It can sense where this force is strong and where it is weak. To organize our lives accordingly is simply to be moved by what is most alive. This sensing organ within, appearances aside, will sense life in this location, in that phenomena, or in this relationship, and will move us in the corresponding direction. There is nothing magical, mysterious, or self-sacrificing about the process, although it organizes its keeper according to what fosters greater concentration and expression of this force.
And yet, to the untrained eye, the way of Eros might look not only unorthodox but random and chaotic as Eros seeks for the undifferentiated and total expression of life, with the creative and destructive forces equally attended to. To be engaged with Eros, then, is to be engaged equally in a destructive and creative process. Engagement with Eros is not about cultivating joy or gratitude or even our higher self; it is about seeing through the illusion that would prevent us from being in direct contact with life, the result of which is an organic arising of those states.
In other words, it is not performing all of the exalted qualities of spirituality. Instead, it is allowing life itself to destroy in us what is not in accord with the truth.
We may find we are, in fact, interested in matters of the flesh and desire and human vulnerability. We may discover that the life we yearned to escape, to float above with a great equanimous smile, is what we are now immersed in to wrestle with and participate in.
Once we have tuned into these planes where there is a high concentration of life, they can draw us through the fool’s gold of life—the artificial, the lifeless, the unreal.
Once we know life at this level, nothing else will suffice and our every effort will be spent doing what we need to do and becoming who we need to become in order to touch it, taste it, feel it, and know it. Not in order to be good or saintly, but because we can now discern what is life-giving. Once we develop the faculty that can tell the difference between real gold and fool’s gold, we don’t pat ourselves on the back or don pretentious titles like spiritual or honorable for dropping the fool’s gold.
Our life begins to organize itself around the principle of what is life-giving—not what makes us the most peaceful or equanimous or holy, but what makes us most alive—and by extension has us able to love, tend to, nurture, and promote life. We become more concerned with the concentration of life force in phenomena than what it is cloaked in. Holy or divine is experienced as filled with life rather than dressed in robes.
The profane, in Eros, becomes anything which is without life—or deadening—even when it is praised by the masses. But for this, we need eyes to see for ourselves. Ears to hear. A heart to feel with. We begin to see that the hallowed presence of Eros exists in the most unlikely of places. In fact,
No one has the market cornered on life. This leaves it up to us to find it in that particular world rather than relying on the hype.
To recognize we are just as likely to find the erotically illumined in a pool hall as we are at the Enlightenment Ball. The good news is, we will no longer be impressed by titles and associations. We will no longer be swayed by the authority bestowed by venerable institutions. That will appear as high theatrics and drama. And yet, the Erotic world is profoundly an adult realm.
The Erotic mind is ever-asserting and affirming the self toward totality. Rather than wanting to know “the good, the true, the beautiful,” the Erotic mind wants simply to know. Period. It wants to know beyond the desire to protect itself from painful realities. It has no pride whatsoever; it begs to know the truth.
It can drench us with one drop, in a way that years of practice and prostration cannot touch. It can produce genius in the otherwise mediocre keeper. It can transform the mundane into the profound. It can replenish the depleted in seconds when touched, in a way that days of rest cannot do. It can awaken what has died in us and ward off the cravings that would steal our life force. And it does, just like that.
It opens the door to that dimension and we are granted the rest—the illumination, the vision, the memory of who we are. The conditions are irrelevant. Right there, in the middle of where we are, it can open. There is nowhere to get to, no “state,” no building, no better self. We simply have to know how to turn on the Erotic faculty that can know from right where we are. And yet, be warned, because
It will draw us into worlds considered deviant or unwholesome. It will push us into overwhelm and demand we not look away from much of what we do not want to see. Ultimately, it will make us a traitor to who we thought ourselves to be in order to protect and preserve who we are.
