In Eros, we start with perfection and we end with perfection. But here, in the middle of our journey, it can be challenging to find that perspective, so often blocked by our trauma. Our traumas are widely disregarded as immutable features of our inner landscape, and the solutions we are offered are only coping mechanisms at best—or at worst, render the power hidden within the walls of our trauma inert.
Eros effectively liberates trauma through the mystical experience. Beyond the limitation of judgment, Eros sees trauma as value-neutral congestion, a particularly stuck form of tumescence. Like other forms of tumescence, it forms from restricting the flow of desire. From the outside, this may seem simple to recognize, but from within, it can feel chaotic and overwhelming.
The tumescent world is made up of one trauma leaning on another where we create a fragile world scared of movement and flow for fear it may disrupt the whole house of cards.
What we currently define as healing trauma in our culture is actually only the “near enemy” of true healing. These healing modalities may offer temporary relief from the “far enemy”—the pain of active trauma— but they are more insidious; serving to perpetuate suffering disguised as peace—much like the near enemy of love is codependence and the far enemy is hatred.
Trauma is ultimately healed by introducing Eros, which increases arousal and desire. We leverage the wisdom of the body and flood it with the resources it needs. We invite the mind to release its protective grip onto the fixed belief of the intractability of our traumas and come back fully into the body it has long sought to escape.
The body releases its reflexive hold and the congestion is liberated, converted by Eros into the power necessary to transcend the limited identity of self. We are then open to the mystical state, characterized by unity (internal and external), transcendence of time and space, noetic quality, sacredness, positive mood, and ineffability/paradoxicality.
This is the ultimate source of healing and fulfillment. It makes possible the dissolutions that result in dynamism and flourishing. In an instant, we transcend the limits of history, place, or identity to rediscover the perfection that is our birthright.
Cast as pathology, trauma produces a cycle of shame. Cast as potential, it is our greatest asset. Currently, we have it backward. We think we must heal, that we must somehow become worthy to enter the mystical state, but that’s the wrong way around.
A life can be spent examining the content of its tumescent congestion or putting that content to use as a foundation for greatness. Mystical experience reveals what is beyond identity. This is crucial.
The practice of OM converts tumescence to power, and the tumescent form of identity dissolves away along with resistance to reality, resentment, rejection, and repression. We are then left with a sense of openness, vulnerability, and surrender.
This allows us to experience a deep sense of connection and intimacy with ourselves, our partner, and the world.
