Sex is the most powerful drive in the human system. It is ultimately a drive to connect. This impulse was placed inside of us to draw us outside ourselves and give us the power to break through the membrane of separation between ourselves and the world.
To harness this drive is to harness the force of self-assertion. It requires the realization of self and the assertion of this self into the world. To fully develop the sex impulse is to develop the "give" aspect of the give-and-take that defines relationship. Without it, we feel an overall sense of impotence, powerlessness, and being at the mercy of our lives and our relationships. To harness this drive is to have vision, intuition, value, insight, and the power to carry through; it is what transforms ideals into action.
Of equal importance is the quality of power that carries with it resilience, unarmored organic self-protection, and self-possession. These are required for genuine exchange with the world, with Eros, and ultimately to truly love. Only when we are powered can we surrender. Without power, surrender is merely collapse. When we are powered, we have something to offer. Without power, it is dependency.
To possess the full ownership of our sexuality is to have the power to love. Without it, what we would call love is merely companionship, reliance, nurturing, placating, people-pleasing, or the fulfillment of some other pattern of conditioning. True love requires the full development of self and the ability to offer that self with courage, ferocity, and determination.
True love is the force that pierces through the tumescent bubbles we would otherwise remain within, untouched by each other and the world, a fog of ideas, judgments, and discursive thoughts. The wall of separation becomes more and more dense until we are untouched by life itself. It takes a sharp and skillful sword to cut through the fog and liberate us to make actual contact with the world and each other.
And yet, for the most part, few if any have been trained in how to wield such a powerful tool. Few are willing to take on the responsibility it would require. It is, in itself, a raw, faithful power with a drive to connect. But understand this: The innocent blade is entirely amenable to our projections onto it. It will become whatever is cast onto it. It is divine power. It will be what we make of it. But it will not go away.
And should it, a part of our human purpose will die along with it. There is a reason that abstinence from sexuality is part of monastic experience, for within the sex impulse lies the human imperative for connection. We exist as open loops. The illusion we are or can be complete without each other—no matter how we dress it in exaltation—is simply inaccurate.
The conditions we place on life prohibit us from developing and harnessing this impulse, preventing us from opening every door, every gateway. We can choose to take on a practice of unconditional sex in order to liberate sex from the conditions that bind sexual energy. When we do this, we blow open all these conditions, opening every doorway. It is key to understand that Eros is not making a prescription.
It simply says, "If we leave our conditions at the door, for our offering, we will get to discover who we are without them." And we will invariably discover that the conditions we believed were keeping us safe, happy, feeling loved, or whatever else they had promised us were in fact precisely what prevented us from feeling safe, happy, and loved. Regardless of how strictly we managed these conditions, they failed to produce the results they promised and so we pressed harder, contorting ourselves, sure the condition was right and we were wrong, believing it was due to some failing in us.
The first conditioned belief that needs to be undone is the belief that sexuality is dangerous. Eros starts with the presumption that innocence is at the root of sexuality. It is an innocence so pure, it is amenable to whatever we make it, which is precisely why the conditioned belief that it is dangerous exists.
When we open the conditions we have around sex, much is revealed. Self-flagellation may be revealed as devotion. The urge to punish others may be shown as the desire to inject life in parts of their lives that they would allow to go dead. The craving to fill ourselves with food or shopping or entertainment becomes filled with this flow of connection.
The path of unconditional sex sets before us not a world but the world—the only thing that will gratify—and then places before us our conditions and their promised—although rarely delivered upon—results, and lets us decide. Do we want our conditions or do we want freedom? This question is posed in a way that is unique to us. We may be closed in an area where another person is open. A lifetime of practice will have us offering every last condition over. As we progress, we will move from begrudgingly offering to scouring for what we can offer.
