Masculine Spirituality Restrains Eros

Spirituality has been the domain of the Masculine perspective, where consciousness is measured by our capacity to focus on one thing—like the breath, or God—to the exclusion of all else, and then to order the world accordingly. The aspect of consciousness that becomes identified with this system of order is the one that focuses on restraint.

— Specifically, it focuses on restraint against the spontaneous communications from the body: the arising of thought, the encounter with pain, and the Erotic impulse. —

This so-called “evolved” consciousness is associated with a personal will that is responsible for our experience. This perception is so ubiquitous that the concept of a spontaneous organization of the self—where the organism as a whole is responsible—is virtually nonexistent.

Unconscious Control

And yet, this unconscious control through the involuntary system, where food is digested and blood circulated, contains organized patterns that are far more intelligent and effective when they are fostered by conscious will rather than interrupted by it. 

Although the conscious mind can scarcely begin to understand—much less operate at the level of—the unconscious, spirituality has, for the most part, tried to dominate and control our natural systems rather than learn from and foster them. In Eros, true mastery is the submission to this natural intelligence. We first understand and then learn how to dedicate our will to working with this intelligence.

Body's Wisdom

The body knows how to heal a wound. We can go against this wisdom and allow dirt to get in the wound, we can ignore it and take a chance, or we can keep the wound clean and allow the body to work and heal it optimally. We have to first understand that the body holds the healing and it’s a choice to follow its instructions rather than to employ our own ideas. When we do this, we can heal the split brought about by a focus that is in conflict with the impulses and hungers of the body. We repair the schism between the unconscious and the conscious mind, and between controlled attention and the uncontrollable activity of the body.

— The activities of the body—such as aging, hunger, desire, thought, and feeling—are no longer things to be conquered, escaped, managed, or mastered. Instead, we want to know, accept, care for, and work with them. —

In this way, we remedy a primary split: the relationship of againstness—consciousness casting the body as its burden while equating restraint with godliness. Consciousness, once isolated and placed above the body and nature, is then able to be moved down and into the body in order to carry out its function as part of it, rather than as overseer and dictator.

Alliance with Eros

From here, the relationship between the Erotic impulse and consciousness proves to be one of deep alliance for the health of the whole, rather than the eternal opposition it has been held in. Eros has unwittingly, by its mere existence, been the utmost threat to exclusionary, single-focused consciousness. In fact, a great deal of the effort of consciousness has been spent on repressing, redirecting, transmuting, demonizing, legislating, denying, and otherwise attempting to dominate the Erotic presence.

— This is because any surrendered form of engagement with Erotic presence would draw consciousness into the body and toward its deeply unfamiliar intelligence. —

And yet, the body remains utterly unaffected and unchanged; if anything, it has been made more potent by the attempt to drive it underground. As an opponent, it has proven most formidable, and this is because it holds a secret: Consciousness exists not in spite of, but because of the body. 

— Without the body to ground the potential that consciousness is, consciousness remains just that: potential —

The body then knows but does not assert dominion, while consciousness asserts dominion without the truth to back it. When consciousness finally admits defeat, the world will be turned right side up.