The mind has been subsumed into the body, and Erotic vision opens.
An absence of activity and distraction
Letting go of preference
Moving to resilience rather than sensitivity
The elegance of Eros is revealed
Stillness, from the habituated mind, is an escape from activity, used as a weapon, a means of withdrawing or retreating from life. In Eros, on the other hand, we sink into stillness as a way to deepen our relationship with life and allow the delight of activity, of the challenging and the transcendent, to assimilate in our body. Stillness is like an enzyme that metabolizes experience and reveals yet deeper truth.
The habituated version of stillness is an absence; in Eros, stillness is a location that is anything but absent. Stillness in Eros is filled with a silence that is palpable to the Erotic senses. It is always here, in the in-between, our mind subsumed by our body. From this merging we emerge into stillness. Mind and body operate in unison to open the dimension of stillness. Inside this dimension, space exists for a specific aspect of Erotic vision to open.
As strokers, we may not even be stroking the clitoris, only the lube. We sense that our breath would almost be distracting, and so breathing occurs through the skin with a feeling of suspension to the experience, as though consciousness has been extracted and isolated from the laws of the manifest aspects of OM. The maelstrom of dynamic energy is brought to an altogether different vision: a location of unchanging reality upon which the drama of the OM cycle plays itself out.
Our mind, having made its descent and being tapped into power, is now a different mind from before. Whereas previously there might have been a stream of thought that merely "took" the mind, the mind now has the power to hold itself out of this stream of thought, aiming the spotlight of attention solely on the stillness at the point of connection.
It is able to maintain attention there, and when sustained, this simple placement of attention releases tremendous sensations, from goose bumps to what feels like tiny jolts of electricity, waves, and even involuntary rocking that moves through the whole of our body. Here, Eros reveals the hidden truth of elegance.
From seeming inactivity, what is offered is a potential for massive response. We allow our mind to simply notice the expressions of the body and bathe in the pleasure. The pleasure feels akin to what we might consider arousing, given the excitement of it, as if it were carbonated. The law of conservation of nature reveals itself, as does the aliveness of space. We do nothing. We remain here and are "done to."
In the stillness, another door may open, a sinking in as if the body has released the excitement and can drop into another layer, one that exudes a maturity. A full and weighted quality carries with it a calming serenity that does not create, but reveals peace.
Since there is nothing to "get," our mind doesn't chase this peace, but sinks in even further. It allows. It's as if the mind sinks through a layer of itself into something deep and comforting. The comfort has always been there. Our mind, in its activity, had been caught in the various traps of stuffed and starving, tired and wired, all-knowing and useless, rejecting and regretful; now it spreads out to contain all of the above, without ever getting caught on one side.
In this place, our mind can unfurl even further into our body. A beautiful sense of optionality opens—pure potential. Being is equal and simultaneous in all directions, while at the same time it's as if the mind has returned to its home with no need to go anywhere.
By way of warning: the two states we are most likely to become addicted to are restoration—entailing pleasure and homeostasis—and stillness. Each is a home setting; the former is the home of our separate body, and the latter is the home of our separate mind. When the stroke comes that would have us move from this location, we might feel a tug— the temptation to refuse to leave.
Without the power of our body, this channel of stillness can also bring with it a dilettante quality of demand. Over-sensitization is common for people stuck on this channel; they have become addicted to depth as an escape rather than as a celebration, using it to fill a perceived emptiness rather than as a beautiful location to experience.
If our mind lacks power, it may not enter other locations well. At the same time, because the drive of the mind is to know, our mind may not admit this, instead exalting this location above all others. If this happens, we do not buy into it.
All stages have equal and endless potential for discovery and mastery. Some of us may spend a whole lifetime mastering one stage. But the work of OM is to develop equal and simultaneous facility in all stages, as they are the channels that carry the sensation of life. We build this capacity so when the channel changes, the aspect of mind related to the new channel is there to meet it, at least in potential. In an OM, when the stroke comes, we are there to meet it fully.
We meet life on life's terms and, in return, life gives us intimacy with life.
When we are in stillness in OM, we feel free from time and space with our body as an open channel. Both the stroker and strokee feel in union as one, experiencing the same thing.
We remember there is no wrong way to OM—everything is right and good. There is connection regardless of the stroke, as both people are fully surrendered. We open to space beyond our physical body.
Aiming attention to the point of connection and sustaining it allows the mind to drop and focus on feeling the pleasure. Then, focusing on the calm, we allow it to drop again. It will land in optionality and naturally unfold. What feels like deeper truths may reveal themselves. We listen but do not grasp, moving when the stroke changes.
If we are turned off, our mind is fussy, demanding, hypersensitive, and irritated. If we find stillness, we focus on this stillness, continuing to aim our attention inside of ourselves. If there is not stillness, we allow ourselves to be moved without gripping to the location. Turned-off stillness is often a refusal to come up from the depths.
