The tumescent mind will use anything and everything for personal gain. It will use spirituality, commerce, and relationships to acquire something, anything to fill the hole. Eros, on the other hand, looks for personal loss—to lose anything and everything that is not true. It holds that anything we have a gripping attachment to will eventually be lost—power, position, resources—and might need to be.
What the Erotic mind is looking for is not stuffing the hole until we are numb, but to empty out so we can breathe. At the same time, it continues to receive what is given. It does not employ a forced sense of restriction, of sacrifice or renunciation. These are actions of the tumescent mind that are artificially created to counteract the tendency to consume.
It only wants to make decisions from self-will rather than the deeper truth of who we really are. Just as digestive metabolism happens naturally, so does spiritual metabolism. Eros simply aims to increase metabolism so we can take in as much life as possible and release it without effort.
If we try to fill a hole, we only emphasize the sensation of emptiness. If we empty out, we bring about the gratification of fullness. There is no fear of losing ourselves. In fact, it is a joyous offering when we have the awareness that the abundance of life will flow automatically when congestion has been cleared.
