The tumescent mind is ruled by passive attention. Passive attention is not connected to aim and power. It is attention that must be grabbed, but which also cannot stop itself from being grabbed. It responds with diminishing quality to the most intense stimuli—that which activates our greed, fear and anger mechanisms, and, by turn, the things that irritate us: drama, arguing, as well as grasping sex and unconscious consumption of both food and goods. When we place passive attention on something, the vividness of the experience fades, while thoughts and distraction enter and take over.
The Erotic mind operates by active attention. Active attention means we choose to place our attention somewhere, and whatever our attention is on becomes vivid, which leads to enjoyment. We also have the option of when we choose to lift our attention and focus it on something else. This we call sovereignty. Active attention is the key to unlocking unconditionality because it is only from this liberation of attention that we can choose to focus on the present moment with such powerful connection that all the wisdom and power embedded within it becomes ours.
We develop our active attention so we can choose, and from that choice, enjoy anything life brings. Only from there—not from compensation, desperation, need, or programming—can we make choices about what we want and what we do.
When we have sufficiently developed our active attention, it begins to exhibit a liberating agency of its own. It becomes so acutely sensitive to tumescence that whenever tumescence enters our awareness, even in our ambient attention, our Erotic mind orients toward it. It will naturally meet it with the curiosity, reception, and power needed in order to envelop the tumescence until its energy releases and is returned to source. This is the autotelic nature of Eros.