People throughout the world are searching for purpose and meaning in their life. They are searching for love. As one connects with love, the mysteries behind life’s dramas unfold. Love answers questions that confound human thinking, turning even tragedy into a gift for those who are able to discover it. The whole purpose of life on earth can be reduced to a single goal; to prove the reality and infallibility of love by experiencing it.
The primary energy for human existence is love. It is more vital for our existence than oxygen or food. This vast, powerful, energy is the very ‘stuff’ of life and creativity. Without it, human beings would destroy and devour one another and the world would implode. To believe that you are separated from love creates a state of misery. On the other hand, the direct experience of being connected to love produces a state of lasting happiness, or bliss.
From the moment of physical birth to the last breath of life, men, women and children crave to love and be loved, yet there exists a strange fear of love, which makes many people construct a mask, depriving them from being seen and known. It is there, behind masks, that the majority of people hide; alone with their fears.
The roots of fear itself lay in the idea of being separated from love, yet in hiding from love people enslave themselves to this fear. This paradoxical, ‘Catch-22’ situation, in which millions of people are trapped, is the root cause that shows up in their lives as the fear of intimacy. It is an epidemic and growing problem in our society, causing extraordinary levels of pain, despair and isolation. Fear of intimacy often lies at the heart of relationship breakdowns and many common conditions such as depression, anxiety, obsessions, addictions, eating disorders and suicidal tendencies.
Love cannot be taken for granted, nor can we presume upon it simply by reading about it or theorising over it. Love has to be generated. It is a shared experience. Relationships are love’s power stations.
Intimate relationships are one of the surest, yet most difficult ways of realising love; and probably the least understood. One of the greatest mysteries in life is sex, hence fear of love and intimacy attaches itself to sex for a multiplicity of reasons. Sex appears to offer validation of being worthy of love. Sex is the rite of passage to normality in our society. It offers the illusion of connecting people, although this is often short lived. Sex suggests fulfilment. Sex is synonymous with happiness. We are told having sex means success. We believe that it is good for us. If we don’t have sex, we feel deprived; unloved, unfulfilled, unworthy, isolated and rejected. Sexuality is one way human beings can connect directly to the energies of love, so to struggle against this possibility is to struggle against love. Being so needed, it is no wonder sex is also a primal root of anxiety and fear.
I have spent over forty years of my life on the spiritual path, and the past twenty years as a professional sexual therapist. In that time I have extensively researched the subject of love, intimacy and sexuality. I have studied the findings of past and current sexologists, the perspectives of psychology, psychotherapy and medical science, the teachings of spiritual masters of all traditions and the revelations of many sacred spiritual texts. Throughout, I have puzzled over the consistency of negative information written and taught about sexual love, even from great spiritual teachers that I have admired. They have seemed to be either afraid of sexual energy or so cautious as to limit their emphasis to its dangers, instructing their devotees to avoid it whenever possible.
There is an idea circulating in the halls of some spiritual circles that spiritual practice requires celibacy, attained through ‘transcending sex’. This view implies that sex is beneath the dignity of the spiritual aspirant, and frowned upon by Deity. Such an idea is misleading. It may also be based on incredible arrogance.
Before sex can be transcended it must first be healed, and before it can be healed it must be fully actualised. Sex does not evolve by itself. The on-going evolution of sex can only take place through us.
For today’s human being to aim at transcending sex in this lifetime, or even this cultural world cycle, is to go against the current of the ocean of life, in which we are today’s waves. There is still much to be done to improve the quality of life in the world; not only to sex, but through sex.
Over sixty years ago, the French mystic, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin said: “The day will come when, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, humankind will have discovered fire.”
We now live in that Day which was referred to. Sad to say, Teilhard De Chardin died before his main written work was published; the wisdom behind the words lost along with the man who wrote them.
The first time I came across these words my heart leapt. I sensed a strong resonance with the tone and vibration of positive hope and expectation about love that the writer conveyed in his words. In the process of harnessing the energies of love, I reasoned, surely we would also discover more about the energies of sex and its true purpose for our lives. “And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, humankind will have discovered fire”
Imagine the benefits to the world and to humankind if love could be realised as an energy source. Ponder for a moment. What if love is energy as distinct from an emotional state? Most doctors and psychologists agree that there is a strong correlation between physical sickness, anxiety and depression and emotional states such as loneliness and despair. It is also well understood that that anger and hatred, together with their devastating outward consequences, emerge out of the state of fear - the opposite polarity to love.
Imagine the healing that may be contained within the ‘energies of love’ and the positive effects upon the medical profession and the health services if those energies could be used to alleviate sickness. Imagine the peace contained within love and the saving of human lives and public spending on prisons, arms and war if it could be harnessed. The discovery and use of this energy would bring us closer to solving some of our greatest human problems and perhaps even the mysteries of life itself.