“It should never be forgotten that in their glorification of poverty and celibacy both (Buddhism and Christianity) struck straight at the root not merely of civil society, but of human existence.” — James Frazer, “The Golden Bough”
The ascetism and denial of human needs and desires promulgated by those who ascended to leadership in the religions of both East and West may have been one of humanity-as-a-whole’s natural shifts to re-balance itself over the ages. There may have been a need to counteract immersion in sense-gratification and associated distortions, transgressions, and jaded values of unchecked hedonism to develop better spiritual consciousness. Yet the resulting confusions and conflicts of traditional religious teachings about sexuality, body, and natural senses have created a deep wounding and destructive exacerbation of the very breach we are here on Earth to heal.
It is our place to stand between heaven and earth, and lovingly reconcile and unite animal, human, and divine. In other words, to undo our own transgressions against the Whole. But our collective inclination to follow unbalanced social traditions without question has damaged healthy relationship with our bodies and the natural world. The results of our discord with natural order are evident as increasing self-destruction, spiritual poverty, and loss of spirit and soul senses.
My most recent lifetimes were spent in monasteries in Tibet, Italy, and India, and I have experienced the benefits, and toll and confusion, of such religious traditions firsthand. Coming into this life from an ascetic background and walking my current path of soul has required that I deal with sexual issues intensively to rebalance my being. What I’ve learned has benefited many in my healing ministry.
Christian teachings as handed down by religions in America, have fostered great confusion on these matters. The Apostle Paul, as we know him through his correspondence, was in a spiritual awakening process, which in early stages is often experienced as an inner conflict between spirit and form. Misuse of his letters to his peers as ‘gospel’, and their misapplication to our collective sexuality and code of ethics via the control frameworks of religion, have taken grievous toll on our spiritual, sexual, and psychological health. How often do we see people with divided psyches struggling to do what is ‘right’, or acting-out aggressive perpetrations, while demonizing the very source of their creative and spiritual power that has become complicated and distorted within their own beings?
We cannot blame the Apostle Paul for our human struggles with misuse of his mail. Yet, it has been used to exacerbate humanity’s ancient conflict between spirit and body, heaven and earth, mind and heart, male and female, and brain hemispheres in the earth-wise dichotomy we are required to bridge before graduation, which was with us long before his time.
“There has been no failure so great on the register of Latin orthodoxy as its consecration of marriage; there has been nothing that is so skin-deep, nothing so reluctant and half-hearted.” — A.E. Waite
Superficial religious teachings attempt to impose one marriage relationship only, as the expectation and standard for righteous living. This may have worked better when men and women were complementary teams, raising children, living on the land, or when women were possessions and status objects. Yet the truth is, “What God has joined together” is not necessarily who we choose to marry in our youth, and we need to free up from this lie. How often do we see people feeling like failures when their marriage is broken because the partnership was no longer a healthy fit? Or suffering from the death of a dream that was never a reality? How many marriages are actually sordid and dishonest arrangements, or exchanging sex for security, or other ungodly distortions of ‘man and wife?’ How many are laughable facades?
Some people don’t have to deal with complications of their first marriage not being a correct fit for life – it’s just not an issue. Yet times have changed, and we have changed, and though we moved through major confusions about home and family in the 60s and 70s, we now have opportunity to develop our beings in a more refined manner, and discover the true potential of our souls in relationships. We are freed up to gain better understanding about our sacred path of heart and soul, and our need and desire for our soul-mate — a whole-being relationship tailored just for us from the Heart of Creation! The concept of the soul-mate is universal, with many names around the world. My favorite is the “kealualei,” Hawaiian for ‘sacred beloved companion.’
Spiritual teachings of West and the East are complementary and can help us find our way when studied together. Mysteries of soul are profoundly acknowledged in both approaches to self-realization, though one may have to dig deep to glean such understanding and find the common ground. Understanding and honoring the ‘other’ perspective in humility and respect is a path to healing for many. Every human pathway to God has its high and low forms of worship as we work to clarify right relationship with Spirit within the material context of Earth. Those who are fear-based and inclined to judge, seize upon low forms of worship of ‘the other’ path as basis to condemn and separate. Such superficial judgments do not serve our process of purification together, nor can they ever produce the wholeness we need or the peace that is ours.
We can gain understanding by studying the teachings of both East and West, of how to work with the body and spirit together in union. ‘Yoga’ means union, and the objective is union with God while in body. Insight into working with our vital energies is gained. Breathing practices are a powerful tool to achieve balance and inner refreshment and peace. Drawing upward the vital energies to unite them with Heart and Mind is extraordinarily regenerative, as those who practice yoga with spiritual consciousness and devotion, know.
If we are walking our path of soul — for empowered transformation — It becomes critical that we live in balance. If a vital part of our being is repressed, denied, devalued, conflicted with, unacknowledged or ignored, our entire life will become problematic. Sexuality is our healing and regenerative power. If it isn’t engaged with our whole being in a healthy and nourishing manner, it will demand expression and release in dis-integrative ways. Roots are alienated from heart in lust, the mind objectifies, and non-presence with individual human preciousness and the sacredness of the body dulls soul and spirit senses. Wholeness breaks down as sexual drives become compulsive and debilitating to spiritual health, sometimes getting caught in low-level, addictive astral planes. We see this played out by the occasional preacher whose contradictions in sexual engagement are revealed for all to see. How people enjoy the inevitable exposure of a hypocrite!
Clearly we must practice wise discernment with our vital energies, they are foundational and a significant factor in our overall life potency. It’s clear that if we deny or ignore our sexuality, the ‘juice of life’ will wane, our personal Tree of Life will wither, and our effectiveness, health, and happiness will suffer. Clearly, “It is not good for man or woman to be alone.”
So how do we resolve the challenge to be true to our hearts, to build for healthy, stable, whole-being relationships, and honor our sexuality along the way? We are spiritual AND we are sexual. And the bigger-picture learning process often produces the whole-being relationship later in life rather than earlier (if we remain true). The loves we may be blessed with along the way are our teachers, helping us to see what we are, and are not — so vital to the process of deep-self clarification.
In honoring sexuality while single, it can help to understand that we are physically attracted to those we’ve loved before (in previous lives). Such soul-connections — roots connections — flow through our feeling natures in the same pathways as our sexuality; through arms, mouth, breasts, and sexualized embodiment. This is why we have cases of adopted children and their estranged parents entering into intimate relationships unknowingly, far more often than would be normal. It has been studied and proven that when adopted children re-unite with their birth parents, sexual attraction to each other is especially compelling, which passes. This is due to disruption of the natural bonding between parent and child. Reunion picks up at the point of disruption, no matter how much time has passed.
In some similar manner, when we re-unite with those we’ve loved and shared significant energy exchange with in the forgotten past, the attraction factor, chemistry, and feeling flow can be powerful and compelling.
Marriage relationships formed before the age of 27-29 (a Saturn cycle) are often karmic; that is, the couple is drawn together to re-address unfinished business. It’s good to be aware that strong physical attractions are often based on unresolved emotional charges from the past. Sometimes it’s wise to take some time to test a connection and see if entering into intimacy is appropriate. Often, when the energies have settled, the right purpose for the connection becomes apparent, which may not have been physical, or long-term bonding after all.
I have experienced and witnessed the coming-together of partners in which a great quantum of energy is generated, past lives together are consciously remembered, miracles and healings occur, great teachings and understandings are gained. Yet the tenure of the relationship is bright and brief. Transformation through relationship is one of the most difficult and rewarding paths, and we are all on it. These passages are sometimes necessary for our evolution and should be appreciated and valued just as much as the goal. Yet, it is the shared, deep-roots foundation that withstands tests and trials of time, while naturally refreshing the relationship in ever-new wonder and potency, that our souls remember, and our hearts desire.
Tips for the passionate, yet unattached, who desire their soul-mates:
1. Put God first in your life. Keep your eyes on God, your devotion flowing daily, be ever grateful, and TRUST that your Love will come to you. It’s your right to be wholely loved. Ask for what you need, give thanks in advance, then let it go and keep it simple.
2. Love yourself. Pay attention with this. Practice self-love and compassion. Enjoy yourself physically, dance, do whatever gives you joy. Be sensual and grateful. Don’t allow technologies to keep you in your head or engage them as counterfeits for the real thing.
3. Each one of us is taught by the Lord, and we must re-learn to be faithful to our own inviolate and pristine connection within to the Source of life, love and truth. Your personal truth-guide is always within you.
4. Learn how to hear, see, and follow the right steps of your path. You can have full faith and confidence in being clearly guided to what is just right for you, and what is pleasing to God and all creation every moment of every day.
5. Any sexual union engaged in should be whole-being; that is body, mind, spirit and soul. Such connections are pretty irresistible. And no, they don’t come along every day. Thus it is.
6. Some of us must pass the test of spirit lovers (oh yes they will) which may be intriguing at first, but will take you out of the Land of the Living right quick if you’re on the amplified path of soul.
7. Sometimes we’re faced with the dilemma about who we desire to be intimate with, and who is actually available. For spiritual hygiene for a blessed life, don’t be intimate with one person while desiring another, such action dishonors both. It is not truly present with the available one, nor does it honor the desired one. This is a good way to create psychic confusion, drain, spirit-body misalignment, and more karmic entanglements, and who needs those?
8. If you want your soul-mate, you have to commit to yourself. Sometimes we see people longing for their soul mate, while married to someone for monetary reasons, and visiting someone else for comforts; or complaining about their current relationship and longing for their soul-mate. That’s a good way to cheat yourself. If you can’t commit to your own heart and make the sacrifices required to align your life in faith and preparation for your own good, forget it — it won’t happen. Your power cannot build to attract something better that unifies your being. We need to understand that if we divide ourselves, we perpetuate division in our lives and the disillusionment of such an approach only gets worse over time. You have to make a quality statement to life, and honor it.
9. People often tell me they don’t know if they should be with so and so. In that case, is it uplifting and empowering? Or simply medicating and disempowering? There’s no middle ground. A right relationship naturally renews — trials notwithstanding. Nor do people in a whole-being relationship ever need props, sex toys, and ‘spicing up’ beyond natural, playful creativity. If you’re in your power and right relationship, it is so dynamic neither you nor your partner can even think and you may not remember what you did, except that it was SO GOOD.
10. Remember, that your whole-being flow and fulfillment goes BOTH WAYS. It is giving and receiving, and you are not designed to be on the short-end of the deal. If you find yourself feeling too hooked on needing somebody else, come back home to yourself and realize that you too, are needed. Pay attention to any ways you may be short-changing yourself, or creating poverty by not feeling worthy, or not living the KNOWING that life is full of abundance and love just for YOU from the Heart of God. If you’re feeling lonely, hold it up to God, ask for what you need. Know that you are heard.
11. Don’t hold on to your love as the ‘source of your supply.’ We are not designed to be that for each other, Spirit is. Spirit loves us through our beloved. Humans often make this mistake with each other, and with money and material things. If we fall into this illusion, we begin to drain our partner and shut down the flow.
12. Be out of the box in your reception of God’s love for you. Let go of all expectations and preconceived notions of how your love and fulfillment should come to you. Life has a thousand ways to love you when you need it. Life can be very creative, so keep an open heart and mind and don’t miss out!
13. If you’re committed to gaining whole-being fulfillment and the ultimate affirmation that is the gift of the right life-mate, know that God will grant you success. Age and conditions do not matter on the path of soul. We know what the truest love is. We are made from it. So don’t settle for less! When it’s time to be alone, there is plenty of work to do, restoring full circuitry and heart-healing for whole life sometimes takes a good portion of a lifetime.
In Hebrew teachings, “the Kingdom” is understood to be ‘continually coming.’ It is ever manifesting in every moment of our God-given days to the degree that we welcome and affirm it. Living in Divine Order, we are most fulfilled. Divine Order is win-win. Your showers of blessing are on their way! As an astrologer I’ve learned that there is ‘a time’ for everything and sometimes it is more appropriate to gather energy and power than to expend it. It’s better to be alone than wrongly attached. But everyone can sense ‘right time.’ When it’s right, you KNOW IT deep down within, and resistance would be sin. It would be going against life itself.
If you want to be loved, be a lover . . . love, love, love. Then your own good cannot possibly stay away, and your soul-mate connection will be fulfilled! It’s your heritage as a Child of Creation.
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One of the best teachings on love and marriage I’ve found is from, ‘Love Without End’ by my teacher, Glenda Green. Read Yeshua’s explanation of the Sixth Commandment in the chapter entitled “The Ten Commandments of Love.” I quote it below:
“The sixth commandment states, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ It is the Creator’s will that the institution of marriage be a holy bond, not entered into lightly or broken easily. The holiness of marriage does not draw its power from the earthly plane. The coming together of a man and a woman to create a life of devotion to each other is a symbol for the sacred marriage between the Father and His faithfulness to mankind, between the immortal soul and its beloved heart, and between all aspects of creation which are bonded together to work in love.
“The marriage of a man and woman honors and symbolizes the marriage of all other things. when a marriage is loving and pure, it is also the greatest expression of kindness and tenderness to be found on earth. Compassion is the Creator’s will for all of life. Wherever kindness is held in loving sanctuary, there is hope and a basis for it to be extended throughout the rest of existence. [emphasis mine]
“Whenever two or more come together in love, for any purpose, whatever the relationship, whatever the bond, a union is created within the one spirit. Under the governance of love, a very close interchange of adamantine particles will occur. Such a deep and meaningful bond as marriage should be pure and free from irrelevant, debased, or dishonest ingredients. Every problem that occurs later on can be traced back to basic adulterations of love. if the commitment is weak and the motivations were less than honorable, there may not be enough strength and sincerity to produce an enduring marriage. When the bond is not pure, a relationship will fail. This happens because adulteration is already part of the relationship. Unity may have been formed for any number of external desires, insincere reasons, or perhaps in an inappropriate way. If a marriage occurs only for money, convenience, or social advantage, adultery has already been programmed into the relationship. Is there any wonder that adulteration will later manifest as infidelity?”
…
“The real core of unity is the love of two people honoring their bond to each other with respect, sincerity, and depth of commitment. If this does not exist in sufficient measure to be sustained, or if the adulteration of love is greater than the couple’s ability to resolve, then it would be better to discontinue the marriage than to dishonor love. Even so, the dissolving of marriage should not be taken lightly or for reasons stemming from momentary stress and pressure, for this is a union instituted by God. All marriages belong to the Creator, to be empowered or dissolved according to divine will. This is necessary to ensure that human life never be owned by another, even through the bonds of matrimony. Even where the marriage has been a good one, there are times when a greater covenant will be established by the Creator so that the individuals will move on to serve in separate ways. Therefore, structure is not endowed with the authority to imprison love beyond its service, merely to perpetuate the stability of vested interests or outward signs of solidarity.
The union of a man and woman is the most pure and perfect symbol for the marriage of any two things. Therefore, its fullest significance can be seen as it brings depth of meaning to other relationships as well. The principles of marriage are symbolic for all relationships. when you commit your life in faith to a career or vocation, is that not a marriage? What about your relationship to brotherhood, to friends, to family, and the one spirit? Are these not also marriages?
Question: What is the greatest marriage?
“The union of God and man. That is the power behind all other marriages. When mankind responds to the will of God as a bride does to her groom, there will be Heaven on earth.”