The transforming Light of consciousness in relationship with body

(related to Shiva and Shakti)

The sexual ritual holds a unique potential for the spiritual aspirant, because the ritual can combine and blend the energies of the body with the energies of consciousness. The natural body energies can be transmuted to higher vibrations, and the energies of spiritual consciousness can penetrate and infuse into physical embodiment. This is the alchemical fusion which is possible in the sexual ritual, and it is represented by Shiva penetrating into Shakti, as Shakti embraces and is transformed by the conscious light of Shiva. Yet here, we must remember, Shiva and Shakti are powers of both man and woman, the respective powers of consciousness and the earth body.

The powers of consciousness - the light of Shiva (the Solar Deity) - awaken, enlighten and intensify the experience of the body energies, which makes experience become more alive and bright. The way for this to manifest in us, and so be transformative, is to fully embrace mindfulness and more fully open the mind to the light emerging from the sexual experience itself. The increase of light, or consciousness, depends on two essential attitudes. One is to open up the mind further, which is like expanding one’s consciousness within the experience. The other is to receptively allow the light of consciousness to unfold and expand within the experience.

Expansion of consciousness is a paradox to the thinking mind which tends to think of consciousness as either mine or yours or the greater divine consciousness. The mind separates in order to think about these things. But consciousness is not separative. It is whole. It is one. You are already consciousness, and yet there is always some greater consciousness of which you are partial within. You can expand your consciousness, or better said, your consciousness can expand, because consciousness itself is expansive and naturally expanding. It’s like a helium gas inside a balloon, which has the natural tendency to expand and would if only the balloon skin could expand or if the balloon would pop. If let to itself consciousness will expand, but we have forced it into contraction. We have forced it inside our balloon and we hold it there contracted.

We hold it contracted with thought, for thought encapsulates and fixes consciousness. So if we can release thought, or at least release the tight tension of thought, then consciousness can be allowed to expand. This expansion is not a transcendence or an escape from what is. It is a further embracing of what is, and in the sexual ritual consciousness can further embrace the sensual energies of the body, one’s own and one’s lover’s, as well as the feelings and qualities of expression, embracing the very beauty and delight of the experience. This embracing, this expansion, is the infusion of consciousness into the body or into the energy field being embraced. And the embracing is a loving embrace, as consciousness expands into and enfolds the body and energies of the experience. This then becomes the enlightened sexual experience, a furthering of consciousness in sexual experience, versus a lessening of consciousness as is often the case with mere instinctual sex. With this understanding and its applied practice, there will be a great renewal and sacred intention within the sexual ritual. Yet, another understanding of consciousness, though inseparably related, can be applied as well and eventually blended with this expanding consciousness.

This involves the allowing and receptive attitude to consciousness. Remember that consciousness is not confined to your own being, that is, your consciousness is but partial to the greater cosmic field of consciousness. Your consciousness can expand into the field of life or into the body of experience, but the consciousness within life or within the body can expand into you as well. This understanding requires a reversal of the previous way of understanding consciousness, whereby we allow light from within the body or within the energies of life to emerge and expand. The light will unfold from anywhere, for all energies have light, all energies are light in essence. So, the body is, in essence, light, which means the body is itself a form of consciousness, and this light consciousness of the body, or of its energies, can expand and radiate.

The attitude necessary for the light to further emerge is one of being open and receptive. The experiencer must not only be sensitive to the energies, of sensual and feeling nature, but also be open to the light of these energies filling the mind with greater consciousness. It is as though light emerges from all the many energies and sensations within the experience and fills the experiencer with greater consciousness or light. We can also understand this emerging light as vital energy awakening our inherent potential powers of consciousness. For consciousness is as much a latent potential, or unfolding seed, within our higher chakra centres, as it is already the reality of the experiencer. So to complete our understanding of this subject let us realize that consciousness is who we are in essence, the experiencer, and therefore can expand or penetrate into the form of experience, but also a greater consciousness awaits its release from potential to actuality and this will require a sufficient degree of vital or sexual energy for its awakening. These energies are stored in the body itself, in earth and throughout life.

Often they build up, or grow, and then are released in some physical manner, through one of the lower three centres, but it is possible for these energies to be released and used for the higher centres, whereby light emerges from the energies and fills the higher centres through the simple technique of those higher centres being openly receptive to the charge of these vital energies or receptive to the light emerging from them. This is the gift of Shakti, the Earth Goddess, as Her vital or sexual energies stimulate and awaken the potential Shiva power of consciousness within man or woman. The Shiva power has both an active and passive aspect. It is active in its expansiveness and power to penetrate into the body of experience, and it is passive in its state of pure beingness and potential which awaits the vital active charge of Shakti energy for its active aspect to be actualized. Without any Shakti, without at least some of Her active charge or stimulation, Shiva remains in deep ascetic meditation or in the voidness of pure potential; therefore, spiritual consciousness, as an active, expressive and expansive power, requires the vitality of the Earth or the body releasing its trapped energies. The body releases the required energy for the awakening and sustainment of the higher consciousness, just as more organized organisms or systems require some sustaining heat or energy force. Shakti also has both an active and passive aspect. She, this energy, is passive in its physical entrapment, in bondage in various forms of matter, and it is active when able to release. Both aspects are important and sacred.

Without the physical entrapment of vital energies there would be no life of nature and Earth as we know it and enjoy it. The beauty of life requires this storage of energy and its relative stability. Yet, nature, or these natural energies of life, also seek expressive release. Expression is a release of energy. This release does not need to be all at once but can be gradual and slow, prolonging the enjoyment of its expression. Gradual release is fine but no release becomes stifling and inhibiting, and eventually the form of bondage will explode from the tension caused by the need to release itself. So, in a sense, Shakti is accepting of Her bondage in matter, or in the body, accepting of being a passive stored energy crystallized in some form or another, but She also needs active expression, needing some continual release from the bondage. She wants to let go and be completely free and expressive of Herself, yet this can be slow and gradual as long as the expression keeps building and evolving. So, what could hold Her back? Her expression is natural, Her gradual release is natural, but consciousness must be allowing, for consciousness is what is capable of holding Her back and binding Her energies.

Consciousness is capable of either binding the energy or allowing its release. But if Shakti’s release is needed for the further awakening and sustainment of consciousness, then why would consciousness hold Her back? Only because this consciousness is itself trapped by some binding thought-form. And in fact, it is really thought that binds the body and the energies of Shakti. It is thought entrapping and using the powers of consciousness, the powers of Shiva. For the passive aspect of Shiva power can be used for whatever purpose or thought, while the active power of Shiva, as pure expanding consciousness, is the antithesis of entrapment or bondage. So the first key to releasing the body from bondage is releasing consciousness from binding thought, then consciousness embraces the body with love and enjoyment, as Shiva allows and loves Shakti to express Herself. And of course, Shakti’s expression awakens more of the pure expanding light of Shiva, and this expanding light allows more of Shakti’s inherent expressiveness to be released. The whole intercourse between Shiva and Shakti, between the free consciousness and the freed energies of the body, becomes circularly reinforcing and symbiotic, until all appears as one dance or one flowing movement of the One Being, Brahman, of Whom Shiva and Shakti are its primary dual aspects.

The tantra views the cosmic experience as this intercourse of polarities, an intercourse between consciousness and body, or light and earth. Consciousness is derived from the body, as light from matter. The body is a vital energy empowering the unfoldment of the higher energy potential, consciousness. Thus, the body, or the earth, feeds the unfoldment of higher consciousness. We experience this as light emerging or radiating from the body or from the earth world. Or, this could also be experienced as consciousness awakening out from the body. For within the body are the higher potentials of love and consciousness, located as centres in the body’s subtle energy structure.

Yet, a polar opposite view is also true, whereby the light of consciousness penetrates and expands into the body or into the earth from a source above the head, above the body. This source is the sun of our solar system, known in various traditions as the solar logos, the Angel of Light, the Great Spirit, or Shiva. In this view the body is receptive to light from above or beyond it. Or, if the experiencer is already awakened in the light, the light of consciousness expands into and throughout the body.

The beauty of higher sexual experience is this possibility of light emerging from the body and light penetrating into the body. The body brings forth the light and the body is infused with light. This seems paradoxical, but these are the two opposite modes of experiencing the blending intercourse of light and body. The two modes are, in reality, the same alchemical occurrence, which is the realization of spiritual light in the body or the embodiment of light in the body, depending on the point of view. It is the mergence of light and body, of Shiva and Shakti, and this mergence is love, for love is the embracing of separate energies into one energy. Our body and our consciousness has become separated. The body has lost touch with consciousness or spirit. The body does not feel the spirit. It is not alive with consciousness. Likewise, the spirit, or consciousness, is out of touch with the body. This is our basic problem in life. A split has occurred between body and mind, or between spirit and earth. We know this split. We feel and experience this separation. So a reunion must take place, an alchemical reunion between body and mind. These is nothing spiritual gone wrong in this split. In fact, the split is an aspect of spiritual existence. It is even necessary for evolutionary growth, because with the separation the body energies can grow and stabilize in their particular manner and the mind can be free in its particular powers of vision and imagination. We can understand this as a necessary separation of the powers or centres in man, so that their particular potentials might have some autonomy for unique development. Each of the three major centres, the vital, love and mind centres, have particular functions within the whole possibility of man, so they need some separation and autonomy in order to uniquely develop. But their integration and mergence is also needed, and a unique energy for this mergence and synthesis is needed. This energy is the power of synthesis or the will-to-union, and it essentially comes from the heart or love centre. The energy of love brings together what is separate. Because of a certain law of our existence, the lower energies of the body vitality and the higher energies of the mind consciousness have a tendency to be separate and function autonomously. For various reasons this is necessary in the divine purpose. It is not a cosmic mistake. But if they are completely separate, or overly separative, there cannot be wholeness in our divine existence and disharmony in life will be the result. The whole divine purpose is to do with the merging and cooperate functioning of mind and body, of consciousness and earth expression. The divine purpose is to do with spiritual realization and spiritual expression through the body and the earth. This means that what is not yet realized must become realized, that is, the body spiritually unconscious must become spiritually conscious, or the earth as yet unawakened in its potential of spiritual beauty must become awakened in its spiritual beauty. As well, spiritual realization, or the spirit gnosis, must become manifested and stabilized for its beauty to be fully sensed and felt. Spirit, or God consciousness, seeks manifestation, expression, in the body and on the earth.

What all this means is that spiritual consciousness seeks embodiment and physical expression, while the body earth seeks awakening and conscious realization Relating this directly to you, depending on your point of view, you as spirit will seek manifestation and expression, seeking experience in the world and through the body, or you as body will seek spiritual awakening and realization At any one moment you identify with one of these two polarized points of view, though these views may alternate back and forth. In any one moment the body, with some degree of awakening and already spiritually expressing to some degree, will seek greater realization, or the spirit, having already some degree of realization and relative expression, will seek further creative expression and manifestation through life.

Spirit and body need each other, though they maintain some degree of autonomy. This is why the tantra speaks of two separate powers, Shiva and Shakti, and their desire for intercourse. Each is the key for the other. Each wants what it isn’t and what the other is. This is the cosmic erotic desire, and this energy of desire for intercourse and union is cosmic love. On the highest level cosmic love is the divine gnosis of unity itself, the unseparate unity of divine Being, but within the dual experience of spirit and matter, or mind and body, this cosmic love unity is realized as the desire for union or the dissolving of separation, and the expression of this love is the alchemical blending of the two into one. The result is the body and earth emerging greater light and beauty, and the consciousness vitalized with earth energies and expressing evermore fully through the body and the earth. This is the divine purpose, as it were, and the path of tantra. It is not exclusive to sexual experience, though through the sexual ritual this blending and union can be directly and more intensely experienced.

The sexual ritual becomes a path for this mergence of body and mind in and through all of our life. Through higher sexual ritual the body is infused with consciousness and actually feels consciousness expressing itself. The body itself is filled with spirit and moves with spirit, and spirit is even felt to emerge from the body itself. Spirit, or consciousness in its free essence, becomes evermore expansive and even more free.

Yet, this freedom of consciousness can exist right within the body itself, as the body will feel itself full of radiant light. Do not presume that freedom of consciousness requires a separation from the body. Many religious traditions of the past have taught us that consciousness or spirit must be liberated from the body, must escape the body. Like most teachings there is an element of truth in this, but it has resulted in the one of the greatest misunderstandings in our history.

It is true that consciousness can be bound or trapped in the body and in its sensuous vital energies. Consciousness can become trapped in the inertia and mechanicalness of the body instincts. The way out of this trap, this mechanical sleep, is to withdraw energy from the body inertia up into the head centres, bringing all available energy into a greater concentration of consciousness. The technique is to use the lower energies to build a concentration of consciousness energy. In other words, consciousness separates off from the body energies and develops its own concentrated power, feeding off the lower energies. This called the practice of disattached observation. It is a distancing or disengagement from whatever is happening energetically. If consciousness is fully and intimately engaged with all the energies of the body or of the world around, then it is unified with the body or with the world but might also be trapped in this engagement. In one esoteric system this unseparative engagement of consciousness in the body/world is a lower form of conscious energy, called sensitive energy, and it is not really conscious at all but merely an involved sensitivity. Only when the conscious potential can separate itself from the involved engagement is it really a consciousness energy. It then becomes a higher energy, as it concentrates above the body and world, observing the lower energies from a certain distance or higher view. And if this observing consciousness can maintain itself, and actually feed off the lower energies, it can develop more autonomy or a kind of separate existence In other words, a higher centre, above the lower energies, begins to develop its own potential. This development is part of man’s evolution, whereby consciousness acquires its freedom from being mechanically engaged and bound in the instinctual and reactionary energies of the body in relation to the world around. It is a transcendence from the body nature, and from this transcendence the mind is free to observe and study nature and the body responses, and the mind is then free to re-create and transform the body and nature. So, this separation of mind consciousness and body nature has given man the power to re-create his life and his world, beyond the instincts of nature. We can see the value in this, but of course we can also see the danger in this. The separating consciousness soon becomes an autonomous ego, a power of its own to move and manipulate the earth and body energies at will. The separation enables this potential for man, but in this separation is a great danger because the mind may lose its right relationship with the body and nature, becoming so disassociated and dominating in relation to nature that it forgets the importance of nature and the body for its very own survival. One must remember that consciousness grows from life itself. It truly lives from the body and not outside it. The disengagement from body allows for freedom and a certain degree of autonomy from the mechanicallness of natural instincts, and this is positive from a greater perspective of evolution and divine purpose. But the world that consciousness lives in is the world of nature, its mother nurturer and ground of activity. The relationship of consciousness and body is a necessary one. The very purpose of consciousness is to experience nature and the body, not to escape or disassociate completely from it. This relationship needs to be re-affirmed and re-established.

There needs to be a coming back together, a reunion. Now that separation has occurred, and a certain degree of transcendence and freedom has been established, this freedom of consciousness can again renew its intimate relation with the body, not merely descending back into mechanicalness or instinctual reactions, back into its lower form of energy, but offering the body what it has gained, ie. Conscious freedom. Applying the analogy of human relations, a man and a woman can evolve their relationship through their respective separation and autonomous inner growth, while coming together to blend and merge their acquired powers and qualities of being. The separation allows for a new kind of union. The separation allows for relationship. If there were no separation there could be no play of relationship, and this phenomena of relationship is what makes life interesting.

We, as a earth species, could have remained as the animals, without conscious freedom from our natural instincts, but then there would be no free creativity as we know it. We would have naturally evolved some kind of ecological harmony with our surroundings, through the natural instinctive intelligence for group survival, but there would be no real freedom of disattached observation, study, and artistic creativity, and no possible sense of conscious freedom or freedom of consciousness.

Consciousness is the true spiritual source of creativity. It is within nature, working through nature, as the god-spirit of nature, but it is also trapped in the sensitive energies of nature. In other words, consciousness is not really free of its involvement in nature, and it is limited by the various forms or receptive vehicles of nature. Yet, consciousness itself is an expansive energy and so it eventually succeeds in freeing itself from bondage, the result being conscious man and woman, with a freed power of renewed creativity. This makes life interesting and full of surprises, not just mechanical or instinctual. Each moment can be a new wonder. But the field of wonder and the field of creativity is nature, and its vehicle is the body.

Consciousness without its body is a creative power without any place to express it; it is a wonder without any manifestation to wonder about; it is power to see beauty without any beauty to see. There needs to be a renewed relationship and a reunion between mind consciousness and the body nature. A re-emergence must now take place. I said that freedom of consciousness does not require separation from the body. At first the freedom does require a separation, but once the freedom is acquired, and consciousness has developed its own autonomy, then consciousness can re-merge with the body and still maintain its freedom. Consciousness can then live fully and freely in the body and creatively express through the body, without loosing itself in the united engagement. It becomes like a marriage, where the man and woman can remain as autonomous beings while intimately living, loving, and growing as one being. This is what is difficult for us to understand, that there could be freedom within the union.

The reunion of consciousness and body does not result in the consciousness becoming lost again in the body energies and instincts. Consciousness can surrender in to union with the body but still remain free in itself. If we knew this we would not fear the reunion, but because our memory only knows the unconscious engagement in body and the acquired separate autonomy from the body, those two distinct stages of being, we tend to fear the reunion as though we would descend back to the bondage of the body and lose completely the conscious freedom acquired. This is our basic fear of sex, that is, totally becoming engaged in the sexual experience because the energies of the body are so strong.

Sex becomes representative, in our minds, of loosing the individual sense of consciousness in the sensual energies, a kind of descent or falling back into the primal stage of body bondage. Of course, this is possible, and some people enjoy it. Applying the analogy of human relations, a man and a woman can evolve their relationship through their respective separation and autonomous inner growth, while coming together to blend and merge their acquired powers and qualities of being. The separation allows for a new kind of union. The separation allows for relationship.

The way to not loose consciousness is to not loose consciousness. Simple as that. You must bring consciousness fully into the body, or into the sexual experience. Bring all of yourself, all of consciousness, into the energetic activity and pleasure of the body. The new reunion is up to you. It is decided and enacted by your acquired freedom. The reunion is through your decision. It has to be this way because you have already been freed of instinct, so without the bondage of instinct consciousness, in its freedom, must make the choice, must make the first move, so to speak. Shiva must re-approach the body Shakti. Shiva is you, in your conscious freedom. You must move again into the earth, back into the body. But this is not back into the womb of the Mother Goddess, from which consciousness emerged as free and autonomous. The movement back into the earth body is now a different kind of relationship, not a surrender back into the Mother womb, or into the unconscious ground of existence, but into the pleasure and delight of the body, into the Sensual Goddess or the Expressive Goddess.

Consciousness comes back into the body, yet the experience is now different from entrapment, as it now finds freedom within the body and is able to express freely and creatively through the body. The body becomes the lover, the beloved of consciousness, the sensuous home of consciousness. The body is embraced and the body embraces. The body, like the woman, opens to the power of consciousness and enjoys the power of the penetrating light, brightening and delighting her. And consciousness enjoys the sensuous feel of the body, its energies and its expressive quality. So, both consciousness and body enjoy and delight in one another. Life and experience becomes ecstatic, sensuous and bright. Consciousness enjoys being in the body, being merged in the body, and the body enjoys the infusion with light. The body and consciousness blend and merge together in divine union, and the separation previously experienced ceases to be, as the light of consciousness fills throughout the body and as the body fully embraces the light. This reunion takes place through the energy of love. The conscious movement into and throughout the body is with love, and the body loves being fully infused with awakening light. It is truly a love reunion. This is the reunion of Shiva and Shakti, where consciousness is symbolized by the male-god aspect of divinity and the body symbolized by the female-goddess aspect. Both aspects are equally divine, and divine wholeness is found through their relationship. And the reunion is your own, the reunion of your own wholeness, where the division of being ceases and there is realization of the body-mind as one. We can understand this relationship of body and mind on many levels, cosmic, interrelation, and individual. The reunion is about man and woman, and it is also about man and woman as individuals, since both and and woman seek their own wholeness of body-mind. Man can discover his body through woman and woman can discover her enlightened consciousness through man, as man moves into the body of woman and woman allows her consciousness to expand through man. Sensuousness is viewed by the tantra as a female aspect of the whole psyche, while consciousness is viewed as a male aspect. The woman is sensuousness with the inner potential for clear consciousness, and the man is consciousness with the potential of outward sensuousness Each seeks to regain their wholeness. Man seeks to regain his sensuousness and woman seeks to regain her clarity of consciousness. The body is the outer sensuousness of man and consciousness is the inner clarity of woman.

But of course, this is mostly symbolic, not totally literal, since clarity of consciousness and sensuousness of the body are potentials of both man and woman. It is really more appropriate to view consciousness as seeking and discovering its body, while the body seeks and discovers its consciousness.

Certainly, woman are as conscious as men and men as sensuous as woman. What is really being expressed here how the male psyche and female psyche tend to identify itself, respectively. Yet many woman may identify more as consciousness than the body sensual, and the opposite may be true for many men nowadays

The literal truth is not as important as the symbolic. But in tantra there is a ritual involving the man and woman in this archetypal polarity, where the man enters into sensuality through the woman’s sensual body and the woman receives the infusion of consciousness through the man’s penetrating perception or gaze through the eyes. Yet this ritual can also be reversed when the man is in the receptive mode, usually below the woman and the woman above is in the active mode.

The split between consciousness and body is not merely symbolic, though, since it is a fundamental schism in our experience, both in terms of our self-being and our basic view of life. The body and earth is viewed as fundamentally unconscious, and consciousness is reflectively experienced as disembodied, from the body and from earth.

This division is not the enlightened view, as the tantric Buddhists might say, yet it is true in our present experience. The body is, in most cases, unconscious and uninhabited by the mind consciousness, and the mind consciousness is, mostly, disembodied or separated from the sensuous body and vital earth. It’s important to recognize this, then healing is possible. But we shouldn’t think of this separation as fundamentally wrong or sick. As already explained the division is a needed part of our existence. The problem is when the division has become pathological or habitually fixed.

There should be a kind of rhythm between separation and union, or an ease in entering the mode of union. This is where the sexual ritual is useful, for here they can be this ease between separation and union. In deep sex there is a rhythm of coming into union and moving out of union. There is the potential for increased individualized consciousness and intensified mergence, a rhythm of these two modes of experience. At times there is deep mergence of consciousness within the body, and at other times there is a transcendental freedom of consciousness from the body. Both modes are significant and have their rightful place in the divine experience, and neither mode is the sole aim of spiritual practice.

Such is the bipolar view of tantra, which in not a one directional path, but a bipolar path of embracing the opposite modes and being in rhythm between them. Appropriate to the tantra, there are multiple levels of meaning to the above teachings.

Divinity, or Spiritual Being, has polarized aspects. It is one unity in its pure essence but polarized in its experienced existence. Thus, divinity is both immanent and transcendent. Some religious teachings view divinity in only one of its aspects. In one view God, or spiritual reality, transcends this known world and is beyond this earth life, while in another view the spiritual reality is none other than this world, this life. In the former view this earth existence is separate from the divine world or divine being, and thus it is of insignificant value.

In the latter view there is no reality or spiritual powers beyond what we find on earth and in our physical existence. Both views are false, limited, partial. This earthly existence is immanently divine and imbued with spiritual powers and qualities. This life is the expression of spiritual truth or spiritual being. That means you, your life, and this world of experience, including all people and all things. All is a spiritual expression, in this particular time and place in the universe. But that doesn’t mean, necessarily, that all is perfect or perfectly whole.

Perfect isn’t the appropriate word to use, for it implies that this world couldn’t be any better, any more whole, harmonious or beautiful. This world is divine but not complete, for the world at any one time is in process to completion and wholeness. It is more appropriate to view the world as not perfect and to recognize certain manifestations in the world as imperfect presentations of the divine. Some manifestations, in thought or deed, are unhealthy, or based on ignorance or paranoia. If we are honest to our hearts and feelings, we will not merely dismiss or deny negativity and stupidity in the world or even in ourselves. It does no good to walk around denying that your back hurts. If it hurts then do something to heal it - stretch, exercise, or seek some help. You, like this world, are on a path to wholeness or greater wholeness and harmony. If you view negativity or see life as somewhat imperfect or not completely right, then this shows that you have some greater divine vision of what can be, of what could be possible. And that vision should not be denied. It should be nurtured, as a spiritual intuition of what can be, with some required effort or attainment.

This is the view of tantra. You are divine. Your body is divine. The world is divine. Yet, there is more to divinity than what is presently known and expressed. There are greater spiritual powers than you have ever experienced or this world has ever manifested. These powers, or qualities, are available but not yet fully or perfectly expressed, only partially expressed as yet at this time and in this space. The spiritual world of potential is in process of unfoldment. Whatever is, there is always a greater perfection possible, and this greater possibility is part of the transcendent aspect of divinity, like a latent seed of potential.

Also in the tantra teachings there is a spiritually bipolar attitude. On the one hand, there is the attitude that evolution of spiritual expression is in process, that there are paths to greater wholeness, that there is something greater to aim for and attain. This attainment involves both consciousness and body. It is both an attainment of conscious realization, or divine knowing, and of physical expression through the body and on the earth. This is what makes the path meaningful.

But on the other hand, there is the spiritual attitude of accepting and respecting what is right now, what is in the moment of experience. This could be called pathlessness. It is being fully in the moment, being fully in love in the moment. It can be called the way of receptivity. Instead of holding a visionary aim of what is presently not, and actively moving toward that attainment, one accepts what is, one flows with the nature of what is.

In this attitude you are not trying to get anywhere and you have no sense of anywhere else to be but right here where you presently are. This is being in the Tao, in the nature of things as they are, not as they could be or might be. It is the beautiful contentment. It is the emptiness of self and struggle. It is complete openness, complete openness to life as divine. It is the attitude that all experience in this moment is divine, and that one discovers the divine by being fully in this moment. These two different attitudes, both spiritual, can be found in the sexual experience. At times one may be actively reaching for greater pleasure, or building the energies of excitement, or trying new ways to please and delight one’s partner. Then, at other times one may be just receptively flowing in the moment and enjoying how it is without trying to make it better or different or reaching for greater heights. In the former there is active initiative and attainment to greater enjoyment. In the latter there is receptive acceptance and enjoyment in the aimless moment. Both make the sexual experience, though for many people the way of contentful acceptance needs more nurturance and practice. Most people are too one-sided in daily living, being overly goal oriented and not acceptingly open to the immanent divinity present right here and everywhere. This open way of enjoying the present, enjoying the flow of life as it is, is the goddess perspective, the female attitude of divinity. For the goddess is the divine immanence. She is the divine beauty, uncovered aesthetically in each moment. From this view, from the goddess perspective, all is divine, all is beautiful. Everything, everyone, every moment is radiant with divine immanence. This, this world, this is where you shall discover, uncover the divine truth, divine love, divine beauty. She is here. This is Her world. This is Her body. And you are Her. You are one with Her Being. This is the divine mergence, where and when you merge with the divine immanence, the Goddess Being in the present moment, surrounding, embracing and flowing through you.

The divine god is different. He is the transcendent divinity. He is the greater, the more, the other than what is. He judges and destroys the outworn, and he brings into this world new seeds of potential. He moves you onward to further heights of enjoyment and attainment. He inspires you to seek beyond what is and gives you His strength to attain His greater vision. At times He is restless, impatient and almost frantic in His struggle to penetrate into this life, this world of expression. He moves through you. You know His energy. He works through you, guides you, and empowers the struggle of attainment and evolution. You are His expression, but you can never be Him, for He is always greater, always stronger, always wiser, always the great Visionary and always the unattainable perfection. Thus is the transcendent god, known by many names in many religions. Yet, the divine god is not without relation to this life, this earth, this expression called yourself. The divine god relates with the divine goddess. He moves through Her, inspires Her, and leads Her to greater heights of enjoyed spiritual expression. And She receives Him into Her being and gives birth to His seeds of potential. He finds His divinity through Her, for She is the immanence expressing the divine potential. But we call on Him for new guidance, new direction, and we invoke His greater power to work through us and transform our existence.

Somehow, in the relation of god and goddess, or in the relation of the bipolar spiritual attitudes, there can be a new form of divinity, a more relational synthesis of wholeness. We could call this the third form of divinity, the divine child of god and goddess, the divine human, with bisexual potential. But we cannot really speak about this, for any description will, inevitably, reveal a sexual or polarized qualification. The closest description to this third divinity is an unfoldment of spiritual potential from within the present moment of manifestation. This is the spiritual attitude of opening to evergreater, evermore beautiful divine unfoldment through what is present around us and in us, coming through the immanent but not limited by it. This is not so much a balance as it is a synthesis of the above described polarity. It is more true to the divine reality, but that doesn’t make the polarity of divinity insignificant, since there can’t be a synthesis without polarity. The synthesis is most significant, but balance is significant as well since most people are out of balance or one-sided in their spiritual view and attitude.

Most modern people are overly goal-oriented, both in their spiritual approach and general life-style. Related to this, is the lopsided devotion to the transcendental male-god and our neglect of the divinity of nature and the body. Such lopsidedness in our way of being, in our approach to life, creates an out of balance psyche and a kind of cultural neurosis. The transcendental father god has for a long time been dominating our mythos and collective psyche. But now we are moving into a new age, as the immanent mother goddess renews Herself in our hearts and minds. The body of the goddess, as creation or nature, will once again be revered and worshiped. The goddess will once again become the great power in our lives, as we return to earth nature through the necessity of ecological survival and the enjoyment of natural beauty. The spiritual value of this natural creation will once again assume significance in our collective psyche and in our approach to life. The transcendental god can still be acknowledged and invoked with respect and reverence, but not anymore to devalue the immanent spirit or goddess. We will gladly enter into the immanent goddess, find blissful delight within Her presence, and be healed by Her loving embrace. We can still be open to the transcendental light from beyond this world, and allow our minds to be penetrated by cosmic realization, but the energies and beauty of the earth and body will draw us closer and deeper into the divine immanence. The transcendental divinity gives us the experience of being a cosmic spirit visiting and exploring this earth planet. It even gives us a detached humour about life, as well as a lightness and freedom of being. It also gives the power of detached observation and impartial reasoning, which has developed the scientific and technological mind.

It also gives one the sense of a divine purpose with something important to accomplish. These positive qualities of experience do not need to be lost, but if not blended with the immanent love divine, the transcendental experience may turn into a cold irreverence and insensitivity for life and the world we are part of. We need the spirit of divine immanence, the goddess divine, in order to feel intimately related and in love with life, and enjoy each moment of the living experience. The goddess gives us a gentle, loving acceptance of life and ourselves. This spirit is more natural in the psyche of woman, and so the woman will once again emerge as the great teacher and model of divinity, though her teaching will reveal the distinct qualities of the immanent goddess rather than the transcendental god.

She will bring us back to the earth and back to our bodies. And man will learn to serve woman, the earth and all life. This is the news of the coming age. But the goddess will not dominate the god spirit. She will love and embrace Him and finally reveal His Light through Her Body, the living earth. And a new age of divine synthesis will be born. A new humanity will emerge. Part of the necessary work to be accomplished must involve the male psyche. This has to do with man’s transformed relation with himself and with woman, and of course with the earth. The great archetype for man is the Hero. In the past this has manifested as the warrior, who conquers new land and dominates the earth with power and reason. In some respect this warrior spirit is itself a true divine quality, but in its extreme, and without a reconciling balance with the gentle female spirit, it inevitably leads to pathological cruelty and destruction, and we have seen enough of that in recent history. The warrior spirit should be a protector of life, of ecology and community. The warrior should serve life, giving to life and not taking life. The world needs men who are warriors for the good, the true and the beautiful. This is how the male psyche or god spirit can express itself in service to life. The warrior spirit will always be part of the male psyche, and within the male aspect of woman as well, so this quality of power must be applied for the good of the whole and not merely be an expression of greed, prejudice and hatred. Once the warrior realigns himself with love immanence, and comes from the heart, he will then truly be the servant of the goddess, which is his higher function in life. The warrior transforms into the Hero. This is the great male archetype, which encompasses the Lover, the Healer, the Magician-Priest and the Savior. The Hero is truly the divine lover, the magical transformer and healer of earth and woman. He has great magical and heroic power, and he uses this power to free the divine qualities latent or imprisoned in the collective psyche and in the body earth. The Hero comes forth to free the imprisoned goddess, the princess beauty, and all the divine female qualities. He uses his power of determined accomplishment, clear decision and enlightened love to free the woman goddess within and serve Her divine unfoldment. There are different levels of meaning to this. On the one hand, the man as the conscious Hero penetrates into his own psyche and embraces or re-collects his female goddess spirit from Her suppressed imprisonment or latency. To do this he must, as a warrior, struggle through the demonic suppressor of culturalised male conscience, the super-ego dweller of the threshold. In other words, the man must break through his socially conditioned thoughts about what a man should be, which forms the barrier to embracing the goddess within, his female qualities of the psyche, his anima spirit. Once he breaks free of this conditioned super-conscience, the Hero is able to feel the goddess spirit within, to touch Her and allow Her to freely emerge out from the darkness of unconscious imprisonment and into the light of consciousness, and there from carry Her with him into self-expression. As She emerges from within him, the goddess spirit emerging from within the man, the male and female qualities blend, merge and unite into a new synthesis of self-being. This is the great transformation of man, which will creatively unfold throughout his life and evolve a new relation with woman and with earth. It is the beginning of the unfolding wholeness of man.

This psychological wholeness, this alchemical blending of the female divinity within the male psyche, is one of the great purposes of the tantra, yet the Hero has another great work to accomplish, other than the retrieval of his female divine aspect. The true Hero has the ability to free and release the goddess spirit in woman. The divine goddess is invoked through woman by man, the male lover. The goddess divinity is only latent in woman. She is within the woman, that is, within the woman’s potential, but not necessarily realized or expressed by the woman. The goddess is not suppressed in the woman, for society does not condition Her suppression as it does with man, but the goddess is still hidden and veiled within. Her release into the light is dependent on others bringing Her out. That may be difficult for women to believe. One is more likely to believe that the goddess emergence is solely dependent on the woman bringing out this potential of being. Of course, the woman must want the goddess to emerge and be allowing of that emergence, yet the goddess spirit needs also to be invoked from without the woman. This is because the goddess emerges in relational response to the needs and desires of others.

This is one of Her essential qualities. She responds to love and need. The mother goddess emerges in response to needs of children or in caring, nurturing response to others. The wisdom goddess, or High Priestess, emerges in response to the need for guiding others to spiritual truth and is also dependent on someone or a group being receptive and trusting of Her wisdom. The lover goddess emerges in response to the desires of a lover and in response to being loved as a lover. Thus, the emergence of the great goddess, in any of Her aspects, is dependent on some outside need and on some outside receptivity or recognition. A woman cannot really discover the love goddess within her without a lover to recognize and invoke Her. She cannot really know the goddess in expression unless there is this outside wish and receptivity for the expression, which brings forth the expression in relationship. It is only when one is given the opportunity and receptive circumstances to express what is within potential that one truly realizes this potential as an actuality of the self. Then, the goddess becomes a realized truth of being and not merely a theoretical concept.

So the woman needs a lover to bring forth the divine lover within her. The hero lover is the one who brings out the goddess lover from within another. He accomplishes this role through the power of love and recognition. The goddess within woman needs to be recognized and loved, through which She opens up and emerges. She is then released from the dark depths of unconscious potential into the light of consciousness and becomes integrated into the woman’s realization of being. The male Hero brings forth the inherent womaness of woman. He is able to recognize the inherent love goddess within woman and seduce Her out into the expression through love and receptivity to Her power.

The Hero’s role is fundamentally dual. He is active in his penetrating perception of the love goddess, as a potential awaiting the fullness of expression, or awaiting release into the light, and he must also be completely receptive to the power of the emerging goddess. This is the key to the invocation of the goddess. He must be able to actively recognize the goddess as the woman’s divine potential, to focus his penetrating light into what is hidden within the woman, and he must be allowing of that goddess to powerfully move and effect him by Her sexuality and love. Both aspects of the Hero are needed. The latter is probably the most difficult for man, whose tendency is to remain in control, but he must heroically and fearlessly allow the love power of the goddess to capture and transform him. Only the Hero can courageously and trustingly allow this great goddess power to seduce and take him as She will. Thus, the man Hero must have the power to take the woman, to draw Her out from deep within the castle, but when released She must be allowed to fully express Herself, which is a power transformative and destructive to the man’s controlling ego.

He must allow himself to be loved and taken into the love power of the goddess. The simultaneity of an active and receptive attitude and expression in man is central to many of the tantric sexual rituals. At many times the man expresses one particular polarized aspect, such as either an active, taking role or a receptive, being taken role. Yet once these polarized roles are mastered, or experienced in depth, one can move toward a synthesis or simultaneity of the polarized expressions. This itself is an alchemical, transformative path to greater wholeness. This path involves a blending or balancing of the active and receptive attitudes or modes of love expression.

The usual tendency in love-making is for man is be in an active mode or attitude and woman in the receptive. The woman usually prefers man as the active one and the man usually prefers woman as the receptive one. This polarization of attitude and preference in expression is most natural for man and woman. It is most congruent with the bio-structural realities of man and woman, and it is not about one sex being stronger and the other weaker, but it is to do with man possessing the tool for deep active thrusting, which does get strong and firm, and woman possessing the receptacle, which is soft and yielding and which allows the man to enter into the woman. Within the sexual mergence of man and woman, the man has what it takes to enter into the body of the woman and the woman has the right body for holding the man within her. These obvious bio-structural realities are not in any way trivial. In fact, they are most spiritually significant, literally in the sexual activity itself and symbolically in the spiritualised sexual realization

The tantra acknowledges and affirms this natural tendency of man and woman in their sexual experience with each other, and yet the tantra shows a further step in the sexual ritual which involves a blending, balancing, and synthesis of the active and receptive modes. For man this means being in the active mode, taking charge and taking the woman on the great journey to higher ecstasy, while simultaneously receiving the woman’s sexual charge and allowing her love power to take him on the journey to ecstatic heights. The man must simultaneously be in the active mode of empowering the excitement and enjoyment and in the receptive mode of being taken by the power of woman.

He must be both leader and follower. He must be both in control and vulnerable. This simultaneous blending of the polarized modes of attitude and expression will create an alchemical synthesis of the love energies and bring about a higher and deeper experience of ecstasy and union. This allows a new, more magnificent and ecstatic experience for both the man and the woman. When man is capable of this synthesis in his own mode of sexual experience and expression, the woman will feel and unfold through this.

The Hero is a real man for the woman because of his ability to actively take the woman and release her latent sexual energies, while simultaneously receiving her powerful energies and allowing these to transform him. Then, the love goddess power is uncovered, released, and brought into actualized expression. For woman the goddess power is latent within her body and emerges from the body. The psyche and power of the goddess is within the body, not the mind. The realization of the goddess comes from within the body, for the goddess is the great power within the body. The intentional god power of man is able to enter her body and draw forth this goddess energy into the light of conscious experience. He enters her body with active intentional consciousness, expressing through his hands and kisses, and especially embodied through his vajra strength. She allows him to thrust into her vulnerable tenderness, penetrating into the very psyche of her body, and openly trusting his power to transform her with love. She must trust his love, that his power comes from love, then she will psychologically allow his power to take her on the transformative journey. She becomes completely receptive, vulnerable, open and responsive to the flow of love energies, as activated by the man. This is the receptive mode of woman, and through this complete receptivity the love power of the inner goddess will begin to emerge in greater force. The love goddess, in her active mode, will begin to respond to the active energies of the man. The woman will feel these hidden latent love energies emerge from deep within her body. She will feel a new power burst forth, a natural and powerful energetic impulse which radiates outward to the man, actively embracing him and carrying him to greater fulfillment. And the man will feel this power come forth from the woman, where upon he will either fear it and thus withdraw away from its embracing power, retreating back to his controlling ego, or he will allow this released power to embrace his own power and carry him into union, dissolving his separative ego into the love being of the goddess. Ultimately, the man must accept the love goddess as the all-embracing power, as far more powerful than his own god power. He must ultimately worship and surrender to Her, for She is the very being of union and being in union within Her is his ultimate fulfillment. This is the receptive mode of man. Yet man cannot just rely on the goddess power of woman to take him through the journey to spiritual sexual fulfillment. He must also be master of the active mode and express his natural inner god power to bring forth the goddess from latency within the body psyche of woman. Man, in his active spiritual mode, is the key to the door of the goddess. He is the Hero who opens the secret door and releases the goddess power of woman. Yet, in performing this heroic act, he must also be willing to surrender and give himself up to that greater love power of the goddess. Thus, the Hero initiates his own death or suicide, which gives new spiritual life to the woman and brings him into union with her. The Hero, thus, serves the emergence of the goddess within woman, releasing a spiritual love power which will ultimately enfold and dissolve him into Her Love Being. The Hero, the male god in his mastery of expression, is the key for the empowering of the goddess woman, that is, if she will first receptively allow his power to take her, to penetrate to her very core of being.

She must first allow herself to be transformed by man, by the male spiritual energy. She must trustingly surrender her ego control to his god power, allowing this power to bring forth what is hidden deep inside her, the secret woman as yet unrealized and unexpressed. Only then can this great goddess power be released from deep within her body, and she will then uncover the deeper nature of her being and find herself expressing a love power as never known before. She will then be fully woman. She will then realize the full nature of her womaness and be expressive of her own goddess power. And this will blow the man away. This power will capture the man and destroy his separative ego. This embracing love power will actually assimilate the man into union, and this will be his true fulfillment, within Her love being.

So, the woman finds her fulfillment through man and man finds his fulfillment through woman, though only when both are able and willing to be in both the active and receptive modes. In the above ritual of transformation and emergence, the woman is first receptive and allowing in relation to the male spiritual energy and the man is first active and intentional in relation to the female spiritual energy.

This is the archetypal ritual, which is most natural to our sexual being, though a reversal of this is possible and appropriate at other times. There are no set rules in tantra and experiment is its ultimate principle. Yet we must begin somewhere and it is most natural to begin with man as the active and woman in the receptive. Then, as this mode of expression deepens, the opposite mode can gradually come into expression or be allowed to take place. In experience one mode may spontaneously and suddenly give way to the other, and then reverse back again. There may be many experienced reversals of the modes as they blend together, yet one kind of polarized energy will usually be greater in the man or woman, as the opposite energy or mode gradually comes more into power and expression. The man will gradually, though often through sudden transformations, become more receptive and surrendering, while the woman will gradually become more active and expressive in her power.

Yet, the way of this ritual is not merely to reverse the energies or modes of the man and woman. The purpose and natural path of the ritual is in the blending, synthesis, and simultaneity of the active and receptive modes of being.

The woman may enter into profound experiences of the goddess in Her active love mode, feeling and expressing the active power of the goddess, her spiritual womaness, yet this goddess emerging is actually empowered by the simultaneous receptivity of the male spiritual energy. She gives forth through the receiving. Both modes or attitudes are needed. Both ultimately depend on the other, which is why their blending synthesis produces ever higher energies and experiences, and when there is simultaneous experience and expression of these polarized modes of being, there is wholeness of being in consciousness throughout the body.

Remember too that the goddess has both active and receptive aspects or modes of being, so the woman discovers both aspects of being the goddess by way of expressing both aspects of Her being. This leads to the complete realization of being a whole spiritual woman. Likewise, the man should not merely remain solely in his active mode, and neither should he merely find contentment in the receptive mode, that is, if he wishes to realize his wholeness of being and full actualization of his inherent god powers. The god Himself has both active and receptive aspects, active in service to life and woman, and receptive in surrendering to and allowing of the emerging goddess power through woman and the earth body. If man were to just remain in the active mode, he could not receive the love energies of the goddess woman. He might well serve her opening and enjoyment, but he would not experience her emerging power, and ultimately that deeper, latent, active power of the woman could not blossom into full expression without the man open, allowing and receptive to it. Her active love expression would actually be frustrated by his unwillingness to yield vulnerably to her embracing love. So you see the interdependence of these energies, these powers, this god and goddess. And if the man were to come into the blissful state of complete receptivity, openness and surrender, and then contentfully remain there, without any further expression of his active power, then the ritual would gradually conclude as the active energies, now coming solely from the woman, gradually dissipate without charge from the man. The ritual may conclude this way, which is fine, but if it is to be maintained further the man must express at least some of his inherent active energy, the active male-god energy. The ultimate realized wholeness of the man is through both modes of being, simultaneously expressing. This leads to wholeness of the man and wholeness in the love ritual, and it also leads to wholeness of the woman. If the woman can nurture and cooperate with these polarized aspects of man, she can help him reveal and express his own male wholeness, she can actually nurture and seduce into expression the god power latent within man. By desiring and allowing the man to express his sexual god power by thrusting deep into her body and taking her vulnerability, and reveling in her sensuousness and beauty, she is nurturing the greater emergence and realization of the god power through man. He comes to know his own inherent power through her receptivity, a power which is not limited by past expression but can unfold evermore fully and with ever-greater endurance and strength. And through the power of goddess love actively expressing through the woman, the man is given the opportunity to experience the surrendering and allowing qualities of love. He is able to fully become a true love Hero, able to serve woman, surrender into woman, and enter union with woman, union with the goddess, union with Love Itself. Thus, man can discover himself, his wholeness, and his powers, through and by woman, by the power of the goddess woman.

The god power within man is brought forth in an identified expression. The man knows himself to be the god expression, as that power is expressed. One realizes the power as one’s own. Similarly, the goddess power within woman is becomes an identified expression, as she realizes this power to be her own, as it is being expressed. The man expresses his manhood and his level of mastery, and the woman reveals her secret womaness at some level of radiance. The knowing realization of one’s spiritual power, whether a male or female power, depends on the degree of its expression.

We know our inner power, and find complete confidence and integrity in this, when it is realized through actual expression, and not merely thought about or talked about. This expression requires a receptacle or relation. Self-expression, or expression coming from the inner self, needs someone to express to or be expressive for. The other actually confirms the expression by their feeling and experiencing it, and we need this confirmation by the other to know that we have actually given some quality of love to another, that this other has truly felt and received what has come out into expression from our mysterious depths.

Then, the power of one’s expression is confirmed and more of oneself can be revealed, especially when one is evermore certain of its reception and enjoyment. When we realize that our self-expression, the expression of our love or power, is felt and enjoyed, then we find joy in this truly real transfer of love energy. The other’s enjoyment of what we give to them is not only a confirmation of the love expression being truly manifested, that is, having an actual power in the world of relations, but such positive feedback brings joy back to us, as we receive their expression of joy and satisfaction with us. What I’m talking about is being received and enjoyed by the other, and truly knowing this receptivity and enjoyment of the other. One’s spiritual love power is then confirmed by the other, and so realized as an actual expression of oneself, and there is an acknowledged flow of enjoyment between the love partners, as well as a flow of confidence in the love giving. We each find joy in the giving and in the being received and in the joyful appreciation given back. A flow of love moves between the partners as each expresses their power of love, and each receives and expresses back their enjoyment of the other. This flow of love power and response becomes evermore powerful and enjoyably intense, as each gives freely and with confidence, and each receives freely and spontaneously responds with enjoyment, and each delights in feeling the other enjoy them.

All this relates to an acknowledgement of one’s spiritual sexual love power, which is predominately a different quality for the man and the woman. Through the opportunity given by the receptive woman and his successful expression of love which moves the woman and brings forth the deeper love power within her, he realizes his own god power, his own spiritual male power, a power to initiate the love flow and successfully give joy to the woman. The woman realizes her own goddess power, her own spiritual female power, through its confirmed effective embracing and transformation of the man. The goddess power is essentially the power to embrace, enfold, and bring the other inside the divine love, dissolving separation into union. The goddess power attracts and seduces the male power into its enfolding being, into its love. It is primarily a receiving quality of power, though it actively receives, it actively embraces and brings the other into it. It is transformative in its ability to assimilate any separative consciousness into its unity. The male god power is different in that it pushes outward, versus pulling inward. It breaks through limitation and inhibition, and transforms through force and initiative. It forces change and initiates flow, which is why it is viewed as primarily active and outgoing, while the goddess power is effective through attraction, seduction, and drawing energy into itself. The goddess power is like a magnetic power, while the god power is like an electrical power.

The man needs to realize his god power and the woman needs to realize her goddess power. Yet both man and woman can also discover and incorporate into their self-knowing the opposite sexual spiritual power. This involves a synthesis of the god and goddess within the conscious psyche, and it results in the conscious wholeness of the human being. The god power is latent within the woman and the goddess power is latent within the man. For some this other sexual power will feel as the unrealized other half of oneself, and for some this will feel as the shadow or dark side of oneself which has been repressed by the dominating sexual ego. In tantra we say that the man has a latent goddess spirit within, and woman has a latent god spirit within. The goddess spirit is the female spiritual power or quality, and the god spirit is the male spiritual power or quality. These powers or qualities are the essential aspects of the one divine being, and they are the essential divine potentials within both man and woman. The true man is essentially a god, possessing and expressing the male god powers. The true woman is essentially a goddess, possessing and expressing the female goddess powers. Respectively, these become our primary sexual identities. Yet we need not be limited by such polarization or segregation of spiritual potentials. Each of the respective powers or potentials of expression can be developed and experienced distinctly from its polarized opposite. In fact, the respective distinct powers of the god and goddess need to each be developed partly in separation from one another. In other words, the man needs to fully experience the distinct qualities of the god power expressing through him, and the woman needs to fully experience the distinct qualities of the goddess, fully experiencing herself as the goddess in expression. This gives the woman the sense of being a full woman and the man the sense of being a full man. But neither man nor woman need to be limited by only one polarized aspect of the complete divinity. The goddess spirit can also express through man and the god spirit also through woman. This other divine quality is actually felt to be `the other’, the `other half of oneself’ or that `other kind of divine power’ as found in the opposite sex. The value of the sexual ritual is that you can find that other power in the opposite sex, and experience your relation to it. Yet, you can do more than just experience this other kind of power from the opposite sex. That is, you can experience this other power within yourself as well.

For the man he must relax into the gentle love nature of his being and come into a deeply receptive nature. The sexual ritual gives him this opportunity, for he can relax in love with the woman and receptively allow her love energy to transform him. He allows himself to become as woman, receptive, open and vulnerable. Then, the goddess spirit lives through him. He experiences that gentle, magnetically receptive quality of the goddess love. He essentially relaxes into that embracing love quality of the goddess, and in so doing he actually experiences the goddess emerging through him. This, then, gradually brings about wholeness of being, as the goddess quality blends with the god quality.

And it is through relationship with the woman that makes possible this self synthesis of divine energies. For the woman she needs to use her inherent power to give joy to the man. She must uninhibitedly initiate the active expression of love. She must actively serve the man, not just by receiving him or feeling love for him, but actively and physically giving to him. She gives to him as he gives to her. She loves him as a man loves a woman. She takes him as a man takes a woman, which is different from how the goddess lover takes a man by seduction and receptive embrace. Do you see the difference? The woman must become as her ideal of the man. The woman knows how a man can best love her, how she would like to be taken in love. These feels natural for the woman. Yet in order to bring out the god quality within woman, in order to realize a greater wholeness of being, she needs to initiate an opposite approach which is the male approach of loving. Of course, this approach isn’t exclusively male at all, for it is within the woman’s potential as well. But the woman may feel that this male-kind of approach is not right for a woman to express, that it is only right for the man and a woman should not express this `masculine’ kind of love, as she sees it. She may even secretly want to express love as she likes the man to express love, in that kind of assertive and outgoing manner, but she feels she shouldn’t because it is not the way of the woman. Of course, the man might also feel he shouldn’t experience love in the way that he feels woman does, that is, in a female kind of way, and so he too might suppress that sexually opposite kind of experience or expression of love. But this limited view of oneself and what one should be, this limited or suppressed self-experience, is what divides us from wholeness. We must free ourselves from this self-imposed bondage. We must open ourselves to what we negate in ourselves. The man can experience the love quality of the goddess, like a woman, and the woman can express the love quality of the god, like a man. We can experience and express both god and goddess, without fearing that we will be any less of a man or any less of a woman. If you know you are already a real god man, able to express powers of the god, or if you know you are already a real woman, fully expressive of the goddess power, then you need not fear being the opposite as well, you need not fear being any less than who you are. Be complete.

That is the message of the tantra. Be all you are, all you are capable of being, experiencing the completeness and wholeness of being, of the divine being. For instance, woman can be just as assertive and expressively outgoing as man, and man can be just as receptively sensitive and seductively embracing as woman. And at the same time, neither man nor woman need to lose any of the qualities already powerful within them. The opposites can blend with each other and synthesis into a greater wholeness. They can actually nurture each other and not conflict with the each other. Man and woman can learn from each other and grow whole together in their relationship. And this is not just about man and woman. It is about ourselves and the world around us. It is about relationship in all sorts of ways. The sexual ritual gives an opportunity to be whole and express the bipolar qualities of spiritual being, but such experience and expression need not be confined to the sexual ritual, which is just the archetype for all life expression.

Now, some teachings might say that this other power or quality, this opposite half of oneself, is really the other aspect of the god or goddess. In other words, some teachings might say that what I’m calling the god power or quality of expression is none other than a balancing aspect of the goddess, the great goddess Herself possessing these polarized qualities. And one could say the same concerning the great god, in relation to man. Under this terminology, the woman finds complete wholeness as she expresses the goddess in Her bipolar aspects, in both Her magnetically embracing aspects and in Her electrically assertive aspects.

So here she can leave the god divinity just to man, since all the qualities are different aspects of the one goddess divinity. Likewise, in this spiritual system, the god Himself possesses all those qualities or powers which I have termed as goddess powers. The god, for man, is spiritually bipolar, as is the goddess for woman, so man can discover his wholeness through the bipolar expression of the god, and thus he need not be bothered by the goddess. In other words, in this system of teaching, the man is just the expression of the god and the woman is just the expression of the goddess. The god is for man and the goddess is for woman, and neither really need the other since both god and goddess are each the complete divinity themselves. This kind of teaching, or system, is perfectly acceptable and compatible with the tantra. It’s just a matter of how one views the great divinity. I present this other view in order that there be no unnecessary argument, because the essential wisdom is potentially there in this other system as well as in the teachings of the tantra as I am describing. My presentation of the divine wisdom, though, seems to make greater sense, because the man can feel a goddess or female type of power within himself, and the opposite is true for the woman. Also, a dangerous distortion of truth might occur if women and men were to consider themselves the exclusive expressions of different divinities, that is, men would have their god within and women would have their goddess within, and men and women would feel further divided into their respective sexes. Therefore, it seems more to the truth to view the man as possessing both masculine and feminine qualities, essentially the same ones as woman, while also respecting the differences, but equal value, between a male kind of power and a female kind of power, as archetypally found in the sexual ritual.