Marnia Robinson wrote the book Cupid's Poisoned Arrow with the subtitle From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships (see Cupid's Poisoned Arrow). In it she clearly shows from her own life experience and from that of friends and others why most sexual relationships sooner or later run into trouble. Often relationships become more turbulent about 2 years after the couple gets together, and the more passionate they start the sooner they seem to fall apart.
Marnia came to the conclusion that the frequency of orgasms is a main factor in this relationship deterioration, and she provides a wealth of scientific support for her theory. It has to do with the interaction of sex hormones with dopamine, the hormone of action and addiction, and with oxytocin, the hormone of bonding. She shows that basically the same process also takes place with animals. I have written more about this in Healing with Sexual Energy.
Basically our falling in love at a certain age is a built-in biological program that induces us to procreate. We are at the mercy of hormones that control our emotions and leave us very little conscious control over our falling in love and falling out of it again when it has served its purpose. This program is not in the interest of our happiness but rather it is there to ensure the survival of the species, and that means, especially for males, to mate with a large number of suitable partners. This is the poison part of Cupid's arrow that Marnia so convincingly wrote about.
Three Gifts of Cupid
But falling in love also brings opportunities. If we approach it in the right way, we can turn our affection for each other into three great gifts: a harmonious relationship, improved health, and accelerated spiritual growth.
Our biological mating program is not conducive for our long-term emotional happiness which thrives on long-term close bonding, and also the well-being of our children depends on it. Marnia shows in her book that we can achieve such long-term close bonding, and not only remain in love but even deepen our love by adopting the non-orgasmic sexual practice of Karezza. This is a method that focuses on caressing and exchange of tender feelings which stimulate the oxytocin response rather than the release of dopamine as during orgasmic love-making.
With this we can avoid the poison on Cupid's arrow and instead utilise the first of the great gifts attached to falling in love: we can now consciously transform short-term romantic love into a long-lasting harmonious relationship based on friendship, tender feelings, unconditional love and a common goal.
Modern couples commonly start a family without understanding the importance and practice of emotional bonding. They just do not think about it, and the stresses of bringing up children, unsatisfying work, and an increasingly problematic sex life tend to drive them further and further apart. Only those who succeed in replacing their fading romantic love with a strong friendship based on common interests will be able to remain together in a satisfying long-term relationship, but even these relatively few 'lucky' couples will greatly benefit by additionally engaging in regular emotional bonding activities.
For step by step details on how to accept Cupid's first gift and convert a conventional sexual relationship into one based on Karezza with long-term emotional bonding see Marnia's book Cupid's Poisoned Arrow and her website at http://reuniting.info/. Also see KAREZZA – The Art of Making Real Love and Spiritual Sex.
The second gift of Cupid in the form of improved health will simply and automatically follow from a stress-free and close-bonding relationship. I have given many examples of this in Parts 4 and 5 of my article Healing with Sexual Energy. Further health benefits and even rejuvenation will result if we utilise the third gift of Cupid and transform our sexual relationship into a spiritual partnership.
Before I can go into any details I first need to explain my concept of spiritual growth and its connection with sexuality.
What is Spiritual Growth?
I see 'spiritual growth' as being synonymous with 'evolution of consciousness'. Consciousness does not exist in isolation, it is bound to energy structures, and therefore evolution of consciousness is related to the formation of new energy structures. Our evolution proceeds through seven main energy levels, and accordingly as humans we have or will develop seven energy bodies to be able to operate on these different levels. Each energy body has a main vortex system for energy distribution which we call a chakra or energy center. Some psychics can see energy bodies and chakras; good illustrations are in the book Hands of Light by Barbara Brennan (Bantam Books). You may also see my article Bio-Energies for more details.
The first, base or root chakra is at the tailbone and channels etheric energies that form our etheric body and which, like rivers, flow along the acupuncture meridians. The etheric body is the template for our biological body. This energy has many names in different cultures and is now commonly called Chi, Ki or Qi. It is the basis of light, electricity and magnetism. Chi is the energy that makes our muscles move, and we obtain it from food, breathing, and during sleep.
The second, sacral or sex chakra is just above the pubic bone and channels life-force energy, also called bio-energy, Orgone, Od or Odic force. Therefore sexual energy is simply concentrated life-force which I will call Od for short in this article. Od forms the blueprint that moulds Chi into the body of a living entity, such as an animal, plant, cell or microbe, and is required to keep biological systems functional. Od is commonly coupled with Chi as in sunlight, emissions from crystals or magnets, and in raw food but it is absent in cooked food, biologically dead systems and synthetic substances, even if they still supply Chi.
The third or solar plexus chakra is between the pit of the stomach and the navel and channels emotional energy. It nourishes the astral body which is rather colourful and may extend 15 to 30 cm beyond the skin. This is the level of consciousness at which humanity mostly operates. Ideally the first and second chakra of a young and healthy human are strong and balanced but the third chakra is still unbalanced, giving rise to strongly fluctuating and often negative emotions. Our work at this level is to develop and maintain a feeling of being connected to the rest of humanity or society, being cared for, safe, protected and contented.
The fourth or heart chakra is in the middle of the chest. This is the chakra on which we need to focus to get to the next stage of our evolution. We approach this level with an attitude of compassion and cooperation, and when fully developed it will blossom into unconditional love. In our daily interactions we can already act in a spirit of unconditional love, but it requires the full opening of this chakra to live it as a permanent strong feeling. By working on this level and harmonise it with the three higher chakras at the throat, forehead and crown, we will eventually develop an additional energy body, variously called a white light body or a rainbow body.
The term 'rainbow body' refers to the colours of the seven main chakras ranging from red to purple and, when fully developed, blending together to form a white aura. But things are even more complicated. Basically each of the seven energy bodies has its own set of chakras so that what looks like one chakra, are really seven chakras nestled into each other. Therefore we actually have 49 main chakras connected to the body, but our higher energy bodies and their chakras are not yet properly developed.
Commonly, methods to activate or open the chakras as with yoga, Tantra and Tao work with Chi and Od. The next step is to use emotional energy to activate the astral chakras. Finally, for our present quest, we activate the chakras on the level of our newly forming light body with unconditional love.
A final consideration is that we cannot complete an energy body by just working on its own level. For instance we cannot get and maintain that feeling of being safe, connected, protected and utterly contented without being guided by the next higher level of compassion, cooperation and unconditional love, even if we are not yet fully aware on that level.
So, to come back to the original question of what is spiritual growth: it is the development of our higher energy bodies and their chakra systems, and acquiring the greater consciousness associated with these higher energy bodies. If we adopt it as a deliberate quest then we can refer to this process as a spiritual path or spiritual journey. A spiritual path can have many different forms, among them higher yoga, Buddhist and Taoist practices. In my article The Spiritual Path I have used our body and its health problems as the tool for increasing our awareness. It will be good to combine a Karezza-based spiritual practice with this body-based spiritual path.
The Importance of Sexuality
The conventional perception of meditation is as a spiritual practice in which we just relax and keep a blank mind. While this is beneficial to reduce stress and possibly get guidance from higher levels of consciousness, it is not very effective for developing our chakras and energy bodies. For this we need to work more directly with the energies at each level.
Our sexual energy has a key role in this process because we can easily learn to access and direct it to increase our vitality and heal not only our sexuality but also the neighbouring etheric and emotional levels. Much of our damage at these levels, especially in the form of blocked and unbalanced energy flows, actually comes from misdirected sexual energy. We are all more or less damaged which leads especially to muscle contractions ("armouring") and other health problems in the area between the lower back and the knees.
A common side effect of these muscle contractions are blockages in the flows of acupuncture meridians passing through this area, and that can lead or contribute to health problems in other parts of the body. Therefore, an important first step is to remove these blockages and make the corresponding muscles again flexible and strong. Often that cannot be done just with physical methods as these tensions commonly result from emotional injuries related to sexual problems. The easiest way to heal these is through gentle and loving interaction with a suitable partner.
Removing energy blockages in the pelvic area is also important to facilitate the free flow of energy from the sexual organs to the tailbone and then up the spine to energise the whole chakra system. This process is commonly called awakening the kundalini energy.
In order to get a good energy flow we need strong sexual energy. Therefore it is much easier to open our chakras when we are young then when getting on in years and with declining sexual energy. But young people are rarely interested in spiritual energy work, and by the time we do become interested we need to spend much time and effort to improve our vitality, regenerate our sexual energy, and remove all those blockages acquired in our younger years. This is also important for our health in general because if our sexual glands deteriorate our whole endocrine system will decline with it, and we are seriously getting old on the biological level.
While we can use solo Taoist practices to maintain or regenerate our sexual energy, the easier and more pleasant way is together with a compatible partner. This is where Karezza comes into the picture. But there is another reason why this works much better. In order to develop the higher energy bodies we need to become balanced on the lower energy levels. On the emotional level this means that we no longer fluctuate between love and hate or falling in and out of love, and on the life-force level it means that our male and female sexual energies become more balanced.
This is an additional reason for the beneficial effect of quietly exchanging male and female sexual energy rather than releasing our life-force in a puff of ecstasy. Furthermore, it is much easier to open the heart center and send unconditional love to someone with whom we are in a loving embrace than when practicing this alone.
The inner teachings of Jesus, as portrait in the Gnostic Gospels, led to the widespread Agapetae movement of early Christianity as the fastest way of acquiring a white light body. Here Christian males or Agapeti lived in a holy and celibate relationship together with their virgins or Agapetae. Agape is Greek and defined as spiritual, selfless or universal love - in contrast to Eros being romantic or sexual love. Agapetae therefore were holy virgins who personified and radiated universal love and consecrated themselves to God with a vow of chastity (see The Saint and his Virgin).
These holy couples were originally joined in a spiritual ceremony, called the Sacrament of the Bridal Chamber, and subsequently came together in a Pure Embrace or Undefiled Intercourse. Even St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (7:36-38) states that it is preferable for a Christian man not to marry and start a family but instead to live together with his virgin as a holy couple.
This also shows that, at least for young couples or those with strong sexual energy, connection of the sexual organs is not required for developing our higher chakras and energy bodies. In this case skin contact and a loving embrace are sufficient to activate and exchange sexual energies.
How to Start
Assuming that you are an established couple practicing orgasmic sex, it will be best to abstain from intimate contact for about two weeks in order to break established habits and develop a new sensitivity for each other. In Cupid's Poisoned Arrow Marnia has outlined a structured program of gradually increasing intimacy that makes it easier to avoid falling again in the orgasm mode of making love. During this time of preparation also inform yourself about the position of the chakras and learn to circulate energy as described in my article Bio-Energies.
Basically see your intimate togetherness as a joint meditation rather than a sexual event. Avoid all sexual excitement. Excitement not only makes it difficult to control sexual energy, it also makes it more difficult to feel it in its pure form. An erection is not required to exchange sexual energy. Lie together in a comfortable position. Initially you may just practice with skin contact and a frontal embrace while for direct sexual contact of longer duration the basic or scissor position is most comfortable, see Spiritual Sex.
Let the tip of the penis just touch the entrance of the vagina, and then relax and start a previously agreed form of your practice. If and when there is an erection and good lubrication the penis may be inserted. Depending on the amount of sexual energy experienced the couple may remain motionless or slowly move to create more energy. It is in the nature of sexual energy that it is being felt as a pleasurable sensation.
There are a wide range of possibilities of what you can now do with this pleasurable sensation. I show some examples In the following section, and you may invent additional variations by trying to follow your inner guidance of what feels good and helpful. Just keep in mind that the purpose of all this is to remove energy blockages and develop your chakra system.
It may be best to set aside a specific time once or several times each week for your energy work. You may also do this once a week and at other times practice normal Karezza. At the start of a session you may singly or jointly ask your spiritual guidance for help and protection, or you may ask for a protective cone or cylinder of white light around you. Finish each session by sending unconditional love to each other and into the world.
What to Do
Circulating energy: Imagine that with a deep inhalation you draw up energy from the base to the top of the spine. Hold the breath for a while, and then drop the energy with a long and slow exhalation down the front and back to the base. You may imagine feeling the circulating energy as being part of your pleasurable sex energy, or you may feel it as warmth, or tingling, or like a breeze, or like champagne bubbles.
During this exercise, and generally when leading energy to the head, keep the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. While holding the breath at the top, imagine it causing a fullness or slight pressure in the brow chakra behind your forehead. it is actually highly recommended to keep some attention on this chakra during all your energy work. When eyes are closed you can do that by turning your eyes upwards and inwards as if looking at the center of your forehead, and with open ryes you may feel this spot as a light pressure.
At other times when you want to remove surplus energy from the sexual area and use it to activate a chakra or heal a body organ, you may drop the energy only down the front into the chosen chakra or organ. You may imagine feeling the energy in that area increasing as warmth or pressure, or imagine storing it as a spiraling vortex. As a related exercise also practice lifting the energy step by step up the spine and down the front as described in Bio-Energies.
The intention is to generate a deep response of this pleasurable feeling and spread it out through the pelvis and towards the tailbone. Therefore superficial stimulation of the clitoris or penis are generally not helpful. Instead try to rhythmically contract and relax different muscles and muscle groups, such as the pelvic floor, around the anus and tailbone,
