There are many in the world, and in fact through history, that believe or feel that sex has no business with spirituality. Many religious institutions have influenced this attitude, amongst the most influential being the Christian churches.
Rigid Christianity is not the only area where this has been practiced. Observe for example the Buddhist monks and nuns, or the denouncing of carnal pleasures by many Hindu’s. Many more examples exist.
Anywhere you look you will see people in confusion regarding their sexuality, their own expectance of acceptable behaviour and then projecting that unto others. Mainly you will see, once you begin to look beyond the pattern of organized practice or dogmatic attitude, fear and confusion.
To approach your own sexuality unfolds the approaching of the make of your true soul. At first you begin to feel and think that your soul is projected through your sexuality but nothing could be further from the truth.
Just as your mind – or ego – is a tool projecting part of your soul so is sex just the same tool but on a different venue. The mind uses concepts, patterns, words, cognition to express part of what it thinks and has learned but also what it expectes, desires and fears.
Much more comes into this but we’d need a shelf of books to get into it, as the soul is magnanimously larger, deeper and complex than your mind can ever be.
There are fortunately many who have explored their sexuality along with their spirituality through the ages and made an effort to express what they found, discovered, or reasoned, for others to learn from and be inspired by.
Sex is no holier or dirtier than your soul can percieve, either from your shadowed side or the enlightened side. Be carefulw with words here, there is a great difference between enlightenment and illumination.
It is not uncommon that people feel that a spiritual teacher should abstain from carnal pleasures, but they are totally wrong. Sex is a natural part of the human being, as much as breathing, eating and sleeping. The only difference is that sex usually needs partners and communication.
Though it is true that when a person feels a need for a deep and spiritual inner journey towards illumination it is often helpful the person to abstain for a period and use that part which he or she would otherwise utilize in carnal pleasure to aid in the journey of Self-discovery.
This is not a rule though and one should be careful not to project one’s own shadow on others. There is a time and a place for everything, and respect begins with selfrespect.
I will leave two links for you to explore this topic further. One is what God’s Will has to say about sex and sexuality and the other is to a website with interesting texts about what others have said in the past.
