Tagged: taboo
Question: Depression and Sexual fantasies
Dear Ahnanda
Please share your experience about depression and sexual fantasy. If someone is suffering with depression from long period what is life teaching to that person also if anyone is addicted to sexual fantasy how does it affects other beings and what is the solution to transform this energy for the common good.
Thank you very much
Regards
Thank you for your question. I will share from my experience.
In a nutshell, if a chemical imbalance then, medicine will help.
If an attitude due to feeling unfulfilled in Life, then to find a goal in Life may help, through a religion, an ideal or a group. If due to the influence of the environment including spirits, then it may be a necessary experience to go through in order to change. There are some people trained on those arts (spiritists/shamans) who may be able to help. Once the spirit is gone, depression will be gone as well.
As in the teaching of “polarity,” depression is one extreme of the experience. Elation/sexuality is the other. For some, to experience Life is to go through those experiences.
Let us say that someone is practicing Celibacy. The experience of sadness and even depression will help to maintain that practice of Celibacy, for the natural sexual urge (elation) will not be there. Thus, we could say that sadness and depression had a “reason” to be there.
Remember that every experience in Life has meaning. Once we go through the extremes, we may need to transcend that duality by integrating them in Life.
Therefore, if you know someone who is experiencing depression, become aware that this experience as “terrible” as it may seem, is necessary in the Life experience of that person despite the outcome. Also, it is influencing the Life experiences of those around a depressed person.
The other extreme of that experience of depression is the experience of sex in different forms. Someone who has been suffering to the extreme, will experience utmost pleasure and that is typically related with sexual pleasure.
Sexual fantasies are the outcome of an obsessive mind, trapped in the way it directs its focus.
That mind is suffering; then sexuality is that release into the other extreme until it becomes addictive.
Pornography is a type of sexual fantasy. Because men are typically more visual, that is the way the mind will be engaged into sex. “Sex is in the mind,” as preached by our mind addicted society. Similarly women may engage in sexual fantasy as that is the acceptable “outlet.” No one knows what is in your mind, except you.
It is interesting that you have asked a question which deals with 2 extremes of the same issue.
What is the issue?
The mind.
A boyfriend left Janet. She was in love with him. She was in pain. She looked for a close male friend for support. She had sex with him.
What was the issue? Her ego mind couldn’t take the pain.
Sex was used as the painkiller. The obvious “reason” could be “sugar coated” and Janet could explain her experience as “feeling a special bond” at that time with her friend.
In Sexual fantasies, the mind is obsessive with the sensation that sexuality brings to calm our inner suffering. We may not even be aware of it. It is a way of compensation.
Until we become aware of how our mind is taking us to fantasies as a way to escape from some sort of suffering, (which could be lack of sexual satisfaction among other things) then we can only DO things to try to mitigate what makes us feel “bad” about ourselves.
For example, we could join a group who labels sex as “bad.” Then our support group will be within the same extremist belief of our mind. We will feel good for some time… but then, the mind will change into the other extreme.
If we reject our fantasies, then we will make them stronger. The inner fight will only make us tired, without energy.
If we believe that our thoughts are “sinful,” then we will feel guilty.
If we believe that God disapproves of such sexual thoughts, we will feel in shame.
Observe how beliefs are affecting our Life. Sex is not shameful or “bad,” it is just that an out of control mind, will hurt itself through an addiction. The problem is not a sexual fantasy but the obsessive mind.
Others around may be able to feel the “vibes” of an overcharged but repressed sexual energy.
Perhaps some would like me to tell what to DO, right?
Do not repress sexuality.
We may learn that surrendering to pleasure is not a “bad” thing. The “bad” thing is to repress pleasure because our mind and hang ups, beliefs and traditions have taught us “not to lose control.” Sex without mind and thoughts, is a teacher of “No-I.” Sex with mind/fantasies/thoughts is the teacher of lack of satisfaction. Sexual pleasure is not of the mind.
There is more to sex that most people know about. But, we cannot transcend something that deep inside is suppressed and rejected.
Is the above “sinful” for some?
Then guilt, shame and a continuous fight with sexual fantasies will be there for us.
Anything we DO such praying, becoming busy, etc. will only be a distraction for some time until… the sequence repeats again… But stronger, lively… It is not a question of DOING something, but a question of observing and becoming aware of an obsessive mind.
We are not our minds. We could hear it speaking to us, but we do not need to listen… Moreover, it is an “illusion” if I call that mind “Me.”
Sexuality as a Taboo
If yesterday’s writing was understood, then there will not be an issue in understanding the following.
Notice how the limits made up by our belief system, our upbringings, our moral values, all of that make a barrier to open up our consciousness into a different frequency.
Is masturbation good or bad? 🙂
Notice how that question will bring your taboo, your belief. You may feel uneasy through that question.
The above question is very childish. It clearly shows that we are still labeling actions as “good or bad,” labeling based on our belief system.
Nothing wrong with that labeling, however; it shows clearly our state of consciousness.
“Johnny, to masturbate is very bad. Don’t do it or you will ….”
A moral statement has been imprinted into little Johnny’s mind.
Life may present different circumstances.
Johnny may experiment and let go. All by itself; without the sense of guilt that a learned, rigid human law may bring.
Or… Johnny may grow up with fears, shyness and a strong sense of “righteousness” at all costs due to his belief in sin and virtue. Johnny may not be able to find a partner. Then, Johnny will feel trapped, guilty.
The energy of sexuality when stopped through a belief will explode inside his body causing a disease for Johnny’s lack of adaptation.
At that point, Johnny may either destroy himself through repression or go the opposite way; he will be a rebel, a “liberal” negating every moral code out there, just to do what he “feels like.”
Is Johnny being “good or bad”?
Still that question denotes that childish black or white mentality.
To believe that an action is “good or bad” in itself, shows clearly our lack of understanding and observation of the way of Life. It is not about labeling Life, but feeling it.
What is the intention that Johnny had?
At that point, we are going away from the control of a “black or white” moral code, and going into our inner feelings.
We could lie to the whole world about our intentions, but those intentions and nothing else, will direct the consequences of an action.
That is why, feelings are so important. Your feelings show your intention.
Observe that sex is neither “good nor bad.” It is the feeling, the intention of the person what brings the consequences in someone’s life.
That feeling is not something that we could accommodate one day and say: “I feel love for you, that was my intention;” for the one who observes himself, that person may be able to find a different intention underneath: Doubt, frustration, anger, even fear. Self-Honesty is required to find the feeling. The consequence is always consistent with that intention.
Sex is an enhancer, a pinnacle in the enjoyment of Life which is able to produce Life, when our intentions move with uplifting feelings.
Most of the time, sex is “used” as the pill, the drug to “make us happy” to “get off” from that recurrent energy, as when someone eats something for the sake of putting something in their stomach rather than enjoying every bite of it.
See the difference? It is the intention even though the action is the same.
A human being in balance acknowledges all energies, which will go in tune with his nature at a particular time. To adapt to different changes in Life is the art of letting go of some things and to accept another things. It is in that frequency how adaptation happens and a human learns to live in harmony with himself.
That is health and to be healthy.
Observe how different societies have tried to control human beings by controlling the sexual impulse. From denying pleasure, to manipulating people through their emotions.
Healthy? Not a bit.
Rightful? All according to a belief system.
“Wait a minute… weren’t you the same one who talked about the benefits of celibacy?”
Yes and No.
Same individual, different consciousness… thus, not the same. This blog is about the path of Avyakt7 into Ananda. This blog is not interested is selling a religion, a philosophy nor in giving “salvation to all. “ This blog is not interested in selling copies or making a profit. This blog is not looking for followers or to convince anyone.
This blog at this time, is only interested in not lying to myself and sharing that experience to those who feel there is benefit for them.
Do you see how contradictory Life could be?
To go right, just to end up left. If you label the right side as being “right,” you will suffer when it is the time to experience “left.”
Balance is to know through intuition when to go right and when to go left according to time.
“But… you should have stuck with your beliefs… you were “right” and now you are “wrong”…”
I was never right therefore, never wrong.
“But… God is going to punish you… You will not go to heaven!!!”
All you have to do, is to change your definition, your concept of God and heaven, one more time…
“But your experience with God…”
Interpreted in a particular way at that time.
“But… you had the truth and now you are speaking falsehood!”
Never had the truth, for it cannot be held or expressed in static words. No one can do that. Not even God.
If you don’t perceive how consciousness changes and that there is no point in time, when “you” are a static you, there is no possibility to understand these things for you.
You have to live it, to understand it. It has to happen to you. Feel it.
The above is one of the most “spiritual” writings that Ananda has produced so far.
Exploring the Depth of Living 