The Serpent's Wisdom

This idea has been floating around in my mind since a discussion some time ago in yahvah's journal.

For a time I actually wrote an online column about the subject of sacred sex. The idea that sex is sacred, and sacredness often has a sexual undercurrent, is natural to me.

The authors of Why God Won't Go Away believe that the mystical parts of the brain evolved hand-in-hand with the parts of the brain that make sex enjoyable.

[Poll #230322]

A poll posted by pistorius has me wondering what kinds of religious services people on my list have attended. You already told me which religions you feel affiliated with. But a big part of religion is participation. I love to experience the way people of beliefs unlike mine worship, to see the similarities, and the differences, and reflect on how wonderful diversity is.

[Poll #218846]

I don't want to focus on what is bad about one set of teachings or another, I want to focus on teachings which are good and constructive and inspire us to grow as individuals and in fellowship with one another.

As a starting point I begin with the manifesto I wrote some time ago:

We the members of the human race demand spiritual teachings that:

1. Direct us towards compassionate action.
2. Nurture our psyches and spirits.
3. Heal the rifts within and between us.
4. Challenge us to think.
5. Push us to confront that which is unethical.
6. Exemplify that which is noble about humanity.
7. Can withstand the scrutiny of reason and experience.
8. Drive us from complacency and guide us as we become more than we already are.

It's an old joke in the realm of comparative religion. Only one, so the popular wisdom goes, can possibly be right, and everyone else is wrong. But what if it's some obscure tribe in South America? Or, even worse, the Hare Krishnas?

George Harrison said in an interview that one of the things that attracted him to the Hare Krishnas was the idea that when we're in heaven with Krishna, we interact personally with him in whatever way suits us most. He might be a parent, or mentor, or lover, or child.

I haven't researched the issue and so I don't know how accurate this is. Or if once we pick a single form, that we're stuck with that for eternity. But it sounds like the fun basis of a poll. I've taken a few liberties. So here goes:

[Poll #180339]

Edit: So far, only females have picked "lover." Is this because you are imagining a male avatar? Suppose the avatar could be female, too. Or maybe even a "mystif" like Pie'oh'Pah in Clive Barker's Imagica.

badsede, thanks for posting this. I had to copy it.

The comments on my poll of yesterday have been extremely thought-provoking -- especially those of lady_babalon and that of akaiyume. Thank you!

I wanted to summarize some of my realizations on this subject since yesterday and sum things up a bit from comments that I made on this thread and elsewhere.

The connection between BDSM and yoga (and, we should perhaps add, martial arts) seemed to be immediately obvious to some, while non-existent to others. This may be because people who practice BDSM derive a wide range of results from it. Some see it mostly or entirely as a means of deriving physical pleasure. Others, such as myself, see it as much more than that -- it provides for us physical, emotional, and even spiritual pleasure.

One parallel that I mentioned to cruelly_kind is between the redemption offered by worshipping a god or goddess, who redeems by "forgiving sins" or "clearing karma"... and the karmic release one finds in offering submissive service. Both create a "karma-safe" realm in which the worshipper/submissive is free to grow and explore.

Much of BDSM is of course tied into the way the human animal works; the physique, the breath, the chemical side of the emotions, the wiring of neurons, and so forth. But yoga, qigong, and perhaps martial arts (which I do not have first hand experience of) are also means of tying in the workings of the human animal with subtler aspects of existence. In my experience these are more than simply activities that work on the same parts of the human body; they yielded very similar results. For me, being tied up and flogged, being dominated and pressed into service, were profoundly spiritual experiences. I also had spiritual insights from even a single experience of being dominant.

Another possible reason for the resistance is that people do not want to see the spiritual as tied so innately to the workings of the flesh. Certainly my chosen tradition of Gnosticism is very disparaging in this regard. Yet, karma, as experienced through the workings (and failings) of flesh, provide the only means by which we learn.

Throughout this topic I have been thinking of John of the Cross, who was able to grow spiritually from his experiences of torture at the hands of the Carmelites. He wrote, in "The Dark Night of the Soul":

( Read more... )

Perhaps, too, it is simply because I am trained as a mathematician to find patterns that aren't immediately obvious; this might lead me to readily conjecture patterns that don't exist.

Just posed this question in challenging_god and wanted to record it here, too. (Some of you will see a crossposting.)

Does the strength of Christianity reside in the essential uniqueness of its message?

Or, conversely, is Christianity strengthened if it can be reconciled with other religions spiritually and/or mystically?

I fall into the latter camp. It seems to me that spiritual experiences are the same for people of every culture, and that religions and philosophies have largely derived from attempts to describe these experiences in concrete terms. These "traps for the divine" ultimately fall short because it is not possible to describe the infinite in finite terms.

Nonetheless I feel that my studies of scripture have led me to understand the Christian message as an outgrowth of this same mystical life with many parallels to the teachings of other religions.