An Old Fools Musings

The feelings are deepening and I begin to feel a response to the dream.  It is about the uncovering of something that was experienced a long time ago and there is a felt guilt about it.  There is something that hasn’t been integrated or passed away, it is still there, and it has to do with, I believe, a relationship of some sort.  Whether this is a relationship with something in myself, or with somebody else I don’t know.

Last night, before I went to sleep, I was thinking about whether I could offer something of value to the group connected with The University of the Third Age that I am going to attend. One of the things I could offer is to explore the wisdom of the East, or Eastern philosophy.

One of the great things the East points us to is mindfulness – self observation.

Also I was wondering about the beings in a dimension above the sky that have appeared in two dreams.  In both dreams it was shown that a powerful influence was flowing from above the clouds into my life. In the first dream I was marrying P, and in the second a column of something was flowing from the sky from these sky beings. So I wonder what that depicts – what that influence is about.

I begin to feel as if I am opening to something of immense power. I have an image of myself seated and almost glowing with this power, and oriental people are backing away from me. They are not doing this with fear, but with something of the attitude or feeling one might have when you stand near to a big fire and it is too hot to be close to.

As this feeling deepens I have a strong sense that ‘being’ – just sitting without effort or any attempt to ‘be something’ – has immense power. As I experience this I feel as if my body, my being, is radiating immense power. It is not a destructive power, but like the warmth of sunlight that penetrates and warms. I can see there is a difficulty in understanding this because in my culture ‘being’ is not recognised as powerful. Power is associated in the West with dominance, with doing something or being something actively and outwardly remarkable.

My experience of this state of being that I am experiencing shows me that in it you enter the realm of the Buddha. I don’t know what that means intellectually, but I experience it as quiet radiance and sureness. It is a freedom from being trapped in habitual motivations, fears and desires. It seems to me that by being, you are no longer letting your energies flow away into the throng of activities, entertainments and diversions that most of us get involved in. Ambition, sex, searching, desire to be loved or admired, sought after, are all, from this perspective, ways that ones energy flows away.

There now occurred a massive flow of imagery and experience that was like being taught something. It continued the theme of being and the expression of energy. I will try to describe the richness of what was met.

I could see and experience that because, in this period of my life, I was refraining from going out in the world for socialisation, to avoid loneliness, to be entertained, to express an ambition or seek a sexual partner, all the energy that would have been spent in those ways was being concentrated and charged up, like a battery.

Such energy will attempt to flow in habitual channels – the normal activities and diversions people enter into. It will flow into and enliven old traumas, and make alive the fears, pains and fantasies those traumas give rise to. So it could lead to neurosis or worse. It could also lead to fantasies of spiritual power or experience. It is, after all, the stuff of life, and is incredibly creative. It brings life to whatever it flows into, whether that is good or what we call evil.

However, if one has learned to stand in naked awareness, dropping away the multitude of images, desires, ideas of advancement and achievement, fame and fortune we are assailed by or entertain, the energy starts to do something very different. But as this happens consciousness confronts all the racial fears, and resistances that usually trap us in the limitations of human self awareness. Mostly we retreat from such spectres.

Quentin showed me his story A Cup of Tea that has just been published, and in it there are quotations from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. One of them is as follows.

Thereupon, through the power of anger, thou wilt beget fear and be startled at the dazzling white light and wilt [wish to] flee from it; thou wilt beget a feeling of fondness for the dull smoke-coloured light from Hell. Act then so that thou wilt not fear that bright, dazzling, transparent white light. Know it to be Wisdom… Be not fond of the dull smoke-coloured light from Hell.

This is, in the language of those times, so like what I experienced. In daily life we are so entranced by mediocrity and being lost in emotions, sexual longings and despair or its opposite – the urge to dominance and positive action to exalt oneself. The ancient document also says:

“O nobly-born, when thy body and mind were separating, thou must have experienced a glimpse of the Pure Truth, subtle, sparkling, bright, dazzling, glorious, and radiantly awesome, in appearance like a mirage moving across a landscape in spring-time in one continuous stream of vibrations. Be not daunted thereby, nor terrified, nor awed. That is the radiance of thine own true nature. Recognise it.

From the midst of that radiance, the natural sound of Reality, reverberating like a thousand thunders simultaneously sounding, will come. This is the natural sound of thine own real self. Be not daunted thereby, nor terrified, nor awed.

To me the most relevant words are, “Be not daunted thereby, nor terrified, nor awed. That is the radiance of thine own true nature. Recognise it.”

Mostly we are daunted and terrified, not only of the most glorious in us, but also of all those ancient terrors – the dark, threatening people, the unknown, any influence that threatens to change us, pain, deep emotions or ghostly fantasies of demons, death and dragons.

So as I went deeper into the experience all these rushed at me in what felt like an attempt to turn me back from realising or experiencing something.

When I simply saw them as spectral images meant to frighten one, rather like a horror film that, although with awful images, is simply a play of light on a screen, I broke through into recognising something I had never previously seen so clearly.

I saw that some of the disciplines or practises of the East are designed to lead the practitioner into building up the internal energies, recognising the play of emotions, thoughts and fantasies for what they are, and leading to a breakthrough to another realm of physical and psychological functioning. I also saw that for some, old age does this, as it gradually reduces the need and motivations to seek fame, money, sex and dependent relationships. If the person has managed to mature reasonably well, this build up of energies achieves the same thing – namely a focussing of life energy on what might be called the great seals of the body and mind.

In the East these are called Lotuses or Chakras. In Western religion they are symbolised by the different stages of the Christ drama – starting with the stable – the base instincts or root Chakra, and going up to Golgotha – the top of the skull.

These I saw as points in our being that link with the higher dimensions of the Universe we live in as an integral part. In most of us they remain locked – not operating, and so not allowing personal awareness to perceive what they connect with. When this life energy begins to touch them with sufficient strength they start to awake or open.

I know our Western culture looks at such ideas as superstition. However, our own science points out that there are 11 dimensions in our universe. It is also obvious that you and I would not exist without the universe, and living beings on our planet are in some mysterious way a fulfilment of the forces and possibilities of this universe that is our home. Therefore, if we are part of and an expression of the forces integral in our universe, why shouldn’t we reflect the universe in some way, and its dimensions. Isn’t that the message of the mysteries. “Let us make them in our own image.”

Properly translated that is not even an anthropomorphic statement. Here is a segment of a longer piece I wrote looking at the basic Hebrew words used.

(V. 26 & 27 ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.’

Some of the things we must note here are that ‘God’ said let us – referring to itself as Elohim, the many. The word translated image is ‘tzelem’ which means shadow, or something which extends outwards, a projection or complementary reflection. The word given as ‘likeness’ is ‘chidamothou’. ‘Dam’ is blood, which in Hebrew thought refers to the ‘same quality’, or ‘kinship or family’. It means altogether, ‘for likeness of us’ or ‘as kin of ours’. It is also a verb which means ‘to be a likeness maker’. So Adam is both created and creator. We notice also that Adam is male and female, singular and plural. As the human kingdom man is both male and female, singular and plural. It is not an individual being created here as modern translations suggest, and that gives rise to the whole crazy Adam and Eve story. As the spiritual potential of every individual human being, Adam is all that humans can be, the potential for what can arise. As we saw at the beginning, ADM means that which sprung from the first cause and became many. It is, therefore, like the ‘whale’ a cosmic impulse, and not an individual man at all.

So, to return to my theme, I saw that the beings above the clouds, refers to this enlivening of these centres in us that link us with the further dimensions of our own existence. This takes courage, as those centres of other dimensional contact are guarded, if that is the right word, by instinctive fears, and terrors that ones ego, or psyche, will be torn apart. This is of course what is happening, as the usual boundaries of ‘self’ are being melted, and a wider awareness emerging. It is this that confronts one with a sense of death, because a form of death or dying is being experienced.

This begins to unravel the import of my dream of uncovering the dead body. Ancient things have been buried in ones body. Just as old temples and buildings have gradually been buried by earth over the centuries, so aspects of human life that were everyday and conscious are now buried and unconscious. This is why one needs to have developed the skill of naked awareness or lucidity – to know you are dreaming, or lost in the imagery of fears or fantasies.

I felt that something in the body had been hurt a long time in the past, not just with me, but with humanity, and this is why so many of us are blind spiritually. This is what I see in my dream. And at first I wonder if I have done something to cause this. But as I penetrated the feelings, and it was just like that, penetration of layer after layer of imagery and fantasy, then I began to see that the guilt I felt was not personally caused. It was a guilt that was part of my culture and society, part of the very fabric of the religion I have been raised in. The guilt connects with the most fundamental aspects of existence. It connects with love, with sex, with just living and existing in the world. I see also that in today’s world it is also guilt ridden about an ever increasing number of things such as weight, food, being a parent, hurting the planet, being responsible for everything. We are often feeling guilty for being an ordinary human being.

The dead body is my own life energy that has been killed or buried. Guilt dug the hole and buried facets of myself. An upflow of realisations lead me to see that because of this deadness, this everyday desert of life filled experience, many people seek activities that excite and challenge them so much the excitation breaks through the barriers, if only for a little while. For a while they are vitally alive. I have the image of the Tunnel of Love type of environment in which ghostly scenes, darkness and loud noises stimulate old instinctive feelings – and of course the sexual opportunity of being alone and in the dark. A woman who told me she had never experienced an orgasm, said that the only way she could get any such feelings was to bungee jump. But for many there are things like racing, sexual encounters, sailing rough seas alone, and so on.

At this point I experienced a fantasy in which a young Spanish or Mexican type of woman comes to me. She is a female who identifies very much with her own physical charm and sees herself as desirable and able to ‘turn on’ men’s sexual desires. She does all her ‘charm’ with me but I don’t really feel anything. All I see is that she has this opinion of her power, and when it doesn’t work she goes away in disgust. It didn’t call anything out of me, and I wonder if this is because there is nothing there to react. But I see that I am so often in the observing mode, and noticing what people are doing; and with the woman I could see she was trying to use her sexual charm as a form of getting her way with men. As I could see this consciously it didn’t work.

Perhaps I am looking for something that I either haven’t got or is not possible to find. This seems like an old path I have taken many time. Here we go again!!

I see I am asking something of this dear old body – to extend perception. Obviously it can do that, as it has happened in the past. So what is the reality here? But in looking at this I am led to see that sex has lost its charm. Yes, it excites for a while. But so what? It is fine if you want to have a child, but I fail to see what leads people to do it again and again and again.

OK, it stimulates a stronger sense of existence, of being. But it seems to me that all of what it provokes is related to the male female parental response – the caring for each other and offspring that arises in sexual partnership. I have done all that, felt all those things, and I don’t particularly want to be submerged in those things again at the moment. I am not of an age or an economic situation that leads me to feel I want that. That part of me is satisfied as I have helped raise five children.

This led on to a deeper examination of the sexual roles. I could see that as an older male it would still be exciting to attract a young, healthy and intelligent female. But if I let the fantasy play through it doesn’t go anywhere. When it gets to the business of being a sexual partner for a younger woman it all loses energy. This is explained in the above paragraph – I have no desire to be that male at the moment. I know this for a fact having lived it.

However, an interesting flow of realisations emerged. Elder males who have established themselves in society, have a home, money and experience, are, simply at a biological level, attractive to some younger women who want the best for any offspring they have. But the older male has usually done all that. They have been married often more than once, with children who have also established themselves. What I see is that the older male might only be able to tolerate or usefully take on this relationship if they have a life apart from the intense one to one needed in raising children. They could escape to their ‘work’ perhaps.

Suddenly I swing to asking who or what are the beings who appeared in my dreams as those who were above the clouds in other dimensions. It seems as if I can hear them in my mind and they laugh. They say, “We are the ones who wove the pattern of your life – your thoughts, your behaviour and the society in which you live. We are the ones who wove it, and you sense us behind your life. This age is about recognising the very foundations of your existence, and turning back and honouring those great men and women who have shaped the world of mind and matter you now live in. Also it is about adding to them in some way if we can. Adding to them with our life experience, our art, our love.

So I sensed these beings as the often unconscious influence that flows into our life in every way – from outside through external cultural heritage, and from within as tendencies inherited and passed on.

It is all fundamental stuff about how mammals and birds relate and choose a mate, and what happens in that choosing and mating.

For instance if a female attracts an established and successful male, and if he looks in her direction, it triggers a massive series of responses in her, and possibly in him. The responses are both physiological in the way of sexual excitement, and also psychological in emotional response and fantasies of the possibilities of the relationship.

What played out in my awareness was that when a healthy male and a healthy female come together sexually it triggers responses at all levels. (And by healthy I mean they are capable of a full social, psychological and physiological meeting and mating.) From these responses they either accept of reject each other in a variety of ways depending on their wholeness.

When successful the mating will lead to enormous changes in both partners. From being an independent being bent on their own personal survival, they join forces and become in many ways a unit. The male becomes someone ready to defend not only his own body, but also that of his mate and offspring. He is observably ready to work day after day, week after week, year after year to support his mate and offspring. The woman becomes ready to go through the rigours and self sacrifice of motherhood, and similarly give of herself year after year.

However, many humans are so damaged in the subtle levels of themselves that they cannot respond in these ways. They perhaps only get so far in a relationship and through internal or external stresses break away and maybe go through the whole process of beginning a relationship again and again. Sometimes the process is so painful emotionally that the person cannot make the full mating. Or their responses are such they cannot even manage a full male female relationship. We see this in the homosexual response. And I am only saying here that there is not a possibility of a full heterosexual relationship such as described. I know this one to by having lived it.

What I saw following from these difficulties are different sorts of adaptations. Life is a flow of energy, from the sun, through plants and animals, into the human system as air, water and food. And this energy expresses through the human mammalian body as certain drives behaviours and longings. If the drive cannot or does not fully satisfy itself; if the individual does not manage to allow all the possibilities of living and mating, there is usually degrees of frustration, depression or dissatisfaction. The energy then tries to flow into areas that will satisfy it. Obviously sexual intercourse of one form or another satisfies part of the range of a full mating – but only part. So a mating that is only sexual will lack a great deal in the way of satisfaction, as might a relationship in which a partner never experiences sexual expression.

Some of the adaptations are creativity, caring and social action. Many homosexuals for instance are very creative and expressive in human contact. In that way aspects of their needs can be satisfied.

However, some ancient cultures recognised this human dilemma and developed pathways in which the individual could fulfil themselves in other ways, and I will look at that in more detail in a while.

Something that particularly arose in me was a long series of feelings and ideas about the enormous and almost universal sexual difficulties we see in our culture. For instance I see again and again men and women coming together in the way explained above, in which the difficulties preventing a full mating occur in one or both, and there is then enormous emotional and even social misery.

If we look at it from the point of view of the woman, she meets a man and experiences the full range of responses usually called (unfortunately) romantic. Physically and emotionally an enormous excitant occurs, accompanied by the willingness to be a full partner. Then, perhaps after a while, or even within a short time, the man pulls away, or is unwilling to be involved in the next stages of union and togetherness. Perhaps he comes back again and again for sex and emotional contact but pulls away. Or he has gone and repeats the same procedure with another woman.

You hear women complaining about this again and again and describing it as typically male. However it is also a female trait, and any emotional pain or judgemental attitudes that arise come about because there is a lack of a proper understanding of why such things happen.

There are at least two or three possible reasons, and if they are understood can be responded to in a reasonable way without feeling abandoned, cheap or used. Firstly the man or woman has had the delicate psychological parts of their nature that deal with heterosexual relationship damaged in some way. This often arises out of problematical or downright destructive early relationship with the mother or father. It can also come about from never having been in an environment in which a full emotional and sexual maturity can develop. So the person is either psychologically traumatised or immature in the area of heterosexual relationship. Unfortunately most of us in such a situation rationalise it and excuse such problems away, or say that is ones nature.

Again and again it is worth repeating – check the person’s track record. If they have such difficulties they will almost certainly not have suddenly arisen in the relationship with you. If the person has such a background, what are you doing trying to develop a relationship with them?

I once went out with a lovely young woman who I was ready to partner. Suddenly one day she stopped talking to me completely. From there on she would have nothing to do with me. I learned from her sister that she thought I was too serious and she wanted to have fun before settling down. But I met her years later and she was still unmarried and looked somewhat depressed. I believe she found it difficult to take those next steps in a deepening relationship. She had probably repeated the behaviour in each relationship.

Unfortunately childhood trauma is not an easy thing to rid oneself of. It can certainly be done, but it takes a lot of persistence, work and courage to face real emotional pain, to clear out the old shadows that cast their influence into the present.

Another reason for mismatching can be that of age difference. The established male or female can be very attractive to the younger woman or man. Not only do they have a lot to offer in the form of material goods, but they also have a great deal of life experience and insights lacking in the young.

Of course there are a lot of successful partnerships in which there is even a very big age difference. However, there are also difficulties. A successful or established man or woman has probably already been married, perhaps more than once, and raised children. So they come with a lot of background. Also they have satisfied huge areas of their life in having had a long term sexual and emotional relationship and being a co-parent. So there might be a big mismatch between the needs of partners with such an age difference. Sometimes such a mismatch can be evened out somewhat if there is a very secure and easy economic situation. Then it might not matter to the man if his younger woman wanted a child for instance. He can still afford to live a life that has huge areas of independence and freedom.

If it is a younger man with an older woman, then raising more children might be completely out of the question.

Another difference in such relationships is that age changes you. An older man or woman has different needs and relates to the world differently than when they were young. You do not simply reach 35 or 40 and stay at that psychological ‘age’ unless you are stuck in some way and trying to get younger instead of maturing more fully – and I did not say ageing more fully.

Age often brings enormous freedom – if not economic, then personal. You no longer have to take another person, or your family’s needs into account. Perhaps that is what gave you incentive and you still want it, but you can also relinquish it to a large extent if you want to. And relating to a younger person may be a real threat to that freedom. They will want all the things a young person wants. They may still be deeply involved in establishing themselves and satisfying personal and social needs of the young. Even in relationship with a big age difference that work well, those things still have to be taken into account.

In Eastern and other older cultures, in which the strange unrealistic views of ‘romance’ did not have such a hold, these fundamental needs and stages of life were more fully understood and integrated into the culture. In India some aspects of Yoga dealt with the energy of Life or sex in great detail.

I know that many modern Christians tend to think of Yoga as an alien religion, but I believe that arises out of a misunderstanding. Our own Western history shows that only a few centuries ago Christianity was all pervading in our culture. It was so enmeshed with all aspects of society that you could not separate state and Church, or church and science. The separation, when it came, was traumatic and painful. And in a similar way, the insights into human nature that developed and became know as Yoga, arose at a time when Hinduism was as all pervading in Indian thought and culture as was Christianity in our own past. So yoga is not a religion with dogma and creeds, but a practice, as learning the piano might be. But what we are learning to ‘play’ in using the techniques of Yoga, is the amazing instrument of the human body and consciousness – and I am not talking about Western Yoga here, which is mostly concerned with doing athletic postures and movements. When we look through a telescope today, we don’t need to think of ourselves as a Christian or as an Italian. So when we use the techniques of Yoga and consider its ideas, we don’t need to see ourselves as a Hindu.

In the east, and in the west, we have the traditional figure of the anchorite or the monk who have left behind by way of life involved in the external world, commerce or sexual activity.  Although we have that as a traditional figure, we even like it altogether, or a it is very rare in the modern world – in the west that is.  What we have is a sort of predatory copy of it.  We have the male, and perhaps female, who although externally appearing as a guru figure and someone who has found another type of life, nevertheless uses their social esteem and power to gain sexual and financial advantage.  It expresses from me that awful television advert that says, “I deserve it!”

If we consider this it means that such figures can never give us real satisfaction.  Satisfaction comes from fulfilling ourselves and deeper and deeper levels.  Expressing this in another way, we can say that satisfaction arises from becoming whole, and that means the inclusion of the vastness that we are.  Such vastness does not mean, as far as I can see, the grasping of money or sex.

The figure of the guru or anchorite represent someone who has found a reality that is so satisfying, and yet is from a level beyond physical, emotional and sexual needs of the body and the ego based on body needs.  In today’s world this is usually seen as ludicrous.

I am seeing that the ageing process is itself an eliminatory process.  As we age we have gathered so much life experience that we can begin to see that much of life in itself is not satisfying.  By itself it is often painful or destructive.  That in itself leaves toward stopping expending energy or hope in certain directions – if one is observant anyway.  For instance in male and female sexual relationships, where a woman is attracted to her man, what she wants is a personal, emotional and sexual relationship to unfold.  If she has already been hurt or damaged by the difficulties of this of course she may modify it and tried to limit it in various ways.

The problems are that many of us are damaged early on and we cannot respond fully.  What then happens is that the man or woman, often a man, simply limit themselves to something like a one night stand to satisfy the fundamental sexual need.  They are incapable of meeting or making on the other levels.  For women this often leads to them generalising by saying that men are all bastards.  Of course, for men the situation is often the same in that the woman that they hope to receive love from cannot manage that as explained above already.

What this needs, and what old age sometimes offers, is an enlightened reverie in which one reviews experiences gathered over the years to understand their relevance.  One might also call this a way of summarising of ones life experience and extracting from it whatever understanding and meaning one can.  But often, even in old age, people are so engrossed in money, loneliness and dependence, they never take advantage of this possibility.

If this period can be taken advantage of, then it can lead to an acquaintance with the roots of ones own existence.  It uncovers an awareness of the long, long process of life that has led to ones particular existence.  It can lead to a reverence of that process and an awareness of one’s place in the whole.  What I feel there is that there is a huge blindness in the western world.  It does so enormous that most of us cannot see our links with the universe, with our environment, with each other and our ancestors.  It is, I believe, a real sickness.

As I have said elsewhere – If a person is paralysed through illness or injury we and they can accept that they are not whole. They may struggle to regain that wholeness, and medical science is racing along in its research to help people do that. However, if a person has no real memory of their infancy or childhood; if they have no real experiential awareness of the animal impulses and instincts that drive them; if they cannot vitally know their integration and dependence on their environment and the universe, it is not considered worthy of mention or of frantic medical research.

Our culture is just beginning to wake up to integration with the flow of things through the understanding of DNA.  There is a huge fascination with this at the moment and with discovering ones external ancestors.  But this is still very much something to do with outside of us, and distinct in some ways from our own inner life.  But what my dreams of the beings above the sky shows me, is that internally we sense our connection with the past, with our ancestors, as real living and influential beings.  They are beings that take part in our everyday affairs in some way.

In the past, the awareness of what flowed from our beginnings was turned into rules and regulations that people were pressurised into are obeying.  But modern men and women have got fed up with relating to society in this hierarchical, authority based way.  They want to understand.  They want to understand why there is a no, or a yes, to certain forms of behaviour.

This ancestral influence – the ancestors – are the inherited patterns of behaviour that direct the way we respond to events and our environment.  Their lives and their influence put into place the matrix of our present social structures.  Understanding the ancestors, or the influence of the ancestors, is to understand where we are and who we are.  Through that we can see whether we are expressing old patterns of behaviour that may or may not be relevant in the present; or we can see whether we are initiating new ways of living, new responses to relationships and social needs.  Perhaps we are creating a new and valid pathway that through our courage and perseverance becomes the structure or matrix of future society.

What I see is that if we think of the ancestors as our parents and grandparents, at their death that life experience is absorbed back into that huge collective memory.  What they have done and been becomes a possibility in our own life.  It is an influence that we either need to understand and reject, or potentials that we can allow ourselves and express.  Each year that we ourselves live does not disappear.  Its influence is absorbed and tempers the responses to life we experience at the moment.  Our forebears, personal and social, have just the same sort of influence in our present life.  Emmeline Pankhurst, although she was a major figure in the emancipation of women, was herself simply a link in a chain of influence that had started long before her.  She now, is a link in the chain of present action on the part of women’s rights.

In this journey I make within myself I sense that each of life is treasured.  Each life takes its part in the whole spectrum of experience and future growth.  Each life is sought after.  Through it the hugely various experiences of living and dying are gathered.  Through each life facets are understood and met, and things are changed through that understanding.  We are things of life itself reaching out together gems of experience. See The Conjuring Trick

Individually we search for different things, but collectively we can generalise things that are searched for.  Basically there is a search for survival and a drive to reproduce.  In order to establish and manage those we may search for the materials to achieve them.  In our own times this often becomes a search for money and acclaim.  But a huge occupation of human beings is also the search for meaning, for understanding.  That may either be a search for the grand meaning of life as it expresses through science and philosophy, or it may be a very personal search for the roots of ones own being and its emergence.

As individuals this might be called the search for satisfaction.  As with any growing thing there is an urge towards fulfilment of the possibilities of that growth.  This is also true for ourselves.  But there are many things that hurt, block or impede that motivation toward satisfaction.  They occur in our general help reach toward relationship, toward learning, toward self expression.  And where they occur there is a pulling back and the opposite to satisfaction.  If for instance the drive toward satisfaction in relationship is damaged, then the further deepening of that relationship is also stopped and lack of satisfaction occurs.  The biological or psychological nodes, as it were, that gets switched on as part of the movement towards satisfaction, get switched on the more fully by further behavioural responses from an environment or from our partner.  If those responses do not occur or injured, as they are in many people in our society, we see frustrated and crazy behaviour, or even destructive and murderous impulses.  Unfortunately such patterns often become habitual, or are habitual over many generations, and are therefore difficult to meet or change personally.

What can you do in cases like that?  What can be done?  This is fundamental in animal behaviour.  If an animal is hurt when it goes in a certain direction, it is certainly not going to go in that direction again.

So many human beings are similarly frightened or hurt, and they are certainly not going to go in the direction of that hurt again even their sexual or emotional needs push them.  But an alternative that works is in creative behaviour.  That is possibly why many homosexuals are so creative.  There has been some sort of diversion or problem that does not enable them to express their sexuality in a heterosexual way, and a way that can be satisfying to express that the energy is in creative behaviour. See Habits

Another possible way it can be seen in what is biologically the direct route of expressing sexual behaviour.  The direct route involves not only sexual coupling, but when it is healthy it also expresses as caring, providing and supporting the young.  So caring behaviour is one of the ways of channelling that enormous energy, that enormous drive.  This can be seen in many females who have tremendously strong biological and maternal urges but for one reason or another do not have children or a satisfying relationship, and who find satisfaction in caring for others or for children, or doing social work.

Occasionally there can be levels of satisfaction in what is generally called religion.  But it depends what is meant by religion.  Religion at its most profound his deeply satisfying because it offers the individual connection with influences that are beyond what we call physical life.  When this occurs realistically experience of human life is transformed.  Tremendous power flows into the person’s life, and from them into the lives of others.  Such relationships are frequently extremely satisfying.  If religion links ones individual life with something more profound than what is born and dies; more universal than ones individual existence, then in some degree one is exalted.

Allowing this splendour of the universal into ones life can itself be a love affair.  It is a love affair between the visible, but ends of all and the intangible.  It is an affair between oneself and the cosmic mystery.  This grand lover penetrates one as deeply as any physical lover.

Then I viewed religion from the viewpoint of the man or woman on the street, and I witnessed the conversation with them, and the man says, “Religion; that’s surely a direction for failures and people who can’t really cope with facing reality.”

And the woman he is accusing of this inability to face reality says, “You poor person!  Is your mind or awareness so tiny that you have never realised the forces and processes of your own body are beyond anything you understand?  Can’t you see that your very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge or understanding that it is only a statement of your impoverishment to suggest religion is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure.  Have you never understood that?  Have you not seen that religion is not only an acknowledgement of what we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it?  It can also be something far more even than that.  It can be an active loving relationship.  And such love is an exchange, a sharing, a way of merging one with another. It is an exchange – a sharing of bodily fluids – the very substance of life.  Is that something you are afraid of?”

For me that love is the very substance of life.

If those were carefully selected questions, and someone gave time to them thoughtfully, they could change the very direction of their life. For instance one could start with something like, “What age are you?  What biological age are you?  What psychological age are you?”

This could continue with the questions such as, “in what way are those things influencing any relationship you are in or your ability to relate?  What are the dynamics of that?