Sunday Sermon [Spiritual Slut]

Hola Everybody,

It’s another beautiful day here... the weather is hawt, the clothing is skimpy... LOL Behaving at this point is a relative term, people. If you can’t be a slut in the summer, then what have we come to? 

Spiritual Slutdom

I believe a mistake many people make is turning a blind eye on what they consider the negative or shameful aspects of their inner selves. I believe blindness always leads to problems because once we stop paying attention to anything, its power over our lives increases. This is why you almost always find sexually repressed individuals acting out sexually. Denial (a form of psychological blindness) is a powerful, insidious, and deadly factor in our lives.

Perhaps, we should try something new? I was talking with a friend who boasted that he walked around with religious affirmations on his cellphone. While affirmations are cool, I am more interested in the mechanisms -- the how -- of how we evolve. In the final analysis, affirmations and $2.00 won’t get you on a NYC subway. Ultimately what creates change -- real change -- are steps that lead to behavior modification. My friend can read all the affirmations and scripture, and all that crap till he’s blue in the face, he’ll still act out on impulses hidden or pushed into the darkness. Shit, I’ve read where sexually motivated serial killers were avid bible readers...

::blank stare::

So, how do we evolve? That’s my topic today, bear with me... the following is an experiential exercise, which means that you have to do it (experience it) to understand it...

Remember a time when as a child you did something “bad.” Maybe you were caught with your hand in the cookie jar, or in your cousin’s pants as you both innocently explored your sexuality. Or maybe you were caught in a lie.

Feel the incident as if it were happening now. Feel the naughtiness in your body. Feel your childhood guilt, shame, or excitement in your belly, heart, and head. Now allow this memory to dissolve or fade, right in the place it is happening. Now, this is important: If you turn off a projector, a screen remains when the image is gone. My question to you then is, when a thought or memory fades, what remains? Please don’t answer the question right away, try to feel the openness... feel this openness in which your thoughts and memories are broadcast and then go. When any specific thought or memory dissolves, what is left but a felt openness?

We are human beings and becoming is to be this openness, whatever is shown on the “screen” and then goes. We close down any opportunity for change when we resist this openness. Therefore, whenever we find ourselves resisting, it can become an opportunity to open -- to “unclench” the mind or consciousness -- and transform unlove into love.

Let’s try it another way... imagine someone you really don’t like. Now, imagine that your purpose in life is to help that person become the most loving person possible. Feel how even entertaining that notion serves to either open you or cause you to contract. Additionally, right now, apply this to every person you know, especially those you perceive as unloving.

Instead of closing or shutting down into a state that contracts into fear, or a state of “unloving,” we invite change as we learn to open to what we would rather avoid. Our true mission, the purpose of our lives, appears through us when we open. Love is openness; fear or unloving is contraction. Try it; you can feel it in your body physically (which is why living a fear-based life is so unhealthy). You are this openness, this love, this open consciousness; you are as everyone, including those you don’t like.

I was once told that if I felt resistance to someone or to an idea, or thought, that I should pay attention because my life’s purpose is hidden somehow in that resistance. It seems to me that we need less affirmations, or scriptures, or sermons. What we need is a way to sit compassionately with what we find most uncomfortable, or even traumatizing^*, in a way that will allow us to untie those knots or loosen the armor. The option is to live tormented by feelings of inadequacy and anxiety.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

*Note: Some experiences are too traumatic for the initial stages of this technique. Begin with less traumatizing memories and, as you open, you can progress gently to more uncomfortable memories. Also, some memories need the assistance of a mental health practitioner.