Activation of the involuntary is key if Eros is to flow through our system. The only way for this to occur is relaxing or sinking into our bodies in this moment, right where we are; a letting go. For this to happen, there must first be a fundamental feeling of safety. In Orgasmic Meditation, we progressively draw the locus of safety into ourselves, and as we do so, we become more virtuous. Erotic virtue is realized when the most potential for growth exists with the least amount of reliance on the environment. As our needs for safety are met more and more internally, we come to experience unconditional self-possession.
The six levels of safety:
We do not feel safe. We are frozen and cannot let go. Our heads are brimming with swirling, discursive thoughts that often take the form of judgment of ourselves and others. Hyperreactivity in the body occurs in the form of jumpiness or oversensitivity. We may attempt to create an inner sense of safety through disassociation, “checking out” through fantasy, or withdrawal of consciousness. We may do this through an inner rejection of our experiences or through “pumping up” the positive aspects of experiences, overriding any feeling of lack.
We feel a tenuous safety through the means of deprivation and control within ourselves and externally. We attempt to control the environment (the actions and activities of others, the strict adherence to protocols, the meeting of preferences) and ourselves through the immediate cessation of activity the moment a sense of violation occurs. The externalized version of this behavior is a demand on our environment to decrease the level at which life expresses itself, and to do the same by suppressing the desire that seems to “just happen” to us. This behavior may be seen as equivalent to having an immune disorder and demanding that life sterilize itself through the assertion of rights and entitlements.
This mindset, with its accompanying demands, often causes others to feel unsafe, yet it is so consumed with its own sense of danger that it does not notice. At this level, we can instead move to a more internalized form of safety where we employ a container. This takes the form of an arrangement between willing participants to uphold a set of dependable agreements. In this way, the vigilant part of the mind can let go, knowing it is safe. And should the vigilant mind not feel safe, it has recourse in that we can always opt out. Within this container, we can grow our resilience and trust, thus attaining a deeper level of internalized safety.
Through practice, we have uncovered a basic sense of resilience. We have increased the capacity of the mind to meet circumstances, and in this meeting we discover that what seemed threatening was merely unfamiliar. We have increased our power and vitality by introducing more Eros into the body. Our baseline has moved to one of basic trust, and we are in the midst of moving our locus of trust into ourselves. In so doing, we discover it is a result of our trust in ourselves that we find a response, rather than placing the onus on the environment. But this sense is new, and the guide rails of the container are still required.
We feel fundamentally safe. Not only are we now able to explore within the rules of the container, we are able to explore the rules themselves—playing with them while maintaining connection with Eros, our partner, ourselves, and our environment. Practice takes on a more spontaneous quality in which we can go “off path” and riff, always coming back, when we venture too far, to the basic container and protocols. We respect, depending on the practice, that leaving the container will often mean we are no longer participating in the practice itself, as is the case in Orgasmic Meditation, which is clearly defined and structured.
We have opened a gateway where safety takes on a whole new meaning. Safety no longer means self-preservation and survival, but is instead about remaining connected to the draw of Eros, no matter where Eros takes us or the intensity of the experience we find there. We have broken through a sound barrier. We are able to do things we might have once perceived as dangerous. But plugged into the force of Eros, we feel safer than we ever did in more controlled environments.
A fear of loss and of threats falls away, replaced by a deeply rooted sense of calm and curiosity. What had before occurred as obstacles to safety, or as threats, now occur as opportunities to develop this powerful connection that confers the sensation of the only safety there is: presence. Reaching this level of safety is a signifier that we will begin to naturally (not recklessly) move toward, rather than away from, what we once perceived as dangerous. In fact, the behavior we previously employed to feel safe is what now feels reckless, because it decreased our sensitivity to our environment.
We are now a source of sympathetic safety for others. We have converted so much fear to power that by not fearing what terrifies them, and by remaining open and emanating this power, we have a calm, stable field for them to tune into, should they choose to. We no longer resist fear but are now quite intimate with it, and can know and connect with people and life from these depths.