Category: Virtuous living

Bisexuality and the Love Virtues

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“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”[1]

SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)It is oh so true. The whole focus of loving anyone, anything, is to be loved in return. The people who wrote the New Testament of the Bible understood this greatest need of mankind and provided us with the image of Christ, the perfect love, the truly unconditional love, which perhaps does not exist outside of the Christ ideal. Love, just by its nature, demands that it gets something in return. We need to be loved and to feel loved unconditionally, for just ourselves or in spite of ourselves.

As seen in a previous blog, the Greeks had six words for love; I would like to narrow that down to two – eros, which is hormonal and mental, and agape, which is mental and spiritual. Erotica comes from the root work eros, but it is much more than that. It covers all the aspects of romantic or physical love.  I will not attempt to add anything to this most used and misused word in the English language, except to say it is hormonal in nature and connected to the pleasure center of the brain. Agape is the essential part of the love virtues that we have just covered in the last five blogs. They include kindness, compassion, empathy, desire, and passion. Rather than rehash them individually, I would like to demonstrate how they all fit together to provide us with agape love.

First of all, agape love is a feeling that comes from the higher self. It is the love energy, or universal positive energy, or the god energy that flows through us when we are interacting positively with other human beings. It involves a three way resonance of vibration from the higher self, another’s higher self, and the external universal flow. It is the feeling we all seek; it is part of our physical and spiritual genetic makeup. The writers of the Old Testament tried to express this love by the action of god breathing life into Adam. In other words, love is essentially our life energy.

It is this life-love energy that is part of the bonding process, where we give of ourselves to mate, create and nurture our offspring. This child-parent bond is the closest we will ever get to unconditional love; yet, the motive is still based on the desire to be loved. If our children return the love we give, we are content and feel a kind of divine purpose being fulfilled. If our children do not return our love, we suffer the greatest of heartbreaks.

The next closest we get to unconditional love is with our romantic partners; however, if we do not feel love in return, we will eventually wear down spiritually and seek a new partner who is willing to give us the love we desire. And what is this love? Yes it is romantic, and yes it is eros based, but it is much more. It is what I call intimacy or the heart to heart connection that is based on sharing the life journey to self-actualization. In other words we support each other, offering encouragement, and mirroring back to each other where we are on the journey of life, and where we truly need to go.

The agape love stems naturally from these other two loves, but it can also exist in isolation by attaching our higher self to the universal flow of love. We can receive a tremendous boost of energy to share with others in the form of kindness, and compassion.  Yes it is altruistic in nature, but we still want some form of love in return. This can be experienced through appreciation, respect, and connection with other human beings in the form of empathy. When we receive these three gifts in return, it invigorates our desire to give and receive more. This becomes a passion that is based on helping others get on and stay on the path to self-actualization, which in turn moves us onward on our own path. Somewhere on this journey, we drop the need for respect and appreciation from others and do things just because they are the right thing to do according to our higher self. This in turn takes us closer and closer to the universal flow of love.

This is why I spend hours each week trying to understand myself and why I do the things I do. I write this blog because I feel it is the right thing to do. It is the expression of my appreciation of my own road to self-actualization that I feel a need to share to help others on their own journey. I expect nothing in return, but I sure appreciate a kind comment now and then. Even though I have never met you, I can honestly say I love you. Enjoy your love journey.

Five applications to bisexuality:

  1. This is not really about bisexuality; it is about being a loving human being. We are all on a life journey. The purpose is to experience universal love in all its forms. Enjoy the journey.
  2. Sex is great but do not stop there. Use it to form connections. Go for intimacy.
  3. Love yourself. Without self-love there can be no love for anyone else.
  4. Love one someone else and if you love to the best of your ability you will receive love in return. Enjoy this person and always seek the best for them and they will seek the best for you.
  5. Expand your circle of love to include others but do it for the connection to universal love. This is all we will take from this life into the next.

[1] Hugo, victor.  (http://www.yourtango.com/2013182354/love-quotes-inspirational-famous)

 

Bisexuality and the Virtue of Passion

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Passion – vice or virtue? According to the major religions, we have two competing forces – good and evil, vice and virtue. However, if we realize there is actually no evil, just us, walking either a path to self-actualization, or floundering in our own fears and self-defeating negative behavior, we begin to view passion as neither a vice nor a virtue; it just is a part of who we are as humans. Religious study of the virtue of passion is obsessed with defining passion as the choosing of good over evil, serving others rather than ourselves, avoiding pleasure and pursuing some form of altruistic stoicism.  Passion as the pursuit of pleasure is regarded as a vice. However, there can be no passion at all without the pursuit of pleasure.

Passion is usually listed as the fifth cardinal virtue. Aristotle’s term ‘passions’ covers our bodily appetites (for food, drink, sex, etc.), our emotions, and any feelings accompanied by pleasure or pain. On the physical level, passion drives us to self-gratification, and this is as good thing. Our bodies and brains are rooted in the pursuit of pleasure. We are driven by the dopamine based neural pathways from the forebrain which give us our drive to experience challenges and achievements. These pathways, when the circuit is complete, activate the pleasure center of the brain, which releases the neurotransmitters endorphins which inhibits pain, including thought-pain, and gives us a feeling of euphoria. When the goal is physical love, and the joining of two people is accomplished through copulation, the neuromodulator oxytocin is released aiding in the development of powerful neural and hormonal pathways that we can refer to as bonding.  This bond in the basis of romantic passion.

Freud believed that this sexual passion was at the root of all our passions, and I tend to agree with him. The forming of passion for anything, such as politics or even the game of golf, employs the same pleasure seeking bonding system, but without the oxytocin. These dopamine drives are part of our alpha-seeking system which have sexual links, making us, especially males, seem more attractive. When we achieve alpha in any area, it is assumed it will attract others to serve us in the pursuit of spreading our alpha genes and passing on our accomplishments to the next generation.

But passion is more than just enjoying the pleasures of the senses. We also have a trump card, the frontal cortex, the administration center of the brain, which gives us the ability to choose which path we will pursue. It in turn overrides the primitive brain and takes over the dopamine drive and the endorphin reward system. In other words, we can choose to do “good” deeds strictly for the pleasure of it. Usually this leads to self-actualization based on the desires of the ego.  This is good (unless a person gets pleasure by inflicting pain on others) and is the beginning of passion as a virtue.

Beyond the cortex, or perhaps including the cortex, we somehow arrive at the higher self, which I believe involves the energy system of the soul that we can refer to as spirit.  We now begin to create our own love story, which means we are operating from the heart. The heart-passion is a desire and drive for good based on love, but it is still connected to our own selfish, pleasure seeking pursuit of self-actualization, but on a higher level. We get to a new kind of love-pleasure based on the energy flow of combined body, mind, and spirit. This leads to pleasure by connection with others and to the source of all goodness. Self-actualization is now much more than body or ego based passion. Through love we now take pleasure in helping other towards their own self-actualization, which then becomes a collective pursuit of what is considered the universal good. Our romantic passion also takes on a new dimension. We pursue intimacy rather than just sensuous pleasure.

Here are my five applications to sexuality, particularly for us bisexuals:

  1. We can be passionate. We can let our passions free to just be without the restrictions of thought and shame. Our body passions are “good” in themselves; they are the energy system of a healthy body’s needs and desires. Without dopamine passion we slip into repressed drives which leads to chemical imbalance or clinical depression. Without the dopamine-oxytocin drive we become impotent which again can be a symptom of depression. It is natural and good to release and enjoy our passions.
  2. We can employ our minds to choose when to let loose use our passions. We can rely on our egos to choose what is best for us as a sentient being. Sometimes this means delaying self-gratification.
  3. As bisexuals, through consciousness, we can use mindfulness to expand the sexual sensations to involve the full body, mind, and soul, including all our senses and feelings. We can use our sexuality to build more than one love story and we can harmonize these stories into a whole new way of life that involves intimate relationships with both men and/or women, or we can choose to be monogamous and focus our love passion on one individual.
  4. We can expand our passion to include altruism, keeping in mind that we should also derive some form of physical or sentient pleasure by serving others. When we are making love we should be conscious of a partner’s experience of pleasure and take pleasure from our partner’s pleasure.
  5. We can use our relationships to reach out to a higher form of love that includes sexuality as a spiritual experience that binds us to humanity in general and to the universal flow of love. Passion is the love energy that we can learn to use for the universal good.

Bisexuality and the Virtue of Empathy.

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Is empathy a virtue or an emotion? Not really either, but it is an essential ingredient in forming any of the virtues related to the ability to love. “Empathy is the intellectual, emotional, and imaginative apprehension of another person’s situation that takes place without experiencing it. It is learning through identification, through entering that special matrix where one encounters the unifying co-humanity of self and neighbor”[1]. So when is empathy a virtue? It depends, Miller in his research article concluded, “Empathy as a virtue is dependent on other virtues. It can’t stand alone; it’s insufficient. It needs to be informed and disciplined by other virtues such equity, judgment, and fairness[2].” However, empathy is much more than an emotional or cognitive connection. It is the ability to feel what someone else feels, and when these feelings involve the higher self, they become a call to action and become a virtue in themselves.

Empathy involves the ability to relate on body, mind, and soul levels. The emotions are the domain of the body and the old brain. When we experience and absorb the sadness or grief from another, it activates the amygdala resulting in our own experience of sadness including tears and the lump in the throat sensation. The call to help involves the workings of the mind. We evaluate the best way to support the other person, whether it be a hug, a word of encouragement, or just the silence of a good listener. If the cause of the person’s grief relates to our own experiences, there is a mental and emotional connection. We feel bonded through our sadness. Our soul, or more correctly, our spirit, experiences their soul energies and will begin to resonate with the same vibration with the goal of bringing the other soul back to the natural vibrations associated with love and joy. This ability to experience the emotional, mental, and spiritual vibrations of another is truly a remarkable virtue, one that we all have the innate ability to practice and experience. It is one of the basic foundations of love.

When it comes to sex, our body goal is orgasm, the mind goal is self-gratification, but the unspoken goal of the soul is to empathize or to seek and resonate with the love and joy vibrations of another.  If we are feeling down, we will seek another, usually a love partner, to help us regain our love-joy vibrations again. This is empathy in reverse, but it is still empathy according to our definition. This is more than an emotion, it is the ability to connect, not just for orgasm and sexual self-gratification, but for the ultimate goal of reaching and sharing the vibrations of love and joy. However, we have to be careful with whom we mate, because empathy means we absorb the emotional and mental vibrations as well as the spiritual. The goal should always be seeking the love-joy connection, so we can experience enriching feelings of higher vibrations.

 

Five application for bisexuality:

  1. We are a sexual body. It is sometimes okay to seek orgasm for the sake of orgasm as long as the other person is seeking sex for the same reason. And as bisexuals we can seek copulation with either men or women.
  2. We also have a brain or a mind, and we should use it. We will be forming a mental and emotional link with another human being. We should evaluate whether or not we wish to form such a link with the individual involved.
  3. We should also be seeking more than just orgasm. Anonymous encounters provide orgasm but nothing else and usually leave us with a hollow feeling, or even guilt, or shame. When we seek a sexual partner, we also have an opportunity to exchange thoughts and feelings with another human being. We have an opportunity to form a friendship and to share emotions and other feelings as well as orgasm.
  4. We can view sex as a soul experience. If we just experience sex and a physical and emotional experience, we have missed or deliberately chosen to bypass the greater sensation of joy. We can seize the opportunity to form a spiritual link which will lead to the wonderful vibrations of love and joy.
  5. We can remember that we are higher beings with a higher inner self. We have an opportunity to experience love and joy continuously. Sex can be a bridge from the mundane world of crying and striving to the fields of Elysium. We can choose a partner to help us walk the path with the enormous boost to joy that sexual experiences can provide.

[1] Virtue, First Foundation –

 

[2] Miller, Richard. Research IU Bloomington. 2013. http://virtuefirst.org/virtues/empathy/

 

Bisexuality and the Virtue of Desire

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)

Aristotle understood that action depends on thought plus desire and that reason and thought by themselves can achieve nothing (Nichomachachean Ethics, 1139a). He goes on to describe desire as the engine for directing “the right thought” which is the basis of higher thinking. In her book,  Li Zhi, and the Virtue of Desire, Lee describes Li Zhi’s insights about the role of feelings and how feeling involve the virtue of desire.[1] Crucial to Zhi’s ideal of the good life is the ability to express one’s feelings, as the articulation of feelings leads to clarity, and clarity leads to new desires. In other words, the virtue of desire is at the foundation of all our actions and even our private thoughts and feelings. Desire is a natural and necessary drive that helps us formulate thoughts and feelings which eventually will lead  to a progression of thought and action. But is desire by itself a virtue? Not necessarily. To become a virtue, desire has to be directed by the higher self, thus leading to higher desires that will set us on the path to self-actualization.

Desire is often omitted from religious inventories of virtues. There is constant reference to controlling our thought life and our desires. Christianity and Islam consistently talk about controlling the desires of the flesh and According to Buddhist belief, the goal of life is to live without any desires at all, because desires result in stress and anxieties that lead us away from a life of peace and contentment. However, this begs the question – can we truly be content without desire? Would we not be conflicting with our basic human nature which is to perceive something greater, some pleasure, some dream, some goal, even the goal of living a life of contentment free of anxiety and stress? What would we be without desires?

Desires are part of our basic brain structures. We see what is not and we ask why? We think of something that might give us pleasure and ask why not? Then the brain sets up a neural pathway that involves a goal that is intrinsically linked to the acquisition of this possible pleasure. A dopamine rush is then set out to motivate the body and the mind to obtain the pleasure. Once the goal is achieved we experience a serotonin rush that engages the pleasure center of the brain and sets up a neural pathway to enjoy this pleasure again in the future.

Human beings are creators, the motivation is desire, and the reward is pleasure. Ester Hicks through the voice of her spirit guide, Abraham, in the book Ask and It Is Given, states that desire is “the delicious awareness of new possibilities. Desire is a fresh, free feeling of anticipating wonderful expansion.” She goes on to say that we will “revel in the conscious awareness that you (we) have deliberately molded your (our) desires into being”[2] and “when you (we) go with the flow of your (our) own desires, you (we) will feel truly alive and you (we) will truly live)[3].

In conclusion, it appears that desire is indeed a virtue and life itself is based on wholesome desires of the body, the mind, and the soul. Our bodies and our drives lead to desires for feeling the pleasures of our bodies which includes sexual experiences. In fact, they lead to body, mind and soul connections with other human beings. They are simply a statement by our bodies that we wish to experience pleasure in its deepest forms. The mind wishes to experience life so that it can expand its knowledge of the world around it. It seeks to understand life in all its forms. The soul longs to dream and make its dreams come true. To reach self-actualization, we can follow our desires to experience the pleasures of our bodies; we can explore life in all its forms, and we can dream and let our dreams lead to desires that motivate us into making the dreams come true.

 

Here are my five applications to bisexuality:

  1. The desires of the body are part of human reality. There is no sin in desire. It is there to lead us to connection with others through the powerful sexual sensations of the body.
  2. The mind will try to evaluate if the desire is good for us. It will attempt to protect us from doing things that may be harmful, such as engaging in unsafe sex. However, the mind is also vulnerable to opinions, because it feels it needs to live in harmony with others. Therefore, it will try to abide by the mores of the society in which it lives. We may wish to override these mores from time to time and engage in activities that will bring pleasure to our being. We need to be conscious of what we are doing and why we are doing it. If we feel the pleasure is a healthy expression of who we want to be, we should set aside the restrictions of the ego and fulfill our desires without guilt and shame.
  3. The higher self is the best judge of what we should and should not do. It directs by feelings. If it feels good at a spiritual level it is automatically good. If it feels bad it is probably bad. We should get in touch with our higher self and learn to listen to the inner voice. This is not the voice of the ego; it is a voice without words. We shut down the mind and reach for the feelings from within.
  4. Our sexual desires usually lead to deeper desires. We seek connection. This is body to body through sex, mind to mind through shared knowledge and desire for learning, and a desire to spiritually vibrate and resonate with the spiritual vibrations of another. These vibrations are enhanced through body, mind, and soul connection. It can just be a full warm hug or it can be whatever we both want it to be.
  5. All paths should lead to self-actualization. It is the desire of the soul to experiment and experience, and move on from experience to higher knowledge and increased love energy. Pay attention to your desires and enjoy.

 

[1] Lee, Pauline C. ; Li Zhi, and the Virtue of Desire. Suny Series in Chinese Culture and Philosophy, Amazon. 2013.

[2] Hicks, Ester and Jerry. Ask and It Is Given. Hay House. 2004. (page 120).

[3] Hicks (page 123)

Bisexuality and Compassion

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Like all the virtues, compassion is purely selfish, and that is okay. It fact, it is more than okay. We do it because it makes us feel good and we feel good because being compassionate allows us to vibrate with The Source of goodness and compassion, with the universal flow of love that makes us more than rational animals on the planet Earth.  It puts us into the flow of life with such people as Nelson Mandela who truly understood the meaning of compassion: “Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future”[1].

Compassion does not come easy.  It is learned by being conscious travelers on the road of life. We do not have to live a life of suffering to be compassionate but it sure helps. It gives us a reference point with others who are suffering, a place in our minds and souls where we can connect through common painful experiences. Their pain helps us recall our pain, and our pain helps us remember the path through pain which in turn gives us something real to share with another human being. We can help them see the way through to the sanctuary of love and joy. Yes joy – or bliss, or ecstasy or whatever you want to call it. By retracing our steps through the journey with this companion in suffering, we again experience the joy, that place where the depths of the pain enables us to experience the fullness of life.

But before we can be truly compassionate we have to make the journey to self-awareness. As Brene Brown has stated: “It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.”[2] If we have worked our way through the grounding virtues (see past blogs on the grounding virtues) we will have had to make that journey. We will have learned to be aware of our higher self and to appreciate our self just as we are.  We will be thankful for those experiences that have helped us reach the place of being conscious. We will have celebrated those moments of suffering because they have made us better human beings.

Grounding leads us to the love virtues of trust and kindness. This makes us aware of the suffering of others and compels us to share the path of restoration. Many of us have been born with a difficult path that has led to sexual confusion and conflict. As members of the LGBTQ communities, we have learned compassion the hard way. For example, Ellen DeGeneres  learned compassion from being discriminated against, “Everything bad that’s ever happened to me has taught me compassion”[3]. And it is not just discrimination; more likely it has been sell-incrimination. We have had to learn to accept our orientation for what it is and to live with it to the best of our abilities. Often, especially for women, this has included some form of sexual abuse.  Therefore, we share a common bond, a source of resonance that is automatically tuned in whenever we begin to share our experiences with each other. This is why I write this blog. I want to share the deepest feelings of my inner soul. That’s why I write poetry, to give substance to those dark feelings so that they can be experienced by others. But life is not just about suffering. It is about overcoming the sources of pain and then sharing it with others. This is compassion.

Here are my five applications to bisexuality:

  1. First we can be compassionate with ourselves. We recognize and walk through our own painful experiences and celebrate our victories. Our bisexuality has been a difficult path. We have survived. But we are not just survivors; we have learned to thrive.
  2. We love our self. That is the only way that we will be able to love anyone else. We begin to see and love others as we love ourselves. We will be drawn to other bisexuals and members of the LGBQT community who need a kind word to help them on their own path to victory.
  3. We can learn to listen. We will soon become aware of the pain of others. We will be able to read between the lines. We will be able to read the body language. We do not pry. We just let others know that we are there to listen if they want to talk.
  4. We become conscious students of bisexuality. The more we understand our own situation the better we are prepared to help others.
  5. We live a joyous life and we let others know that there is a very bright light at the end of the very  dark tunnel.

[1] Nelson Mandela. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/nelsonmand447262.html?src=t_compassion

[2] Brene Brown
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/brenebrown553120.html?src=t_compassion

[3] Ellen DeGeneres
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/ellendegen451793.html?src=t_compassion

Bisexuality and the Virtue of Kindness

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)The dictionary defines kindness as the virtue of showing love and the qualities of having a sympathetic, affectionate, warmhearted, and considerate nature. Kindness is the second of the love virtues. Like all the virtues, it is a quality of one’s being, not just a matter of behavior.

Kindness comes from the heart. It flows from and is rooted in love. Like trust, kindness begins with the self; we can learn to be kind to ourselves. If we truly love ourselves, we will be sympathetic, patient, and forgiving, and stop blaming ourselves for our shortcomings and errors. We will be warmhearted, always believing and expecting the best for ourselves, planning daily to do something to bring pleasure to the body, mind, and soul. We will be considerate of ourselves realizing that trial and error is just living, and we will welcome the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and move on to greater awareness and consciousness.

The word kindness is related to the word kin, which originally meant the sharing of positive feelings with relatives. We learn kindness from our parents, grandparents, and other significant people during our developing years. When we receive kindness we experience a flow of love to and from another, thereby establishing a positive vibration with the other. This vibration is then stored in the heart of the soul and can be shared with others as a source of pleasure.

Kindness for the self leads to kindness to others. As the Delai Lama expressed, “When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.[1]” This establishes a pattern whereby we receive pleasure through acts of kindness. We set up a chain reaction of love vibrations. Whenever we experience this vibration, we restore our own positive love energies. This creates a kind of attraction for others to come and experience the joy of living with us. As Mark Twain, a philosopher as well as a gifted writer, noted: “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.[2]”

Kindness opens the door to the other virtues. When we are in a positive state the beauty of the world seems closer and more intense. We feel a part of the flow of universal love. This love leads to consciousness and wisdom. Truly, “What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?[3]” Kindness, love and spiritual wisdom lead to the only true religion, the religion of spiritual experience. I agree with the Delai Lama:  “This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.[4]”

Here are my five applications to bisexuality:

  1. Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Enjoy your bisexuality – it is a gift.
  2. Listen to your inner voice. It will lead you to sexual and other acts whereby you will experience love in all its forms. Your inner voice is the source of all the kindness you have within, because it is based on love for the self.
  3. Realize that sex is basically an act of love whereby we experience vibrations with others. It is a powerful drive that can be positive or negative. If you feel the positive vibrations – enjoy. If the feelings are negative – stop.
  4. Always show kindness to others including present and past lovers. Realize that they are just trying to live their lives as positively as they can. If they have negative vibrations related to sexuality, they should not be considered as sex partners but as people on the road of life. Be kind.
  5. Realize that sharing positive vibrations with others is the essence of life and love.

[1] The 14th Dalai Lama; (http://www.virtuesforlife.com/20-kindness-quotes-to-inspire-greatness).

[2] ~Mark Twain; (http://www.virtuesforlife.com/20-kindness-quotes-to-inspire-greatness).

[3] Jean-Jacques Rousseau; (http://www.virtuesforlife.com/20-kindness-quotes-to-inspire-greatness).

[4] Dalai Lama XIV; (http://www.virtuesforlife.com/20-kindness-quotes-to-inspire-greatness).

 

 

Sex and Virtuous Living

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(This is an excerpt from my book, Sex and Virtuous Living, which will be published in the near future.)

Virtues are beyond the power of the mind; they are the intrinsic qualities of the soul. They are all there just waiting for us open them up and live a purposeful and satisfying life. The human soul contains the mind with all its desires and fears, the heart which longs to reach out to others, and the spirit that longs to connect through positive energy vibrations with others and the universal source of positive divine energy that we can refer to as universal love. This interplay of mind or ego, heart, and spirit has the potential to create the virtues that can lead to bliss and self-actualization.

It is my belief that we are more than body and mind. Granted the human mind is an amazing organ that can draw upon sensations and perceptions to create amazing concepts and schemas that, perhaps, may include some concept of a higher self interacting with a loving god or a universal source of positive energy. But from my studies of the brain and the mind, I do not see how the brain by itself can develop the qualities needed for virtuous living. The mind is very self-centered and focuses on creating and responding to desires that lead to its pleasure and competitive achievement. It wishes to survive at all costs and to be the alpha female or male so that its genes can dominate the next generation.  Even the most altruistic motives can contain an internal reward. Regardless of our views of the Source, the Universe, the Tao, or God as some exterior source of power and enlightenment, most of us would agree that we do in fact have a higher self, that part of us that wishes and attempts to create a higher purpose and be a part of a higher human society. It is this part of the human soul that we will be working with throughout this book. It is this part of the soul that we can tap into to create the virtues needed for spiritual self-actualization.

In our western world, sex and human relationships are terribly misunderstood and the cause of massive amounts of negative energy that surface as depression, anxiety, grief, anger, and hate. Sex is a powerful force that originates in the reproductive organs, the hormone system, and the limbic system of the old brain. It is designed to preserve the human race through copulation and reproduction.  Sex is sex regardless of the issues experienced by various groups in our society, so we will be looking at is as one of the basic drives of the body, mind and soul as well as how it applies to the LBGTQ community and to trauma victims of rape and abuse. Regardless of our sexual experiences, we can channel the sexual energies of our bodies into positive feelings, wholesome relationships, emotional healing, and an energy source we can ride to self-actualization. The way to do that is through consciously developing virtues.

Virtues are qualities or characteristics of the human soul. Even though they may lead to compassion and altruism, they are basically about the self and the interplay of the ego-self, the heart, and the spiritual or higher-self.  We are human beings with all the desires and fears, but we are also spiritual beings who long to resonate in positive vibration with others and to reach out to the Source of Life and Love. Virtues require a desire to cooperate and flow with others towards some universal good. To seek true virtues, I believe we have to go beyond the functions of the mind where there is no perceivable reward other than being part of the flow of goodness and love.

I have divided the virtues into four blocks of five that I label as grounding, centering, love, and spiritual self-actualization. Like Maslow’s hierarchy, each one builds upon the other. The foundation of virtuous living begins in being grounded in the spiritual reality of the higher self.  As we visit each virtue we will attempt to connect it with the drives of survival and reproduction.

Virtuous Living , that will be published in the near future.)

Virtues are beyond the power of the mind; they are the intrinsic qualities of the soul. They are all there just waiting for us open them up and live a purposeful and satisfying life. The human soul contains the mind with all its desires and fears, the heart which longs to reach out to others, and the spirit that longs to connect through positive energy vibrations with others and the universal source of positive divine energy that we can refer to as universal love. This interplay of mind, heart, and spirit has the potential to create the virtues that can lead to bliss and self-actualization.

It is my belief that we are more than body and mind. Granted the human mind is an amazing organ that can draw upon sensations and perceptions to create amazing concepts and schemas that, perhaps, may include some concept of a higher self interacting with a loving god or a universal source of positive energy. But from my studies of the brain and the mind, I do not see how the brain by itself can develop the qualities needed for virtuous living. The mind is very self-centered and focuses on creating and responding to desires that lead to its pleasure and competitive achievement. It wishes to survive at all costs and to be the alpha female or male so that its genes can dominate the next generation.  Even the most altruistic motives can contain an internal reward. Regardless of our views of the Source, the Universe, the Tao, or God as some exterior source of power and enlightenment, most of us would agree that we do in fact have a higher self, that part of us that wishes and attempts to create a higher purpose and be a part of a higher human society. It is this part of the human soul that we will be working with throughout this book. It is this part of the soul that we can tap into to create the virtues needed for spiritual self-actualization.

In our western world, sex and human relationships are terribly misunderstood and the cause of massive amounts of negative energy that surface as depression, anxiety, grief, anger, and hate. Sex is a powerful force that originates in the reproductive organs, the hormone system, and the limbic system of the old brain. It is designed to preserve the human race through copulation and reproduction.  Sex is sex regardless of the issues experienced by various groups in our society, so we will be looking at is as one of the basic drives of the body, as well as how it applies to the LBGTQ community and to trauma victims of rape and abuse. Regardless of our sexual experiences, we can channel the sexual energies of our bodies into positive feelings, wholesome relationships, emotional healing, and an energy source we can ride to self-actualization. The way to do that is through consciously developing virtues.

Virtues are qualities or characteristics of the human soul. Even though they may lead to compassion and altruism, they are basically about the self and the interplay of the ego-self, the heart, and the spiritual or higher-self.  We are human beings with all the desires and fears, but we are also spiritual beings who long to resonate in positive vibration with others and to reach out to the Source of Life and Love. Virtues require a desire to cooperate and flow with others towards some universal good. To seek true virtues, I believe we have to go beyond the functions of the mind where there is no perceivable reward other than being part of the flow of goodness and love.

I have divided the virtues into four blocks of five that I label as grounding, centering, love, and spiritual self-actualization. Like Maslow’s hierarchy, each one builds upon the other. The foundation of virtuous living begins in being grounded in the spiritual reality of the higher self.  As we visit each virtue we will attempt to connect it with the drives of survival and reproduction.

Bisexuality and the Virtue of Trust

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)By definition trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something, but I believe it is much more than that. When we consider trust as a virtue, it becomes a characteristic of the conscious human being on her/his way to self-actualization.

It would appear that every past president of the United States, philosopher, entertainer, and sports hero has at one time in their lives said something quotable about trust. The best quote on the virtue of trust comes from Steve Jobs: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever…”[1] So what is trust, really? Where does it originate, what does it have to do with love, and how does it manifest itself when we apply it to bisexuality?

First of all, real trust is not about anyone else; it is about the interaction between the ego-self and the inner or higher-self.  It is not about the body because the body just want to survive, feel pleasure, and reproduce. It has nothing to do with the mind and our belief system because the mind is very skillful at twisting what it sees to fit into its belief system which is designed to help us thrive and excel in our social environment. It does not come from the heart because the heart’s sole purpose is to connect with others and is willing to sacrifice everything in exchange for acceptance and connection.  Trust originates in the gut which is the voice of the inner or higher self. We have to learn to trust this voice to guide us in our search for the higher purposes of life.

This brings us to the question of love. As stated many times before, love is the relationship between the ego or the mind and the higher self. We have to love our self from the deepest reaches of our inner soul. This is the only way we can truly love anyone else. We do not try to bind anyone to us so we can control them in order to have them there to meet our needs. We do not have to “trust” them to be “faithful” so that they will always be there for us. When we truly love and trust our self we do not need anyone to meet our needs. We are free to experience them as one higher self to another. We are free to let them be themselves so that we can enjoy connecting and vibrating with them as they reach out to attain their own sources of pleasure and self-fulfillment.

We started with a quote so let’s end with one, this time by Brian Adams, a pop singer: “I’ve only ever trusted my gut on everything. I don’t trust my head, I don’t trust my heart, I trust my gut.”[2]

Here are the five applications to bisexuality:

  1. We can learn to trust our gut, that inner voice that is showing us the path to true happiness. Before making important decisions,we can still the mind and the heart and let that voice show us the path to self-fulfillment.
  2. Our sexual orientation will give us the benefit of a whole and complete voice with both the divine masculine and feminine. We will be able to see both sides of an issue.
  3. When it comes to sex, we can learn to trust our gut to reveal the path between the desires of the body and the fears of the ego. It will show us what beliefs and practices are harmful and which ones will bring true and lasting pleasure.
  4. When it comes to relationships, it will help us see people as they really are. It will reveal those who are still in the throes of negative patterns that might be harmful and those who have reached a level of maturity where they can bring positive energies to our sexual experiences.
  5. When we learn to trust the voice of our gut, we will not seek sex and relationships in order to fulfill a need. All needs will be met naturally through the interaction of the body, the mind, the heart, and the voice of the gut. We can seek sexual relationships simply to enjoy the mingling of our body and soul with the pleasures and vibrations of other human beings.

[1] Steve Jobs. Life, Future, Destin. (Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_trust.html)

[2] Bryan Adams
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_trust.html

Bisexuality and Virtuous Living A Review

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Virtue, by definition, is behavior showing high moral standards, but who is to decide what high moral behavior is?  I choose to look at virtue as a collection of characteristics that indicate a higher level of physical and spiritual well being.

It is time to step back and take a look at where we have come from in understanding virtuous living. In the first set of five talks we looked at how we can become grounded.  The first step is to become aware of our higher self, the interactions of our higher self with our ego self, the interaction we have with life and the Source of Life, and our associations with the ones we love. This led to seeking Truth, or the virtue of Honesty. This path took us to the virtue of Discernment where we learned to deal with our wounded ego and the wounded egos of others. We then looked at Acceptance of ourselves including our orientation and the circumstances of our past and present lives. Our virtues of discernment and acceptance took us to Forgiveness where we come to the realization that there is no fault and no guilt. We were able to forgive ourselves for the wrongs we had done and forgive others for the things they have done to us. With this foundation in place we can begin to live a virtuous life.

This took us to the second set of five virtues that we can label as centering. Gratitude is where we were thankful for the people in our lives and the things they have been a part of that have led us to a higher level of consciousness. We can allow our higher self to enter into a spiritual existence where we can free ourselves from anxiety and begin to accept and appreciate the circumstances of our lives.  This provides us with an inner peace that we can refer to as Contentment. The third is Appreciation. We can be thankful for what others have done for us but Appreciation comes from within. We see the world and its beauty and we see ourselves as part of this internal and external beauty. The fourth is Fortitude.  We become strong inside and out and we begin to see ourselves as infinite powerful human beings. With this inner strength in place we can now be genuinely Assertive and stand up for ourselves and the things we believe.

This is the beginning of living a virtuous life.  We know who we are and what we believe.  In other words we are grounded and centered. We have inner strength to live according to those beliefs and we have the power to express those beliefs as needed.   This will take us to the third and last set of virtues in the next five blogs that we can refer to as the Love Virtues.

Here are my five thoughts on how these ten virtues applies to bisexuality:

  1. We must never forget that we are powerful beautiful human beings that are capable of generating powerful energy vibrations that can change the way we live and lead us to the person we want to be.
  2. We can appreciate our bisexuality as a gift that allows us to experience life though the divine masculine and divine feminine. We are blessed.
  3. We can strive to know, understand, and always be true to ourselves. We do not have to defend ourselves as bisexuals. We are what we are, no guilt, no shame. We have inner strength that we have not even begun to touch.
  4. We can develop the skills necessary to be assertive and still be compassionate with the ones we love.
  5. We can choose to help others by placing ourselves in positions to be noticed and heard. We do not have to seek out anyone to preach our beliefs; we just have to be ready with an answer when asked. If we are living a virtuous life we will be noticed and people will ask.

 

Bisexuality and the Virtue of Fortitude

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Fortitude is mentioned by Plato in “The Republic” as one of the four cardinal virtues.  St. Thomas Aquinas ranked fortitude as the third of the cardinal virtues after prudence and justice.  In the Bible, it is also included as one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, (Isaiah 11:2-3). The virtue of fortitude can be practiced by anyone; it is not only a Christian value but the natural outgrowth of life’s experiences.

The virtue of fortitude is commonly called courage, but it is different from what we think of as courage today. Fortitude always serves a higher purpose, is beyond reason, and is therefore, an expression of the will of the human spirit. Fortitude is the virtue that allows us to overcome fear and to remain steady in the face of all obstacles – physical, mental, and spiritual. If we look at fortitude from the perspective of good versus evil or light versus darkness, we see fortitude as our ability and strength to reach for the good for ourselves and others, instead of just allowing the darkness of the world to overcome us and prevent us from reaching for our higher sense of being.

Fortitude is strength of purpose in the face of all the obstacles that life tries to throw at us. If we have the virtue of fortitude, we will persist in reaching for our better self and to keep on going through pain and trials. We push on, believing in ourselves and in our divine purpose which is just to be, and to radiate the joyful vibrations of our inner self.  We never lose the vision of who we are and we rejoice in the opportunities to push through the chaos and grow as human beings in body, soul and spirit. Once we have arrived at the goal of divine Self-Actualization, we help others on their path, not out of feelings of guilt or responsibility for others, but as an opportunity to create the positive energies in others so we can vibrate and resonate together for our own sense of joy and purpose. In a way, we defeat darkness collectively by bringing light into the world, not as a collective, but as individuals vibrating in frequency with other individuals.

Here are the five applications to bisexuality:

  1. Even though our bodies and brains are bisexual by nature, it is not who we are. It is simply a genetic predisposition to sexual preference. It belongs to our bodies and minds but not to our spirits. Who we really are is our higher self, that part of us that is beyond the functions of the body and the mind. We must never lose sight of the fact that our sexual orientation is just that – a sexual orientation.
  2. Because of the life experiences that come with our orientation, we tend to be empaths, people with the ability to feel and comprehend the mental or emotional state and needs of others. This gives us the ability to feel and see things that others do not. This makes it possible for us to be artists, poets, and effective professional caregivers, but it also makes us more sensitive, and therefore, more vulnerable to the words and actions of others. Our first responsibility as empaths is not to serve others, but to understand, care for, and love ourselves. We have to be self-centered, not narcissistic, but aware of our own feelings and needs. We cannot save anyone. If we are in a relationship that is sucking the life out of us, we have to get out. If we are surrounded by people who want to take advantage of us, we are in dangerous company. We have to trust our inner Self to lead us to people who will be genuine friends and lovers regardless of their orientation.
  3. As bisexuals, our empathic natures are going to be wrapped up in our emotions, and of course, because of our life’s experiences, our emotions are going to be wrapped up in our sexuality. Sometimes we have to literally take pains to come to grips with our sexuality. We have to bring our sexual thoughts and behaviors in line with our higher self. This does not mean we have be to monks or nuns and suppress our sexual desires, but we should try to bring our sexual vibrations in line with our soul vibrations. If we are experiencing negative energy during our sexual practices, it does not mean that we have to stop having this kind of sex. It just means that we have to adjust our own attitudes or to recognize how our sexual partners are influencing our own vibrations.
  4. If we are using our sexuality to feed the dark, negative, or wounded ego side of our self, we must take stock, face the situation honestly, and do whatever it takes to turn off the negative feeling and open up to the positive. There is nothing wrong with our sexual practices as such, but it depends on how we think about them and which side of our psyche we are feeding. We have to learn to trust the feelings coming from our gut. If these interactions bring us down and make us feel sick inside, we have to then change our thought and  behavior patterns.
  5. We have to take an inventory of our life. Is what we are doing bringing the vibrations of peace and joy? If not, we have to make changes. This mean recognizing  the effects of what we are doing and the people with whom we are associating. We can mark each person or item with a positive or a negative, then make plans to embellish the positive and remove the negative. This includes everything including our relationships, jobs, activities and sexual practices. Above all, we remember that we are powerful beings with the ability to make whatever changes are necessary. All it takes is fortitude.