TOP

David: A friend of mine had a vision in which she intuited, "Love could be endless, could it not?" And I said, "Love COULD very well be endless. Let's consider how that could be."

Endless Love implies endless energy. But we've seen that human beings tend to become uncomfortable with higher levels of energy: high energy seems to make people ANTSY. To escape that antsy feeling, people tend to blow energy off when it gets "too hot to handle." There goes the neighborhood! We may not realize it, but that automatic tendency to blow off higher levels of energy becomes a limiting factor in our progress towards enlightenment, or even towards happiness.

We need to learn to hold the energy that Endless Love IS. And in order to do that, we need to get a handle on the ways we blow energy off. There are many ways to reduce energy. I want to start with a few small examples and work up to a larger example about how this works.

Ways of reducing
the energy that
endless love
depends upon

Eating. Sometimes when a person feels "too much" energy -- that is, when they feel that their state of higher energy is somehow irritating -- they want to have a cookie. The magic is that somehow if you eat a cookie -- or maybe have TEN cookies -- you won't feel so much energy any more.

Sleep. Somebody told me today that when she gets too much energy she wants to take a nap. In this case, taking a nap becomes the way of getting rid of the energy. Usually, after a person takes a nap they feel lower, more mellow, and therefore less antsy.

Sex. Then there's the use of sex or sexual release to reduce energy. When a person feels too much sexual energy, they want release from it, and orgasm comes in handy for that. Afterwards there's less energy, and again, the final result is the person feels less antsy.

Negative thought. Nothing like a bad thought to bring a fella down, is there? Indulging in negative thinking has a drastically and instantly chilling effect. Have you ever noticed how often negative reactions arise, and bring the vibe down, just when things are really good? Is that just COINCIDENCE? People blow hot and cold, and ride that insane roller coaster, largely to reduce the higher energy of God consciousness.

To be chipper or mellow -- that is the question

TOP

The price of
energy release

Releasing energy relieves that antsy feeling, but relief comes at a price. That's why the smart money is on conserving the energy. With sex, if you create energy and then get rid of the energy, you'll feel a little more dull; if you create it and keep it, you'll feel more chipper. Or back to the cookie: A person may realize that if they DON'T have a cookie, they'll probably feel more chipper overall. So sometimes they skip the cookie, and they feel good -- not only because they didn't have a cookie, but also because they actually have more energy now because they didn't.

Once people have dumped most of their energy, they then start back up the path of return towards the higher energy state. On the first part of that path, they will be feeling a little dull. As they proceed they feel a little more alive. On the next stretch, they feel quite good and bright -- but of course, at the same time, they start feeling antsy again. And that completes the cycle of return. Now what? Will they make the habitual decision to reduce their energy once more? Will they push the down button -- whether it be by getting depressed, by taking a nap, by blowing off some energy -- and then once down, have to start all over again? Or, will they hold the high ground?

TOP

The energy
roller coaster

Here's the cycle: Feel low. Feel medium. Feel chipper. Feel edgy and itchy. Blow it off and go down again. Reminds you of the song we sang as children, about the eensy teensy spider:

That cycle is natural to human beingness. It is bordered by each person's range of energy tolerance, which defines their spiritual state and the vibratory range they are willing to experience.

I want to expand on that now by discussing the operation of these same principles in the context of relationship.

Using relationship against itself

Common
methods for using
relationships to
reduce energy,
and the effects
of using them

We have all observed that desire is a form of energy, and that increasing energy takes the form of increasing desire in human beings. And like high energy, high levels of desire make people uncomfortable. This has a significant impact on intimate relationships. Consciously or unconsciously, many people -- probably most people -- use relationship in such a way as to reduce their energy and QUENCH their desire. When relationship is used to fizz desire-energy, relationship is being used to END relationship. Why? Because the relationship is MADE of desire-energy. It IS desire-energy. When you fizz the energy, you reduce the connection.

The time-honored method of energy reduction via relationship is known as gratification or indulgence. Here's a typical example of how this works:

TOP

Why lovers may
suddenly show
special interest
in each other

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Your mate puts up with some absence and the heart, in fact, grows fonder. But then you get the phone call that says, "Miss you." And I say, "Dum dum. Dum dum." (An ominous sound effect from the movie "Jaws.")

Of course, it's nice that the person misses you, and wants to get together. But what FOR? Dare we ask that question? The "dum dum" aspect is when the person has a lowering use for you -- to use you to END the experience of missing you and desiring you. In that case, they are inviting you to a meeting whose purpose is to achieve the result of not desiring you -- or not desiring you SO MUCH. If, when they get together with you, they can achieve not desiring you, then they will have fulfilled the purpose of the meeting.

When fodder
makes the heart
grow absent

On this track, the lovers get together, they do whatever they do, and by the end of that ceremony, they are no longer interested in one another as much. The ceremony is complete, so it's time to go. The bear has fizzed his flaming rear end in the lake. Here, the relationship -- or rather, the cooling process that is used in the relationship -- is the lake. With desire now extinguished, the person feels "Ahhhh" -- but also feels relatively low or lethargic, and feels no particular towardness. No longer particularly interested in staying around, the person goes somewhere else. Absence made the heart grow fonder, but now fodder made the heart grow absent.

Alone once more, the person, like the eensy teensy spider, starts back up the water spout. Dull eventually becomes middling, then chipper. Chipper soon grows into antsy or edgy. And then, once again, you get the phone call, "Miss you, honey."

If you really see that cycle for what it is, you will be heartsick. Unless, that is, you are in collusion with it because you have the same use for the relationship. Only when you have the same reluctance to endure high energy, the same urge to fizz your desire, does that call and that entire cycle seem attractive. Otherwise, how could you feel good about the fact that the person's use for you is to NOT WANT YOU anymore?

Relating to REDUCE
relationship?

Let's state this principle again, because it's important to get very clear on this: The use that most people subconsciously have for what they call relationship is to END relationship. They want to end the "torment" of desire. They want to throw off the "irritation" of being at a higher level of energy and desiring.

M: What a profound observation: that a common use for relationship is to actually quench and somehow minimize desire. For most people, relationship is what limits the intensity of desire and fizzes the energy of desire that is rising between them.

David: Yes. And that, in my view, is sad, not only because it immediately reduces their feeling of connection, but also because it prevents the relationship from achieving its higher and true goal -- the goal of UNITY. Ego is to blame for that. Ego is unconsciously trying to keep us from going to the place where relationship is really fulfillable. That's the point that I'm trying to make.

The art of using relationship to increase relationship

S: I understand what you mean when you say, "Relationships are being used against themselves." How can relationship be used to INCREASE closeness?

Does the setting
on the energy thermostat
ALLOW Love-union?

David: Obviously, relationship should be used in such a way as to move TOWARD Love-union. Love-union is created when OUTFORCE (towards energy) is sufficient to allow for real soul merger or blending. But merger cannot occur if your energy thermostat setting starts the air conditioner just when the temperature gets high enough for soul blending. That pattern creates endless frustration for people. They are not able to merge because they won't tolerate the degree of desire that would allow for merging.

For example: In sex play, when the desire and the fire reaches a certain intensity, the lovers actually experience unitive consciousness or the blending of souls. Most couples experience this high state only briefly, if at all, before dousing their desire through orgasmic release, or simply through excessive bodily contact -- pressing flesh to flesh. Many people believe that they have more energy AFTER sex than BEFORE, but generally, having had no experience of conserving the energy, they really have no IDEA what the full potential IS.

In any case, the smart money is on the person who says, "You know, this desiring is really great! Let's not blow it off. Let's let it be. And why can't this be forever? I would just as soon let this be forever!" Now that's a wise choice, because the lovers are experiencing ecstasy at the peak of their desiring. They are experiencing psychic connection at that peak. They are enjoying soul recognition at that peak. In short, they are experiencing EVERYTHING that they could possibly want at that peak. LIVING near that peak is the possibility few people discover. If they did, they would never go back to the old ways.

TOP

The tendency to
fizz energy or
mash flesh against
flesh is NOT
an expression of
desire to merge.

Taking that into account, you gain a new perspective on the usual hedonistic and compulsive tendency to mash, fizz, or otherwise get rid of energy. People like to think that the tendency to fizz or mash is an expression of their desire to merge, but now you can see that it is quite the opposite. Now you can see that tendency as an artless rebellion against the real consummation of Love-union. You can see that, experientially, it leads to nothing much more edifying or illuminating than a soggy, wet spot.

"WAS it good
for you?"

Ask yourself, how does it FEEL to be lying in that little wet spot? Lying there, your partner asks, "Was it good for you?" And then the answer is, "Yes! It WAS." Note the use of the past tense, there. They're NOT asking, "IS it good for you?" They're asking "WAS it good for you?" That implies, probably rightly, that however good it WAS, it's over now. And to that I say, "Why must it be over? Why can't it still be? What's wrong with endless love?"

S: It seems that what stands between us and endless love is our low tolerance for energy and desire.

David: That's true. People can experience as much of RELATIONSHIP as they can tolerate of ENERGY. Energy force equals psychic force. Psychic force equals interpersonal connection. Connection equals relationship. Pull the plug on the energy, and there goes the psychic FORCE, and with it goes the CONNECTION.

What? Am I never to satisfy myself?

R: What are you saying here? Are you telling us we are never to be satisfied or gratified?

Blowing off energy
is nothing to be
terribly ashamed of;
life moves two steps
forward, one back

David: That's an excellent question. We can all recognize, honestly, that all human beings do have certain limits in their tolerance for desiring. There is no blame for the small range of tolerance for energy that people have. There is no blame for getting antsy and wanting to get off that stool, and there is no blame for actually getting off it. The natural dance step of life, the way life ordinarily proceeds, is two steps forward and one step back. There's nothing wrong with that. No blame, shame, or guilt should be associated with that normal pattern.

But we can also honestly admit that the higher a person's towards force or desiring force, the happier the person will be, and the stronger the psychic connection. So it's up to the people to determine, by the way they handle desire and energy, what level of connection they actually want to enjoy as the PREPONDERANT mode of their relationship.

TOP

The RESULTS of
quenching reflect
the MOTIVATIONS
behind quenching

So my answer is this: Of course you can gratify yourself. Life's too short to deny yourself a bit of pleasure, right? Just remember this: Whatever you do, your underlying motives will determine the results. If your conscious or subconscious intention is to reduce energy and connection, then that's exactly what will happen. But if you want to preserve the energy and the connection, you will moderate your tendency towards gratification. You will naturally not be so addicted to exhaustive indulgence.

Keeping all or part of the energy allows you to keep all or part of the connection. Wisdom in sex means recognizing that if you don't blow off all your juice, you can still feel some desire and connection afterwards. Similarly, wisdom at Thanksgiving means recognizing that if you don't eat too much, you might possibly be able to walk around and feel like a human being after the feast. So you get to make up your mind. You can fizz as much energy as you want, but you can keep what you need to remain happy and vibrant.

How to maximize
forward progress

My point is simply this: Even within that normal pattern, wisdom can be brought to bear on life. Life is short. You may not want to waste much time getting where you want to go. If you want to move ahead with the maximum speed, then bring the maximum of consciousness to your movements. Take as many steps forward as possible and then, logically, take as few steps backwards as possible. Fair enough? I say this because I love you. I say this because I know that doing so will expedite the fulfillment of your most heartfelt desires. I say this to support the heartfelt desire of your soul to progress in the forward direction.

TOP

S: It seems to me that people use love to end loving -- just like they use relationship to end relationship. You love, and then at some point you feel satisfied with the love you've given, and you take a break from loving.

What if, instead of blowing hot and cold, you decide to never stop loving? That would be the kind of desire you've been talking about -- where you just keep going. Is that right?

David: That's absolutely right! If you really want to be love, you must decide to NEVER stop loving. Otherwise, when you reach that point where you say to yourself, "I gave at the office," you're fizzing yourself. In that case, apparently, you've quenched your desire to love by the very process of loving. So you stop loving, and you "cool off." That can't possibly work.

Obviously, you must decide to push through all the times when you would otherwise stop. Instead, every time it feels like you've done enough, or you want to stop, you CONTINUE. You just keep loving, keep loving, keep loving, because you want to. In that case, your pure desire pushes to you to tolerate whatever higher energies come as a result. You ACCEPT what is higher.

Desire and energy
are our friends,
not our enemies

That acceptance relates to the example I gave earlier about sex, in which the person gets to a point of desire where they realize that desire is no longer their enemy. Suddenly, for some reason, desire appears to be something more like a friend. That's when RESISTANCE turns into ACCEPTANCE. At that point they say, "Why can't I just keep on desiring? This is totally cool. This is perfect. I don't WANT to leave this place; I want to stay here forever. This is my Kodacolor moment. It's what I am living for. Desire is the fulfillment of my soul, because in this degree of desiring, with this amount of outforce or towardsness, I am One."

S: I had an experience yesterday, after two days of loving as constantly as I could. I had a feeling that my state itself was blissful, and I didn't need to do anything. I thought, "This is what the yogis must feel in deep meditation." Is that correct?

The I AM experience

David: What you have found is True. This is Self-sufficiency in the true sense -- Self with a capital "S." Your Self-nature is blissful, and in that state, you don't need to do anything to realize that. That's the "I AM experience." That is what my teacher used to refer to as our "prior condition." Your prior or essential condition is a state of unity.

Now, hang in there with that. As a great Vedic sage said about that experience, "Inhere in that than which there is no other." If you simply exist and persist in being what you are, if you remain conscious as that which you are, then you don't have to go back. You don't have to hamster your way back to that blessed state ever again. You will remain CONTINUOUSLY involved in the refreshing circle of your actual union with all of life. That's enlightenment.

S: But my programming said, "Naw -- this is just a momentary phenomenon. I know I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and I'm going to feel like shit. God won't give me this. This is too good."

Stable consciousness
is high on every
soul's wish list

David: Yes, that's what your programming says, but your soul knows better. Your soul knows that not only does it GET this, it must have this ALWAYS. Your soul says there's got to be a relief from the problem called duality. Your soul knows that the constant condition of loving and of being is, in fact, the ONLY solution to that roller coaster. Your being will stabilize in that state soon, oh yes it will!

S: Thank you. I'm working on it.

True acceptance
can save work

David: You can be certain of it. It is really a matter of working on it to the point of ACCEPTANCE of it. True acceptance can save a ton of work.

A vision of endless desire

M: I have this vision of endless desire. You have the Love-union and you are complete in that bliss, but it's never fully quenched in the sense that you never get to the point where you don't want the Beloved anymore. You can always feel the desire, you are always very towards and still longing for the Beloved. It's just this cycle that's endless, in that it just continues to grow over time. That's what I want.

David: This is the same as what we've described as endless love.

M: That's what I sense about it, but my question is more along the lines of keeping the fire going. I'm trying to understand how it will work in everyday life. I was thinking about the Gopis in their love affair with Krishna, and I was wondering if part of the source of their desire was from what I call unrequited love. It was not really unrequited, obviously, but there was plenty of time to long for the Beloved, because they weren't always with Him -- He wasn't always in their sight.

David: Their relationship to Krishna was heightened because absence made their hearts grow fonder. The desire could grow because there was room for it to grow.

M: I'm wondering about the need for pauses in the relationship, time not spent together, so that that time can be filled with longing. Is it possible to always feel this towardsness, to always feel this increasing desire -- even while being with the Beloved?

David: A person who wants to MAXIMIZE RELATIONSHIP needs a different strategy than someone who wants to MINIMIZE DESIRE. That person simply must try to find every possible way to maximize the connection with those they love. And it's not only a matter of manipulating the physical distance. Relationships are not primarily a physical phenomenon; they are primarily ETHERIC.

M: Right, they are in the heart and mind.

TOP

Physical proximity or
distance is not as
important as desire
and intention

David: Yes, and that is why the heart is able to grow fonder during periods of absence -- because when we are apart, we may think of one another, and desire one another. This reflection is more than merely getting "horny," of course. Because separation increases the time spent thinking lovingly of one another, and decreases our opportunities to dissipate our connection, it can have the effect of maximizing relationship. But again, physical circumstances are not as important as the person's desire and intention. You can desire your Beloved when you're with him as well as when you're apart. In fact, if you are to be truly close to him, you MUST want him even when you are in his presence. Otherwise, you will be physically near, but emotionally distant.

M: Do you mind if I ask about something else that came to mind? I find that even when I am very desirous of Love-union in an emotional sense, I habitually also have the physical desire to fizz the energy. Do I just need to practice this new way to think about desire, or is there actually something that I can do physically?

"Circuits
of conductivity"
make more space
for more energy

David: There is something that you can do that relates to the physical: you can give the energy more physical space to exist in. For that, you need to establish two circuits of conductivity: an inner circuit, and an outer circuit. First, you need an INNER circuit of conductivity so that your energy can be evenly dispersed throughout your whole body. Second, you need an OUTER circuit of conductivity through which you can share energy with the Beloved -- or even with the universe, for that matter. Otherwise the higher energy is too compressed, and the discomfort of that pressure increases our desire to get rid of it.

Also, as I mentioned earlier: you simply need to learn to handle more energy, period. The body must get used to higher levels of energy, so it doesn't run out of energy tolerance way too soon. In that case, the body will simply revert to its regular pattern of saying, "Whoa, that's enough!" when the going gets toasty.

The need to
welcome higher
energy with
open arms

Again, there is nothing so terribly wrong with these cycles of backing off. You go as far as you can with energy -- you can't expect to catapult yourself to heaven all at once. But if you want ecstasy, then you can and must steadily increase your tolerance for energy. You must persist in going up more and more, and going down less and less, until the experience of high energy and strong desire becomes intensely gratifying -- rather than merely irritating, or unwelcome. And that requires real discipline and real willingness. You have to be willing to WANT more intensely.

How desire fulfills itself

Intense desire
contains its own
fulfillment

You will discover that this thing you call endless desire is truly self-fulfilling. The so-called torment of desire is resolved in the simple observation that desire contains its own fulfillment. In the "solution" we call NOT WANTING, we create the problem known as NOT HAVING. In the "problem" called desiring, we find the fulfillment called Oneness.

M: So few people understand that!

David: Right. Because they've bought the mistaken idea that desire and the satisfaction of desire are OPPOSITES. In reality, desire and the satisfaction of desire are simultaneous and identical. Most people have experienced the truth of that many times. Surely almost anyone could say, "When I am at my highest pitch of desiring, I feel most at One." Contained in that single observation is the full understanding of everything I've said here tonight.

God communion and interpersonal union

TOP

Using human
interaction for
spiritual upliftment

One of the primary purposes of my teaching is to spiritualize the human experience -- so that the human experience takes on the Divine quality of real soul upliftment. Relationships can be used very successfully in this way. People can judiciously use intimacy to fan and feed their desires. At some point in that fanning, I promise you, the higher cosmic desire for soul merger arises out of the lower human desire for mere gratification.

So I say, for example, you can use sexual dalliance in a way that creates more desire -- you don't have to use it in a way which brings desire to an end. And relationships as a whole can create the right amount of contact to whet your appetite and increase your towardsness and your desire, without blowing energy off or blowing closeness up. That, in my view, is the perfect use of a relationship. The relationship gets better and better, realer and realer. The etheric connection grows stronger and stronger. The connection does not get blown up on each cycle of contact, so that like the eensy teensy spider, you both have to crawl back up the water spout.

This is a perfect use for sexuality, and a perfect use for relationship. It is a perfect use for all experience. It neither drains energy, nor quenches the fire of desire. It does not douse the force that makes closeness what it is. But it is, admittedly, a reversal of the conventional use of relationship to undo itself.

TOP

These secrets of life
can and will be
uncovered in your
own experience

Even if this does not make complete sense to you now, you will surely re-discover these same answers in your own experiments with intimacy. Somewhere in your struggles you will find this key, you will find this same understanding. Some day you will see exactly how to use intimacy, not for its own undoing, but for improving etheric connection. Then you will experience for yourself the meaning of the words ENDLESS LOVE.

TOP

F: The most frustrating thing about life is this up and down cycle of experience. One day you're high, the next day you're low. It feels like being on a treadmill. How do we get OFF that treadmill?

David: You CAN get off that nasty treadmill. God does not mean for you to stay stuck on it forever. The first step off the treadmill is to WANT to get off. You're not going to get off until and unless you really want to get off. You can be certain of that.

Fortunately, at a certain point in your spiritual progress, a strong desire to get off it arises in you naturally. You want stability in your state of mind, stability in your energy level, and so on. When you are up, you no longer particularly want to go back down. Honestly, I had heard of enlightenment, I had read the books, and I had even met some genuinely enlightened people. But even so, I never had any idea that any of this could be stable in me, personally, until it dawned on me, in my frustration, that I personally had to get off the treadmill.

In the long run, the feeling of being a hamster on a hamster wheel, the feeling of being the eensy teensy spider, is irritating and wearisome. That's why, at some point, the soul conceives intuitively of the possibility that perhaps life does not HAVE TO BE a treadmill. The dawning of that intuition is like the chick intuitively realizing that it's time to peck out of the egg.

The intuition of
freedom appears in
you spontaneously
when it's time to
realize it

Everyone wants to reach a point in their evolution where their well-being is not going to be impacted by every little indulgence. They don't want to endlessly worry, "If I have a cookie then I'm going to go back down; but if I resist the cookie I'll be able to hold ground.... What kind of nonsense is that? Must I be so insanely vulnerable to the smallest misstep?" They don't want to think, "If I do my exercise routine I'll be able to creep forward, but if I skip my workout, I'll get weak."

I know for a fact that there are those among you who have reached this point personally. You are intuitively thinking, "Maybe I don't have to do this anymore some day." That means you have reached the point at which you develop new enthusiasm for higher levels of energy. At this point, you intuitively realize that if you can just tough it out, someday you won't have to work so hard to be happy. You will have earned your PERMANENT wings.

Please believe me on this; have faith in my words: well-being, energy, radiance and towardsness could last forever. You can rest assured that if you raise your energy high enough, at some point you WILL stabilize. And thereafter, your well-being will no longer depend on the maintenance of self-conscious disciplines. That's my promise to you.

My job is to show people how to get off that treadmill for good. Once and for all. If you follow my instructions and you don't get the desired results, then I'll give you your money back. But I have confidence. This stuff WORKS!

Requirements for the achievement of stable consciousness

Fan energy to a
very high intensity

The first requirement of stability is the one I have already described: The person must become more TOLERANT of the antsy or edgy quality of higher energies. You must become willing to accumulate more and more energy. You must accumulate an exceptionally high degree of energy, by however much energy-fanning it takes to do that.

TOP

Control the decisions
that impact energy

The second requirement of stability is that you must persist in upward decisions -- and desist from downward ones -- long enough and strongly enough to make a difference. I have said many times that evolution proceeds in quantum shells of higher and higher energy and consciousness. When you have accumulated enough energy, I promise that you WILL make a quantum leap; you will discover a new state of being in which your radiance stabilizes. And that fulfills my friend's dream, which is that love is FOREVER.

David's
experience of
being in stable
energy

I myself have certainly reached a stable state, so I mention the possibility of stability, not as a theoretical possibility, but from my own personal experience. I have reached a point where I am no longer on the treadmill; I am ALWAYS towards. I have been this way continuously for more than two decades. I am towards in my happy mood, and I am towards in a funk. I am radiant in my sleep, and everyone who watches me sleep will attest to the fact.

Normally people go down when they nap, because sleep is a kind of opiate. But you see, I no longer go down by taking a nap. I take a nap WITHIN my radiance -- WITHIN my bubble of consciousness. In other words, I am ALWAYS involved in the circuit of conductivity. I am always putting energy out, and the universe is always giving energy back to me.

What has happened to me? I, like the average individual, suffered on the treadmill for many years: sometimes being up, sometimes falling down and having to climb back up. I have experienced the cookie dilemma -- struggling with all these seemingly crucial decisions, decisions that would determine whether I was going to be happy or not, whether I would be chipper or not, whether I would be radiant or not. One look at me now should convince you that I have overcome any fear of cookies!

But like most of you, I got sick and tired of the treadmill. And like you, at some point along the line, I felt a desire for a more stable condition. Now pay attention to what happened next, because this is the part of my experience that is relevant to you: At a certain point, my tolerance for energy went up. Why? Because I DESIRED it. I intuitively realized that the only way to get off the up/down cycle was to GO UP AND STAY UP. I knew that staying up would require some miracle of transformation, some quantum leap, and I was sufficiently humble to recognize that I could not create that miracle with my own creature power. But even so, I was clear that UP was the direction to go. So up I went!

The end of the need for compensatory self-work

The end of the
need for disciplines
to get or stay okay

I USED TO engage in disciplines religiously. And I didn't know it then, but I engaged in those disciplines largely to compensate for the fact that every time I got up to a certain point, I turned back down. Once I shook the desire to turn back down, I eventually reached a point where I went up and STAYED up. I stabilized in a level which no longer required any kind of hamstering.

For me, that was the end of the need for discipline as you know it. Now I can only say, "I don't REMEMBER the last time I did any spiritual disciplines. Why would I make that kind of effort? What would I be trying to compensate for or trying to grasp at?"

You can understand from all this that the problem of achieving stability resembles the problem of pushing a car halfway up a hill. You push a car halfway up a hill, then you pause to refresh yourself, and the car rolls back down the hill. You push that car halfway up the hill again, you pause to refresh yourself, and again it rolls down the hill. And so it goes, on and on.

Pushing the car to
the TOP of the hill

One day you get a brilliant idea: What needs to happen is that the car needs to be on the top of that hill. Then, it will NOT roll back down, even if you forget to set the parking brake!

That's what I mean by a quantum leap: a permanent change of state. In a quantum leap, you permanently overcome the downward tendency by simply pushing the car to the TOP of a certain hill. Thereafter, it no longer matters if your whole life to that point has been spent either pushing that car halfway up the hill, or watching it roll back down into the valley. Things are different now. Now, you'll NEVER have to push the car to the top of that particular hill again.

Mind you, although we speak of a stable condition, technically speaking all steps are in fact reversible. But some achievements are NOT LIKELY to be reversed. For example, once a soul has been born as a human being, he or she is not likely to wake up tomorrow as, say, a tree. That is what I mean by an irreversible step.

The fact of
"irreversible"
states of being

Likewise, many levels of evolution, once achieved, are not about to be undone. The state of consciousness called enlightenment is one of them. Every day when I wake up, I'm still radiant, I'm still radiant, I'm still radiant, I'm still radiant. And every day I wake up, it doesn't matter whether I have a cookie, it doesn't matter whether I have a cookie, it still doesn't matter. Every day, nothing is about to topple me.

How desire becomes Self-realization

What I am pointing you towards in my teaching on desire is esoteric knowledge; it is not available on the street. I am revealing to you a cosmic secret. Here's another piece for you. . .

Desire never ends. It does not end with Love-union, and it does not end with God union, or with Self-realization. Desire just rises to a higher level, that's all. But at that level, desire is not a torment, really, but rather an END to torment.

A person who scales the mountain of desire eventually comes to exist in the flow of continuous outpouring. That person, if they persist in such outpouring, finally becomes radiance itself. That person is totally fulfilled in the very circle that desire realizes. What is realized in such great desire is not just Love-union with some human beloved; it is the blending of Self with All that Is.

TOP

Life is a circle

Life is a circle, my friends. Your ups and downs are created because you periodically withdraw yourself from the circle. Someday, when you have joined with life, when you are married to life, when you commit yourself to life body and soul, you will ALWAYS be a circle. Thereafter, everyone who sees you will resonate you and refresh you. Thereafter, the circle you're involved in with your rug, your teacup, your Kleenex, will enliven you. Thereafter, you will always be in communion. You will be part of a stable system, a sustainable ecology, as it were. With every exhalation, you will be breathing out everything that you are, and with every inhalation, you will be breathing in everything that is for you. This realization, the realization of Oneness, is a sustainable and achievable goal.

Until that day, WORK. Work more or less successfully, but work persistently. And know, along the way, that your destiny depends on the balance between your efforts to go up, and your efforts to go down. At whatever level that balance places you, that is your state. Whatever the range of your tolerance for energy, that determines the ceiling on your well-being.

Three "destiny
determining
questions"

Ask yourself these questions:

THOSE, my friends, are destiny-determining questions.

TOP

S: Does what you're talking about apply to our relationship to God, too?

The difference
between ordinary
interpersonal
communion and
God communion

David: Definitely. But there is an important distinction between human communion -- at least the ordinary kind of human communion -- and Divine communion: The relationship to God is not draining; it is only filling and fulfilling. God union is not an orgasmic experience in which, as the soul disgorges itself or unburdens itself of its energy, it experiences a pleasure blip for a few seconds -- and then lies there spent and exhausted, in a depressing little wet spot. So you don't have to worry about depletion in that context. No way! When you merge with God, you never come away EMPTY; you always come out FULL. In Divine communion, you are simply filled, and in the consummation of that relationship you are completely full.

In God consciousness and God union experiences, the energy level just goes UP. And when you exit from your love tryst with God, you leave as you would leave a good experience with a human lover, in which your ball of energy ascended to the maximum and then you continued about your life. It's like that.

However, there is a very important similarity between interpersonal and Divine communion as well: Real desire plays an essential role in the relationship to God. You certainly can't be enlightened except to the extent that you DESIRE to be enlightened. That's why the love relationship between God and God's devotee has often been cast in romantic terms, as a relationship of Love-desire. In the spiritual traditions, we often hear about the exquisite spiritual yearning and hunger of the soul for the Divine Beloved. In the Hindu tradition, we hear about the romantic love between Krishna and the Gopis; in the Christian tradition, we hear about nuns who call themselves the Brides of Christ -- that sort of thing.

Desire is, and has always has been, considered to be the CAUSE of enlightenment or God communion. Desire is what makes that union possible, just as it does with the human beloved or any other object of desire. And in that sense, at least, the human and Divine experiences are IDENTICAL.

A bridge to Heaven

S: We have talked about our path as the bridge from here to heaven, or from ordinary life to enlightenment. And in the beginning we clearly described the bottom part of that path. We talked about loving relations, loving communication, etc. I think that with this talk, we are building the top part of that path. You are talking in terms of etheric connection, God Realization, Love-union, etc. That stuff seems more like the far end the bridge, on the heaven side. It's the esoteric part.

David: You can talk about two different ends to the bridge, but I see the human struggle and the spiritual struggle as one. Human beings experience in their intimacies a miniature model of the drama that goes on between the soul and God.

Remember the parable of the prodigal son, the one who left his family and struck out on his own. It's the story of rugged individualism. It is the story of the proud soul who strives to make it without other people -- and without God. There is a certain "prodigality" that causes human beings to blow off their desire for God and God union. It is the same prodigality that is expressed in the ebb and flow of desiring within relationships.

When our prodigal sonship has run its course, we accept our need for union, we accept the desire that is required to cement a true and vital and vibrant relation with God. We find fulfillment then and there. And-in relative terms, of course-we find the same fulfillment in the context of a truly elevated human intimacy. There again, we find unity, in Love-union. "As in the macrocosm, so also in the microcosm."

TOP

The same
fundamental
choice governs
both human
communion and
God communion

The entire cosmic struggle is reflected in the struggles that we experience in human relationships: "Should I be separate from, or should I be one with? Should I be a totally independent being -- meaning, not desire? Or, should I be a slave to love?" My answer to that is certain: "The dignity goes to the lover in the end. The alternative -- the achievement of utter severance from others, or total personal autonomy -- is the booby prize of life. It is the ultimate extension of estrangement from Deity and from Love-union altogether. It is the loss of Love-union, whether we are speaking of union in relation to human beings, or union in relation to God. Either way, it's the same drama, the same dilemma, the same war. Either way, the combatants are the same: ego vs. spirit.

S: Would you say that the resolution of the struggle in the microcosm is identical to the resolution of the struggle in the macrocosm? I mean, if you succeed in desiring enough to merge with an individual, is that the same as merging with God?

David: Absolutely. Remember, the Love-union between two people is in fact a union between souls, not bodies. And the essential nature of the soul is God consciousness. At the point of union, the human-Divine distinction vanishes. I've addressed this particular issue exhaustively in papers I've written on Tantra in the past. You might like to refer to some of those. But in short, it's like this: When you jump to the Beloved, you're not jumping into somebody's physical body, you're jumping into the bubble or the sea of consciousness together. That consciousness is God consciousness, not some OTHER consciousness. So God union is the experience you enjoy when you unite with any actual object. Even downhill skiers know about this. A person who is truly at one with the slopes is at one with God.

F: That's why when I'm deeply interacting with someone and we reach a point where there's a high level of intensity, it feels like God, right?

How God
consciousness
arises in the
merging of
human beings

David: Exactly! And you start making comments like, "Wow! God's here. I can feel it. This is FAR OUT, man!" That's exactly what I'm saying: God is here. "Where two or more are gathered, there I am also." And, "The Kingdom of Heaven is among you." God is in you, God is in them, and God is in the room. Remember my poem also:

God is in fact in the Space. And when you are merging, you are not merging in a BODY blender; you are merging in a SOUL blender. The soul blender is God consciousness. You are merging in the Space that exists beyond the body shell.

The power to jump

With that in mind, you can understand exactly why strong desire -- or what I call towardsness is -- essential. Desiring or towardsness is the force which ALLOWS FOR blending in Space. Desire allows you to exceed the prison of the body. May the force be in you!

TOP

How desire-fire
moves people to
jump from the
body into the sea
of Being

I have even said, as a concession to the antsy feeling associated with high energy, that strong desire-fire makes the body unlivable, and that's why you jump from the body -- as a person would jump from a burning building. Or, to use a Biblical image, you jump from your burning bush, the bush that is burning with desire-fire. Maybe when you jump, it is to escape the searing heat of desire-fire. But then again, maybe you jump because the Voice in that burning bush is, in actuality, God's voice -- and it is speaking to you of the joy of God union. It is a call to arms -- GOD'S arms.

In any case, desire-power provides the force for expansion into God consciousness or Love-union. And that's why I say, "The limit of desiring is the limit of conscious expansion."

Any further questions?

F: I don't know if I have a question. Just hearing this makes me very desirous of the whole thing. I'm seeing how for my whole life, the downward tendencies of not wanting to desire have kept me away from enlightenment. I feel the impact of what I've done to not desire. But now, as you were talking, I felt this great desire. It was like, "Yeah! Look what I've been doing with my life! I've been going away from the very thing I want!"

David: Exactly. So you end up learning to desire to desire. In other words, when you WANT to want, that's when you make the real breakthrough. The rest is just the outworking of the desire.

F: I feel like God's been trying to get me to get this by opening my heart, making me feel more towards. He and you have been saying, "Come on, this is good!"

David: Yes, it IS good! Go there! Don't be afraid. It doesn't hurt, does it? See what I mean?

Take the edge off
intensity without
losing bliss-fullness
altogether

Remember, if you think you're way over your head, you can always push the panic button. You can always jump off at any point along the upward path. You can blow off those increasing energies any time you want, and make the decision to go down. But as I said earlier, when you want to remain connected to the Beloved, or when you want to remain connected to life, you may make a compromise. You can decide to go down, but only a little way down. You decide to keep SOME of that precious energy. In that case, you might say, "Hey, I'm on the bumpy highway over here, I can't handle this. But I don't need to go down too far. I'll just blow off a LITTLE steam."

Ecstasy insurance

F: Like on Thanksgiving, you can say, "I don't need to eat till I'm stuffed; I can eat until the edge is off, but I can still stay chipper!" That way, I protect what I'm enjoying. It's like ecstasy insurance.

David: Exactly. You might feel a need to dial back to an energy level which is a little less irritating -- but at the same time, you can make a conscious decision about HOW MUCH of the edge you really want to take off. Maybe, instead of taking 80% off as you usually do, you could take just 10% off. That way, you could regain a comfort zone, but still remain ecstatic.

TOP

High energy is so
blissful, it can be
POSITIVELY addictive

Remember, in spite of all the bad press about high energy, high energy IS blissful, and for that reason, it is addictive. As you enjoy more and more bliss, you'll want to take off only the minimum, and keep the maximum. For you, energy-bliss has now become a very pleasant form of existence. It is no longer a torment of any kind.

F: You get converted to keeping the energy instead of going for some consolation.

David: Yes, you find you don't need some lesser consolation, or some negative episode, or some backlash dramatization. You don't need to push the down button any more.

TOP

David: What are your considerations about this conversation?

R: Well, I started out feeling uncomfortable about holding a charge. But then I took what you were saying to add weight to the upside of feeling desire. I connected it in a larger context to my own past experience of God yearning. Then I felt an agreement.

David: Good. Then everything will be fulfilled, you just have to go for it. So what's left?

R: I started to regret things I had done in the past. But now, hearing you speak, I realized that you're not here to overturn the past, but to fulfill it. I mean that in the best sense.

David: That's true. I have no quarrel with the human saga. My schtick is only to help make that struggle more fruitful.

R: I got in touch with everything that was ever good in my strivings -- stuff that wasn't quite right, but was nonetheless essentially good. I recently went through a phase of having to give up all my forms of past striving. I let go of it all for the sake of throwing myself in here fully. In a way, it felt like I was giving up my old search. But now it's all coming back to me. I'm coming around to where I can see the good of my past striving. My intentions were good, but I couldn't get the desired results.

Unraveling the confusion of the search

David: My job is to show you where the search ran off the rails, so you are better equipped to get the results you want. We can do that now, if you like.

R: Yes, go for it.

David: Okay. The explanation I am about to give you will benefit everybody.

When egoic and
spiritual forces
come into equal
balance during the
course of
evolutionary
progress

What happened to you happens to most people when they reach the point where egoic forces and spiritual forces are nearly in balance. Everything becomes confused by the ego's accusation that desire is an expression of the failure of well-being and sovereignty. Because you bought that negative implication, it mucked up your efforts to be free. It blinded you to the deeper rightness of your striving. It led you to believe that your striving was not so much the expression of your soul's desire for God union, but rather, it was proof of your lack of individuation or of spiritual okayness.

R: What does the "sovereignty" idea mean?

TOP

Pro-dependence
is anti-desire

David: It means, "Thou shalt not want or need! Thou shalt be an island." As you know, egoic culture places an extremely high premium on the ideal of personal independence. In support of that ideal, it says, "Striving and desiring are an abomination. They represent the lowest and stupidest part of yourself. You should be self-sufficient! You must be a self-contained, self-sufficient entity in order to be fully individuated or self-actualized. If you depend upon anyone besides yourself, or live anything but the most perfect form of prodigal sonship, then you're an abysmal failure of a human being. You haven't even gotten out of diapers."

R: And so, under that philosophy system, if you're desiring or striving after things, you are obviously NOT self-sufficient. You are not okay.

Human heart
needs and soul
needs aren't about
to go away

David: Yes, under that system, any accusation of dependence or need is supposed to be a perfect insult. The trouble with that philosophy should be obvious: you are a HUMAN BEING -- and as such, you need things and you want things. And furthermore, you are bound to make some efforts to get your needs and wants met. You are GOING to strive.

The impact of these negative ideas about desiring is not that you are going to stop striving altogether, because that is practically impossible. The impact is that you PULL YOUR PUNCHES in your desiring. You don't go all the way.

R: So what's the problem there? Is it that when you stop going all the way, you don't get satisfaction?

Shame around
need and desire
only weakens our
spiritual drive
towards
fulfillment.

David: Exactly! You only succeed when you can harness a hundred percent of your energy to the task. But the belief that independence is god has brought you to the point of questioning your every move. You end up like a dog who is trying to bite the postman, but your chain is too short. In other words, you have an intention, but your attempts to manifest that intention are shackled with dilemma.

You have a push and a pull going on. On the one hand, it's obvious to you that you want to be free. On the other hand, you're pulling your punches and your search for freedom is somewhat weakened, because the whole issue of desire feels a little bit messy. Your ego has convinced you that you really shouldn't be striving at all; you should be "resting in your Buddha-nature" instead. Consequently, the very fact that you're striving or desiring has become an embarrassment to your soul; you have become completely blind to the deeper rightness of your striving.

But as I said, your reality is that you want things ANYWAY. So there you are, mightily striving from time to time, but meanwhile thinking that striving is bad and wrong, and that you'd be better off to just sit there. That's how you got stuck in your search.

R: It is like being hungry, but having a belief that it's demeaning to admit hunger!

David: Exactly. It's like being anorexic or bulimic in relation to soul food. It means being hungry and yet, at the same time, feeling that hunger itself represents an abysmal failure. When you're striving, you feel as if you had placed yourself in a pillory in the town square, and then let everybody throw tomatoes at you.

Now here comes the punch line: Your search was degraded, literally, by the negative inferences about the search. Darkened by ego thought, your striving actually BECAME what the ego wanted it to be. Egoic psychology got so thoroughly mixed into the fabric of your true yearnings that it was very difficult to pull the two apart. They became virtually an alloy. Thereafter, your search was so confused and confusing that even God would have a hard time approving of it!

How negative
judgments on the
search tend to
degrade the
quality of the
search

Here's how that works: When ego or egoic culture passes judgment on something, it describes that thing as bad and wrong. By DESCRIBING it that way, it actually MAKES it that way. Now, if you consider the incredible deluge of egoic accusations around desiring, you can see how incredibly effective that absolute propaganda campaign, that total smear tactic, could be -- absolutely effective! It could virtually ruin desiring. And it DOES in fact ruin it -- that's the problem. Once you're convinced that what you are doing is bad and wrong, it's twisted. It's ruined.

I want to give you two examples of how the ego's negative judgments make life negative:

Example one: The death of the birthday party

You're at your own birthday party, and somebody says, "You know, the only people who ever celebrate their own birthdays are self-centered, narcissistic idiots." Suddenly, you don't even know what to wish for, except to wish you had not invited that obnoxious fellow! Here you are, sitting there with your birthday cake, and this person has rained all over your parade. There goes the celebration! All because that fellow had to come in and make a derogatory remark.

So now what? All you can say is, "You've ruined it for me. I was about to have a really good time celebrating my own birth on the planet. Did I need that? Does that help? What am I supposed to do now, throw my cake in the trash?"

S: It shows how suggestible we all are, that somebody could ruin the party just like that.

David: That's true. And you know, the ego has an absolute field day with that observation. It says, "You shouldn't CARE what others think. You need to be less vulnerable." Don't buy it! Sure, you need some space on the opinions of others. But not THAT much space! What does the ego want you to be -- a heartless, unfeeling robot? Well, that's EXACTLY what it wants. When you think about it for minute, that's downright sub-human!

Example two: A girl and her one night stands

My second example shows how ideas can degrade a person's entire love life. I will use the instance of a lonely girl who periodically resorts to one night stands.

The girl's pattern is this: She gets lonely, she gets horny, and pretty soon she goes out to a nightclub and picks up some guy for a one night stand. This is a regular occurrence in her life, so you'd think she was into it. But her real opinion about it is: "I'm such a slut."

Now what really happened? Well, it started out innocently enough. She's a human being and as such, she needs someone to hold her, and she needs some companionship. And in a larger sense, she hungers deep in her soul for God union, or at least for Love-union.

S: You're saying that her deeper motivation is really ultimately not UNspiritual; it still IS spiritual.

David: Correct. But from her present vantage point, with so many judgments and whippings and browbeatings under her belt, it is virtually impossible to find that spiritual root amidst this tangle of egoic overgrowth.

She's been thoroughly brainwashed -- by her own ego, by her egoic society, and by conventional spirituality -- about desire. And now, believing that she is nothing but a slut in her desiring, she has, for all intents and purposes, become that. It is no longer easy for her or anyone else to see it any differently. Her own appreciation of the spiritual roots of her desiring has been completely paved over by all that junk. And the distinction between lower desires and higher desires has faded in her.

In this way, by virtue of hypnotic suggestion, the ego has made something essentially and potentially beautiful ugly IN FACT. Its commentary has become a self-fulfilling message. It has turned you in a dim direction out of what was really, initially and essentially, a sublime motivation. So now it's satisfied.

S: In other words, the culture does not recognize the soul hunger for Love-union, or God union.

TOP

Why spiritual
teachings on inner
wholeness, when
wrongly construed,
actually PREVENT
us from realizing
wholeness

David: Worse than that! Remember what we said earlier about relationship being used to undermine closeness? In egoic culture, spiritual truths are misused to OBSTRUCT God union. The ego slyly tells us, "The Buddha says you are complete in your own Self-nature. You need to go within and find your internal wholeness." In saying those things, egoic culture takes deep spiritual truth and twists it towards its own fundamentally prodigal ends. It doesn't tell you that those spiritual teachings about finding the God within are incredibly advanced teachings, relevant only to people of extreme spiritual advancement. Nor does it tell you that people reach high degrees of advancement ONLY by the application of intense desire for God union.

The average person is in no position to make appropriate use of the teaching that says, "Desire is the root of evil." Think about it. If the average person sits there and suppresses desiring, what will actually happen? All that will happen is that they will simply cease to advance spiritually. What they had better do, if they want to get anywhere, is desire their ass off!

S: And strive their ass off.

David: Precisely! But here they are, badly under-nourished emotionally and spiritually, desperate and alienated, and they are being told that any form of striving is an abomination. So what happens next? They either cease to strive, or they strive stupidly, in unfulfilling directions. As I said, by simply condemning striving as stupid and weak, the ego has actually made their striving BECOME that.

R: So the ego has got you coming and going.

David: Yes. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. You're damned if you strive, because you'll hate yourself for doing it, and you're damned if you DON'T strive, because if you don't strive, you'll starve.

The pause that clarifies

R: So what are we to do, now that we are full of all these judgments and concerns?

David: This is when the spiritual teacher says, "Quit already! Time out!"

You know those little plastic domes with the little snowflakes in them? You can create a snow storm if you shake the dome, and the snow settles if you don't shake it any more. If you can pause for a minute in your striving, then your teacher can explain your confusion and set you back in the clear. He says, "Okay, now look: This is the water, this is the snow. This is your soul, and this is your ego." Now you get a chance to rebuild your search in a pure, unconfused iteration. You can do that because you yourself are more clear about what it was in the past, what it wasn't in the past -- what the various ingredients in that mix were.

Once you can make keener discernments, your struggle will no longer be tainted with the shame of harsh and confused judgment. Having stripped that junk away, your search can be returned to its essential purity.

The necessary unraveling is a job that must happen in steps:

Step one: Take a break. Don't shake the snow dome. Let it settle. Give yourself a moment to figure out who you really are, what you are really up to, and what you really WANT.

You have to do that, because otherwise you just stay on the treadmill of a bunch of dubious behavior, getting absolutely nowhere. It's not working. Your search has become unproductive, because every move you make is one for which you hate yourself. Just think about that: How exactly are you making spiritual progress when every time you make a move, you hate yourself more? Does that pattern support your continued unfoldment?

TOP

See the method
behind the
madness of the
ego's game

Step two: Heed not the voice of Satan. Understand what the ego's all about: it's about ruining your life! Understand how it keeps you down on the farm -- barefoot, pregnant, with no boots to walk away in. The ego's got you impregnated with a demon seed of negative thought. You've been invaded. You've been raped. You've been compromised. You've been violated in your sensibilities. It's really tragic when you think about it.

If you understand where this egoic trash is coming from, and where it leads, you can reject it on that basis.

Step three: Sort things out. After you've let the snow settle, you can make some intelligent discernments.

For example, the girl involved in her little binge and purge cycle of one night stands does have some real soul-searching to do. We are not trying to suggest that she is perfect in her motivations; there's no question that she ought to raise her sights a bit. But in her defense, how can she ever feel worthy of anything better when she's got this nasty inner parent in her, constantly telling her she's nothing but a slut? The sad truth is that many wonderful women have been brought to such a low ebb of self-esteem that they feel like garbage. How can they freely desire soul fulfillment via Love-union when they feel unworthy to kiss the feet of a dog?

Step four: Clean up your act. Once you know what's what, you can set off confidently on the high road.

You should still be humble enough to recognize your own insufficiencies and to keep your own wayward tendencies in check. You should remain self-suspicious -- but only in a healthy, intelligent way, not in a broad brush, totally stultifying and ineffective way, a way which kills any forward movement at all. That just shows a lack of discernment -- and a pernicious tendency to muddle everything up so badly you can't make a move.

Sorting out higher
motivations from
lower ones

No one's perfect. We ALL have some lower motivations in us, no doubt about it. Nothing wrong with that, as long as we have the discernment to sanely separate the wheat from the chaff, to sort out the higher motives from the lower ones. Once we are clear in our understanding, we can make wise choices, and we are ready to repel idiotic voices that want to rain falsely on our parade.

The biggest single
step towards
enlightenment

Overcoming the anti-ecstasy psychology of the ego is perhaps the biggest single step towards enlightenment. The ego always tries to convince you that bliss is essentially awful. The question is, how many times can you be sold that bill of goods? How many times can you honestly buy that bliss is awful, or that energy is awful?

F: I would say, not more than seven million times, maximum! If you need more than that you go to the back of the class, because you are very a slow learner!

To feel bliss for
what it is, listen to
the "bodometer"

David: Right, slow in learning from your own experience. Slow in having the integrity to listen to the old "bodometer" -- the bliss meter.

Once you're making honest discernments, things go much better. You're no longer working against your own higher sensibilities. Instead, you're simply acknowledging the obvious truth of your own experience: "THIS feels better than THAT." "THAT doesn't feel as good as THIS." So you stop unconsciously saying nonsensical things to yourself, like, "Oh, I'd feel so much better if I felt worse than this."

F: What a ridiculous lie!

David: Yes it is, but people get caught in that lie often.

When I say, LYING in a wet spot, that's what I'm referring to: LIES. There are some lies going on there. For example, anybody who says, "Was it good for you?" and who doesn't get the implication of their own use of the past tense is in denial. They are overlooking something important in their own communication.

We miss the obvious only because the old ego is so darned expert at twisting the truth. The ego is like the television character Archie Bunker, always commanding his wife, "Stifle, Edith!" But Edith is way better off than her fearless leader, Archie. She's in the present tense. She's always running around full of juice.

God's not going to stifle! The cry of the heart is not going to stifle. Desire is not going to stifle. Desire just goes on and on until it's fulfilled by going to maximums. That's the eternal fact of life. And that's the beauty of life.

Where the soul's yearning is supported

R: It's very difficult to purify your desire when so much of it has been aligned to the ego's desire to get out of desire itself. I think it would be very hard trying to do this alone. It strikes me that we need support for doing all this.

Why every
individual's
enlightenment is
a group project

David: Obviously, I agree with that. God-realization is a group project. Always and forever. People need a TON of support for enlightenment. I've always said, there is no such thing as solo enlightenment. Any person who gets enlightened is going to have a whole bunch of people to thank and share the honors with: "I want to thank God, my producer, Mom and Dad, my teacher, my friends...."

God provides the necessary support to those who want it. I had my teachers, and if you're going to get much of anywhere, you'll have yours. You can't reinvent the wheel. Somebody's got to hold your hand and show you the ropes. Show me ONE person who ever made it to the Olympics without a good coach. There's no such person. If you're serious about your smile, you need help. That's why God made teachers -- to facilitate progress. And that's why God made spiritual communities -- to provide peer support. All to help keep you straight! But it's like they say: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't keep it from peeing in the pond!" USE the support God offers. Use it well and wisely. Even if you were the worst control freak and loneliest loner on the planet, you'd be a fool to kick a good and true friend out of bed for eating crackers!

The search is
suported in
good company,
not degraded

Fortunately, in good company, clear distinctions are made between lower and higher desires. Those distinctions allow you to have your right wanting go on and on. Desiring no longer has to be a sort of "coitus interruptus" of any kind. Desire does not have to end because of negative judgment about it. And it does not have to end due to the habitual fizzing process of blowing energy off. Nor does desire have to end because it has been misdirected into materiality or into lower gratifications that cause pain and frustration. So the true objects of soul desire can be kept on the front burner. In that context, desire becomes something more useful, more pleasing, and powerful.

And also, in Godly company, the soul's yearning is fully appreciated. In good company, God consciousness says, "No, you cannot be placated, and you SHOULD NOT be placated. You had it right." It was only because of your intolerance for higher energy that you took your frustrated desire and turned it into a desire for some sort of minor objective -- like the girl getting lonely and horny, then having a one-night stand and blowing it off, then feeling despicable, and finally creeping back up the water spout. All that is pure torment. It is not what God had in mind, and nor is it what she, God's child, really wanted, and still hungered for. It does not do justice to the soul's desire for something more substantive, more real, more Divine.

R: That's when she has to let the snowflakes settle, right? She has to see, "Oh yeah, I do want something more than this. And I'm not going to get it on this binge and purge cycle. I'm going to have to go for something higher."

David: Exactly. Only then does her confused search become effectively focused. Only then does it become more effectively RELEVANT to the real needs of her heart and soul.

The true path or
search is a bee-line
to God union, not
a mixed bag

Look at how many people are caught in that cycle of wanting and then un-wanting, wanting and then un-wanting. In the pure iteration of striving, the one I have been describing, you can make a bee-line towards God union. That search is not, repeat not, an odd hybrid. It is not polluted with the ego's effort to shame you into not wanting. And it is not dominated by the vain attempt to use sorry little consolations to satisfy the heart and the soul. That simply NEVER works! The soul will NEVER be satisfied that way!

David's desire

S: David Truman, something just occurred to me. I've always noticed about you that you can't be consoled. I think it's partly because you ACCEPT your desire for something more, much more than the average person. You're not inclined to get off it -- not at all.

David: That's right. If you look at my life, you see I am always only desiring. And, I am always only full. In that, I emulate the desiring habit of a strong woman. A strong woman is always desiring, and on that account, she is never empty, she is always FULL -- she lives in rapture. Her desire has fulfilled ITSELF. She is always towards her Beloved, and consequently, she is always in Oneness.

Conversely, look at the usual woman: She is always afraid of her own desiring, and so she is always collapsing in consciousness and separating. She is looking to unplug from the so-called torment of her desire and, consequently, she suffers the pain of no connection. Eventually she is driven by loneliness to creep back up the water spout. She knows, intuitively, that if she does not crawl back up, she will simply remain empty and bereft. Her life is dilemma, and it is hell.

Someday, when she surrenders to the true impulse of her soul's desire, she will be filled. Her life will be like mine.

TOP

Endless desire is
the momentum of
consciousness itself

Desire is INHERENT. When we speak of endless love or of endless desire, these are actual soul qualities. Endless desire is the actual momentum of consciousness itself, just as the ego's momentum is to collapse. Believe me, the spiritual admonition to "go within" has nothing to do with collapsing. We are to go within all of life, not just our own little private bodies and tiny minds! Consciousness is constantly unfolding itself. Ultimately, what we call the soul's yearning is part of the engine of God. It's simply moving us along.

S: So endless desire is why you'll solve something one day and wake up dissatisfied the next day! This always happens with you; now I see why.

David: Yes, and there's another reason, also. As a result of my enlightenment, I am inextricably part of life. In my union with life, I don't have the ability to NOT try to help. It's like the experience of the mother: she IS the baby. If the baby cries, she can't NOT pick up the baby.

The endless desire
of the enlightened
ones: to help
humanity

When you are connected with life and life cries, you go to work. You are now one of the servants of God who are constantly investing their all in the fulfillment of the entire sea of humanity. That becomes your actual drive. That drive reflects the traditional Bodhisattva vow: "Until the very last sentient being realizes Buddahood, I will toil ceaselessly." It's the Mahayana vision -- the Greater Vehicle.

Why do the enlightened ones do that? Well, what other choice do they have? In a real sense, they don't have any choice because they ARE that last straggling entity. They know it full well, and there isn't a choice in that. That's what's true for me. Someday, it will be true for you, too. Your love will be endless.

by David Truman

Please feel free to share copies of this article.
We only ask that you mention its source.
- LoveTrust -