Continuing Spiritual Insight from the Story of The Little Prince

Because he found it impossible to connect in a meaningful way with most people, the little boy who had grown up to be a pilot lived his life alone, without anyone to really communicate with. In this he mirrors a lot of people in modern society who find themselves pretty much alone.

A question was asked by a reader recently about the role of sex in our life when we are without a significant other for a long time. Is it just something we learn to do without?

Sex is perhaps the most complex aspect of our humanity because it's never "just sex." Far more is going on even when we tell ourselves it's just sex.

I recommend that people read Dr David Schnarch's books on sex, particularly Intimacy & Desire. His books Passionate Marriage and Resurrecting Sex are also extremely helpful, though in my estimation Intimacy & Desire is the one that gives us the best overall view of the dynamics involved in our sexuality.

Let me tell you up front that the message in these books flies in the face of what most people believe about romance, passion, and sex. And even though they focus on marriage, the principles apply to gay couples and to singles because they involve discovering our true being.

These are not Namaste Publishing books, but along with them I want to recommend two Namaste productions: Michael Brown's CD The Radiance of Intimacy and my own audio book on 5 CDs Lessons in Loving—A Journey into the Heart, which focuses on the story of The Little Prince and (as we shall see in due course in these blogs) has a great deal to do with romance and passion.

In my own life I have gone on a long journey to discover a healthy sense of my sexuality. I started this journey believing the Christian fundamentalist message that sex belonged only in marriage—assuming that if one stuck to this, sex would automatically sort itself out.

I discovered that if you feel empty inside, marriage solves nothing.

In the wake of divorce I also found that no matter how attractive someone may be, or how many different people one becomes involved with over time, ultimately this fails to fuel passion.

Unless we have discovered our own passionate center, grounded in an awareness of the fullness of being at our center, what we think of as "passion" runs out of steam.

As my awareness increased, I came to see that the idea that marriage is the only legitimate expression of sexuality originated not with a literal Adam and Eve who were joined in marriage by God, but in society's need to know who should inherit property. Who is the legitimate heir?

Hence women's sexuality was carefully monitored and marriage became the norm. Women were basically male property for the production of an heir—something you see clearly when you watch a series like the Tudors, which I'm presently watching on Netflix.

When you realize how the Bible came into being over the span of a thousand years, with many different authors writing and rewriting, and a variety of viewpoints, you realize that no God "out there somewhere" ever decreed a particular form of the use of our sexuality. Culture decreed one wife-one husband.

In any case, St. Paul makes it clear that the rule of the Law of Moses doesn't apply to us once we awaken to the Christ consciousness—to the presence of the Christ nature in us. How we govern our life is now decided by "the law written on our heart and mind" by the Spirit of God, which in modern language is divine consciousness.

So it comes down to a matter of personal integrity grounded in divine consciousness.

It's not always easy to sort out when we are acting from integrity and when we are fooling ourselves. It takes discernment.

The idea that we meet a certain person and they are our soul mate, so that from then on we have eyes for no one else, just isn't what happens for a lot of people. I have briefly fallen in love with more than one person at a time on more than one occasion in the past, and it can become emotionally complicated.

Just how powerful and complex our sexual drive is can be seen from the politicians who tout family values and yet who have been caught having affairs, not to forget televangelists having affairs and even visiting prostitutes.

As you can see from the Tiger Woods situation, which has now resulted in divorce, having affairs is still a big issue in society. The real issue though is our fidelity toourselves, our betrayal of ourselves, when we don't step up to the plate by examiningwhy we are seeking affairs.

On the other end of the scale, there's the furor over gay marriage, with some states banning it, as if what others do in the privacy of their lives somehow affects those who aren't involved. I have no interest in what my neighbors are doing, straight or gay. The issue here is why what others do is so threatening to us.

What I have come to in my own journey is the realization that I must be content in myself before I can ever sort out an appropriate use of my sexuality based on integrity. As long as there is neediness, we simply don't use good judgment.

The pilot in our story learned to be alone. This is what all of us require, the ability to be comfortable with ourselves.

This comes from discovering the fullness of being at the heart of who we are, where we are united with the divine Source from which we have sprung.

In that comfortableness, we can then choose an approach to sexuality that is true to who we find ourselves to be, whether heterosexual or gay. This can include pleasuring ourselves, which is a perfectly natural use of sex. It can include relationships that enhance the humanity of both parties. But it is never destructive, never not grounded in mutuality, never degrading of another person.

Each of us has to work out for ourselves what integrity means for us in our particular situation. No one can give us ready-made answers, which are in fact counterproductive to becoming spiritually mature. It's in learning to hear our own true being that we grow up spiritualiy.

There is no God "out there somewhere" who is judging, condemning, punishing. The divine is within us. But we must also remember that the divine is within anyone with whom we become sexually involved. Are we honoring the divine in each other?

The divine does judge, and this judgment takes place within our own being. It's our own essence evaluating when we are being true to ourselves.

As St. Peter put it, "Judgment is now upon the household of God." The word judgment in Greek is krisis, from which we get our English word crisis. In other words, we are continually being brought into circumstances that ask us to bring our essential presence to bear upon the situation so that we discover what it means to act with divine integrity.

In my own journey I have felt this "judging" going on within me on many occasions, as I learn what's really true to my essential nature as a manifestation of the divine and what betrays who I am.

For me one of the key issues has become fidelity to my own heart. Not to the whims of my emotions, but to my essential being.

I cannot recommend David Schnarch's Intimacy & Desire, Michael Brown's The Radiance of Intimacy, and my own Lessons in Loving—A Journey into the Heart highly enough. They will give you the information you need to begin seeing what your sexuality is really all about.

Even when we have a beloved, we are essentially alone.

No one can ever "be there" for us in the way they were when we were in the womb or the cradle. There is no going back to that initial oneness. There is only going forward into a oneness that comprises a diversity—a oneness that involves the uniqueness of many, each of whom must be honored as manifestations of the divine Presence.

Living consciously in our sexuality is one of life's greatest challenges life brings us. Don't kick yourself for the lessons you may have had to learn, causing both yourself and others pain perhaps. Don't live in repression or suppression.

Instead allow your inner being to fill you brimful, and then see where this fullness takes you. It's a learning experience. We learn step by step how to be who we inherently are.