Is Sexuality Relevant to Spirituality?

Week 1 of Brahmacharya

So I went to a Unitarian Universalist church on Valentine’s Day to put my mind into a more spiritual state. I had my reservations at first, because the one I went to years ago in San Francisco totally annoyed me. It seemed weird to hold hands and sing songs in reverence to a photo of Planet Earth. But I thought this might be a nice thing to do on the day when people celebrate L-O-V-E. Cuz I know it’s not just about romance and flowers and kissing.

A Lesbian reverend delivered the Valentine’s Day sermon. She pulled out a plush Spongebob and asked the kidz questions about his attitude toward ALL of the sea creatures around him.

“Spongebob loves everyone!” she cried. “See, kids, I’m a Lesbian, and not everyone loves me.”

I cringed. Isn’t this inappropriate in church, a place where the focus is spirituality, not sexuality? I don’t want to think about this woman licking another woman’s chocha while I’m in church! I’m trying NOT to think about sex, for cryin’ out loud!

So, I took a deep yoga breath, and pushed my cultural programming aside, a tactic I have been using to break down the brick walls of the business world. And suddenly I found myself in another dimension, in a place that wasn’t defined in my subconscious a long time ago. Oh. Wow. Hmmm. What do I do now?

Break down the wall: I take for granted that I don’t have to explain my appearance and the relationship I have with a man standing or sitting next to me. Kidz inherently understand the man-woman match-up. Is it from early conditioning as babies? Does the media teach them that man + woman is natural?

Hmmm. No.

It’s all just odds. There are more male-female match-ups in our culture than gay ones, so the gay ones have to be explained a little more. Fine. Cool. I understand this now that I am considered “different” in my family. I am a single, childless 34-year-old Puerto Rican woman. Puerto Rican. I’m repeating that because we are breeders. Most of the women in my demographic have babies in their teens and twenties. You know, “accidents” of passion. This didn’t happen to me even though I had a lot of passion. Marriage never happened either, even though I was open to it.

So what the heck am I?

As I listened to the Lesbian with the rainbow scarf preaching about tolerance, I wondered if I am a Lesbian. OMG. Do I want to be a Lesbian? Ummm, well, I think other women are pretty. I feel closer with them than I do with men and can talk to them much more easily. But ugh! The thought of having an intimate relationship with a woman with as many complexities as mine sounds like a disaster. I love the simplicity of a MAN.

I think it’s because I am horny and if I were to get off with a woman, it’s just about sex, whereas with men, I get more emotionally attached. I am already attached to my MAN. He is the ONE. But I may be simplifying too much. Emotional attachment can happen with a woman, too, which I mentioned above could be disasterous.

Why am I even considering this? Oh yeah, I entered an open, unprogrammed node inside my brain, and because I’m trying to be like Spongebob, I am sponging this Lesbian’s rhetoric and starting to adopt it as my own. OMG! I can only imagine how her W-O-R-Dz are affecting the Kidz. Geez. No wonder the Christians are freaking out about these Unitarian churches mixing politics with spirituality…oh wait, the Christians do the same thing (can you say Pat Robertson and his recent comments about Haiti’s supposed pact with the Devil? Ay ya yay).

Apparently all institutions of spirituality – whether it is Christian or Muslim or Unitarian – become politicized and the original message of L-O-V-E gets L-O-S-T.

Good thing I am NOT Spongebob and I have the ability to filter others’ messages so I make my own conclusions.

Whew!

So what’s the answer I come up with to the question: Is Sexuality Relevant to Spirituality?

Yes.

Abstaining from sex helps me focus on the eternal thing (spirit) inside of my female body (my vehicle). This spirit drives my vehicle, and the more I focus on the spirit, and not my vehicle, L-I-F-E becomes easier to navigate. I tend to FLOW rather than plan, schedule and expect. I am completely in tune with the universe’s (God’s) frequency for my particular P-A-T-H. I understand now that this is why Nuns and Priests take oaths of celibacy, so that their connection to God is not interrupted by the distraction of the earthly pleasure of a connection to another human being.

As for the Lesbian preacher bringing her sexual orientation into a spiritual conversation, I guess I’m not so offended anymore. When you feel a spiritual connection with someone, whether male or female, you just feel it. If it becomes something sexual, it’s because you want to (or need to, in some cases) share your spirit with that other person. This is why there is no such thing as gay, straight, transsexual, blah, blah, blah. Apparently, I agree with Christians who say homosexuality is a choice. But I also agree with Deepak Chopra, who says everything in life is a choice.

“If I insult you, and you are offended, that is a choice,” he says in his “Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” series. It all goes back to the song we learned as kidz: “Sticks and stones won’t break my bones and names will never hurt me.” There’s a choice right there. Deepak adds that these choices are often made unconsciously, so it is important to take the time to find out who you REALLY are in order to gain the awareness it takes to make conscious choices, which again, lead us along our natural paths to happiness. And who am I? I am a beautiful spirit inside a beautiful female body and I choose to share my spirit and sexual energy with a man whose spirit shines through his beautiful eyes.

Amen. Namaste. Ciao.