That one word has taken on a tremendous significance in life today. Never in history has any subject received more attention (except maybe money) or been more controversial. It is the most "personal" subject we can think of, and is therefore the most difficult to discuss. It is also loaded with prejudices and fears that we keep hidden from even our own view, and is, arguably, the greatest cause of turmoil in our lives.

Everything in life can be viewed at least two ways, from the material or the spiritual sense. Because sex is so loaded with baggage in the material sense, it is rarely discussed in the spiritual. Many religions even require celibacy of its leaders rather than deal with this powerful human drive. I, too, have wrestled with, and finally come to love this part of our One Self, and offer here the results of the lessons I have learned.

Viewed from the material standpoint, sex is the expression of the absolute, number one animal instinct, survival of the species. Even above the second instinct, survival of self, the sex drive has a mother or father gladly surrendering life for the survival of offspring that can perpetuate the species. From the human standpoint, it is also the most intense physical expression we can muster, involving all of our physical/mental/emotional selves.

Though I fought with my "lustful" self for most of the years of my conscious spiritual growth, it never made sense to me that such a strong, natural instinct was apart from the spiritual self. It was, however, my enemy, and so I kept it separate and apart. I had the belief that it would interfere with my spiritual growth, a silly "clinker in my thinker" (see Belief) that actually inhibited my spiritual growth for many years. I tried dealing with it a variety of ways, abstinence, indulgence, denial, nothing really worked. I even created hemorrhoids to "punish" myself for my sexual feelings.

About five years ago, another part of Self helped me co-create the first part of the lesson. A young dancer I was counseling had been sexually used and abused all of her life, and had a picture of herself as nothing more than a worthless body. Her life, of course, had to reflect her belief, and had just hit bottom.

Her emotional self was in utter turmoil. Though she was loved by her mother, and loved her child, every time she had felt love for a man it had led to sexual abuse. In order to reach her, I could not BE a man, and had to learn to teach love in a new way. Through this wonderfully co-created lesson, I experienced the female emotional energy within me for the first time. Though I understood intellectually that we are both male and female, my human experience in a body was purely male.

Through this experience I KNEW that my male self could never interfere with my spiritual growth, with Love, and that my fear had been "silly", the "sin" of mistaken belief. I then discovered the complexity of my ego mind, the deviousness with which it hides the real beliefs under a mask of illusion. Having uncovered the lie, I found an even deeper belief, that I was a worthless body (ahhh, the wonder of others serving as mirrors to help us grow).

For the next few years, my sex drive became an accepted, natural (though not loved) part of my Self. And I learned, and grew in my acceptance of myself and others. In reading The Celestine Prophecy in 1994, I began to understand even more the balance of energy, the struggle to find that balance within ourselves. Walter Russell's writings of the early 1900's (Messages of the Divine Iliad are The Mind Nucleus of the Atom are two of four out-of-print books I read) refer to the "dual sexed electric universe" added more understanding. He stated "Sex is the creative principle. It is the dual desire force in Mind expressing its One idea. Without a division of the one unconditioned Light into two seemingly conditioned lights Creation could not be. Sex is not a thing, it is a condition of a thing."

Eventually I reached a pretty thorough intellectual understanding of what Walter Russell expressed, that "Love is the One Idea of Creation. To express Love the Idea must be divided into separated halves. To fulfill Love, the two halves must be united as One."

A little more than a year ago a quantum leap in understanding took place. A relationship with a young lady began exactly six years, to the day, from one that led to exponential spiritual growth in 1989 (see Secret Thoughts. This relationship became so beautifully close that, one morning I KNEW I was holding God in my arms, and we both KNEW God was holding her.

A few days after the knowing of God in my arms, I was laying in the sun. I had been doing energy channeling exercises for over a year. Knowing that we are part of One entity, and that we feed energy to the earth as it feeds us, I was taking energy from our Sun Source, breathing it through my body and anchoring it into Earth.

I have never been an "imager", and am never able to "visualize" anything in image form. I have thus never had any "visions", though I have frequent mental enlightenments, when things become crystal clear. All at once I had a vision and a knowing. The vision was like a capital H, but with two cross bars, and the sides flaring outward above the top crossbar.

The knowing of the meaning accompanied the vision. Each side of the H symbol represented a human being/energy channel. The bottoms of the sides anchored into Earth. The bottom crossbar was the connection of the polarity chakra, the kundalini (sexual) energy connecting the bodies in union. The upper crossbar was the joining of the third-eye chakra, the joining of vision, the joining of Mind to make One complete Being of the conjoined two. The flaring of the sides above the top crossbar represented the formation of a FUNNEL, with the two joined channeling UNLIMITED energy, infinitely more that either could channel alone. And I understood that two bodies consciously joining from their spiritual awareness became special channels for our One entity, Earth.

My feeling of total connectedness with our One Source was profound, and another awareness came to me with utter clarity. I KNEW that I had been female in my previous life, and that I had to be male this time to fully understand and to forgive. I had to understand the male energy, the insane lust that arises for NO REASON, and that is NEVER FULFILLED. From my experience as a male the female could see how silly it was, and forgive the male that constantly pursued the female body.

That evening, the other side of the awareness unfolded. Sharing that intimate closeness, the Oneness with God, I EXPERIENCED the FULLNESS of the female emotional self. Women reading this will understand, but I, as a male, had no idea of the AWESOME power of this emotional self. Yes, I had always been a loving man, a caring man, kind, considerate, with all of the spiritual qualities we males know of Love, but this was so DIFFERENT, so COMPLETE, so POWERFUL.

And in that instant, I understood what Betty Eadie referred to in Embraced By The Light, when she said "I saw that the emotional structure of women allowed them to be more responsive to love and to allow the Spirit of God to rest upon them more fully." I understood what was meant in The Celestine Prophecy when it referred to a shift, that the male energy had been needed to build the world, and that now it was time for the female energy to heal the world.

And then, I experienced sexual arousal FROM THE FEMALE SIDE IN ME. To men who have never experienced this, there aren't enough words to describe it. It is SO different, SO UTTERLY LOVING, SO PURE, SO CLEAR, SO ONE. There was no lust whatsoever, just a total KNOWING of Love, AND THERE WAS NO NEED, NO DESIRE. Just the knowing of the feeling, the closeness, was enough.

AND I UNDERSTOOD. Tears rolled down my face as I shared my understanding, and come again as I write this. THIS IS THE GIFT OF GOD. This powerful, animal instinct for survival, this ultimate human intensity of pleasure, was given us TO MAKE US SEEK OUR ONENESS!!!

And I understood all of the messengers that have been trying to tell us through the ages, from the Bible "In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven" to Mary Baker Eddy Science and Health "Union of the masculine and feminine qualities constitutes completeness." And I KNEW that ALL desire IS the desire for God, for God IS ALL.

The next day, as has so often happened in my spiritual growth, I read the intellectual explanation of my experiential lesson. Plato said it, centuries ago: "Eros (the male sex drive) is the drive for the ascent (to our spiritual self), the seeking of ever more perfect union." And Plotinus and Auribundo, two other philosophers of his age, added "Agape love (the female counterpart) is the drive for the descent, the broadening and deepening of love." So together, they shape us to grow like a pyramid, higher, broader and deeper, all at once.

For weeks afterward this enlightenment continued to unfold, to the understanding of how the male/female energies can control our lives (see Balance), and why we experience grief, (see Grief). And I understood the utter silliness, the stupidity of which I am capable, this "enlightened" being called Dennis. For all of these years I had made this wonderful gift "bad" and "wrong". When I examined my consciousness to find why, I remembered the child I was, age five, playing "doctor" under the card table with the daughter of my Dad's friend. We were "caught", and I felt such shame I buried it, and carried it ALL OF MY LIFE.

According to IQ tests, I am a genius. I remembered an anonymous quote "the difference between genius and stupidity is...genius has its limits". And I forgave myself for my stupidity, my silliness. I knew it was an essential part of my growth, my understanding. If I could forgive my huge mistake, the little mistakes of others were nothing, and I was free to forgive all, to Love.

And Love IS.

(Note - More on this subject at Hammer, Multi-Media and Making Love)