The Power of Celibacy (original) (raw)

One of the great mysteries of being female is the monthly reproductive cycle. It changes consciousness as it cycles, as the hormones change and prepare the body to mate and become pregnant, pulling a huge amount of energy from the psyche and body into this task. And then, if this does not happen, to flush out the congealed energy--a task which, according to the density of toxins or heaviness, and (so I've heard it said) the weakness or gaps in her energy, may be more or less exhausting and painful, leaving her to withdraw from the world to cope.

Back when I was learning from the people who practiced what they called tantra, one of the concepts in Taoist sexual kung fu (for women) is the micro-orbit. Essentially this is the same orbit that is found in the Chinese meridian lines of Ren and Du. Now my study on what is possible with energy has in the past been scanty at best because of how many ways I was draining my energy and exhausting myself battling material nature that was stronger than I was.

Anyhow, over the past year of fiddling with my diet, exercise, and attempting celibacy and separating from my ex-boyfriend, I have noticed that all three of these things have effect on the heaviness and pain level of my monthly menstrual period. My behavior during the ovulation phase of my cycle seems to have a lot to do with it. Eating more heavy raw vegetables, oils, or cooked food would increase my levels of bleeding and cramp pain. Going for more runs, getting plenty of good cardiovascular exercise and moving my body frequently would reduce the cramping and bloodflow. I discovered that doing a total fast for one or two day just following the end of my fertile period (or even a strict partial fast for two or three days), would also drop my level of pain to almost nothing, regardless of what I had eaten that month or how much exercise I had gotten (considering of course, that I never eat all that unhealthily, being mostly raw and vegan, and I'm always getting far more exercise than the average American).

Occasionally I would manage a month without any sexual contact with my boyfriend, and would notice with shock that even if I hadn't had time to get good exercise, or I had eaten badly, I even so experienced far less pain during my menstruation. I was delighted by this revelation.

I started celibacy in earnest when forcibly removed from the fearful company of my ex-boyfriend at the beginning of February this year. I was miserable and depressed for some weeks, and the process of celibacy--which, despite what popular magazines and google will tell you, does NOT include masturbation, or any sort of sexual stimulation, manipulation, or gratification--began to completely re-center my energy. For a couple of months or more I was tossed on wild storms of hormones and fears, totally stumped as to what to do with all of this excess energy which no longer had anywhere to go. It got projected all over the friends supporting me, mostly in a fearful way, and yet also may have helped fuel a number of blissful religious experiences as I was also completing RCIA through Lent at the time. My Catholic friend Justin, visiting, introduced me to devotional practice, and the rosary, and though I of course have been passingly familiar with these things in my earlier convent days, it was different now. The magnitude of excess energy rushing everywhere was pretty overwhelming at this point.

The first couple of months I would get very lonely and horny during my ovulation time. As it was Lent and these other things were going on, I was also doing fasts, and perhaps as a combination of these things I had very little cramps during menstruation in these months.

This past month, things shifted again. May 2011. I was soberly reminded to myself that, years and years ago when we were getting into astrology, this was the month that my ex-boyfriend and I had (jokingly?) discussed being the one where I would get pregnant. Now my ex-boyfriend was a careful coward when it came to fertility, and though I've never used birth control I was in no danger whatever of becoming pregnant. Having too much sex (especially in Maui) would plunge me into a consciousness of wanting nothing more than to have a baby--it would sure get hormones pumping. It was somewhat exhausting and draining--having all that mental, emotional, and physical energy focused so much on reproduction (which is what sex and orgasms do).

Anyway, remembering that, this month, I wondered why I was remembering it, as if it was slated or important. My ovulation time was as it had been--I would get horny here or there, or lonely, but I was astringently aware of my own weakness in this matter, of the power of the reproductive drive, and I modestly continued my devotional service and did not place myself in any occasions to sin, as they say.

Yet this month seems to have been the month that I moved out of my 'crisis' of excess energy. Though I was still blown by the winds of energy and emotion at times, I seemed to have regained a sort of equilibrium where I was not leaning so much on my friend Justin, and could pull myself out of such winds and re-center without having to have someone else hold me up. Granted I could not have gotten here without his help and willingness to bear me up when I did need it--this is what we as human beings need to do for one another--and I am eternally grateful for that gift.

One day I suddenly and recalled remembered a Hindu saint that I had learned about ages ago, who I had been immediately drawn to and whom my ex-boyfriend used to tell me was a person that I should pay attention to the person and teachings of (he felt a similarity or connection between us that he felt would be fruitful for me). My ex-boyfriend was a sensitive and knew a lot of things, yet his own conflicts and blockages were and are so severe that he is unhappily unable to cope with many many things (including relationships with other people). Anyway, this woman was Anandamayi Ma.

I thought about the first time I had encountered her: it was in this picture, and it jolted and drew me when I first saw it. Reading a little about her biography, I got a sense of her energy in that picture that startled me terribly at the time. In regards to her constant and lifelong celibacy, I felt a strange NUMBNESS, almost, seated in her body, especially the lower portion.

Thinking on this again now, I realized that I felt this same numbness in MY body. And not a 'numbness' exactly, but more of a strange and inexplicable sense that the energy that had been seated there in that portion of myself for so long was not there anymore. That energy was somewhere else. Whether careening to heaven on the micro-orbit or simply dispersed throughout a body no longer receiving any signals for reproduction or material sex desire, I felt this numbness like a glorious release.

I realized something significant about sexuality one day in class, lying on a massage table listening to a lecture. I was terribly aroused and could think of nothing at all except sex and my ex-boyfriend's touch. I tried not to linger my mind there, but so much energy was trying to go in that direction that I didn't bother much trying to fight it. I simply would take no action on it--let the thoughts do what they will. Later, I got up and became immediately distracted by some other activity--going out into the sunshine, interacting with classmates, etc--and realized, huh. That feeling felt SO compelling and overpowering, yet as soon as my attention and focus changed and my bodily environment, IT WAS GONE. Vaporized. Disappeared. No trace of it left.

In that moment I had a very strong sense of the illusory and temporal nature of sex desire. It feels so compelling and yet, ridiculously, it is gone in an instant. It was after this realization that I started to remember Anandamayi Ma and feel that strange and liberated numbness of energy just being... NOT THERE.

Yesterday I did not eat anything until about 5 o' clock--I was not hungry at all, as I felt the characteristic heaviness in my abdomen and sluggish feeling associated with oncoming menstruation. I started my menstruation with just a touch of spotting, put in the diva cup, and went off to my Hare Krishna friends' kirtan and feast that afternoon without thinking of it. Chanted, had some food and good discussions, then went home. Throughout this, I was surprised to find that, even when I ate some salad and date balls, I had had no aching and no pain whatsoever. I was glad, and thought perhaps that my newly liberated energy was responsible, as I had eaten rather less healthily than usual (I felt) in the past month.

I went to empty the diva cup, figuring on my usual pattern. Within a few hours after I started spotting, I am flowing heavily, often needing to change the cup every couple of hours. It had been about six hours and usually by this time the flow had long begun. But there was only a tiny bit of blood in the cup--a few drops!

I went home, went to bed. Woke up in the morning. Again--only a few drops.

I have NEVER had this happen before. I pondered this a little, thinking to myself that my window of fertility of May 2011 had already passed and I was not, in fact, going to get pregnant this month like had obviously been in my subconscious mind the past three years at least. Yet something else rather momentous happened. I'm not exactly sure what it is--but I'm not really bleeding, and though I have that 'feeling' of menstruation, I have no pain. None. I have conceived not a child nor the pulling of all of my energy downward into concerns of sex, but I have conceived a higher spiritual nature--a higher energy--and it seems to have moved into great possibility.

Many many religious traditions highlight the importance of celibacy and indeed almost of giving up one's sexuality entirely, in a sense of the energy just NOT BEING THERE. Yet, it is so fully and thoroughly and blissfully somewhere else--because, you understand, it is God alone who can free us from material attachment and consciousness--God alone who draws us to the transcendence that our spirits long for.

There are a thousand more complex factors that may have gone into this, all of which I have not had time or room to discuss, but these are certainly some major points. Vedic scriptures state that the process of karma is so complex that all you can get is a general idea--no human mind has knowledge or breadth enough to completely understand the depth and complexity of the material system we live in. I hope I have given enough of a general picture and some tools that can be of assistance to someone else.