8 Habits to Make Your Lovemaking More of a Spiritual Experience
Having sex is related with a different type of spirituality
During the past few years, science has helped us to understand that meditation can help to reduce stress and anxiety.
Spirituality is associated with spirit, and spirit comes from the Old French espirit, which comes from the Latin word spiritus — breath — and is related to spirare — to breathe. If an experience improves your breathing, it would be called a spiritual experience.
You can also reimagine having sex as somewhat of a spiritual experience if you think about its positive effect on your health.
Imagine how a hundred years ago, men thought that women were incapable of having an orgasm. Here, I will try to explore the reasons to consider this perspective and one possible habit-making approach to experience the spiritual-sex.
“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality” ~ Carl Sagan
Consciousness gives rise to spirituality
Bobby Azarian, Ph.D., in his article about Integrated Information Theory or IIT, titled “Neuroscience’s New Consciousness Theory Is Spiritual” says that information processing in our brains gives rise to our subjective experience. This experience acts as a base of our spiritual existence.
Giulio Tononi, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, and Christof Koch, Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, are working on Integrated Information Theory (IIT). Physicist Max Tegmark supports the idea that consciousness is a state of matter and a precondition of everything we know.
Is sex the opposite of spirituality?
Some people think that sex is the opposite of a spiritual experience. Our spirituality is the non-physical essence that makes us capable of deciding between various moral or aesthetic values.
Spirituality is not related to a belief system. However, it is related to your unique personal experience. Sam Haris, a famous neuroscientist and philosopher, has written a book called Waking Up — A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.
Two types of spirituality
We have two types of minds: a conscious mind — we are aware of it — and a subconscious mind — we do not know it is there.
We have two kinds of non-material essences as well — one for each mind — because the conscious and subconscious minds process different types of information.
The information processing gives rise to two types of spiritualities. We can say that one is our conscious spiritual experience — we are aware of it — and the other is our subconscious spiritual experience — we do not know it is there.
For example, if we decide to eat healthy food after reading about its benefits, it is our conscious spirit at work. But if we choose a more tasty — less healthy — meal, it may be our subconscious spirituality influencing our decision.
We can say that conscious spirituality is what constitutes our general understanding of spirituality. Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., thinks that animals have spirituality even though they are not as conscious as human beings. It means that our subconscious spirituality is our animal spirituality.
The animal spirituality — or subconscious spirituality — is not a negative thing.
Sex and sin
Because we are not aware of subconscious morality — the ancient people thought that it was the evil hidden in all of us.
It also explains the connection between sex and sin. It was our subconscious spirituality that produced delightful images and playful thoughts about the opposite sex.
Sex and happiness
Robert J. Waldinger, an American psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard Medical School, is directing a longitudinal study relating to human happiness that has been continuing for the last seventy-five years.
This study, called the Grant Study, tells us that happiness and health come to those who have a strong relationship with their partner.
The results imply that subconscious spirituality plays a more crucial role in determining the level of our happiness and health as compared to conscious spirituality.
Having love and appreciation for your partner is better for your health and longevity than memorizing an encyclopedia or creating a business empire.
Anything they could not understand, our ancestors labeled it either divine or satanical.
Past conditioning about sex
The subconscious mind works through our habits. You have to repeat thoughts and behaviors to help your subconscious to learn. For example, when you are learning to drive a car, the practice allows your subconscious to absorb the details. The more you practice, the better you become at driving. And when you can drive the car — without conscious effort — you handle it as if you are on an autopilot.
Pavlovian conditioning suggests that if someone wanted to have sex but thought that it was a sin but did it anyway, they would develop negative subconscious feelings about sex as they grow up.
You would not be able to experience sex in a joyful way or as a spiritual experience.
How to reimagine sex as a positive subconscious spiritual experience
Just as there are hundreds of spiritual practices, you can think of hundreds of ways to reimagine your lovemaking as a spiritual experience.
Try to move your focus away from the physical performance. Whatever method you choose or invent, keep repeating it until the past conditioning of the subconscious gets overwritten.
Your lovemaking is not something that should be over in a few minutes. You have to let it sink to your subconscious mind.
Here is a list of suggestions for altering the past conditioning:
- Believe that sex was never a sin.
- Your senses should feel something special. Use rose petals in glass vases to decorate the room. Light some candles. Wear loose white robes. And some music can help the scene too.
- Don’t eat anything for four hours before your spiritual sex experience.
- Communicate calmly in a soft tone of voice.
- Look at your partner and smile.
- Give each other light shoulder massages to relax.
- Promise to have sex in this way in the future.
- After sex, don’t discuss anything. Relax and sleep.
All these steps are visual cues, sound cues, or smell cues to stimulate your senses to make a memory.
Respecting each other, smiling, and light massaging can also help to make a memory by producing oxytocin, the so-called love hormone.
If you like the combined effect of these sensations, there is a greater likelihood that your mind will replace the past conditioning with the new in a few weeks.
If you don’t like these points, invent your steps to create an experience that suits you best.
Once your spiritual feelings kick in, you will feel a calming effect on your nervous system. It can spice up your sex life if you have better orgasms.
When we are relaxed, our ability to reach an orgasm increases; we experience an altered state of consciousness that makes us fresh and more self-aware.
Final Thoughts
Among the religions of the past, Hinduism has detailed methods and practices that describe sex in its literature.
Most of us know about Kama Sutra but only a few people know that it is an ancient spiritual text.
There are temples with decorative sculptures depicting human figures having sex on the temple walls in Khajuraho, India. These temples have been declared a UNESCO world heritage site.
“Each time we connect physically with another, a merger is happening, a merger that goes beyond just a physical connection. The first layer of sex is energetic, not physical.”― Victoria L. White, Learning To Love: And The Power of Sacred Sexual Spiritual Partnerships.
The idea of spiritual sex has been around for thousands of years, but now it is being reintroduced.
You can start visualizing sex as a spiritual practice. You can change your past habits and develop some kind of sacred rituals around your lovemaking. You can follow older traditions or think of new ways to give you the feeling of a spiritual experience.