Eros as Devotional Expression through the Three Faces of God
Flow by Tim Weidman
Devotion to God in the Integral Christian Community
Part Six
From Paul Smith:
Our two writers for this week are Maruška Vizek and Tim Weidman. In her professional life, Maruška is a social scientist, consultant, and opinion maker with a public career who lives in Croatia. In her private life, she is a contemplative, mystic, astrologer, and a poet practicing fully embodied spirituality. She says, “My sacred home is a state-place where all the particular worlds I dwell in professionally and privately, all the people I engage with, along with all of the aspects of me who arise with each new day, flow seamlessly together and are sustained as one whole in Love. My life is devoted to the conscious process of embodied reexperiencing of our sacred home individually and communally.”
Tim is a mystic artist spiritual explorer nestled in the Redwoods along the coast of California. He writes, “Each day I commune with Mother Earth deepening into the dance of sand-sea-sky-star-symphony as we flow with/in-as sSource. Sometimes serendipitously a gift, an insight, a poem or a painting, emerges from this sacred play. I gladly share these offerings to all my relations.”
They are both ICN WeSpacers who write with beauty and power in a major contribution to this series. Because of the “coverup” of sexuality by traditional Christianity except for moralistic purity culture rules, I have emphasized the dimension of lover in addition to friend and family in devotion to God. Tim and Maruška beautifully explore further the erotic in the integral vision of God.
Eros represents the all-encompassing desire to consume and/or be consumed, devouring all barriers between self, other, world and God in order to rhapsodize as ecstatic Oneness. This inexhaustible passion drives one to absolute surrender, giving all of oneself until one is as nothing, not knowing if one will ever arise again, as one explodes into the utter undividedness of this nNow.
The word Eros stems from the Greek word erotas, which translates to “intimate love”. Some scholars believe Eros represented sexuality in addition to romantic love, but others claim that the word “intimate” didn’t have the same connotation in Ancient Greece as it does today. We would argue that “intimate love” today includes both, since engaging sexually with another person without being emotionally and spiritually intimate with her/him doesn’t generate the deep intimacy and love we all crave for. However, as the sexual component of Eros was considered too immoral and too dangerous for a dedicated spiritual practitioner to engage in, spiritual traditions across the globe were glorifying romantic love, while sexual love was either ignored, suppressed, or transmuted through various practices.
Why was Eros perceived as dangerous? Because it represents total loss of egoic control. Eros is the uncontainable uncontrollable vitality of existence that sings through all forms. Eros is the dynamic potency that tsunamis us into manifestation. When jubilating as this uncontainable deluge, all feels possible, there are no goals that cannot be met, no obstacles that can’t be overcome, there is but the pulse pulse pulsing of unfulfilled need urging us on, ever onward, until we cascade unto God.
Over time, strivings to separate sexuality from spirituality (or to even ban it all together) have resulted in sexual oppression and insistence on lifelong celibacy vows for dedicated spiritual practitioners common both in the East and in the West. However, Eastern traditions like Taoism and some Hinduism lineages that realized the inherent transformative power of sexuality have developed spiritual practices aimed at transmuting eruptive sexual energy into other types of energies deemed more conducive for spiritual growth and enlightenment. Today we are moving away from the false morality imposed by the millennia of patriarchy and ignorance. We understand more and more that we cannot grow spiritually, become whole and/or unfold into integral consciousness if we don’t include all our aspects into one wholistic expression of our Selfhoods. Thus, the question of how to integrate Eros’s detonative, creative and transformative qualities into the continual enlivening flow of our Being and Becoming has never been more pertinent.
Being and Becoming in the Four Centers
We unfold into Wholeness when we can no longer as an organism differentiate Being (abiding as God, i.e. experiencing oneself as a deep calm ocean) from Becoming (manifesting as God, i.e. experiencing oneself as a wave arising from an ocean) when we are in the continual flow expressing God or Reality with/in/as us. The Confluence of Being and Becoming into one continual flow state however feels different in each center.
In the head center it feels like luminosity and clarity – as we are now a fractal representing the Mind of God.
In the heart center, the confluence of Being and Becoming into flow feels like never ceasing acceptance and the loving embrace of All That Is – as we are now a fractal representing the Heart of God.
In the womb center, this enfolding feels like unimpeded expression and enjoyment in God’s creation – as we are now a fractal representing the Womb of God.
In the root (feet) center, the merging of Being and Becoming into continual flow produces the felt sense of belonging and permanency. Here is where we are grounded in God’s creation.
When viewed through the lenses of the four centers, Eros belongs to the womb center and in its most wholistic expression, it serves as a devotional vehicle of God’s potency and zeal for Creating.
Eros and the Three Faces of God
Embracing Eros as a devotional expression has different manifestations through each of the three Faces of God. As we dance through and turn to each face together, we flow with/in/as these expressions.
From the Flow of Wholeness as God-Being-Us
Eros expressed as devotion of the inner God being me enjoying me arises when we as separate entities unfold into Wholeness. Then we as that Wholeness experience delicate, sweet, all-encompassing ecstatic enjoyment in All That Is, which is now the same as All That We Are. Thus, the experiential quality of Eros through this Face of God is dominantly autoerotic. Eastern spiritual traditions, such as Kundalini Yoga, recognized the creative potential of Eros within the inner Face of God early on and developed various practices that utilized the power of sexual energy to unfold into Wholeness, i.e individual Tantric practices (note that Tantric practices in pairs were developed by Westerners, they were originally not a part of the Eastern tradition).
Here the goal is to draw the creative and transformative sexual energy often referred to as kundalini in Eastern traditions, from the root (or womb) center up to the crown. The alternative would be to expend this vitality quickly into rapturous asOneness followed by the gnawing loss as the euphoric river of Eros recedes leaving behind disconnected potholes of desire clamoring to be united again via a new flood of life potency. If we chose the former approach, this creative sexual energy will flow through the centers, and it will assume and intensify other, non-sexual qualities of each center it goes through, in order to transform them, to bring them back into balance, and to whole them. We are thus coaxing this kundalini up through the centers, thereby unfurling the snake (the animal representation of kundalini) until it becomes as uroboros, with its tail in its mouth.
As a result of this process the person undergoing this practice is intensively transformed as they unfold into Wholeness. The felt sense of this Wholeness, as one unfolds into it, or when one learns to focalize and express this Wholeness through the womb center, feels like full body orgasmic ecstasy that can last for prolonged periods of time. As the entire body and all centers are now being revitalized and transformed by the flow of Eros, the end result of this process is the ongoing flow through all the centers back to Source and out again. The Eros is not experienced as the pounding and intense flow as before, but it is now a continuous flow of Wholeness, always irrigating new growth.
Through inner God being me, God enjoys All That Is of Their Creation which is also contained and expressed in me.
The Lover and Beloved with God-Beside-Us
Eros expressed as devotion to the intimate God beside me arises as deep intimate erotic love for another. This another (Beloved) can be a physical or nonphysical person or God. Here the devotional expression of Eros is relational, where both Lover and the Beloved enfold one another into their love and desire. As Eros is all-consuming and transformative, we, the Lovers can no longer differentiate our Being from our Becoming, and we are unfolded into a flow expressing as the Beloved.
The process of deep and intimate relating with the Beloved thus creates sacred space within the Lover for the Beloved to dwell in, and vice versa, the Beloved creates a sacred inner space for the Lover to dwell in. Through that indwelling of the Beloved, the Lover is continuously reshaped into a vessel of ever greater love and all the virtues represented by the Beloved. We are thus becoming the Union of Lover and Beloved because we are not only getting to know the Beloved from the outside, but we are also transforming into Beloved from within. Eros facilitates this process through its eruptive quality breaking down all barriers between the Lover and the Beloved, eventually merging them into One.
And the more intimate, loving, safe, and enjoyable this space is, the more possibility there is for the Lover holding the space to open even more, surrender, transform, tear down barriers, grow, commune and eventually merge with the Beloved. Thus, through this Face of God, the devotional expression of Eros serves as a vehicle to merge with God beside us, either directly by merging with God who is the object of our love and enjoyment, or indirectly by surrendering and giving oneself completely to another in love until one plunges into the utter undividedness of God´s Love.
God´s Breath
Eros expressed as intimate God beside me can also be represented through the process of God´s Breath. In each exhale of the Lover, the Lover offers all they are to the Beloved. Then, in the space of nothingness between exhale and inhale, the Lover finds themself utterly empty and open, not knowing if they will inhale and not knowing what they will inhale, only being fully open to receive whatever comes, even if it is nothing. Yet the Lover is content as they give themself fully away to their Beloved. As the Lover inhales, they breathe in the Beloved, and is imbued by the sacred love of the Beloved. In this alchemical process the Lover receives the Entirety of the Beloved within them, and in that taking of all parts of the Beloved in, all parts of the Beloved are enwrapped in the Lovers’ love. Now the Lover breathes these myriad parts of the Beloved out in their love and fills the lungs of the Beloved with this bounty of love of the now sacralized Beloved.
And as the Lover and the Beloved continue to exchange these sacred breaths with each other, life becomes even more rich, real, and resonant than before, and they both resonate ever deeper with the Divine, until they know and experience themselves as God´s breath. So, as we open to another from/as this Wholeness, we are acting as Beloveds for one another, we are deep recognizing deep, breathing consciously as God’s breath, becoming a resonant mobius strip spanning the heights, depths, and breadths of All That Is, enacting the Sacred Marriage of Heaven and Earth here and now.
Ecstatic Infinite Eros into God-Beyond-Us
Eros expressed as devotion to the infinite God beyond me arises when we unfold into the flow of Wholeness, with no ability to differentiate between Being and Becoming, and while flowing we surrender to, receive and flow as the entire unknowable God’s creation beyond us. Thus, when Being and Becoming flow as One, all we focus on outside us turns into ecstasy. When we open ourselves completely, when we truly unfold into what we always already are, and when we surrender to the totality of all Life from our Wholeness, we receive God beyond us.
Then all our senses serve as vehicles of enjoyment in everything we see, smell, taste, hear, and touch outside us. Every sensation is ecstasy, every movement is ecstasy, every thought is ecstasy, all that appears on the screen of consciousness produces ecstasy. This experience thus feels very much like making love with the entirety of Creation. We receive all Creation in its fullness and enjoy it as fullness. Eros expressed as devotion to the infinite God beyond us is thus conducive to full body orgasmic ecstasy as the entire body belongs to that Wholeness and it enjoys the unknowable Wholeness that it transparently receives as one fully integrated organism.
The Flow of Eros
Eros thus carries a great transformational potential for our spiritual growth and unfolding into Wholeness. It is up to us to choose how we want to address it and what do we want to do with it. We can choose to ride the unquenchable thirst of Eros as immediacy, springing forth from Source beelining to the rapturous eruption of momentary asOneness, each time destroying all boundaries for that ephemeral bliss.
And there is another way. We can choose a path that allows us to flow as Eros and not spend it all in one thrust. Thus, instead of consuming and being consumed into transitory rapture and thereby obliterating all our boundaries, we can begin to explore their permeability. Instead of seeing all in our way as barriers, we can experiment with them as conduits that we can hone.
By exploring Eros as a devotional relationship with the three faces of God, it is thus possible to complete the circuit and unfold into Wholeness without the sheer destruction of all boundaries. We can convey Eros to create a continual flow from Source through Oneness back to Source, each cycle honing the channels, so essential vivacity of Eros can be directed to other more nuanced experiences to heighten the sensations of the ongoing flow. We can thus forge way stations along the river of Eros, where not only new apprehensions are elicited, but where these perceptions can operate as transmitters of intensity, of Eros empowering the ongoing flow.
This ongoing flow should in the ideal case for each of us encompass all three devotional expressions of Eros. Eros in its wholistic and devotional expression should thus flow uninterruptedly from Source and back with/in/as us through all three faces of God enabling the Perichoresis, the communion of love, or the co-indwelling and mutual interpenetration of the human and divine natures in each other. It is only then we will complete the journey into God dissolution and then arise Whole, a wild knot of conscious awareness unfurling out of and furling back into God, braiding our Sacred Tapestry of Being and Becoming.