Equanimity In Moods Of Extreme Desire
By Dawn Cartwright
Our Spring 2024 Issue is out now! The theme of this magazine is Equanimity. Pick up your copy at a health store near you or subscribe to have the magazine delivered to your door each season https://www.positivelife.ie/subscribe/
According to a study completed in 2014, men and women who have a tendency to experience transcendent states desire sex more and have sex more often than those who do not.
(I love this kind of data.)
You’re probably wondering, as am I, which came first. Does more sex make one more transcendent? Or, are transcendence-prone people more sexual?
(Sounds like a win-win-win to me.)
Transcendent sex is a journey of stillness and excitement. A journey of contrast, mood and meditation. Transcendent sex is equanimity in moments of extreme desire.
Beauty In Contrast
Transcendence, that all-encompassing realm beyond space and time, appears anytime we are in that place of equanimity. In breathing, in walking, in sex, whenever we become aware of the contrast between the experience, and the one who is experiencing, equanimity appears and transcendence – is.
Ansel Adams, a self-taught 20th-century landscape photographer, was known for his ability to perceive and capture the transient and ephemeral aspects of nature. His black and white photographs used light and contrast to reveal the transcendent quality of the landscape.
John Szarkowski, curator, described Adams’ art in this way, “Other photographers photographed the geology of the place, while Adams photographed the weather.”
Photographs such as these have a way of bringing us into the moment, making the unknown knowable. These photographs, this kind of art, connects us, no matter who we are, what language we speak, through their ability to convey something as omnipresent and ephemeral as “the weather.” Equanimity, a mood we feel beyond words.
The Rasas: Moods Of Emotion
The Natyashastra is the oldest surviving collection of sacred writings on Indian dramatic arts. One section of the Natya is dedicated to the rasas; eight core emotions. The rasas are the mood and essence in which profound inner states of feeling permeate the world of embodied forms.
Primordial emotions that can only be accurately conveyed through a transmission of feeling – words cannot describe their depths, rasas stream through our bodies during sex, an unspoken heart-to-heart. The key is to listen, closely, with our whole bodies.
Sringara: Romance, Love, Attractiveness
Hasyam: Laughter, Mirth, Comedy
Raudram: Fury
Karunyam: Compassion, Mercy
Bibhatsam: Disgust, Aversion
Bhyanakam: Horror, Terror
Veeram: Heroism
Adbhutam: Wonder, Amazement
According to the Rasa theory of the Natyashastra, rasas exist to transport us into another, parallel reality full of wonder and bliss, where we experience the essence of our own consciousness through awareness of our emotions, rather than pushing them away or expressing them unconsciously. In this way, equanimity opens the door to greater intimacy and expansive connection.
The Book Of Secrets
A subtle shift in perception – equanimity of our moods and expression – and this parallel reality full of wonder and bliss appears. All that’s needed is focus, attention and an open heart. Meditation is a beautiful way to enter the present moment, where all the secrets of equanimity exist.
The Book Of Secrets, a book filled with meditations, is a commentary on the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, a highly revered Tantric text.
“This is the map to turn you on, and to turn you in, and to turn you beyond.”
Osho
There are meditations that involve every kind of activity, from breathing to caressing to awakening the senses and becoming aware of emotion. There are also meditations for channeling energy, sitting in stillness, singing Aum, listening to music – and there are meditations for the experience of sex.
Sutra 48: At the start of sexual union keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, And so continuing, avoid the embers in the end.
Sutra 49: When in such embrace your senses are shaken as leaves, enter this shaking.
Sutra 50: Even remembering union, Without the embrace, Transformation.
These meditations, called sutras, a word that means “to sew” or “to weave,” emerged from a conversation between two lovers, Shiva, the Hindu deity of transformation, and his consort, Devi. Sutra 48 is an invitation to stay present in sexual union rather than get lost in the passion – creating a paradox. When we are more awake and aware in heightened states of pleasure, equanimity appears, between our stillness and witnessing and the intensity we feel.
Meditation techniques, focusing on mindfulness and awareness, create a gap between us – and the experience we are having. Distractions dissolve and the rasa, the mood, the weather of the moment becomes apparent because we’ve refined our ability to remain calm in the midst of everything, even passion.
To be relaxed and aware in high states of arousal is a gateway to equanimity.
Equanimity In Moods Of Extreme Desire
Sutra 57: In Moods Of Extreme Desire, Be Undisturbed
Osho, The Book Of Secrets
I wonder if any of those transcendent-prone people from the study have discovered the secrets of Tantric sex? If they experience, naturally, the equanimity of pleasure and desire. Never holding back or moving toward a goal? Have they perfected the art of equanimity in sex?
(I hope they have.)
“Move in sex, but remain undisturbed. Be a witness. Go on being a deep observer. Whatsoever is happening, is happening on the periphery; you are just an onlooker, a spectator. …This feeling of two forces working simultaneously gives you a transcendence.”
Osho, The Book Of Secrets
Transcendence that appears when these two forces, inner calm and passion, are experienced in equanimity.
Dawn Cartwright is a NeoTantra visionary, sacred writer, world traveler, and innovator in SelfActualization-NeoTantra fusion. www.dawncartwright.com.
