Sex (yes, sex)

When I was in graduate school, I had the great fortune of taking a science writing course with a professor of immunology who was also a beautiful writer and poet. I learned from Gerald Callahan that the memory of the immune system--that is, the part of us that is entirely devoted to discerning, moment by moment, what is Self and what is Not Self--is more comprehensive and eternal than cognitive memory. In other words, though I may forget names, dates, and events of my life, my immune system will remember everything.

That may not strike one as something particularly fascinating at first read. But consider this: every cell in the body contains not only the memories of all those who have shared  our lives, but physical evidence of them as well. That is, if you have shared a cold with someone, you carry inside of you--forever--part of them, imprinted inside your glassy cells. Like ghosts, they continue to haunt us even long past their exits from our lives or their own.

When this system goes awry, the body will begin to attack itself as though it were the enemy. Who are we, and how do the intimate relationships in our lives expand or contract that sense of Self?

I think of this beautiful work of the immune system every time I miss my father, dead now over 7 years. We experience this haunting as a feeling--a yearning, a longing, a hunger. As though every cell is suddenly seeking the next chapter to a story that cannot be completed. It dangles, unbound. Incomplete. But here is another perspective--a vibrant, sensuous, equally confounding truth. Every lover you have ever been with is also a part of you, and this is something the yogis (and many great masters of many traditions) have known for thousands of years.

A few weeks ago, a beloved student of mine lamented a recent breakup with a man with whom she had shared an intense but brief relationship. As I listened to her regrets, confusion, frustration, and hurt, I heard echos of all my friends who have grappled with the tricky terrain of intimacy, sex, identity, and integrity. How do you open yourself fully and completely to another without losing balance? "I just wish I had never slept with him," this beautiful woman groaned. "I think I should just be celibate...things would be so much easier." "Why?" I asked, "What exactly do you think sex can or cannot do?" She shook her head and laughed, "Well the problem is now that he is all I think about."

My friend felt haunted.

According to the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, suffering arises from attachment and aversion. That is, we experience suffering when we hanker excessively for things that give us pleasure or when we push away the things we fear will cause us pain. And most of us expend the majority of our time and energy striving to accumulate more of what we want and less of what we don't want. So long as we get the good stuff and keep the bad stuff at bay, we enjoy a tenuous peace...but we never rest, and we are rendered vulnerable to the slightest shift in the balance. So, we yoga teachers talk a lot about "letting go of attachment" and "sitting with discomfort." It sounds simple enough, but apply it to your actual lived life--the stuff of bedrooms, board rooms, and highways, and it gets a little more complicated.

Yoga, in its most essential teaching, is the experience of union--the realization of the oneness of being. Most of us experience ourselves as separate, skin-bound entities and egos whose lives are made up of mini victories and losses. But according to this tradition, what we really want is to feel whole and part of a whole. Instead, we mostly wander around feeling like holes in search of something to fill us up. For some it is shopping, for others it is control. Some fill up with money and things, while others stuff themselves with the attention/affection of another. Be it food, drugs, technology, power, or self righteousness, what we binge on to feel whole is what keeps us behaving like holes. The true happiness and freedom we seek, according to the yogic scriptures, comes from the merging. Remembering. Re-membering. Bringing back into the body the memory of who you really are. Whole. Not dis-membered, fragmented, and empty. But whole, complete, and full. And to remember also suggests to once again find membership. To be a member.

Of course, it is worth noting that a more antiquated English referred to sexual relationships as "knowing" one another. Though we tend to joke about this as "knowing" another physically, the real sense of the expression runs much deeper. After all, to be fully known--seen, recognized, heard, held, and embraced--is the true power of sex. We don't just want to be adored, we want to be remembered. And when, in the embrace of another, we are ourselves reminded, there is magic. But when the embrace is hollow and you are left feeling entirely forgotten or unseen, there is despair.

What my sad student was feeling was the brokenness and fragmentation that follows in the wake of a breakup or a loss. She felt rejected because this man was no longer communicating with her. The affection and attention she had felt so filled by were now memories. Ghosts. Like the sun that once warmed and nurtured her had gone black.

In sex, ideally, two individuals share for a moment--however brief or dramatic--a complete dissolution of separateness that goes beyond the physical, whether or not we are cognizant of that power. For a moment, there is a complete merging with something beyond each individuals singularity. Perhaps this is why the ethical tenet of brahmacharya is such a charged one for yogis. Translated by some as self imposed celibacy, this yama inevitably creates a lot of questions about whether we are seeking to live as part of this world or apart from this world. When Patanjali lists the yamas, he also describes what a practitioner who is firmly established in them can expect. And in the case of brahmacharya, we are told that we will enjoy true health and vitality. Vigor. This is no surprise, as many spiritual traditions do in fact encourage celibacy as a way of harnessing the energy one may need for the rigors of spiritual practice.

But I am not sure about that, as I look around at all the universe, teeming with life that is creative, revolutionary, dynamic, fluid, and sensuous. So, I tend to sit more with the translations given to me by some of my most influential teachers. Brahmacharya is more literally understood as "the way to Brahman," which is like saying "the way to God." Or Source. Or The Divine. Or The One. Or.....

The point is, we enjoy vitality when we don't waste our energy on pursuits that have nothing to do with leading us toward yoga--union, remembering who we are. And an awful lot of people waste their powerful sexual energy in relationships that make them feel even more alone, even more separate, even more incomplete. If acharya is like a chariot--like a car, a vehicle, a way, a means--then it matters which one you choose. There is a part of you that is forever reminding you who you really are, and each time you share that kind of intimacy with another, you braid them into your physiological, emotional, and energetic fabric. Every cell knows every lover you have ever embraced. And, as my dear sad friend felt, those cells orient toward that lover like sunflowers to the sun. So devastating can it be then when that sun goes out and every cell continues to wait longingly. Because each cell knows that lover to have been a part of you at some moment, however briefly, together you made your way to Brahman. To Yoga. Union. Oneness.

It is said that what we seek is the seeker...that all the practices, techniques, disciplines, and austerities are essentially ways (means, methods) to remind us of who we have always been. Our goal then is to remember. And there is no more powerful memory than that of the system whose entire raison d'etre is to sort through what is Self and what is not. So I suspect that sex, as a method, a means, a technique, a technology, is one of the most powerful ways to reach Brahman because it circumvents the careful policing we all do every day to keep ourselves separate. But it's a powerful method, and one that can just as likely steer one more deeply into isolation, disconnection, and fragmentation if you, well, choose the wrong acharya.

In the sexual afterglow (or aftermath, depending on your situation), we have the opportunity to stay connected--against all our cultural training and insecurity and need for control. To my beautiful student whose heart is aching and hungry, I offer this humble reflection that you are already whole, unfurling cell by cell into this universe as you slowly discern all you are and all you are not. That you ache for someone whose light once fed you is neither an indication that he is the sun upon whom you now depend for happiness nor is he the blight that wiped out your vitality. Like every lover we know in this lifetime, he is helping you remember something...and it isn't about pleasure or pain.

Who you are--becoming and unbecoming--is an eternal work in progress, shaped, in part, again and again by those whose lives are forever grafted to your own. When the path leads you toward the darkness of being alone, isolated, or forgotten, remember that there is a true and potent exchange of energy that occurs when you merge with another that you are recalibrating moment by moment. So, yes, choose the acharya wisely, but don't confuse the method for the goal. You are already whole--now go out there and merge with those who know it, too.