The Way of Superior Man by David Deida

Summary

Here are some useful tidbits I learned from this book, that stuck with me the most:

• Sometimes our women can act as a proxy for the real world. If your SO is giving you trouble with something you think is unfair, think about the universe, it won’t care what’s fair and what’s not. You just have to learn to deal with it.
• Our significant others (the feminine) improve better from appreciation instead of criticism. If you want your lady to do something more, you got to compliment her on that action, however small.
• Men must have a goal in life to work their ass off towards.
• As time went by, relationships between man and woman have equalized (which can and is a good thing), but that can dull out some emotions as well. Do not forget to show your passion to your significant other, as people would in the old days.
• You should not be dependent on the opinions of others, whoever they may be father, boss, wife, etc.
• Be confident and brave enough to admit your fears. They partially define you. And they define the most useful parts. By knowing your fears you can make decisions accordingly and improve your life greatly.
• You need to be able to receive criticism from your friends well. And be able to give similar criticism to your friends when they need it. Make sure you make friends with people who can do both.
• If your lady has a problem she shares with you, don’t analyze it or try to solve it. Just hear her out and offer your support and love, that’s all she needs.
• Try “leading” more often. Instead of asking “what do you want to watch? or Where do you want to go tonight? Pick something that you both are likely to enjoy and go with it. If you got it wrong no worries, it’s not a life or death situation.
• Try to guess/understand what she wants/needs and give/do that for her. (8 options here 😆)
• Often her feminine feelings will be a much better basis for a decision than your masculine analysis. So, encourage her to feel into the situation and trust her feelings.
• You need to have good friends or as the author puts it: “A man rediscovers and fine-tunes his purpose in solitude, in challenging situations, and in the company of other men who won’t settle for his bullshit.”

You can see more in the highlights section.

My Thoughts

I read it a while back and have forgotten my exact feelings about this book. I do remember feeling quite motivated and relieved. This book provides men with a path to being good. Good to their women, good to themselves, and good towards the world. It gives you advice and direction you should be looking towards, but in all the biggest decisions in life, you still get to decide for yourself.

As you can see from the score I gave this book, I would certainly not consider reading this book a waste of time. I would certainly recommend it to my friends.

It would be interesting to re-read this book in a few years, as it would give a very different impression and advice as you go along your life’s journey. Even the same advice can apply differently during different stages in life.

Highlights

PREFACE TO THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

A man’s worth can be found in his depth of being. A shallow man, easily perturbed and swayed, is worth less to his woman and his world than a man whose presence is deeply sourced. A profound and steady gaze conveys truth more than furtive eyes. Full, even breathing is trusted more than shallow, jittery gasps. A man grounded in the unfathomable mystery of life, in touch with death’s vastness—rather than merely flitting from one busy surface activity to another—is sourced in his depth.

PREFACE TO THE 2004 EDITION

Stop waiting. Feel everything. Love achingly. Give impeccably. Let go.

INTRODUCTION

Chances are, if you are reading this book, you are more balanced than your parents were. If you are a woman, you are probably more independent and assertive than your mother was. If you are a man, you are probably more emotionally expressive and open-minded than your father was. Or, at least such qualities seem acceptable to you, even if you don’t express them yourself. Remember, not that many years ago, a man who got his hair styled or a woman who wore a business suit was often considered suspect.

If you want real passion, you need a ravisher and a ravishee; otherwise, you just have two buddies who decide to rub genitals in bed.

The bottom line of today’s newly emerging 50/50, or “second stage,” relationship is this: If men and women are clinging to a politically correct sameness even in moments of intimacy, then sexual attraction disappears.

You don’t need this for love, but do for the sexual passion.

Your sexual essence is your sexual core. If you have a more masculine sexual essence, you would, of course, enjoy staying home and playing with the kids, but deep down, you are driven by a sense of mission. You may not know your mission, but unless you discover this deep purpose and live it fully, your life will feel empty at its core, even if your intimate relationship and family life are full of love. If you have a more feminine sexual essence, your professional life may be incredibly successful, but your core won’t be fulfilled unless love is flowing fully in your family or intimate life.

The “mission” or the search for freedom is the priority of the masculine, whereas the search for love is the priority of the feminine.

It’s certainly possible to provide equality while also living true to your masculine or feminine core.

PART ONE A Man’s Way

1 STOP HOPING FOR A COMPLETION OF ANYTHING IN LIFE

Most men make the error of thinking that one day it will be done. They think, “If I can work enough, then one day I could rest.” Or, “One day my woman will understand something and then she will stop complaining.” Or, “I’m only doing this now so that one day I can do what I really want with my life.” The masculine error is to think that eventually things will be different in some fundamental way. They won’t. It never ends. As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift.

Limited money and family obligations have never stopped a man who really wanted to do something, although they provide excuses for a man who is not really up to the creative challenge in the first place.

The next time you notice yourself trying to fix your woman so that she will no longer _____________ (fill in the blank), relax and give her love by touching her and telling her that you love her when she is this way (whatever you filled in the blank with).

Learn to find humor in the unending emotional drama the feminine seems to enjoy so much. The love that you magnify may realign her behavior, but your effort to fix her and your frustration never will.

2 LIVE WITH AN OPEN HEART EVEN IF IT HURTS

Closing down in the midst of pain is a denial of a man’s true nature. A superior man is free in feeling and action, even amidst great pain and hurt. If necessary, a man should live with a hurting heart rather than a closed one. He should learn to stay in the wound of pain and act with spontaneous skill and love even from that place.

Note: If someone hurt you, phusically or emotionally, closing down, avoiding eye contact, etc is awrong reaction. Open up, again, physically and emotionally. Only that can you act to the best of your intelligence and abijlity.

3 LIVE AS IF YOUR FATHER WERE DEAD

A man must love his father and yet be free of his father’s expectations and criticisms in order to be a free man.

4 KNOW YOUR REAL EDGE AND DON’T FAKE IT

It is honorable for a man to admit his fears, resistance, and edge of practice. It is simply true that each man has his limit, his capacity for growth, and his destiny. But it is dishonorable for him to lie to himself or others about his real place. He shouldn’t pretend he is more enlightened than he is—nor should he stop short of his actual edge. The more a man is playing his real edge, the more valuable he is as good company for other men, the more he can be trusted to be authentic and fully present. Where a man’s edge is located is less important than whether he is actually living his edge in truth, rather than being lazy or deluded.

A fearful man who knows he is fearful is far more trustable than a fearful man who isn’t aware of his fear. And a fearful man who still leans into his fear, living at his edge and putting his gift out from there, is more trustworthy and more inspirational than a fearful man who hangs back in the comfort zone, unwilling to even experience his fear on a day to day level.

6 NEVER CHANGE YOUR MIND JUST TO PLEASE A WOMAN

If a woman suggests something that changes a man’s perspective, then he should make a new decision based on his new perspective. But he should never betray his own deepest knowledge and intuition in order to please his woman or “go along” with her. Both she and he will be weakened by such an action. They will grow to resent each other, and the crust of accumulated inauthenticity will burden their love, as well as their capacity for free action.

7 YOUR PURPOSE MUST COME BEFORE YOUR RELATIONSHIP

Every man knows that his highest purpose in life cannot be reduced to any particular relationship. If a man prioritizes his relationship over his highest purpose, he weakens himself, disserves the universe, and cheats his woman of an authentic man who can offer her full, undivided presence.

The next time you notice yourself “giving in” to your woman, postponing your mission and denying your true purpose in order to spend time with her, stop. Tell your woman that you love her, but you cannot deny your heart’s purpose. Tell her that you will spend thirty minutes (or some specific time) with her in absolute attention and total presence, but then you must return to carry on your mission.

Time you spend with your woman should be time you really want to be with her more than anything else. If you’d rather be doing something else, she’ll feel it. Both of you will be dissatisfied.

8 LEAN JUST BEYOND YOUR EDGE

In any given moment, a man’s growth is optimized if he leans just beyond his edge, his capacity, his fear. He should not be too lazy, happily stagnating in the zone of security and comfort. Nor should he push far beyond his edge, stressing himself unnecessarily, unable to metabolize his experience. He should lean just slightly beyond the edge of fear and discomfort. Constantly. In everything he does.

Note: Some examples. Ask more questions at work. Blog more often. Publish podcasts.

Your fear is the sharpest definition of your self. You should know it.

9 DO IT FOR LOVE

The way a man penetrates the world should be the same way he penetrates his woman: not merely for personal gain or pleasure, but to magnify love, openness, and depth.

There is no essential difference between entering your woman’s feminine heart and entering fully into the world. Both forms of intercourse, sexual and worldly, require sensitivity, spontaneity, and a strong connection to deep truth in order to penetrate chaos and closure in a way that love prevails.

Note: Give your fullest to your lover and to the world

10 ENJOY YOUR FRIENDS’ CRITICISM

A man’s capacity to receive another man’s direct criticism is a measure of his capacity to receive masculine energy. If he doesn’t have a good relationship to masculine energy (e.g., his father), then he will act like a woman and be hurt or defensive rather than make use of other men’s criticism.

Note: This works both ways. You need to receive and provide feedack/critism.

Choose men friends who themselves are living at their edge, facing their fears and living just beyond them. Men of this kind can love you without protecting you from the necessary confrontation with reality that your life involves. You should be able to trust that these friends will tell you about your life as they see it, offer you a specific action which will shed light on your own position, and give you the support necessary to live in the freedom just beyond your edge, which is not always, or even usually, comfortable.

11 IF YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR PURPOSE, DISCOVER IT, NOW

Without a conscious life-purpose a man is totally lost, drifting, adapting to events rather than creating events. Without knowing his life-purpose a man lives a weakened, impotent existence, perhaps eventually becoming even sexually impotent, or prone to mechanical and disinterested sex.

12 BE WILLING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIFE

A man must be prepared to give 100 percent to his purpose, fulfill his karma or dissolve it, and then let go of that specific form of living. He must be capable of not knowing what to do with his life, entering a period of unknowingness and waiting for a vision or a new form of purpose to emerge. These cycles of strong specific action followed by periods of not knowing what the hell is going on are natural for a man who is shedding layers of karma in his relaxation into truth.

Note: The wave like pattern is normal in life. You must be ready for each stage of tbis wave

As you open yourself to living at your edge, your deepest purpose will slowly begin to make itself known. In the meantime, you will experience layer after layer of purposes, each one getting closer and closer to the fullness of your deepest purpose. It is as if your deepest purpose is at the center of your being, and it is surrounded by layers of concentric circles, each circle being a lesser purpose. Your life consists of penetrating each circle, from the outside toward the center. The outer purposes are often the purposes you have inherited or learned from your parents and your childhood experiences. Perhaps your father was a fireman, so you wanted to be a fireman. Or, in reaction to him, you’ve decided to be an arsonist. In any case, the outer circles, the purposes you often apply yourself to early in life, are most likely only distant approximations of your deepest purpose.

It’s easy to feel disappointed by life; success is never as fulfilling as you think it is going to be. But there is a reason for this. Successfully completing a lesser purpose doesn’t feel very good for very long, because it is simply preparation for advancing toward a greater embodiment of your deeper purpose. Each purpose, each mission, is meant to be fully lived to the point where it becomes empty, boring, and useless. Then it should be discarded. This is a sign of growth, but you may mistake it for a sign of failure.

13 DON’T USE YOUR FAMILY AS AN EXCUSE

If a man never discovers his deepest purpose, or if he permanently compromises it and uses his family as an excuse for doing so, then his core becomes weakened and he loses depth and presence. His woman loses trust and sexual polarity with him, even though he may be putting much energy into parenting their children and doing the housework. A man should, of course, be a full participant in caring for children and the household. But if he gives up his deepest purpose to do so, ultimately, everyone suffers.

A short period of time with a father who is absolutely present, full in love, undivided inside, and sure of his mission in life, will affect your children much more positively than if they spend lots of time with a father who is ambiguous in his intent and has lost touch with his deepest purpose, no matter how much he loves his children.

It is not the amount of time but the quality of the interaction that most influences a child’s growth.

14 DON’T GET LOST IN TASKS AND DUTIES

Whatever the specifics of a man’s purpose, he must always refresh the transcendental element of his life through regular meditation and retreat. A man should never get lost in the details of his life and forget that, ultimately and in truth, life amounts to nothing other than what is the deepest truth of this present moment. Tasks don’t get a man anywhere more conscious or free than he is capable of being in this present moment.

Tasks are important, but no amount of duties adds up to love, freedom, or full consciousness.

Have you devoted yourself to finding out the deepest truth of your own existence?

15 STOP HOPING FOR YOUR WOMAN TO GET EASIER

A woman often seems to test her man’s capacity to remain unperturbed in his truth and purpose. She tests him to feel his freedom and depth of love, to know that he is trustable. Her tests may come in the form of complaining, challenging him, changing her mind, doubting him, distracting him, or even undermining his purpose in a subtle or not so subtle way. A man should never think his woman’s testing is going to end and his life will get easier. Rather, he should appreciate that she does these things to feel his strength, integrity, and openness. Her desire is for his deepest truth and love. As he grows, so will her testing.

If your woman is weak, she may settle for a weak man, and therefore play into your need to feel like a good boy. But if she is a good woman, a strong woman, she won’t tolerate your childish needs for a pat on the head, collecting bigger toys, and being king of the mountain.

PART TWO Dealing With Women

16 WOMEN ARE NOT LIARS

“Keeping your word” is a masculine trait, in men or women. A person with a feminine essence may not keep her word, yet it is not exactly “lying.” In the feminine reality, words and facts take a second place to emotions and the shifting moods of relationship. When she says, “I hate you,” or “I’ll never move to Texas,” or “I don’t want to go to the movies,” it is often more a reflection of a transient feeling-wave than a well-considered stance with respect to events and experience. On the other hand, the masculine means what it says. A man’s word is his honor. The feminine says what it feels. A woman’s word is her true expression in the moment.

You might ask her, “Do you want to go to the movies?” She might reply, “Not really.” Then you hug her and spin her around and say, “Let’s go to the movies!” And she says, “Okay!”

For a man, or for anyone speaking in the masculine style, to say something that is not true is lying. But, for the feminine, truth is a thin concept compared to the thickness of her flow of feelings. The “truth” of the feminine is whatever she is really feeling, in this present moment.

The basic rule is this: Don’t believe the literal content of what your woman says unless love is flowing deeply and fully in the moment when she says it. And even then, know that she is probably talking about her current feelings, not necessarily about the subject of whatever she is talking about. Never base your plans on what a woman says she wants to do, unless she is in the full flow of love when she says it. And then, expect her to change her mind at any moment when her feelings change. Remember that a woman’s feelings may be more sensitive to an unseen realm of nature than are yours. Try to differentiate between your woman’s shifting moods and her sensitive wisdom.

17 PRAISE HER

The masculine grows by challenge, but the feminine grows by praise. A man must be unabashed and expressed in his appreciation for his woman. Praise her freely.

So, as a man, you probably have a masculine habit of challenging people, including your woman, in order to get her to improve or grow.

This is counterproductive. Use praise

Praise is literal food for feminine qualities. If you want your woman to grow in her radiance, health, happiness, love, beauty, power, and depth, praise these qualities. Praise them daily, a number of times.

It is a difficult practice for most men to learn, but you must learn to praise the very qualities you feel are not yet praiseworthy in order for them to become so. In other words, praise the tiny quality that you want to grow.

18 TOLERATING HER LEADS TO RESENTING HER

A man gets resentful and frustrated with his woman when he is too afraid, weak, or unskilled to penetrate her moods and tests into love. He wishes she were easier to deal with. But it is not entirely her fault that she is bitchy and complaining. It is also a reflection of her lack of being penetrated by love. When a man resigns, and simply tolerates his woman’s self-destructive moods, it is a sign of his weakness. His attitude has become one of wanting to escape women and the world, rather than wanting to serve women and the world into love. A man shouldn’t tolerate bitchy and complaining moodiness in his woman, but he should serve her and love her with every ounce of his skill and perseverance. Then, if she cannot or will not open in love, he might decide to end his relationship with her, harboring no anger or resentment, because he knows he has done everything he could.

Note: Gift your love and eveything will be fine.

Intimacy is about growing more than you could by yourself, through the art of mutual gifting.

One of the largest gifts you can give your woman is your capacity to open her heart when it is closed. Sure, she can get herself out of her dark mood, but your masculine thunderbolt of love can brighten her darkness in a way she can’t do for herself.

The feminine part of your woman is either opening in loving surrender (easy moments) or closing in what ends up being an emotional test of your capacity to open her (difficult moments). This cycle of the feminine is like all cycles in nature: it never ends. The sooner you learn to embrace and dance with these moods of closure, the sooner both of you will grow beyond the psychodrama and see the humor of the play.

A superior man sees his woman’s moods not as a curse, but as a challenge and an amusement.

Occasionally, talking with her helps, but not as often as humor and physically expressed love.

19 DON’T ANALYZE YOUR WOMAN

The feminine’s moods and opinions are like weather patterns. They are constantly changing, severe and gentle, and they have no single source. No analysis will work. There is no linear chain of cause and effect that can lead to the kernel of the “problem.” There is no problem, only a storm, a breeze, a sudden change in weather. And the bases of these storms are the high and low pressure systems of love. When a woman feels love flowing deeply, her mood can instantly evaporate into joy, regardless of the supposed reason for the mood.

The amazing thing is this: 90 percent of a woman’s emotional problems stem from feeling unloved. So don’t stand back and analyze her, like a doctor diagnosing a patient, or like a therapist questioning a client. Give her your love—the same love that is motivating your questioning—immediately and unmistakably.

The next time your woman is in a bad mood, try this: Assume she is not feeling loved. Simply assume it, even if it seems that it can’t be that simple, that there must be some underlying reason for her upsetness, a reason that you could fix. Assume she is more like a flower that needs watering than an engine that needs a carburetor adjustment. Don’t assume anything is wrong at all. Assume that she wants love from you, in a deep, strong, steady, and sensitive way. Look into her eyes with love, touch her how she likes to be touched with love, and speak or sing to her with love. Discover what happens to her mood. Then, after her mood has been dissolved by your loving and she is happy and relaxed, you can talk about anything that still needs to be talked about.

20 DON’T SUGGEST THAT A WOMAN FIX HER OWN EMOTIONAL PROBLEM

Asking a woman to analyze or try to fix her own emotions is a negation of her feminine core, which is pure energy in motion, like the ocean. She can learn to surrender her mood to God, she can learn to open her heart in the midst of closure, she can learn to relax her edges and trust love, but she will never “fix” anything by analyzing her “problem.”

You probably apply the same system to your intimacy. You realize that you’re not happy about something your wife is doing. Maybe you talk about it with your friends or think about it yourself. You realize that your wife isn’t caring for you like she used to. So, you determine that you’ll be happier if your wife cooks more and massages you more. You then think maybe your wife wants you to do something more for her. So you tell her what you want from her, and then you ask her, “What do you want from me?” You tell her to think about it and let you know. This seems fair to a man, but it is not. It is a no-win situation for your woman. Why? Because what she really wants is a man who can figure it out for himself. She wants a man who loves her, and escorts her with his loving, without having to ask her what she wants all the time.

Note: Dont ask what your wife wants. Figure it out and just do it.

One of the deepest feminine desires in intimacy is precisely not to have to always figure it out for her man and guide him. She wants to be able to trust him in his direction. There are some times when she does want to figure it out for you, but far more often she feels your gift when you offer her a direction in your intimacy without her having to ask you for it or tell you what she wants.

One of the deepest feminine desires in intimacy (though not in business or simple friendship) is to be able to relax and surrender, knowing that her man is taking care of everything.

The masculine chooses a single goal and moves in that direction. Like a ship cutting through a vast ocean, the masculine decides on a course and navigates the direction: the feminine energy itself is undirected but immense, like the wind and deep currents of the ocean, ever changing, beautiful, destructive, and the source of life.

Most men have made their women into swimming pools by continually treating them like men, talking with them about their feelings as if they can be analyzed to the point of “fixing” them. Don’t waste your time doing this, but especially don’t expect your woman to do it to herself.

21 STAY WITH HER INTENSITY—TO A POINT

One of the deepest feminine pleasures is when a man stands full, present, and unreactive in the midst of his woman’s emotional storms. When he stays present with her, and loves her through the layers of wildness and closure, then she feels his trustability, and she can relax. The way you relate to your woman’s chaos reflects the way you react to the chaos of the world.

Learn to enjoy her anger, her tears, her silent hardness. The world will give you the same at times.

22 DON’T FORCE THE FEMININE TO MAKE DECISIONS

Your woman asks you for input, and you say, “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.” This is the statement of a friend, not a lover.

As a practice, always help your woman make decisions by giving her your perspective and telling her your choices, while letting her know that you love her regardless of the decision she makes.

Often her feminine feelings will be a much better basis for a decision than your masculine analysis. So, encourage her to feel into the situation and trust her feelings. But, for the sake of polarity and happiness in intimacy, always tell her what you would do and why, even if you think she should make her own decision.

PART THREE Working With Polarity and Energy

24 CHOOSE A WOMAN WHO IS YOUR COMPLEMENTARY OPPOSITE

By understanding their own needs, men can learn to accept the “whole package” of a woman. For instance, a more masculine man can expect that any woman who really turns him on and enlivens him will also be relatively wild, undisciplined, “bonkers,” chaotic, prone to changing her mind and “lying.” Still, from an energetic perspective, this kind of woman will be much more healing and inspiring to him than a more balanced or neutral woman who is steady, reasonable, “trustworthy,” and able to say what she means in a way he can understand.

it is precisely those ways in which a woman is least like a man that most attract you sexually, if you have a masculine sexual essence.

25 KNOW WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN YOUR WOMAN

The more you seek a woman who gives you everything, the less you get of anything. Business skills are for the most part masculine skills (in both men and women). Friendship, in itself, is a neutral, nonsexual matter. And sexual passion requires a clear polarity between your masculine core and your woman’s feminine energy.

Note: If more people relized that qomen can have masculine polaroty they would be less discriminated against

You can share many aspects of intimacy—business, friendship, parenting, and sexual passion—only if you choose a single priority to the relationship and allow all the other activities to align themselves around your main purpose for being together.

By constantly talking about finances, work, household, and children, you turn your woman into a neutral companion. You become so familiar with each other that the mystery of sexual enchantment becomes standardized into the ritual mechanics of kiss, stroke, lick, pump, spurt, and snore.

You are the only one who can decide what is important to you in your relationship. You are the only one who can clarify for yourself what the purpose of your intimacy is.

Don’t squash the fullness of her feminine energy into merely functional roles.

Note: This makes me think that in resolving questions and choosing direction in life i should imagime im on my own, dont expect help. Let my wofe be a radiant woman

PART FOUR What Women Really Want

30 WHAT SHE WANTS IS NOT WHAT SHE SAYS

He must remember that her trust is engendered not by him fulfilling her requests, but by him magnifying love, consciousness, and success in their lives, in spite of her requests.

Your woman will ask you to do all kinds of things, every day. Do not allow yourself to be swayed from your truth, from the direction of your heart.

Note: Learn to syay no amd to act according to your bwst judgement

32 SHE DOESN’T REALLY WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE

Although she would never admit it, she wants to feel that her man would be willing to sacrifice their relationship for the sake of his highest purpose.

Note: This seems extreme but somewhat true.

If a woman has become the point of your life, you are lost. You have a gift to give, a purpose to fulfill, a deep heart-impulse that moves you.

33 YOUR EXCELLENT TRACK RECORD IS MEANINGLESS TO HER

A man’s track record means nothing to the feminine. A man could be perfect for ten years, but if he’s an asshole for thirty seconds his woman acts like he’s always been one. The feminine responds to the moment of energy, forgetting her man’s history of past behavior. A man’s past behavior is irrelevant to his woman’s feeling in the moment. But men base much on another man’s history of behavior, so they think their own track record should count for something. But to a woman, it doesn’t.

Shock her with your love.

34 SHE WANTS TO RELAX IN THE DEMONSTRATION OF YOUR DIRECTION

You become more responsible by knowing your deepest purpose,

Note: This is not easy. Reading this helps me realize that i have been postponing/procrastinating on thinking about this.

PART FIVE Your Dark Side

35 YOU ARE ALWAYS SEARCHING FOR FREEDOM

To live free in spirit, you must be willing to face your fears and let go of anything that limits your love. The attachment to comfort and security is what limits most men in their capacity to make a spiritual touchdown.

The feminine seeks fullness and abhors emptiness. She will fill her empty shelves with knickknacks, seashells, and pebbles collected from special places. When she does not feel full of love, she seeks to fill herself with ice cream, chocolate, or conversation, rather than empty her stress through TV or ejaculation, as men often do.

Note: This is why ladies like to collect things

In the end, the feminine search for love and the masculine search for freedom reach the same destination: the unbounded and infinite ground of being who you are, which is both absolute love and freedom.

until you finally relax into the place you always are, your woman will continue to surrender—to you, chocolate, and shopping—in the hope of being filled with love, and you will continue to release yourself—through television, orgasm, and financial success—in the hope of being emptied of stress into unconstrained freedom.

36 OWN YOUR DARKEST DESIRES

The difference between rape and ravishment is love.

Unless you choose to live your life as a celibate, there is no way around this. You must be as fearless with your sexual desire as you are with your spiritual desire.

As an experiment, the next time you make love with your woman, feel through your own physical and emotional boundaries into her. Feel into her so deeply that you become unaware of yourself and totally aware of her. Feel yourself move into her, your boundaries dissolving so that you become her, utterly aware of her breath, her movements, her emotions. Love her with more abandon than you’ve ever allowed yourself before. Feel through not only your boundaries, but also her boundaries, so that you are both dissolved in the immense force of your loving. Relax into the force of love so completely that only love remains.

From time to time, take special care to allow space for her energies and desires to take you to places you would never have gone on your own.

Note: Let Her drive sex

37 SHE WANTS THE “KILLER” IN YOU

Among many other qualities, a woman wants the “killer” in her man. She is turned off if her man is afraid and wants her to kill the cockroach or the mouse while he stands on a chair and watches. She is turned off if her man wants her to get out of bed in order to check out the strange sounds in the house to find out if a burglar made the noise. Fearlessness, or the capacity to transcend the fear of death for the sake of love, is a quintessential form of the ultimate masculine gift.

38 SHE NEEDS YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS TO MATCH HER ENERGY

Any of her energies that you are unable to transform into love through the force, clarity, and humor of your consciousness will return for you to face, again and again.

You need not concern yourself with pleasing her. That’s not the point. She is offering you a gift. She is presenting you with an energy in the form of her mood and emotion, offering you an opportunity to learn to “master” this energy with your fearless loving. Whatever energy she offers you, you can be sure the world will offer it to you as well.

PART SIX Feminine Attractiveness

40 ALLOW OLDER WOMEN THEIR MAGIC

If your purpose is to become ever more free of your self-burdens and give your true gift to the world, then a spiritually mature woman—who won’t let you slather in your comfy habits of security and distraction—may be an excellent ally for your journey.

PART SEVEN Body Practices

44 EJACULATION SHOULD BE CONVERTED OR CONSCIOUSLY CHOSEN

In a subtle way, excess ejaculations will diminish your courage to take risks, professionally and spiritually. You will settle for doing enough to get by, to be comfortable, but you will find that you would rather watch TV than write your novel, meditate, or make that important phone call.

45 BREATHE DOWN THE FRONT

All men tend to have blocks in the front of their body, along an imaginary line that runs from the top of the head, through the tongue, throat, heart, solar plexus, navel, and genitals, down to the perineum. The principal bodily key to mastering the world and women is maintaining a full and open front of the body at all times. The best method is through full and relaxed breathing, drawing energy down the front, and freeing attention from neurotic self-concern.

Inhale deeply, through your nose, and breathe through whatever tensions you notice in your body. Inhale deeply into your lower belly. Then exhale. On your next inhalation, breathe into your lower and upper belly. Then exhale. On your next inhalation, fill your entire belly, then your solar plexus and lower chest. Then exhale. Then inhale and fill your belly, solar plexus, and your entire chest, in that order. For several breaths, inhale fully in this way, filling your belly, solar plexus, and finally your chest. Then exhale fully, slowly, and smoothly. Throughout the day, practice this kind of breathing in random moments. Pay special attention to any part of your body that seems particularly tense or closed.

For a book-length treatment of superior sexuality, see The Enlightened Sex Manual, by David Deida, Sounds True, 2004.

46 EJACULATE UP THE SPINE

If you are like most men, your first sexual experiences as a teenager involved masturbation. Masturbating over and over ends up conditioning your body and nervous system to an habitual sequence: genital stimulation, mental fantasy, building up tension, and ejaculating. Teenage masturbation is essentially an exercise in fantasy, done alone, without much love or even human intimacy. By the time most men are having sex with women, they repeat the same sequence they learned while masturbating. Sex has become a road toward ejaculation, a road paved with internal imagery, self-enclosure, and the desire to release tension.

Learn to feel your partner more than your own sensations during sex.

large part of avoiding premature ejaculation is to breathe fully, deeply, and with great force, throughout the day.

Note: Dont rush. Experience like at a slowpace.

As a single movement, practice contracting and pulling upward the entire floor of your pelvis, including the anus, perineum, and genitals. You can practice this in sets of fifteen or twenty contractions, holding them as long as you can. Do several sets like this, three or four times a day.

If you combine the upward contraction of your pelvic floor with breathing up your spine, you should lose just a little bit of your erection as well as the need to ejaculate.

In summary, this is what to remember as you experiment and discover which techniques work best for you: 1. Rather than fantasizing or entertaining inward sexual imagery of any kind, remain totally present, aware of your own body, breath, and mind, and especially attentive to your partner. Break the masturbatory habit of inward fantasy by consciously practicing sex as a relational play of love with your partner. 2. Keep your body and breath relaxed and full. Especially keep the front of your body relaxed, so that your belly is vast and your heart is soft and wide. This will help prevent too much tension from accumulating in any one area. 3. Learn to feel into, and then through, your partner, so that your attention is directed beyond your own sensations and even beyond your partner’s sensations. Practice feeling outward, without limit, as if you were feeling to infinity. In other words, whatever you are feeling, feel it fully, and then feel through and beyond it, so that sex becomes a constant feeling through and beyond every sensation, rather than focusing on any particular sensation. 4. Throughout the day and during the sexual session, practice breathing so that your inhalation moves energy down the front of your body and the exhalation moves energy up your spine. Excessive, chronic thinking or addiction to ejaculation is often a sign that your energy is blocked and you are not yet breathing fully in this circle throughout the day. 5. During sex, occasionally practice the upward contraction of the floor of your pelvis while breathing sexual energy up your spine, so it fills your whole body. Especially as you begin to approach orgasm, you can combine the upward contraction of your pelvic floor with breathing up the spine in order to shoot your orgasm up into your brain, and even out through the top of your head, rather than down and out your genitals. This upward orgasm will then feel like it is gently seeping down through every cell of your body, saturating you with thick open light.

PART EIGHT Men’s and Women’s Yoga of Intimacy

47 TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE PRIMARY ASYMMETRY

Only when you are willing to support each other’s core desires will the intimacy give each of you what you want, and then perhaps bring you beyond even that, into the utter joy of being, of which your relationship is only a hope.

49 INSIST ON PRACTICE AND GROWTH

But rather than wanting his woman to follow his personal direction, a superior man wants her to move in the direction that most serves her growth in love and happiness. He will settle for nothing less.

If you don’t know your own direction in life, you certainly will stand on shaky ground offering your woman direction. So the first step is to align your own life so that, at least in this present moment, you are living at your edge, fully aligned with your sense of purpose. If you are not absolutely certain that, in this moment, you are living exactly the life you need to, then your woman will feel your lack of clarity, and she will fight any kind of guidance you offer her.

You could meditate until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t work, if, when it comes down to it, you’d rather masturbate, read the newspaper, or watch TV than cut through your addictions, discipline your daily life, and give your gift from your deepest, most blissful source.

Note: This hits hard

50 RESTORE YOUR PURPOSE IN SOLITUDE AND WITH OTHER MEN

A man rediscovers and fine tunes his purpose in solitude, in challenging situations, and in the company of other men who won’t settle for his bullshit. But women strengthen their feminine radiance best in the company of other women in mutual celebration and play. A man must arrange for both forms of restoration: his own solitude and men’s gatherings, and his woman’s time with other women.

Note: Have friends

If you spend too much time with your woman, you will rub off on each other in the worst way.

Austerity means to eliminate the comforts and cushions in your life that you have learned to snuggle into and lose wakefulness. Take away anything that dulls your edge. No newspapers or magazines. No TV. No candy, cookies, or sweets. No sex. No cuddling. No reading of anything at all while you eat or sit on the toilet. Reduce working time to a necessary minimum. No movies. No conversation that isn’t about truth, love, or the divine. If you take on these disciplines for a few weeks, as well as any other disciplines that may particularly cut through your unique habits of dullness, then your life will be stripped of routine distraction. All that will be left is the edge you have been avoiding by means of your daily routine. You will have to face the basic discomfort and dissatisfaction that is the hidden texture of your life. You will be alive with the challenge of living your truth, rather than hiding from it.

Note: To find your call remove all the fluff from your lofe and see whats left.

The point is, there must be a consequence for freezing in the face of fear. There are obvious consequences for freezing in the face of fear when mountain climbing or playing competitive sports. You must instill consequences throughout the rest of your life, unless you want to cling to the safety net of superficial pleasures.

Note: this makes both psychological and economical sense.

Make sure that you arrange for your woman’s rejuvenative time and your own. Otherwise, you will rot in the cushions of bargained stagnation and sexual neutralization which pad your true edge of living your gift in relationship.