Masturbation (A Spiritual Perspective on Masturbating) - Teal Swan -

*Music by Lisa Thiel - Kuan Yin's Mantra

Hello there.

Masturbation is the act of touching yourself
or otherwise stimulating yourself,

so as to create sexual arousal.

Seems harmless enough.

However, masturbation is become a taboo subject.

Mastubation is completely natural
when we're incarnated in the physical body.

Why is that?

Because it's natural
for anything that's physically manifested,

to naturally flow in the direction
of something that creates pleasure.

We're drawn towards those things.

That's why children naturally
begin to masturbate when they're young.

However, most of us who are alive today

and have reached adulthood,

have been raised with this kind off idea

that there's something wrong, immoral, bad, embarassing or even downright evil about masturbation.

In fact many spiritual teachers
who don't even align with a particular religion,

seem to think that masturbation is detrimental.

So which is it?

Is masturbation good,
or is masturbation bad?

What I'm gonna say is, like any tool,
it can be either,

depending on the conscious intentions
of the user of that tool.

First let's visit the positive side of masturbation, shall we.

1. Obviously, it builds energy.

Anyone who has masturbated, will tell you that.

The sexual response cycle
is divided into four phases.

Excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution.

Orgasm, also called sexual climax,

is the sudden release of the accumulated sexual energy that has been built in response to stimulation.

So it's relatively easy to see how sexual stimulation,

as a builder of energy, could be a useful tool to use.

In fact, I did an entire video
about using orgasms to manifest.

I strongly encourage you to watch that video, titled:
"How to use an orgasm to manifest."

2. Obviously if a person can begin
to build sexual energy,

and knowing that sexual energy
is no different than life force energy,

then it's obvious that that energy
is now readily available to channel in to whatever outlet

you would wish to channel it towards.

This is the aspect of masturbation or sexual arousal,
or sexual energy in general,

that most spiritual people and spiritual teachers,
are concerned with.

But they aren't the only ones to have discovered it.

A great technique, is to sexually stimulate yourself,
as to build that energy

and to reach that point in the sexual cycle,

that is called plateau,

but to not allow yourself to fully orgasm,

instead to channel all of that energy,

once you have breathed it into the totality of your body,

towards whatever pursuit
you wish to aim your focus at, at this time.

This technique is a favorite among athletes,

who are known to stimulate themselves
to the point of plateau,

but not let themselves orgasm.

Instead consciously breath in that energy
throughout their entire body,

before a big game, a race.

This is also a favorite amongst scholars,

who use the same technique right before a test or talk

and performers who use it
to enhance their performances.

For those of us, who are interested
in using our primal sexual energy,

to create in our life,
or as part of our spiritual practice,

what we can know is
that we can use this technique,

to channel our energy
into quite literally anything that we want to.

We can channel it into our meditative practice,

channel into enhancing our shadow work,

channel it into our connection with our partner,

becoming more emotionally available,

maybe a creative project which we wish to do.

3. When we feel pleasure, we come into
a mental, emotional and physical state of alignment.

What that looks like outside the third dimension,
this physical dimension,

when someone comes into alignment,

is that they open themselves to the complete flow
of this energy, this life force energy,

that is coming from what we would call source itself,

into us as an extension of that source.

So all of our meridians are open,
the energy channels that run through our body,

our chakra's begin to open
and the body starts to come into alignment.

Now this is really important when we understand,
that an out of alignment state is what creates illness.

So when you come into a state of alignment,
your body begins to heal.

We add to our overall health.

The body responds to alignment by following suit.

For example, it releases oxytocin
and endorphins which relief pain.

The immune system is mobilized.

Blood flow increases throughout the body
which further nourishes our body.

Our cells begin to have better respiration

and a portion of our brain that is associated with fear and anxiety goes dorment.

So the bottom lign is,
masturbation can help keep us physically healthy.

4. Masturbation enhances self-intimacy,

which in turn, creates greater levels of other intimacy.

It is critical that we become intimate
with ourself in this life.

And what is intimacy?
It is seeing into ourselves,

feeling into ourselves, hearing into ourselves,
understanding ourselves.

And becoming sexually aware of ourselves
through experimentation

is a great way to enhance
this level of intimacy with yourself.

When your master this, you have a sense of self
to bring into a relationship with other people.

You'll be much more able
to offer intimacy to someone else,

if you learn how to offer it to yourself.

You will be surprised
how much you can learn about yourself,

just by engaging with yourself in a sexual way.

I think it is an absolute travesty
when people enter into relationships,

having no awareness of themselves
as a sexual being.

If you're unaware of your sexuality,
you're completely at the mercy

of whatever sexual experience you experience
as a result of getting into a relationship.

Let's hope the other person has some experience,

cause chances are,
you're not gonna be that satisfied.

It's even more sad,
when people are alienated from themselves sexually.

This is a huge problem in the world today for women.

Some of whom have avoided thinking about,
touching or educating themselves

about any part of themselves
that they consider sexual.

When this is the case
in a relationship that turns sexual,

you are at the mercy of inexperience.

You cannot direct the experience
in a way that would be pleasurable to you.

You're just basically at the mercy of your partner,

who has no idea what you like and don't like,

and want and don't want,
because you don't either.

This can make your sex life
and even your relationship a complete disaster.

To avoid yourself sexually,
is a state of resistance to yourself.

This is not healthy and it fuels shame.

5. During orgasm, your awareness
or sense of your own identity, or ego is dissolved.

And so, for a brief moment in time,
you can touch your infinite nature.

This is the very reason why traditions,
such as tantra, even exist.

It's the idea that through sexuality,
you might have a shot

at touching the infinite
or at achieving enlightenment even.

So you can see that I've pretty much made the case
that masturbation is not only healthy for you,

it's what we should be doing
if we wanna live a conscious life.

However, now i'm gonna take you
into the pitfalls of masturbation.

1. It can become an addiction.

It is true that for many of us,

the craving for orgasm is the craving for relief.

Relief in the form of release.

This feeling of relief becomes it's own addiction.

This is a big part of what we are addicted to,

if we're addicted to pornography.

We often seek out pleasure,

not for the sake of pleasure,
but to try to escape from pain.

For this reason, masturbation, especially if it's chronic,
is a form of self-medication.

It blends the senses
and makes you forget everything else.

It's a hypnotic and trans-like state that makes you lose track of time.

If you use masturbation in this way,

you use it to get relief from something.

It is used to escape
a painful emotional state.

Addiction is an indication
that there is something underlying the behaviour

that absolutely needs to be focussed on

and dealth with.

It needs your unconditional presence.

It's a real common thing that people will tell you,
that one reason that masturbation is healthy,

is that it reduces stress.

I don't actually agree.

Because masturbation doesn't actually
solve the underlying cause of that stress.

Instead it just medicates you,
so that you can't feel it.

It's a bit like using masturbation
like pain medication.

When we're using masturbation in this way,
we're not using it to bring us into the present moment.

We're using it to escape the present moment.

If we are dedicated to maximizing our life,

we have to stop running away
from this aspect of ourself

and actually deal with the root cause of the problem.

This is how we're gonna create the kind off life
we actually want to show up for.

In other words, it's time that you have a real
heart-to-heart with yourself.

about what exactly it is
that you're actually using masturbation to get away from.

That is what needs
your conscious presence at this time.

Now you may or may not be masturbating
in tandem with pornography

or with mental fantasies
that you create in your own mind,

which is another form of pornography.

But because this particular issue
of chronic masturbation,

or using masturbation as an addiction,

is so closely linked to our porn addiction,

what I want you to do
is to watch my video on Youtube that is titled:

"How to overcome porn addiction".

2. Orgasm releases oxytocyn

and what we're finding is that oxytocyn
enhances our bonding with each other,

which is why a healthy sex life,
even if that sex life envolves masturbation,

not just sex, actually creates more faitfull partners.

However, there is one exception to this rule.

There's one demographic
that doesn't fit in to this category.

It's the people who are trying to use masturbation
to avoid intimacy.

As I said before,

tools can be used for harm or for good.

We can either use masturbation to enhance intimacy
or to avoid it all together.

laughs

If we have a fear of intimacy,

we can fall into the behavior of masturbating
because we want nothing to do

with the vulnerability of connecting to other people.

We condition ourselves
to respond to self stimulation,

so we never have to feel the vulnurability
of connecting with someone.

In fact, we may become sensitized
to the degree that our own touch

is the only way we can become aroused.

We may even render ourselves
incapable of reaching sexual climax

by being touched by another person.

We are particularly at risk of this

if we have what many psychologists call,
an avoidant-attachment style.

Before you count yourself out of this category,

because you can and do have sex,

I also want you to be aware that it is possible for us to have sex, that has nothing to do with intimacy as well.

I like to this type of sex,
mutual masturbation.

Because we're not connected during sex,

instead we're using each other to get off.

Unfortunately, most porn on the market today
demonstrates this kind of sex

and leads us to believe this is what real sex is,
when it isn't.

So consider looking close at yourself in the mirror,
so to speak

and discover whether masturbation
is just your way of being sexual

without the emotional risk
of connecting with another person.

Our arousal circuitry is easily programmed.

It's easily programmed to prefer self sex,
involving sexual fantasies and self touch,

rather than intimacy with other people.

And this can obviously have
devastating effects on our relationships.

3. As I said before, there is no way to separate out
life force energy and sexual energy.

It is all the same kind of energy.

You are a sexual being.

When you are sexually stimulated,

you are raising this energy within you.

So the question I want you to ask yourself is,

what am I directing that energy towards?

Sexual energy is creative energy.

If you are getting yourself
to a point of sexual arousal, sexual climax

and then sexual release for the sake of release itself, you are in fact squandering that energy.

What I am the most concerned with,

as a spiritual practicioner and as a spiritual teacher,

is the fact that you can very easily become depleted.

You are robbing yourself of creative energy.

This energy is meant to be channeled towards creation.

Whether that creation,
is the creation of connection

or actual life, or the creation of ideas,
or the creation of the life-style you want to live.

A state of atrophy or apathy is common for people
who are unconscious about their masturbation.

And who masturbate habitually.

Because the energy they have
to create their waking life with, is being spent.

When we do not know how to consciously
bring in an endless stream of energy,

because we cannot consistently
maintain a state of alignment,

we can end up
depleting ourselves through masturbation

and our body will become unhealthy because of it.

It is important that we set forth,
in this path of spiritualiy,

from a space of intrinsically desiring growth,
intrinsically desiring expansion.

However, those very traditions,
that teach you that masturbation is not okay,

are the very traditions that have absolutely no concern,

whether your spiritual practice is intrinsically
or extrinsically motivated.

In essence, what they're doing is,
they're saying:

"Look, there's a spiritual ideal,
and you should be extrinsically motivated

to achieve that ideal state
because it makes you more loveable, it makes you good

and thus it's gonna make you acceptable to me,

to the priest or to God.

This is a carrot-and-stick philosophy.

They operate through punishment and reward.

But the time has come to let go of these traditions

because they no longer
serve our progression as a species.

There is no giant man in the sky called God

who is expecting you to live up
to his image of spiritual perfection.

And I can assure you,
he is not sitting up there in the clouds,

thinking to himself:

"Oh my God,
I'm so ashamed they're masturbating"

There is no difference between life force energy
and sexual energy whether you like it or not,

you are a sexual being.

That sexuality does not own you,
it does not dictate your behavior

because instead, it is you.

It is a natural part of you.

It is a natural part of you
and no part of that sexuality is wrong.

All energy can be channeled towards
use that benefits or use that harms.

But by embracing yourself as a sexual being,

and becoming fully intimate with yourself sexually, including masturbating,

the likelihood that that sexual energy
will be channeled towards harm,

is greatly diminished.

Instead, masturbation and sexuality
can be something that greatly benefits you

and benefits the people around you.

Sexuality is a beautiful thing,
provided that that sexuality is conscious.

Have a good week.