The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida: Summary & Notes

Summary

A guide for embracing your masculine side (regardless of gender or sexual orientation).

Covering everything from work, relationships, and sex, this guide may seem outdated for some, but there is likely to be something useful for most men and women.

Beware the Barnum effect in much of the book (vague statements we identify with), but take what you find useful.

Key Points

An inner masculine and inner feminine exists in all of us, both genders.

Men generally are dominated by their inner masculine, and women by their inner feminine.

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

Regardless of gender or sexual orientation, if you want to experience deep spiritual and sexual fulfillment, you must know your natural sexual essence—masculine, feminine, or balanced—and live true to it.

Stop hoping for the completion of anything in life—it will never be over, so spend time now on the things you're "waiting" for.

Most postponements are excuses for a lack of creative discipline.

Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women.

Stand up straight, breath into your belly, and open your chest.

Live as if your father was dead—identify and pursue those activities you have avoided or suppressed because of the influence of your father.

Know your edge, your one true gift, and be honest about it. State your related fears out loud.

Read books that remind you who you are, meditate, and spend time with people who inspire you.

Listen to advice, but use your purpose to guide you in decision-making.

Align your life to your purpose; your relationship comes second.

Lean slightly beyond the edge of comfort in everything you do.

Treat your relationship like your pursuit of purpose: see them as a challenge, an opportunity to express your true gifts, and embrace the struggles of each.

Talk with your friends about what you are afraid of, and cultivate friends who are willing to challenge you, even if it requires being brutally honest. These friends should also be living at their edge, challenging themselves.

Find your purpose, and align your life—everything from your diet to your career—with that purpose.

Your purpose may change, or you may go through stages in discovering it. During these periods, you must expect intense periods of action, followed by periods of not knowing what you want to do. Wait, and when you have a sense of direction, begin moving again.

Don't use your family as an excuse. They will know if you are living your deepest purpose. Instead, find ways to continue to pursue your purpose while raising your family.

Don't get lost in tasks and duties. Make sure to take time to meditate and reflect, to rise above it all. This "do mode" is one of men's biggest strengths and weaknesses. You cannot forget the larger purpose.

View your relationship as a challenge. Expect "tests" of your love, and respond with overwhelming love, humour, and physical touch.

Understand that we often say things which are not meant to be taken literally. They may just be an expression of our current feelings.

Praise specific things about your partner 5-10 times per day.

The whole point of intimacy is to serve each other in growth and love, in better ways than we can serve ourselves.

Often, conflict in a relationship comes from feeling unloved. Try expressing your love through humour and physical contact, instead of trying to analyze.

Don't be afraid to give your opinion on decisions, by giving your perspective and your reasoning, and letting you know that you love your partner regardless. Say something like, "I like this option, but what's most important to me is that you're happy."

Enjoy your attraction to masculine or feminine energy. When you feel it, enjoy it, and breathe it in; allow the energy to flow through you.

Choose a partner who is your complimentary opposite; if you are very masculine or feminine, you will enjoy someone who is the opposite. If you are more neutral, you will enjoy someone who is more neutral as well.

You can share many aspects of life with your partner, but only if you choose a single main purpose for being together.

You will likely be tempted by other partners. Know that this is normal, but often causes more problems than it solves. Know the difference between self-discipline and self-suppression—choosing to rule your lesser desires is different than simply resisting them.

If you don't choose and follow your direction, your partner will feel the need to do it for you, and won't be able to relax with you.

The basic masculine motivation is to be released from constraint and experience the freedom on the other side. This can take many forms—orgasm, mediation, sports, war. The same capacity to face death is necessary for spiritual freedom, where you must be willing to face your fears and let go of anything that limits your love.

It is not time that kills delight, but familiarity, neutralization, and a lack of purpose. View the qualities in your partner that become routine—childcare, helper, buddy—as the attractive qualities they are.

Use conscious, deep breathing, through your chest and belly, as a means to open yourself, deal with stress and tension, and generally transmit your presence through the room.

Multiple orgasms should be possible for men without ejaculation, and this will heighten, rather than drain energy.

You are responsible for making your partner feel loved, for growing the intimacy in your relationship.

Make sure you keep in touch with your masculine edge, embracing solitude, austerity, and other challenges to keep your edge sharp. Embrace masculine gatherings as another way to keep in touch with your masculine core.

Practice dissolving into the world, as a method of keeping in touch with your masculine desire to be utterly released and free.

Notes

Introduction

• This book is a guide for a specific kind of newly evolving man. This man is unabashedly masculine—he is purposeful, confident, and directed, living his chosen way of life with deep integrity and humor—and he is sensitive, spontaneous, and spiritually alive, with a heart-commitment to discovering and living his deepest truth.
• This kind of man is totally turned on by the feminine. He loves to take his woman sexually, to ravish her, but not in some old-style macho fashion. Rather, he wants to ravish her with so much love she is vanished, they both vanish, in the fullness of loving itself.
• He has embraced both his inner masculine and feminine, and he no longer holds onto either of them. He doesn't need to be right all the time, nor does he need to be always safe,' cooperative, and sharing, like an androgynous Mr. Nice Guy. He simply lives from his deepest core, fearlessly giving his gifts, feeling through the fleeting moment into the openness of existence, totally committed to magnifying love.
• 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.
• 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. Sports are all about achieving freedom, such as by breaking free of your opponent's tackle or barrage of punches, and about succeeding at your mission, by carrying the ball into the end zone or remaining standing after 10 rounds. For the feminine, the search for love touches the core. Whether on soap operas, in love stories, or talking with friends about relationships, the desire for love is what appears in feminine forms of entertainment.
• Regardless of gender or sexual orientation, if you want to experience deep spiritual and sexual fulfillment, you must know your natural sexual essence—masculine, feminine, or balanced—and live true to it.

Part One: A Man’s Way

1 - Stop Hoping for a Completion of Anything in 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.
• It's never going to be over, so stop waiting for the good stuff. As of now, spend a minimum of one hour a day doing whatever you are waiting to do until your finances are more secure, or until the children have grown and left home, or until you have finished your obligations and you feel free to do what you really want to do. Don't wait any longer.
• However, be forewarned: you may discover that you don't, or can't, do it; that, in fact, your fantasy of your future life is simply a fantasy.
• Most postponements are excuses for a lack of creative discipline.
• 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). Embrace her, or wrestle with her, or scream and yell for the heck of it, but make no effort to bring an end to that which pisses you off. Practice love instead of trying to bring an end to the quality that bothers you.
• Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women.

2 - Live With an Open Heart Even If It Hurts

• The superior man practices opening during these times of automatic closure. Open the front of your body so your chest and solar plexus are not tense. Sit or stand up straight and full, opening the front of your body, softening your chest and belly, wide and free. Breathe down through your chest and solar plexus, deep into your belly. Look directly into the eyes of whoever you are with, feeling your own pain as well as feeling the other person. Only when the front of your body is relaxed and opened, your breath full and deep, and your gaze unguarded and directly connected with another person's eyes, can your fullest intelligence manifest spontaneously in the situation.

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

• Where do your fears stop you from making a larger contribution to mankind, from earning a higher income, or from earning money in a more creative and enjoyable way? If you were absolutely fearless, would you be earning a living in exactly the same way as you are now? Your edge is where you stop short, or where you compromise your fullest gift, and, instead, cater to your fears.
• As an experiment, describe your edge with respect to your career out loud to yourself. Say something like, "I know I could be earning more money, but I am too lazy to put in the extra hours it would take. I know that I could give more of my true gift, but I am afraid that I may not succeed, and then I will be a penniless failure. I've spent 15 years developing my career, and I'm afraid to let go of it and start fresh, even though I know that I spend most of my life doing things I have no real interest in doing. I could be making money in more creative ways, but I spend too much time watching TV rather than being creative."

5 - Always Hold To Your Deepest Realization

• Use aids to support your relaxation into, and creation from, this source. Read books that remind you of who you are, in truth. Spend time with people who inspire you and reflect the source to you. Meditate, contemplate, or pray daily so that you steep yourself in the source.

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.
• If you choose to go with your woman's suggestion even when deep in your heart you feel that another decision is more wise, you are, in effect, saying, "I don't trust my own wisdom.

7 - Your Purpose Must Come Before Your Relationship

• Admit to yourself that if you had to choose one or the other, the perfect intimate relationship or achieving your highest purpose in life, you would choose to succeed at your purpose.
• Your mission is your priority. Unless you know your mission and have aligned your life to it, your core will feel empty.
• Your woman will be more fulfilled with 30 minutes a day of undivided attention and ravishing love than she will with a few hours of your weak and divided presence when your heart really isn't into it. 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.

9 - Do It for Love

• There are two ways to deal with woman and world without compromising your true gifts or dribbling away the force of your deep being. Oneway is to renounce sexual intimacy and worldliness, totally dedicating yourself without distraction or compromise to the path you choose to pursue, free of the seemingly constant demands of woman and world. The other way is to "fuck" both to smithereens, to ravish them with your love unsheathed, to give your true gifts despite the constant tussle of woman and world, to smelt your authentic gifts in this friction of opposition and surrender, to thrust love from the freedom of your deep being even as your body and mind die blissfully through a crucifixion of inevitable pleasure and pain, attraction and repulsion, gain and loss. No gifts left ungiven. No limit to the depth of being. Only openness, freedom, and love as the legacy of your intercourse with woman and world.

10 - Enjoy Your Friends' Criticism

• About once a week, you should sit down with your closest men friends and discuss what you are doing in your life and what you are afraid of doing. The conversation should be short and simple. You should state where you are at. Then, your friends should give you a behavioral experiment, something you can do that will reveal something to you, or grant more freedom in your life.
• Your close men friends should be willing to challenge your mediocrity by suggesting a concrete action you can perform that will pop you out of your rut, one way or the other. And you must be willing to offer them your brutal honesty, in the same way, if you are all to grow. Good friends should not tolerate mediocrity in one another.
• Choose men friends who themselves are living at their edge, facing their fears and living just beyond them.

11 - If You Don't Know Your Purpose, Discover It, Now

• The core of your life is your purpose. Everything in your life, from your diet to your career, must be aligned with your purpose if you are to act with coherence and integrity in the world. If you know your purpose, your deepest desire, then the secret of success is to discipline your life so that you support your deepest purpose and minimize distractions and detours.

12 - Be Willing to Change Everything in Your Life

• A man must be prepared to give 100% 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.
• However, there is also the possibility that you have completed your karma in this area. It is possible that this was one layer of purpose, which you have now fulfilled, on the way to another layer of purpose, closer to your deepest purpose. Among the signs of fulfilling or completing a layer of purpose are these:
• You suddenly have no interest whatsoever in a project or mission that, just previously, motivated you highly.
• You feel surprisingly free of any regrets whatsoever, for starting the project or for ending it
• Even though you may not have the slightest idea of what you are going to do next, you feel clear, unconfused, and, especially, unburdened
• You feel an increase in energy at the prospect of ceasing your involvement with the project
• The project seems almost silly, like collecting shoelaces or wallpapering your house with gas station receipts. Sure, you could do it, but why would you want to?
• If you experience these signs, it is probably time to stop working on this project. You must end your involvement impeccably, however, making sure there are no loose ends and that you do not burden anybody's life by stopping your involvement.

13 - Don't Use Your Family As an Excuse

• If you and your woman both work, it is better to make arrangements with other families to "timeshare" child caring, or to hire someone to help with your children, than to permanently compromise your deepest purpose and truth because you feel you must do so to spend more time with your children. It is not the amount of time but the quality of the interaction that most influences a child's growth. Children are exquisitely sensitive to emotional tone. If you are not full in your core, aligned with your deepest purpose and living a life of authentic commitment, your children will feel it.

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.
• This "do mode" is one of men's biggest strengths and weaknesses. It's great to be able to plow through obstructions and get the job done. And it's good to keep yourself disciplined and on purpose. But if you forget your larger purpose while pursuing the small and endless tasks of daily life, then you have reduced yourself to a machine of picayune.
• picayune: petty; worthless

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.
• The most erotic moment for a woman is feeling that you are Shiva, the divine masculine: imperturbable, totally loving, fully present, and all-pervading. She cannot move you, because you already are what you are, with or without her.
• If you remain full and strong, humorous and happy, your truth unperturbed by her testing, then you pass the test.
• "Honey, I'll get you some milk, all right," you say as you sweep her off the ground and lay her on the couch, laughing, kissing, looking deeply into her eyes, and "milking" her happiness with the confident loving of your caresses.
• It never ends. This is the secret. You can't get out of it. Finding a different woman won't get you out of it. Therapy won't get you out of it. Financial or sexual mastery won't get you out of it. Your woman is testing you because she loves you.

Part Two: Dealing With Women

16 - Women Are Not Liars

• 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.

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.
• Praise always magnifies the quality of your woman that you praise. "You're so beautiful when you smile," is much more effective than, "You're so ugly when you frown," although they both indicate your desire for her smile. When speaking to your woman, it is always better to call the glass half full than half empty.
• Praise specific things you love about your woman 5-10 times a day.

18 - Tolerating Her Leads to Resenting Her

• The whole point of an intimacy is to serve each other in growth and love, hopefully in better ways than we can serve ourselves.
• 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.
• Instead of tolerating your woman's moods of closure and complaint, open her moods with your skillful loving. It is your gift to give. Both of you will grow more by your giving than by your tolerating. A superior man sees his woman's moods not as a curse, but as a challenge and an amusement.
• There are many ways to creatively deal with her moods and help her to open. Tickle her. Take off your clothes and dance the watusi. Sing opera for her. Make animal sounds. Shout at her louder than you ever have and then kiss her passionately. Press your belly into her until she melts. Lift her off the ground and spin her around. Occasionally, talking with her helps, but not as often as humor and physically expressed love.

19 - Don't Analyze Your Woman

• As a man, you probably want to find the cause for the problems in your life. That way, you can eliminate the source of the problem.
• The amazing thing is this: 90% 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.

20 - Don't Suggest That a Woman Fix Her Own Emotional Problem

• 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.
• She can be pure energy, pure motion, pure love, without having to analyze all the options and decide which ones are best. She can enjoy her man taking responsibility for the direction, so she can be what the feminine is: pure energy.

21 - Stay With Her Intensity To a Point

• Basically, most men are afraid of, or disgusted by, feminine emotions. That's why you try to fix them or escape from them. "I'll come back later when you can act like a reasonable human being," you might say.
• 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 trust ability, and she can relax.
• Keep your breath full. Keep your body strong. Keep your attention present. No matter what your woman says or does, give her love. Press your belly into her. Smile. Scream and then lick her face. Do whatever it takes to crack the shell of her closure, get your love inside that crack, and touch her heart. 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 your input, and you say, "Whatever you want to do is fine with me." This is the statement of a friend, not a lover.
• One of your most valuable masculine gifts is the ability to see all the options and make a decision based on this view of all the potential outcomes.
• Feminine decisions are based on what feels right, and often this is the best way to make a decision.
• Say something like, "I like the red shoes, but what's most important to me is that you're happy."
• 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

23 - Your Attraction to the Feminine Is Inevitable

• If you are a man with a masculine sexual essence, you will always feel sexual polarity with anyone who animates feminine energy. You may feel this attraction many times a day, with many women. Enjoy it. Women are a blessing! The feminine, even in the non-human forms of a lush tropical island, a cold beer, or your favorite tune, could make the difference between dreariness and ahhhing in ecstasy.
• Sexual attraction, however, is very different from having sex. There is a big difference between choosing to be intimate with a woman and simply being attracted to her energy and radiance.
• If you are like most men, a radiant woman can inspire you for hours or days. Remember, the desire she arouses in you is a blessing in itself.
• The next time you come upon a woman who sends a thrill through your body, relax into the thrill. Let her waves of feminine energy move through your body like a deep massage. Breathe fully, without resisting the joy her sighting affords you. Breathe the joy all through your body, down to your toes. Don't stare at her, don't even interact with her. But when you see her, and you experience your attraction, fully allow the energy of attraction to move freely through your body.

24 - Choose a Woman Who Is Your Complimentary Opposite

• This is what you get in a woman with a feminine sexual essence: A woman who is all over the place emotionally. A woman whom you can depend on to change her mind. A woman who is much more sensitive than you are to the flow of subtle energies in your relationship. A woman who brings you delight and awe in the ecstasy, both sexual and spiritual, that her body expresses so freely and beautifully.
• It is all one package. You can't have a woman who is always logically consistent, reasonable, and on time, and who also fills your heart and flesh with energy, instantly and throughout the day, with her bodily expressed love and ecstasy. She can animate reasonable masculine energy when she wants, but if she has a feminine core, much of the time she will want to dance, in wrathful anger or enchanting joy, beyond the need for reason.
• So, choose a woman who is your complimentary opposite, which for most men means a more feminine woman. It is only a feminine woman who can give the gifts that you, as a masculine man, need. Along with these gifts, however, come the relative chaos and emotional weather storms that most men dread.

25 - Know What Is Important in Your Woman

• The more you seek a woman who gives you everything, the less you get of anything.
• In other times and cultures, you might have had multiple intimate partners, each fulfilling a different purpose, each partner contributing different skills, functions, and sexual energies to the whole.
• In our modern world, however, polygamy is not much of an option. For social and psychological reasons, most men and women of today want to m limit their intimate scope to one time—although, if you are like most men, you've certainly entertained the notion of multiple wives, or at least a mistress or two, each fulfilling a different purpose.
• If you want your woman to be your spiritual and sexual consort, not just your housemate, you must skillfully maintain your household and livelihoods so that the potency of your union is not diminished. She can be the mother of your children as well as your business partner, as long as these functions do not cut into the primacy of your purpose: to serve one another's enlightenment through your unwavering commitment to love, and to enliven one another's core by the bodily transmission of love via sexual polarity.
• When these two aspects of your loving—spiritual awakening and sexual transmission— become diminished by your daily duties, you will both begin to seek elsewhere for daily refreshment and fulfillment.

26 - You Will Often Want More Than One Woman

• Any man with a masculine sexual essence will desire sexual variety. Even if he loves his intimate partner and is completely committed to her, he will naturally want sexual occasions with other women besides his chosen intimate partner. How a man deals with his desire for other women is up to him. He should know, however, that there is no way to avoid such desires. He should also know that acting on such desires, though temporarily enlivening and exhilarating, often ends up complicating his life far more than the occasion itself is worth.
• Just remember that self-discipline is not self-suppression. Suppression is when you resist and fight against your desires, keeping them as buried and unexpressed as possible. Self-discipline is when your highest desires rule your lesser desires, not through resistance, but through loving action grounded in understanding and compassion.

27 - Young Women Offer You a Special Energy

• A major part of mastering sexuality is learning to sustain greater and greater degrees of pleasure and desire in the body, without needing to rid yourself of the force because you can't handle it.

28 - Each Woman Has a "Temperature" That Can Heal or Irritate You

• Most men have a good intuitive sense of the difference between a woman who is cool and soothing and a woman who is hot and exciting, regardless of how they describe it. And this difference has a lot to do with why men have different tastes for women, and why your taste could change over time.
• Depending on your health, your lifestyle, your work demands, and your emotional state, you may need different types of energy at different times. The important thing is to know there is a difference, so that you can be conscious of the choice you are making and how it might affect you.
• Don't confuse your energy needs with a commitment in love, though. Energy needs are relatively easy to balance. You can probably get the energy you need from a masseuse or a change in diet.

Part Four: What Women Really Want

29 - Choose a Woman Who Chooses You

• If your friends honestly tell you that this woman doesn't want to be with you, it is over. You cannot enjoy a good relationship with her, even if she changes her mind.
• Of course, you must discriminate between whether she is playing "hard to get" or whether she is genuinely less interested in the relationship than you. This is why you should ask your friends, and even her friends.

30 - What She Wants Is Not What She Says

• 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. Underneath your woman's superficial request is her actual desire and need: she wants your passionate fullness to pervade her, she wants to be able to trust the unshakability of your loving, she wants to feel in her bones that your divine masculine presence is stronger than your distractibility.

31 - Her Complaint Is Content-Free

• The thing your woman is complaining about is rarely the thing she is complaining about. It is a mistake to believe the content of what she is saying, and then respond to her complaints, point by point. When she complains about financial issues, she is usually feeling a lack in your masculine capacity to direct your life with clarity, purpose, integrity, and wisdom. The money itself is secondary. If you were poor but totally conscious, happy, full of integrity, fearless, humorous, loving and giving your fullest gift to the world and to your woman, she wouldn't complain about lack of money.
• When you say you will clean the garage, and then weeks pass by and you haven't, her complaint isn't really about the garage. Sure, she'd like a clean garage, but this is a superficial issue. The deeper issue is that you didn't do what you said you would. You gave her your word, and you didn't follow through. She can't trust what you say. And this hurts her, deeply.
• Your word is a demonstration of your purpose, of your masculine core. When you don't follow through with what you say you are going to do, she feels that your masculine core is weak.

32 - She Doesn't Really Want to Be Number One

• A woman sometimes seems to want to be the most important thing in her man's life. However, if she is the most important thing, then she feels her man has made her the number one priority and is not fully dedicated or directed to divine growth and service. She will feel her man's dependence on her for his happiness, and this will make her feel smothered by his neediness and clinging. A woman really wants her man to be totally dedicated to his highest purpose—and also to love her fully. 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.

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 30 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.
• As soon as you see she's upset, immediately assume happiness. Shock her with your love. Make her smile and laugh with your humor. Lick her neck, or lift her off the ground and pretend you're King Kong. Surprise her in some loving way, and the emotional slate will be wiped clean.

34 - She Wants to Relax in the Demonstration of Your Direction

• If you want your woman to be able to relax into her feminine and shine her natural radiance, then you must relieve her of the necessity to be in charge.
• If your woman feels that you have lost your spiritual direction, she will seek direction herself and attempt to impose it on you, since you don't seem to have any yourself. If she feels that you are totally absorbed in your work, for instance, and when you're not obsessing about your career you are absorbed in TV, then she will wonder, "Is this it? Is this what our relationship amounts to? Is this the highest vision that my man sees?" If she feels you lacking in your financial clarity or your spiritual clarity, she will not be able to relax with you. She will automatically begin directing her own life, and probably yours too.
• How can you tell if your woman's self-direction is healthy for her? If she becomes more and more full and happy as she pursues her direction, then it is good for her. If she becomes more and more stressful, taut, and emotionally angular, then she is animating excess masculine direction.

Part Five: Your Dark Side

35 - You Are Always Searching for Freedom

• The essential masculine ecstasy is in the moment of release from constraint. This could occur when facing death and living through it, succeeding in (and thus being released from) your purpose, and in competition (which is ritual threat of death). The masculine is always seeking release from constraint into freedom. The feminine often doesn't understand these masculine ways and needs.
• Your basic motivation is to be released from constraint and experience the freedom on the other side. What are some of the most common forms of masculine ecstasy? Orgasm is one.
• Most sports provide this masculine thrill of release from constraint into freedom.
• All masculine goals—at work, on the meditation cushion, or on the football field—are directed toward more freedom.
• The typical masculine desire for freedom involves the feeling of death, which is the ultimate masculine fear and freedom, in one way or another. Orgasm is actually called petite mort or "little death" in French.
• You are probably also familiar with darker aspects of the masculine desire for freedom. War, which is motivated by the desire for freedom, is a quintessential masculine pursuit. Most sports are ritualized war, but actual war itself resonates with the core of most men.
• What, then, could be constrained? Ego death, absolute surrender to the point of oneness, is the ultimate freedom. Few men ever release themselves enough to relax in this depth of freedom because they are afraid of absolutely no stress. No stress means no thoughts, no sense of protected self, no mission to accomplish. The end of the masculine game.
• The feminine, on the other hand, is not seeking freedom, but love. A woman's bliss is not in emptiness, but in fullness. Her means is not release, but surrender. This is why a woman is upset when a man begins snoring after orgasm. He has finally achieved, in post-ejaculative emptiness, the blissful freedom from stress he has been seeking all day, one way or another. She, however, is hoping to experience love and fullness through sex, and a snoring man just doesn't do it for her.

36 - Own Your Darkest Desires

• The difference between rape and ravishment is love.
• You must learn to let go, absolutely, in love with your woman.
• You must be as fearless with your sexual desire as you are with your spiritual desire. The essential masculine fear is loss of self—which is also the essential masculine 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.

37 - She Wants the "Killer" in You

• Although your woman doesn't want you to be a killer, she is turned on by your capacity to kill. And, she is turned off by your lack of this capacity.

38 - She Needs Your Consciousness to Match Her Energy

• As a general rule, she will keep returning to the energy that you cannot match.
• For instance, if you are particularly turned off by her anger, she will seem to return, again and again, to the energy of anger. If you are unable to embrace her anger in the ferocity of your loving, transforming her anger into passion, she will continue to test your capacity to do so.
• Your body, tone of voice, and the look in your eyes mean a lot more to her than anything you could say. Don't tell her what to do, but do it with her, with your body.
• If she is tense and closed down, lift her arms up above her head and kiss her heart. Don't just tell her to open up. Actually open her up, physically, with the openness of your body.
• And the same is true of your woman. You are not trying to please her. You are learning to pervade the world, including her, with consciousness and love. That is what you are here to do.

Part Six: Feminine Attractiveness

39 - The Feminine Is Abundant

• Whenever you are feeling isolated and weary, feel the present moment as if it were a woman. Feel like you are embracing a woman, physically. Feel the front of your body as if it were pressed against the front of a woman's naked body, being filled with the delight of her feminine softness and liveliness.

40 - Allow Older Women Their Magic

• Youthful sexual attractiveness is a temporary aspect of a much deeper and more fundamental quality of feminine energy: radiance.
• A woman's true radiance reveals the degree to which she is open, trusting, connected, and loving.
• If you are disconnected from your deep masculine core of purpose and consciousness, then you will also be disconnected from a woman's depth.

41 - Turn Your Lust Into Gifts

• When a man sees a beautiful woman it is natural for him to feel energy in his body, which he usually interprets as sexual desire. Rather than dispersing this energy in mental fantasy, a man should learn to circulate his heightened energy. He should breathe fully, circulating the energy fully throughout his body. He should treat his heightened energy as a gift which could heal and rejuvenate his body, and, through his service, heal the world.

42 - Never Allow Your Desire to Become Suppressed or Depolarized

• It is not time that kills delight, but familiarity, neutralization, and lack of purpose.
• Another man might find your woman to be quite a turn on even though she seems old-shoe to you. It may not be your woman who has worn out, but your capacity for desire.
• Familiarity breeds depolarization, and depolarization breeds contempt amongst lovers.

43 - Use Her Attractiveness as a Slingshot Through Appearance

• In your worship of women, never forget that they die. In your enjoyment of pleasure and delight, never forget that your sensations and feelings are fleeting, and never absolutely enough. Women can attract you, heal you, and inspire your gifts, but they will never satisfy you absolutely. Never. And you know this.
• Your ultimate desire is for the union of consciousness with its own luminosity, wherein all appearance is recognized as your deep, blissful nature, and there is only One. Your desire for union with a woman is a stepped-down version of this ultimate spiritual need.
• In a moment of attraction, let your desire feel to her, but don't stop there. Feel through her. Do this constantly. Feel through her body when you are having sex with her. Feel through her anger when she is raging at you. Feel through her darkness when she seems ugly. Feel through her beauty when she most attracts you.

Part Seven: Body Practices

44 - Ejaculation Should Be Converted or Consciously Chosen

• You won't be willing to bypass ejaculation until you have experienced the much greater pleasures which lie beyond it.
• It feels great for a few moments, but the price you pay for the genital sneeze of ejaculation is a much higher level of mediocrity in your daily life. You will find that you just don't have the extra gusto necessary to live your life with utter impeccability.
• 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.
• The bottom line is this: If ejaculation is not completely a matter of conscious choice for you, your woman knows she controls you sexually. And as long as she knows she's in charge, she won't trust you enough to relax fully in the force of your loving.

45 - Breathe Down the Front

• 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 lower belly all the way down to your genitals, then the rest of 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.
• You could do this practice at work, with your lover, or with a whole crowd on a bus. If you are alone in your home, you could imagine all the tension in the world and inhale the force of life into this tension to open it up. Then exhale, releasing the tension into love to be dissolved, like a handful of salt released into the ocean.

46 - Ejaculate Up the Spine

• For most men, ejaculation involves spewing their energy and semen out through their genitals. Afterward, they feel they have released stress. The superior man's orgasm more often explodes up his spine and into his brain, from there raining down through his body like an ambrosial bliss of rejuvenation. The technique for converting depletive orgasms into rejuvenative orgasms involves contracting the pelvic floor near the genitals and drawing energy upward along the spine, though the use of breath, feeling, and intention.
• The first step is undoing the habits you learned while masturbating as a teenager. Instead of tensing your muscles as you become sexually stimulated, learn to relax them.
• The next step is to redirect your attention. Learn to feel your partner more than your own sensations during sex.
• Eventually, with practice, you will be able to feel through your partner, as if your partner's body were a doorway into a vast open space of energy, light, and awareness. This unobstructed feeling is the basis for true lovemaking. Extend your love out beyond yourself and, in time, through and beyond your woman.
• In addition to contracting the floor of your pelvis, practice pulling it upward into your body and toward your spine. This upward pull will actually lift your scrotum slightly up toward your body.
• You can practice this in sets of 15 or 20 contractions, holding them as long as you can. Do several sets like this, three or four times a day.
• While you are having sex, but before you are close to ejaculating, practice contracting your pelvic floor as just discussed. While you contract it and pull upward, breathe the energy up your spine. You will have to experiment to determine whether to inhale or to exhale the energy up your spine, although most people find that exhaling up the spine works best.
• Because each individual is different, you must experiment and discover which techniques, done as exercises of love, work best for you. With practice, you will easily be able to experience deep non- ejaculatory orgasms that shoot up your body as light, leaving your heart wide-open, your energy enlivened, and your body reverberating in bliss. You will be able to make love for as long as you want, and sex will rejuvenate, rather than deplete, your life force.
• In summary, this is what to remember as you experiment and discover what techniques work best for you:
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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

• Although you and your woman are equal beings, you are very different creatures. If she has a feminine sexual essence, her core will be fulfilled when love is flowing. For example, she can experience difficulties in her career, but if full love is flowing in her life—with her children, friends, and with you—then her core will be fulfilled.
• Not so for you. If you have a masculine sexual essence, then your woman and children can be loving you all day and night, but if your career or mission is obstructed, you will not feel at ease. You won't even want to share much intimate time with your woman until you have your career or mission back on track.

48 - You Are Responsible for the Growth in Intimacy

• It is important to grow beyond dependence on your intimate partner for your own happiness. But it's equally important to grow beyond simple independence and autonomy. The next stage of intimacy after personal independence has been attained is the mutual flow of gifting, or serving each other in love.
• You may have noticed that your woman can get lost in her moods. She can get on a roll of hyper-nervousness. Or, she can feel dejected and mope around the house surrounded by a black cloud. It is extremely difficult for most women to get out of their mood once they are in it. Your loving intervention is one of your great masculine gifts. The point is not to be her therapist, but to be her wake-up call, her heart-opener, her reminder of the primacy of love. If it takes you more than five minutes to open her into love, you are probably talking too much and acting too little. Or, perhaps you have forgotten your true purpose.

49 - Insist on Practice and Growth

• But a superior man will not settle for less than the fullest incarnation of love of which he and his woman are capable. With compassion, he slices through all bullshit and demands authenticity and humor. It's as if he were saying to his woman, "The divine way or the highway!" It's the same masculine insistence on direction that a weaker man will demand. 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.

50 - Restore Your Purpose in Solitude and with Other Men

• In order to enliven her feminine core, your woman should spend time every day in absolute abandon and celebration. During these times of dancing, singing, laughter, and sheer delight, her body and mind should be totally released of any obligation to be masculine—directed, controlled, structured, or goal-oriented. These occasions are most rejuvenating when she is with other women, magnifying and rejoicing in each others' feminine radiance and flow.
• The two ways to bring you right to your masculine edge of power are austerity and challenge. 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.
• The other means, besides austerity, for rediscovering your masculine core is through challenge. The more superficial forms of challenge include activities like mountain climbing, ropes courses, competitive sports, and boot camp. These forms of physical challenge instantly enliven the masculine sense of purpose and direction, in men and women.
• Deeper forms of challenge involve directly giving your gift in ways that have been blocked by your fear. If you have always been afraid of public speaking, you can take on the challenge of speaking in public once a week for three months.
• If you fail and miss an appointment one week, the following week you must give three talks. If you have always wanted to write a novel, but could never finish one, you tell your friends that you are going to complete one chapter a week (or a month) for the next year. Every time you don't complete your weekly goal, you owe your friends $100. If you don't complete your yearly goal, you owe them $10,000.
• 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.
• The most potent forms of masculine realignment involve both austerity and challenge. Go to the middle of the woods, by yourself, with only survival necessities. Nothing to read, nothing to do. Fast from food and don't sleep for as long as possible. Challenge your attention with some practice, like chanting or ritual movement, so that your attention doesn't drift or become balmy. Open yourself and wait. Do not cover your suffering. Do not quit before you fall through the hole of your fear and emerge with a vision of your true mission, the unique form of your living sacrifice.
• This kind of isolation and challenge is an extreme and potent form of masculine vision questing, but there are more common forms that are useful in everyday life. Spend time every day in solitude, with no distractions. Just sit, for ten minutes. No fidgeting, no channel surfing, no magazine thumbing. Just be, exactly as you are, not trying to change anything. Stay with your suffering, until you fall through it and intuit the groundless source of your life.
• Just as your woman must regularly spend time with only women, you must regularly spend time with only men. At least once a week, get together with your men friends to serve one another. Cut through the bullshit and talk with each other straight. If you feel your friend is wasting his life, tell him so, because you love him. Welcome such criticism from your friends. Suggest challenges for each other to take on, in order to bring each other through the fears which limit your surrender in gifting. Always agree on consequences for not persisting in the challenge. For instance, if you agree to ravish your wife for three hours every other day for a week, then also agree to mow your friend's yard if you miss a day of ravishment.

51 - Practice Dissolving

• Like dissolving in the intensity of an orgasm, a man's greatest desire is to be utterly released. Moment by moment, practice loving through your woman and the world, allowing the force of your surrender to transform every moment into an orgasm of divine dissolution. Embrace every moment of experience as a lover, and trust whatever direction love moves you. Die in the giving of your gift, so you don't even notice you have stopped holding onto yourself. Fear is your final excuse. Don't fight it. Love through it.

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