Spiritual Sex: 10 Erotic Commandments

Thomas Moore tell how to discover the sacred unity of body and soul when it comes to sex.

People blame philosopher René Descartes for the modern idea that spirit and body are two separate and antagonistic entities. I don't. I think making this division is an age-old trap. It takes work to see clearly that you need your physical senses to be a spiritual person, and that you need a spiritual acceptance of life's goodness to be profoundly sensual and sexual.

When you finally get body and spirit together—Renaissance writers said you need to be a person of soul to do this—you will discover greater joy in lovemaking. It makes sense: If you are a whole person made up of body, soul, and spirit, when you make love with only your body, you're getting only one third of the sex. Spirit and soul like sex, too, and they add immensely to the pleasure. Read more

Serotonin and Spirituality

According to Psychology Today, serotonin, the brain chemical in charge of moderating mood, metabolism, and sexuality, has been linked to spiritual experiences.

Serotonin, the brain chemical crucial to mood and motivation, also shapes personality to make you susceptible to spiritual experiences. A team of Swedish researchers has found that the presence of a receptor that regulates general serotonin activity in the brain correlates with people's capacity for transcendence, the ability to apprehend phenomena that cannot be explained objectively. Scientists have long suspected that serotonin influences spirituality because drugs known to alter serotonin such as LSD also induce mystical experiences. But now they have proof from brain scans linking the capacity for spirituality with a major biological element. Read more

Creating a Personal Altar

Personal space is hard to find these days, as is a sense of peace and comfort. Our homes provide us with a sense of belonging and personal expression, but, sometimes, we need more than that. We want to feel the presence and feeling of peace and comfort that we can only experience in a sacred place. This can be possible by creating a personal altar in your home.

... The depth of meaning of an altar is not established by some unknown mystical force. It can be as light or as serious as the creator wishes. The creation and use of a personal spirit altar is not necessarily sacrilegious or iconological worship. While some may use the altar for worship it is perfectly acceptable to place certain statues or representations of deities or other items to serve as a reminder of some important attributes that the creator wishes to emulate or to invoke particular energies into the creator's life and space.

There are many reasons to create a personal spirit altar. Among them are: Read more

How Can Tantra Help a Woman Enhance Her Inner Qualities?

Laura Amazzone at A Temple of Female Consciousness answers this reader's question: "How can tantra help a woman enhance her inner qualities?"

Tantra is about harnessing and amplifying our inner power, our Shakti. The word tantra means to weave and involves a process of weaving/blending opposite qualities or tensions and experiencing the unity of their common essence.

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To enhance my positive inner qualities, or my Shakti, I attempt to confront and embrace any negative thought or emotion. Sometimes I sit with it and let it run its course for days or weeks, but then eventually I do sadhana-spiritual practice to work with the energies that are inhibiting me from accessing and expressing my Shakti. As the remover of fear and difficulty, Durga teaches us not to run away from that which is difficult, but to face it with composure. Read more