Wisdom Is Eros

We live in a world with many great religions and traditions that date back thousands of years. From these religions there were people who spent their lives studying the sacred texts who emerged as mystical teachers. These rabbinical, tantric and shamanic masters taught about a new narrative from the hidden wisdom in these sacred texts. There were many different explanations that came out of these mystical traditions around sexuality, Eros and the definition of spirit where a new narrative continues to develop.

In The Beginning – The Erotic Temple Mysteries – The Secrets in the Cherubs

One of the pieces of erotic/sexual imagery from one historical perspective is from The Cherubs in the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem (Solomon’s) Temple. One interpretation is the Cherubs were the most important feature of the temple, “It was due to them [the Cherubs], and due to their maker [or makers] that the Temple stood. They were the head of everything that was in the Temple, for the Shekinah [presence of God] rested on them and on the Ark of the Covenant and from there He [God] spoke to Moses.”

These two cherubs are figures that live atop the Ark of the Covenant in Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, but there isn’t any clear evidence as to what a cherub really looks like or what they might even represents. There is an interpretation that these cherubs were intertwined in an embrace and there is another interpretation where the cherubs were depicted with open wings in mutual protection of the Ark. The last temple was destroyed in 72AD and the cherubs there is yet another interpretation saying they were in a sexual embrace over the Ark. I would like to introduce this possibility as being the source of where this discussion of “the erotic” conversation begin.

In the Bible these cherubs are mentioned in three major contexts. First, we meet the cherubs standing at the entrance to the Garden of Eden protecting the gateway to Paradise. Adam and Eve have sinned and must be banished from the Garden and leave behind their pristine innocence. “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man, and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:23-24).

Secondly, we meet the cherubs in the Sanctuary where instructions for the building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness included the following: ‘And thou shalt make an ark-cover of pure gold… And thou shalt make two cherubim of gold; of beaten work shalt thou make them, at the two ends of the ark-cover. Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end; of one piece with the ark-cover shall you make the cherubim of the two ends thereof. And the cherubim shall spread out their wings on high, screening the ark-cover with their wings, with their faces one to another; toward the ark-cover shall the faces of the cherubim be … And there I will meet with thee, and I will speak with thee from above the ark-cover, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony” (Exodus 25:17-22).

The third please where the cherubs are mentioned are as attendants upon the Almighty himself, His throne or chariot. He manifests His presence and communicates with the people from between the cherubim (Exodus 25:22; Numbers 7:89). Another new narrative is beginning to emerge. It is in this embrace, this erotic and even sexual embrace that we hear the whisper of gods divinity, of our own divinity. But what are the words trying to tell us? We need to articulate a new sexual and erotic story emerging from between those two cherubs.

God is Eros

The interpretation of the cherubs being seated in a sexual embrace is a model of how eternal love and devotion is expressed in the bible and that expression is not limited to the old testament. In the Tantric Hindu tradition eroticism prepares the union between the god Shiva and the goddess Kundalini. In some tribal communities in Asia and North America there is a sacramental ritual of ingesting semen to demonstrate the roots of physical ecstasy. In Christianity sexual pleasure was alienated because of sexual distrust of the body and its pleasures. There is a fine line in these interpretations from the great spiritual traditions. The line between physical and divine love and between holiness and Eros/eroticism.

Tantra has incorrectly taught that sex is the hidden teaching. Sex is the ultimate spiritual teacher. There is no disconnect between sex, love and Eros. The sexual is the ultimate model for Eros and love. The erotic and the holy are the same. In every ethical sexual engagement, we have the ability to setup a sacred container to open our beings into conscious awareness and experience the love that is already there and who we are in our most natural state. The sexual encounter is a dynamic teacher, tearing us open, if we allow, to the fullness of the divine spirit that beckons our pleasure and inherent goodness.

Behind all these great traditions is a hidden mystical teaching of the wisdom of Eros. It is either ignored or reinterpreted to avoid the controversy of the significance in their meanings. These teachings come from the Kabbalists in Judaism and the Tantric masters in Hinduism and Buddhism. Rumi and Hafiz in Sufism were teachers of the mystical realms as well. We keep adding to these traditions a more modern translation of “the erotic” that evolves our sexuality and spirituality.

Up to this point, sex stands as a symbol signifying and modeling the life force energy which wants us to create life, and a better version of ourselves. Eros means to awaken to be joyfully alive in all areas of life in all facets of our being. Sex needs to be the model for erotic living in all of the non-sexual areas that make up most of our lives. A deeper understanding of the sexual is the best guide to accessing the spirit in every dimension of our lives so we can live a joyful and erotic existence.

The Lover Is Not About Sex

Being a good lover isn’t about sexual technique and knowing all the techniques in the world cannot make you a great lover. Being a good lover is about being fully present, joyfully alive and aware of who you are. To be a great lover in all life, you must listen to the soft whispers of the simple, elegant messages of what is taught through the sexual act itself.

Some of the teachings of the great traditions were looking to place some kind of understanding in order to control the masses when it comes to the pleasures of the body and of sexuality. To do this, sex was the thing that was focused on. This is one of the reasons for sex-negative teachings that came out of some of the great religions. Even some of the western tantric teachings were bastardized and had mistaken that inside of sexuality everything is holy and we will always find the beautiful reflections of the divine spirit in our sexuality.

In this development of a new understanding about the erotic, we need most desperately to not control sex. We need to acknowledge how much sexuality holds an important central role in our lives and develop new meanings, understandings and intention on how we engage our sexuality. We need to create a story that invests not only our sexuality but in the eroticism that we experience daily in our relationships, in our work and in regular lives with a new way of looking at things.

The wisdom inside the erotic lover will always lead us back to find our true and most unique selves. At the altar of our temple, inside our intentionally created sacred container by “the lover(s)”, there will only be acceptance, love and compassion as we share and expose our most vulnerable dreams, desires (and maybe even our bodies). We all want to be able to expose our most hidden thoughts, dreams and desires in the most intimate of moments. Allowing a lover of ours to enter to experience us is also allowing them to experience themselves. In this most sacred interaction it is possible (and even hopeful) we find hidden parts of ourselves that are difficult to access on our own. An act of the divine spirit that is in all of us.

… a new narrative of the wisdom of the erotic emerges that is way bigger than what we could have possibly imagine out of the sexual.