Publisher's Synopsis
God and Sex: the two most powerful and misunderstood words in the English language. The presumed separation between God and Sex has vulgarized both and made them painful, anxiety inducing, and useless to our lives.
Lucid, radical and gentle, this long-awaited book from globally beloved teacher Mark Whitwell clarifies the old cultural division of the sacred and the profane and how it has affected all of our lives, whether we are religious or no, and charts a way through the mess.
At gatherings around the world, Mark breaks down these inherited divisions with great humour, kindness and depth of presence, opening tens of thousands of hearts to the beauty that they already are.
What if I were to tell you that you can fully participate in both God and Sex? By bringing them together into clear association, each purifies the other, and both can be made profoundly useful to your life. Life is Sex. The pollen in the air is the Sex of plants. The flowers and the sounds of animals are the Sex of nature. No matter how convoluted the human mind becomes, we are still this condition. We do not need to 'become' anything in order to have a free and healthy life. There is nothing to be liberated from.
This book is for any sincere religious person conflicted about Sex, and any secular modern person trying to find a positive and enriched sexuality. It's for anyone who thinks they have to give up Sex to get to God, and anyone who thinks they have to give up God in order to enjoy Sex. It is for both men and women, for those in same-sex or opposite-sex partnerships, for those looking for partnership, and for those happily by themselves. It is for anyone wondering "What is intimacy?" and wanting a framework to understand the damage done to our lives by the belief systems that suggested God was above and Sex was below. It's for anyone dissatisfied or bored by relationship drama and the normal definitions of God and Sex-God as 'other, ' Sex as something sleazy, effortful, hard to get, or fundamentally disappointing. It is for those who wish to turn their sexual life into the heart's activity, participation in God, and for those who wish to turn their religious life into the heart's activity, participation in profound intimacy with their breath, their body, and relationship of every kind.
We have all been affected by the dysfunctional separation of sacred and profane. This writing is transmission that will dismiss the absurd idea that you can have God or Sex, but not both, and enable you to realise that you are, in fact, the power of the cosmos, arising as pure intelligence and utter beauty.
"Mark's presentation of the teachings of Krishnamacharya as modified by the Krishnamurthis is like a sharp knife cutting through a dense mound of bullshit, and what remains is compelling in its simplicity and its humanity."
- Galen Tromble, founder of Climate Yogi
Chapters include, 'The Hoax of Enlightenment, ' 'The Heart's Embrace of Ordinary Conditions, ' and 'Regenerative Sexuality'
