“Forbidden” Pleasures Make You More Spiritual

Note: This post contains a link to the author's book

Woman with bracelet taking bathPhoto byPhoto by Sunsetoned

As souls, we needed a tool that allowed us to experience life in the physical plane. Alfred Russell Wallace said “Nature never over-endows a species beyond the needs of everyday existence.”

Yet, we’re over-endowed.

Our ability to express emotions through our physical body is special. We don’t see it everywhere in Nature. We’re capable of having tears when we’re sad, laugh when we’re glad, and more.

All these subtle but “special” functionalities emphasize the importance of relationships — it’s creepy when someone has no emotional response — and how through our relationships we learn about ourselves.

While it’s common for most spirituals, as well as spiritual teachings, to discard the body’s value in the search for “God” or “enlightenment,” the truth is we have a body for a reason — we need this body to learn our soul’s lessons — otherwise we wouldn’t be in physical form right now.

Using a body to learn our soul lessons, and evolve in vibration, inherently brings us to the realization that the body doesn’t like pain, and that it moves towards pleasure.

The body has learned those patterns overtime because they promote its survival. Sex as an example, gives a boost to the immune system — just like too much sex weakens it. We’ll come to balance later.

Even if we consider ourselves to be an atheist, the fact that we still oppose religions, and therefore that we are personally invested against religions branches us unconsciously with all that is religious.

Religions being the big deal it is in our society, we’ve all grown up with the idea that pleasure is a sin. Nearly all human beings know the story of Adam, Eve, and the poor snake. But also how they’ve been cast out of “Heaven” for succumbing to temptations.

A brother was speaking about a sexual encounter he had had. Everything went apparently well, and the next morning he was feeling great. He told me that he was going to class for an hour, and then he’d spend the rest of the day playing video games.
By the afternoon I reached out to say "hi," and he told me that he was still in school, “Why? You said you’d only be there for an hour.” I asked. “I felt the need to work longer.” He replied. “Are you punishing yourself because you had some 'fun' yesterday?” I asked again.
His silence marked the end of our conversation.

Physically, our body demands pleasure in order to function healthily. Psychologically, we resist pleasure because it is associated with sins.

If we succumb (a word that comes from “succubus,” which is a “demon” associated with pleasure, especially sex) to our natural desire for pleasure, we feel bad about ourselves — and that stores guilt.

It has become “normal” for us to feel bad whenever some good happens to us. And to cope with our fear of feeling good, we push ourselves to unhealthy extremes. We’re always judging ourselves, and that’s no way to live.

Our lives have become an endless battle in which we’re constantly repressing our needs, and feeling more and more alienated by our very nature. Nothing in excess is harmonious for our wellbeing and evolution. Especially not repression.

The sooner we stop treating our body like our worst enemy, and actually accept it as it is because fighting it only makes us stuck on our evolutionary path — the easier our journeys on Earth become, and the more energy we have to focus on our soul’s lessons.

Unless we give attention to the unhealthy thoughts that lurk in our psyches — we’ll keep living according to others’ ideals and expectations, which we’ve identified with.

We’re sovereign beings.

We fear our power because we’re immensely powerful. Maybe when we were discriminated/judged for being smarter, stronger, beautiful, capable — and because we craved validation, we denied our strength.

No. No. No. Not good.

It’s time to plunge into your depths, and reclaim authority over your inner realm. This world is yours. No one has access there unless you allow them to.

Pleasure is part of life. There can’t be spiritual growth without embracing the body as it is to the fullest.

Attachment to pleasure on the other hand makes us more identified to our physical form, which makes us forget why we incarnate in the first place.

By relinquishing judgments against pleasure, and discerning where it has place and where it doesn’t — we dissolve the pressure to succumb.

Guilt goes away. And we stop fearing who we are — we reclaim our power.

As a final note.

If you’ve been meditating, using affirmations and thinking positively for a while now, without necessarily integrating spiritual truths at a soul level even though you understand them intellectually — I’ve written a book to help you understand the main blocks to true spiritual growth, and how to overcome them. I'm sure you're tired of "knowing" about God because you can't wait to experience God. That's what we explore in Spiritual Transition. Give the book a look here.