“There are three things that are never talked about at spiritual communities: Sex, money and violence. Yet we need all three to survive.”
There was this story about a guy who was so depressed that he decided to end his life.1 He wrote a letter for his family, then drove off to Mexico to buy the drugs that would end his life humanely. He crosses the Tijuana border and takes a taxi. The taxi driver takes him to a hotel, which turns out to be a room on top of a seedy strip club, and on the way there the cab driver insists on selling the guy some pure cocaine. Unable to argue, the guy purchases some for future use.2 When he gets to his dingy hotel room, he unpacks and then goes downstairs to get a bite to eat, as the pharmacies were closed at that time. The strippers try to go upstairs with him, which he refuses. But once the owner finds out he’s a gringo, he sends two of the girls upstairs to the depressed fellow, and they make it into his room. They have great sex, the dude and the two other girls. He can’t believe it.
The same thing happens the next day. By then he goes downstairs and picks and chooses the nicer girls. Once back upstairs, he realizes he still had that cocaine, and the three of them snort coke and binge on uninhibited sex. The guy almost has a nervous breakdown. Is this what he has been missing his whole life?
So instead of going for what he had come to do, he keeps postponing his mission for some great sex with strippers and cocaine. And when he indeed ventures out to see the same pharmacist he was supposed to get the drugs from, he instead asks for some viagra to cure the side effects of the cocaine binge so that he can continue to have sex while high on the drug. Life, he finds out, is worth the pain. He continues for a week till he finally runs out of money, then he heads back. But it seems, he is a changed man. This experience has left him a new person, and he discovered what we call the magic of everyday life. 3
I love this story. Needless to say that this is an extreme example. But extreme conditions sometimes require extreme choices. There is something very pure about it, despite the impure conditions the person finds himself in.
Integrating our dark side does not mean being daring or opposing societal norms. It really is a form of meditation. It is cultivation of awareness.
After we do that we come to realize that the darkside isn’t really that dark. It is the human side indeed, and what we have been doing might have been inhumane instead.
It is the human side indeed.
Unless we integrate our dark side, and harness its power as fuel in everyday life, we will be struggling even with most mundane things in life. A child gets bullied in school simply because it has lost touch with its dark side, its animal instincts, the very instincts that make us human. Because even a kitten will fight when confronted, simply because it is still in touch with its cat-ness.
Our modern society slowly takes out our instincts and inherent urges, little by little. Even a five year old boy is a natural born killer. In primitive cultures, such as in the Amazons, it is common to see 5 year olds kill animals for food and learning, practicing their blowguns.
There are three things that are never talked about at spiritual communities: Sex, money and violence. Yet we need all three to survive. Initially the purpose of the early churches was to create saints, out of everybody. 4 Then, little by little it became an institution to rule society, to serve people and have them live a harmonious life. Therefore many of the important topics became taboo, and were swept under the carpet, so to speak.
However, integrating our dark side does not mean becoming evil or immoral. It does not need to mean stealing or cutting others in line. It means being able to tell the guy to get back in line, that you were there first and not to even bother cutting in front of you. Because if you don’t, when you go home and sit down for meditation, your mind will likely linger on what you should have said or done. You will be suffering a little bit, in a sense.
Even something as simple as eating meat in our society is enshrined in feelings of guilt. While a vegetarian diet and lifestyle may be something good and desirable, it often is from a point of separation from reality. The reality that the circle of life exists, and that animals eat other animals. More often than not, it is a denial of the reality of the circle of life and death, of sacrifice and human needs. 6
Unless the pain you see in the world ceases to be pain and suffering, suffering, we will always suffer. Once we see good and bad as the same, then we are neither good or bad, but have overcome both. 5
Our job is not to hide or fight our inherent desires, but to edifice them and to own them, thereby receiving their gifts.
If you do not “own” the monsters in your head, they will leave you restless and angry. Once you own them, they will serve and protect you.
We have to integrate our dark side in order to find healing and wholeness. Our aim is to enter oneness, unity of creation again and enter the Garden of Eden, right where
we are. And in order to do that, we must purify our emotions, thoughts and our relationship with our ecology. Unless we do that, we would be extending our stay in Samsara, extending our suffering. Then life will seem like a never ending struggle, an insurmountable mountain.
We will find peace with money, with our sexuality, with war and peace in the world. The world is perfect as it is. Just as a child is perfect to its mother as it is. There is no ugliness in babies in the sight of a mother.
We have to heal our relationship to things, to thought patterns, to our suffering and that of others. And this is where integrating our darkside is needed and necessary.
I am rather hesitant to disclose and relate personal stories. However, in order to give an example to illustrate the importance and power of the process of integrating our darkside, I would like to proceed with a personal story.
A number of years ago when I moved to vancouver, I decided to improve my dating life. Things went great initially. Then I met a Brazilian girl who was very beautiful, with high boots, short skirt and a cherry bum to die for. I took her for coffee right there and then, and we had a great time. Then I took her on a date a few days later, and she was really into me. But somehow, despite my bravado, I could not take things further. It seems odd now, but things were different back then. I missed a great opportunity. I felt wretched after the date, and quite helpless.
After a lot of thinking, I talked to a friend living abroad who was also a dating coach. It turns out, I was suffering from the nice guy syndrome, and did not know how to escalate things sexually.
I was at an impasse. Either I moved forward and grew as a man, by walking through fire, or I stayed there, and moved back into an ordinary life of mediocrity and lack.
The pain of failure lingered on, and I decided to take things further, and see how far I could go. I decided there was no turning back, and that I needed to take things further. It was my right as a man to do so. I was expected to do so.
You see, We are born bad, taught to be good.7 We are born naked and without shame, and then society changes us. It demands we be good, to work hard and pay taxes, not to talk about sex, not to lose our temper no matter what the other person says or does. And to help people, even if we do not want to. So we bury our most basic (and important) instinct, until we don’t even remember we have them anymore.
So I had forgotten how to be a man with sexual, raw desires and not be ashamed of my sexuality. To take things further into the bedroom.
Well, I didn’t want to be like that anymore. I made up my mind to take things further, to become a sexual man. To own my sexuality, in a healthy and meaningful way. It was my God given right to do so. Bees pollinate flowers. They are not ashamed of it. Nor are they judged by it. And that’s why we have honey.
It was incredibly difficult. I was nervous, and imagined the waiter pouring a glass of cold water in my face, or the manager coming by and telling me to leave, in front of everyone.
People don’t realize how difficult it is to have deep level change like this. It felt like jumping out of an airplane with a parachute, you know that you will be okay. But jumping into the unknown was like making the jump out of an airplane into thin air. Every fiber of your body says No! Don’t do it!
I did, and it felt great.
I came home, and felt elated. Like I was knighted. I passed a rite of passage in my journey to become a Hero. There was something special about it. It felt different. It was deliberate. It was purposeful, meaningful. It made me grow as a man, as a human being, as a spiritual being. Alas, I had overcome my conditioning and integrated a part of my dark side for good.
I remember once I was dating this beautiful woman, long after this episode, and after she had left in the morning I left the house and walked to the subway, and noticed that young women were looking at me in a certain way. I ignored it initially, but once in the subway i would catch attractive women staring at me. First, I thought I had something in my face, or a disheveled item of clothing. But then I realized that it was me. I had become magnetic and attractive as a man. My subconscious body language signaled easiness and abundance with women. A nonchalant aloofness and masculine vibe that those women picked up. Like a Lion walking in the savanna un-cumbersome.
Mission accomplished.
There are two versions of this story, the second one goes into more detail.
2 Hustle is part of the culture in Mexico, so I can confirm that it is hard to say no sometimes. I remember having to step into a starbucks once because a shoe polish guy wouldn’t leave me alone.
3 And no, the crazy week did not cure his depression, it just made him forgo his plan and take therapy instead…this is an important point. He goes more into detail and emphasizes his healing journey.
4 Putting on the Mind of Christ by Jim Marion
5 Family Traditions on Martial Arts, Yagyu Munenori
6 Vegan diet is considered a healthy diet and lifestyle, so this is not anything negative about it. Emphasis is not on the lifestyle, but rather what some people use as a way of escapism, as pointed out.
7 Relentless by Tim S. Glover page 196. A must read for anyone interested in the topic