From Celibacy Blog
Maybe you will resonate with these, or maybe yours will be different, but below are the traps I have fallen into when trying to be celibate:
- 1) The trap of moralising from a sanctimonious perspective. (Moralising by looking at the physical/
mental after-affects is the way). Moralising about the act of sex or people posing sexually (is not helpful), as distinct from the consequences of the sex act or posing sexually (the way). - 2) The Pendulum effect. This is where I will feel excessively good when being celibate for a while and feel like crap when I dissipate (feeling crap after dissipation can also be biologically linked). Also, the fear/
cowardice instinct can turn to a defensive/ compensated instinct. Defensiveness turns to “justification” of my habits or my compensated conceited pose of being a person who practices celibacy. - 3) Allowing a sense of craving/
entitlement (entitlement that I should be able to have everything I want, whether I really want what it is that I crave) to rationalise and open the mind to more thoughts on the subject of sex. Sex can have endless avenues of thought as it is the main driver of the organism, so craving should be seen for what it is, and “rationalisation” must be kicked to the curb. - 4) Becoming indignant about the endless explicit content on the internet. Just to control as best I can and employ whatever means to protect myself and my children as best I can is the very best I can do. I don’t govern the internet. To feel sad and helpless about the state of affairs is another trap. So what is it that gets frustrated with the state of affairs? Ego, my belief that I have power and autonomy to affect things, that the world should sit up and listen to my convictions. And will they sit up and listen to your convictions when they are so caught up in De Ropp’s lesser games? [1] Most likely not, nobody really in my experience listens to much of what I am saying and that is across the board, unanimous, (probably because of these erroneous positions I take up). So could this be bitterness at how ineffectual and inconsequential you are? Do you beat yourself up and self-destruct because of this feeling of being inconsequential, insignificant, mostly helpless, and unimportant? Does it make you feel weak and small? Does it hurt that your ego is not getting validation by others or even the public at large? Yes to these last four questions.
- 5) The trap of “conquering” sex. With so much content out there, there is a necessity to inhibit attraction (maybe that lessens over time with developed practice, truly aligned practice with my higher intentions). But this leaves a shadow energy of repression that gets not so easy to live with over time. So what develops is a way to alleviate that and that is the idea that if I conquer sex, I wouldn’t feel so inhibited. If I can allow sexual impressions in without fear and allow my mind free reign on what it wants to think about etc, I will normalise sex and in that way not feel so inhibited around people. This is just giving in to pressure, and sexual dissipation and leaves me weak. This only leads to compounding my problems with just more lack of control.
- 6) The trap of “going with the flow”. When I was in college and desiring to be celibate and enjoying a certain amount of that, I started to judge the guys in the house for watching and booking sex channels. What dragged me down was an effort to “go with the flow”, join in, and be accepted in that group. I was also attracted to the content so I felt I had to validate those feelings, otherwise, I would be going against the flow of myself.
- 7) The trap of conformance. Conforming to some ideal of a group, religion or spiritual teacher. Making my celibate practice about something that I “have” to do, making it a chore. Or doing it to “fit in” with a spiritual group etc. Feeling that I should do it so I can “cash in” as it makes me superior to my fellow man, makes me feel somehow more deserving. My celibate practice should be personal to me, to my own deeply felt reasonings using my body/mind as a scientific experiment, with the aim to live a life free of turbulence and energy drains. All in the spirit of “backing away from the untruth”, as Richard Rose advocated. [2] And if my findings should show that there are no real negative deleterious effects, then to also acknowledge that.
- 8) The trap of seeking the “solace of comfort” in the pursuit of sexual dissipation to offset stress. This is an addictive process. I am not allowing myself to feel my pain, or face my pain to possibly transform/
transmute it. Then in stressful situations, there will be an automatic response to pursue sex instead of dealing with stress and enduring stress. This leads to me becoming a weak character with a weak will. - 9) The trap of the idea of “endless excitement” in the pursuit of the various available genres of sex available, aka, content readily available on the internet. The false sense of the “freedom that comes from escape, fleeing reality into escapism, escapist habitual behaviour”. The “pleasure of sex” is always the same reaction to the “various stimuli/
different genres” of sex available, a robotic reaction no matter the sentiment/ importance that I have attached to it. The “various stimuli” are “associative meanings” that I am applying to the various objects/genres of sex, which in effect are the “reverie” (thoughts and images that stimulate sex) which is the fuel for sex.[3] But the meanings/associations are not being applied by me as such, since they are readily provided by the various sex sites and I somehow buy into what those sites are selling/ advertising (And what is the maxim for advertising to people’s lower desires? For an advertisement to work I have to sell myself to give in to that lower desire). Indulging in reverie or online sex is like being addicted to a narcotic opiate drug like heroin, because if there were no accompanying euphoric chemical drug state induced by the reverie, the reverie would be seen for the absolute driviling nonsense that it is. Sex pleasure is but the bait that is implanted in each human being to ensure the reproduction of the species which is the way Richard Rose put it. - 10) The trap of not being cautious. Develop a lifestyle and environment that is conducive to living simply. An environment where there are a lot of stimuli about such as entertainment programs, an unfiltered internet and so on, will lead to my body/mind reacting to random sexual material. My body/mind has no option but to react and judge, as long as I have the male machinery, I will react as nature intended to stimuli. So work to minimise these reactions. Falling into complacency will allow more and more of these intrusions to appear in my day which will only inspire future dissipation at some point. But also to balance this with the fact that ultimately control comes from within, not from the control of my external environment which can only ever be limited.
- 11) The trap of overeating. Lack of discipline around food promotes the frequency of nocturnal emissions and can inspire a sex mood. Rose recommended to people trying to be celibate to not eat after 6/7 pm. My experience with efforts to be celibate has proven that this is good advice. Also, I would advise to not take on too many fluids at night. This can weigh on the prostate at night and work to inspire glandular-induced dreams leading to nocturnal emissions.
(1) Robert S. De Ropp: “The Master Game: Pathways to Higher Consciousness”
(2) Richard Rose: “The Albigen Papers”
(3) Alan Fitzpatrick: “The Sex Connection”
This post reflects one stage in my practice of celibacy. Please see Celibacy, My Conclusions for my current views.
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