When I wrote about differences and parallels of spirituality and religion, I had to think about sex and dating. In my perception, religion almost ‘forbids’ anything that has to do with sex outside of marriage. To me, spirituality doesn’t forbid or judge anything, that’s not what spirituality stands for. And so, I wondered what rules apply to dating, relationships, sex and love in the field of spirituality. I came across an interesting book about the topic. It’s called “If the buddha dated” by Charlotte Kasl. In a warm and comforting way, she tries to explain what role relationships and love play in spirituality. Today, I’d like to share some lessons I learned from her. Of course, most aspects in this text are my own interpretations, please take that into consideration 🙂
Dating for the right reasons
This first pill that was really hard for me to swallow is that not all love is the same. And especially the reasons why we seek love out aren’t. I (who’s single) sometimes try to look for love, because I romanticize having someone to spend my time with and think dating someone would fill a hole in my life. This is not the right way to approach dating in general. And spirituality especially says that love should be a bonus to an already fulfilling life. And not a way to cope with loneliness or boredom. We can’t expect someone to fill a void we feel in our lives. It’s not fair to them and neither is it fair to us. A relationship cannot work if we put the burden on the other person of ‘having to love’ us because we don’t love ourselves.
Love yourself first
What a smooth transition to my next point 😉 We as human beings and carriers of souls have a job to do. We are supposed to love ourselves. Otherwise, we won’t be able to lead a happy life and on top of that will always be dependent on someone else to make us happy. As we know, people are able to detect what frequencies we vibrate on. If we look for love, we actually repel people. Only when we love ourselves, we vibrate on high frequencies and only then we are attractive to other people because they can detect that we won’t need them to make us happy. If we are content with ourselves, others will feel more comfortable to be with us. That’s why usually love comes when we stop looking for it. How ironic, no?
Destiny’s role
Of course, destiny always has the last word when it comes to our path through life. If we’re not supposed to meet our soulmate yet, we just won’t. And in that case, it will make no sense to try to look for it harder. But still, not everyone that’s meant to be a part of our life is meant to stay forever. Sometimes, we are supposed to meet someone and spend a little time with them (maybe even be in a relationship with them), just so they can teach us something. And sometimes the lessons they teach us are very hurtful. The only happen because they are supposed to make us understand that certain aspects of people are something we never want in our lives again (let’s take having an abusive, manipulative, rude, mistrusting or immature partner as an example).
Some people only serve for us to be able to gather data about what we do want and what we don’t want. In some cases, we’re only able to recognize a true love because of a lot of hurt that we have gone through before. And that also means that that hurt was useful to us and supposed to happen. So, trusting that we will find love eventually is essential. I have to work on this too, to be honest.
Make the space for love
A really interesting point that Charlotte Kasl made, was that we sometimes unconsciously sabotage our chances of finding love. She refers to the concept of Feng Shui, a Chinese theory about harmony and energy. Interior designers usually take Feng Shui into consideration, to make sure that energy can flow through our homes without obstacles.
But Charlotte said that Feng Shui is applicable to love and dating as well. She explains it with this example: If we sleep in a one person bed, have only one night stand and no space in our closet, of course we cannot attract a partner into our lives because there is no space for them. Literally. That’s the message you give to the universe and therefore it won’t deliver. The same goes for time, by the way. If you’re a really busy bee, the universe will think you couldn’t even make the time to be with someone. Think about this for a second. Maybe there’s some things you can adjust in order to be able to attract love into your life?
Be sure about what you want
“If the buddha dated” says that it’s crucial that we’re compatible with someone. And that requires that we know what we want in a partner and in a relationship. You have know what your non-negotiables are – for example: you could never be with someone who hates cats, lives with his parents, is rude or lazy, an alcoholic or wants to live in a mega-city. You shouldn’t consider dating such people because you already know you don’t want to invest in them further and spend your future with them. On the other hand, find out what is really important to you – examples are: wants children, is funny, respectful, puts his socks in the laundry basket, shares a specific hobby. This also tells you where you could look for a potential partner (it could be a museum if you love art, a park if you love nature, dancing classes, courses, cafés, lectures or wherever you like to spend your time).
I have a thirsty fish in me
Rumi
that can never find enough
of what it’s thirsty for!
Let my house be drowned in the wave
that rose last night out of the courtyard
hidden in the center of my chest.
Make yourself date-able
This was another hard thing for me to realize. We attract what we are (we already know that from the Law of Attraction). But it applies to people too. Maybe, you see yourself always ending up with people that are emotionally unavailable. I hate to tell you this, but that probably means that you’re emotionally unavailable too. Sorry :/ It’s crucial that we find out what our weaknesses are and then learn to overcome them. Personally, I found out that I have a bunch of issues – trust issues, commitment issues, fear of abandonment, anxious attachment and so on. I had to first understand and accept that I have to heal these wounds before I can go back into the dating world and have a healthy relationship. Because if I don’t, the people I will attract are afraid of commitment, have issues with trust, etc. You get the picture.
How to take the steps towards love
Charlotte Kasl says that in spirituality, love is blind. This means that – if the love is true – we fall for the soul. Therefore, it would be useless to go for the looks of someone when deciding who to date. However, I have also heard before that it is impossible to find your soulmate unattractive. If we really want a healthy and lasting love connection it’s important that we stop being superficial. You know the ‘love’ you found is already supposed to fail, if the reason you’re dating someone is because of their money, lifestyle, reputation, name, looks, fame and so on. Spiritual love can only last if we have the intention of connecting on a heart and soul level – this means to look beyond what we first see.
Love is not always ‘happy’
A misconception about love is that it will stay the same. We think that when we feel the butterflies, miss someone all the time, can’t wait to see them again and are always happy when we’re around them – that that’s what love is. But those new feelings go away after a while. That does not mean we fall out of love. It only means love has reached another level. After that first phase is over, a relationship tends to become ‘quiet’, even boring sometimes. But that’s because a healthy love usually is calm and stable. It’s supposed to feel like home. Our partner should be a supporter, a rock in the storm, a shoulder to cry on. And also; loving someone doesn’t mean there are no fights. But when loving someone we’re willing to work on ourselves to find a way back to each other.
What about sex?
Personally, I would say that even though the church, society or maybe our parents might shame us for having sex, spirituality does not forbid it! It is not considered a sin, but more of a natural desire that is essential for reproduction and incredibly exciting to explore. However, it is important to know that having an intimate connection with a partner is desirable. ‘Sleeping around’ can mess with your vibrations. This is because whenever we let somebody get very close to us, we share our energy with them. If we don’t know them really well, we might unconsciously take on their wounds and traumas. We don’t want to make ourselves this vulnerable to someone we can’t really trust or expect loyalty from (if that is something that is important to you in a sexual partner!) Sex is a great way to get close to someone and bond with them, especially if we feel love for them.
It’s important that you protect yourself from being convinced to do things you’re not comfortable with. Because that for sure isn’t what love is. And someone who loves you, would never ask you to do something like that, okay? To conclude this chapter, I want to actually encourage you to have sex. It is beautiful, healthy and natural. It enables us to build bonds and strengthen relationships. We can really get to know someone and feel close to them. I just hope you do it with someone you really care for and not give your body away to fast or to anyone. It’s always a good idea to be selective and build connection first!
At this point I want to quote Charlotte Kasl, because she concludes it perfectly. “There is no reason that anything so potent, natural and human as sexual love be placed outside the circle of spirituality”. Amen.
Let’s conclude
As humans – and as souls of course – we have the natural longing to have connections with other souls. We want and need love in our life. Spirituality wants us to let go of our ego and not focus on what we can get out of having a relationship. That’s why it’s important that we love ourselves before we start dating someone. Only then do we not use another person to fill a void in our life we can’t fill ourselves (which is a selfish reason to be with someone). But still, we’re supposed to stay true to our values and look for a compatible partner. We want someone who has character traits we appreciate and who wants to go into a similar direction that we do. But we have to work on ourselves. This means healing our wounds, overcome our issues and toxic traits – and make the space and time for them. Otherwise, we might unconsciously repel love from our lives.
I realize, I was not able to write about the relationship between sex, love and spirituality in the depth that I wanted to. There is so much more to talk about, and Charlotte Kasl did it way better than me. So, in case you’re interested, I strongly encourage you to read her book “If the buddha dated”. It’s really good 🙂
Take care,
with love, Valentina <3
