Despite the somewhat negative picture I have painted of a man’s situation vis-à-vis his cultural conditioning, the good news is that most men are not totally blinded by the false self nor have they dissolved into shallow mirky pools of conditioning and stereotyping.
The simple fact that you are reading this article and maybe practicing meditation and reflection is proof enough that you recognize that there is something higher for you than being a domesticated, conditioned, tethered brute. The simple fact that you are a seeker and have embarked on a journey to awakening and self-realization is evidence that you have a restless Divinity concealed in your mortal frame.
Sometimes a man goes through life with an image of himself as if his soul were illuminated by sunlight passing through a dirty cracked window pane; the light is distorted but it still shines through. The image might not be the clearest but at least he sees a glimmer, a spark of his radiant Divine Masculinity shining through! There are other times when he is like a beautiful stained-glass window through which white light passes to emerge on the other side as an effulgence of vibrant colors.
This is a great revelation, because all that needs to be done is to clean the glass. A man may respond that he knows who he is; my response would have to be that in his present state, he sees himself in a cracked and dirty mirror, the reflection is distorted. To get a clearer self-reflection, he has to do some cleaning up. That’s one of the purposes of meditation and reflection: to wipe some of the grime from the crystalline image of your Self. A man is not monochromatic; he’s polychromatic.
This can’t be done unless your mind is at peace and your heart is open. Only then can you attempt to see the ground of your Self. You can know the surface but you need clarity to get beneath it, to the ground. Imagine a tranquil pond, for example. You can look down and see the aquatic life, the rocks, plants, fish, etc. When you throw a pebble into the pond, ever-expanding ripples are created, which distort or even obscure the view of the bottom. That’s similar to what happens when you attempt to self-reflect or meditate on your Self, when you are distracted or troubled. You need a tranquil surface to see the bottom.
Regrettably, most men will have the illusory image that the ego inserts between his inner eye and his True Self. The man then literally becomes that finite, limited, fake being created by the defensive ego, the false self.
The many examples of men who desperately seek some identity and attempt to find a self and acknowledgement, validation can be found on social media. They are pitiable, depraved, suffering shells of men who have become nothing more than a penis, an ejaculation, pecs and abs; some might say that they are nothing more than slaves to the poses, the photoshopped images, and the airbrushed models they adore. But they are more! They may be lost souls looking for a reason to exist; looking in all the wrong places but there is more than wishful distorted thinking.
Reality is a hard nut to crack but given the right tools, any nut can be cracked, and its sweet inner fruit enjoyed. Homoerotic Tantra℠:Mascul-IN-Touch℠ provides many of the tools to break through the tough shell of illusion, toxic cultural conditioning, stereotypes and all the other obstacles placed in the path of a man’s evolution, transformation, and transcendence. Tools are not enough, however, and the man must take up the tools learn how to use them, understand how they work, and then use them skillfully to do get the job done right.
Social media has provided a platform for men to deny their sacred masculinity and to avoid worthwhile relationships in favor of asocial and antisocial behavior. Social media has provided men with an unhealthy outlet for healthy energies, and is making them less and less capable of quality relationships. Moreover, much of what social media fuels and promotes is the very basis of many psychological and physical afflictions including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, premature ejaculation, etc.
There is a reason why the current pandemic of exhibitionism, voyeurism, pornographic self-disclosure, and similar disorders and self-destructive behaviors have been medicalized and manualized, and included in reference works like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as internet addictions. I would go so far as to argue that the situation has become a men’s public health issue.
I am frequently disgusted and saddened by the images that I receive daily on, say, Twitter and other so-called social media: Men dancing around like so many apes waving their penises. Men who masturbate in selfies, and then exhibitionistically overshare their most intimate selves with an uncaring, voyeuristic digital world. Men who exist only to emaciate themselves into half-starved exhibits of flayed anatomy. The most characteristic prop and pose of the majority of these exhibitionist-voyeur shells that were once temples of divinity is the omnipresent smartphone into which they stare blankly, lost, confused, and hopeless, with lolling tongues hanging out moronically.
It’s as if they are crying out to their own reflections in the screen: “Is anybody in there? Is anybody home?” The deafeningly silent response can be read in their blank faces: Lights are on but nobody’s home.
One can almost read in their faces the cry: Oh, please, someone out there find me, love me! But a selfie is only a one-way communication; a relationship with a device.
To have a human relationship there has to be the subject and the tangible object, the seer and the seen, the toucher and the touched. And they must sensually interact. This may appear at first blush to be a statement of duality but it is not.
You see, in non-dual philosophy, the philosophy of Homoerotic Tantra℠:Mascul-IN-Touch℠, the seer becomes one with the seen. But your eye cannot see itself, can it? It must have something to behold, to hold onto; it must have the Tāntric Lover.
True, our discussion, and our meditation and reflection up to now may have been focused on getting to know one’s Self; it has been an exercise in finding one’s true Self, a sort of metaphysical hide-and-seek, if you like. Only when a man has some inkling of his True Self and is comfortable with what he finds within himself can he even approach the Other in the hope of Love or relationship.
If you listen to so many of the so-called experts you hear things like orgasm, bliss, ecstasy, etc. but very little about self-knowledge, awareness, kuṇḍalini (कुण्डलिनि)
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