The Enlightened Sex Manual: Sexual Skills for the Superior Lover (6 page)

I pushed. "Harder," he said.

So I pushed harder. He didn't budge. "Push as hard as you can," he said.

I pushed. I really pushed. As hard as I could. He didn't move an inch. He didn't move an eighth of an inch.

"Now I'm going to stand on one leg. Push as hard as you can." Bending his knee, he lifted one leg off the ground, my hand still on his shoulder. I didn't want to push this guy over and hurt him, even if he was a pervert. So I gave just a little nudge. And then a harder nudge. Finally I pushed him with all my teenage

might. His body didn't even wobble.

He smiled and looked deep into my eyes. I realized something funny was going on.

Still looking into my eyes, he took my other arm by the wrist and placed my free hand on his other shoulder. Now I had a hand on both shoulders as he continued to stand on one leg. Again, he asked me to try to push him over.

By now I was less frightened, though still wary, and damned if I wasn't going to push this guy over. I planted my feet firmly on the floor, steadied myself, leaned into him, and pushed as hard as I could. It felt like pressing against a marble wall. I finally gave up and took my hands off his shoulders. After my friend tried pushing him over with the same results, the old man put both feet back on the ground and spoke to us matter-of-factly.

'A few years ago, I had a heart attack and a stroke, and I lay paralyzed in a hospital bed. The doctors told me I would never walk again. But I was determined to recover. A friend of mine left

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me a book on yoga at the hospital. It was the kind of book you boys have probably seen in this very bookstore. I had the nurse open the book and show me the pictures of yoga postures inside. Even though I couldn't move, I would imagine myself doing the exercises in the book. All day, every day, instead of watching TV or worrying about my recovery, I visualized myself practicing these exercises. Lying paralyzed in that hospital bed, I didn't have much else to do.

"Eventually, after weeks of visualization, I could move an inch. Then two inches. Six months later, I was able to sit up by myself. Now, I can stand on one leg and you boys can't even push me over. It's all about knowing how to use your internal energy. You can do it too."

Right there, in the bookstore, he taught my friend and me some basic exercises to direct our internal energy. Within ten min• utes, I was able to move so much energy through my arm that my friend couldn't bend it. Nor could I bend his. With a few more minutes of practice, we even gained a modicum of proficiency at the one-leg trick. It was all a matter of circulating internal energy correctly, something I had read about in books, but had never seen or felt directly. Now this strange man, whom I had taken for a pervert, had shown us how to consciously direct our internal energy. For real. And it worked.

He smiled as my friend and I practiced what he had taught us, testing our newfound skills. Then I looked up to thank him, but he was gone. Neither of us ever saw him again.

The practices this man taught us became a part of my daily life, like brushing my teeth. In the few years following the bookstore experience, I learned to play with the flow of my own internal energy, telling my friends to try to push me over, balancing for

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long periods on one leg, practicing various breathing exercises while sitting alone in my room, and even trying to generate heat in my body like the Tibetans I had read about.

Eventually, other aspects of adolescent life came to dominate my consciousness. Hormones started coursing through my body and my mind became preoccupied with girls. Confusion ruled the day and fantasy ruled the night.

As a pimply teenager, I found women totally confusing. I had no idea why they did what they did. There were times when I was busy doing homework and my girlfriend pounced on me, pressing her wet mouth all over me, grabbing my crotch, hump• ing my thigh, and moaning. Naively, I assumed she wanted sex. However, when I dropped what I was doing and returned her fervor, she suddenly seemed less interested. I would be throbbing and on fire; she would coolly walk away. Angry and frustrated, I wondered why she jumped on me in the first place. I had no idea what was going on.

Occasionally, we would actually have sex.

As I lay on top of her, meekly thrusting, she would often push against my naked chest with her hands, seeming to resist me. So, naturally, I would pull back. "No, you idiot," she conveyed with the exasperated look on her face, "when I push you away, I want to feel you taking me deeper." So I would force myself into her, ravish her hard and deep, and she would love it. And then, a few seconds later, I would notice that she was not loving it anymore. What was I supposed to do? Harder? More gentle? Give her space? Overpower her? What did she want?

If I was too careful, she'd complain that I needed to be more passionate and sexually aggressive. If I was too forceful, she'd complain that I wasn't sensitive enough. When I finally figured

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out what she wanted, I'd do it, and she'd hate it. When I gave up all hope and just had sex with her without trying, she would suddenly plead my name and convulse in waves of orgasm. I was totally lost. Masturbation was a lot easier than this.

By myself, I could lie in bed at night and masturbate, fantasiz• ing about a woman who gave me exactly what I wanted. I would imagine being with her, stroke myself, spurt, and go to sleep.

Eventually, my girlfriend and I broke up. One night a few weeks later, after my family went to sleep, I made a selection from my cherished stash of girlie magazines, lay on the bed, and began masturbating. But instead of fantasizing about the women in the magazine, I suddenly became excruciatingly aware of the energy flowing through my internal circuitry. This happened quite unexpectedly.

I had more or less forgotten about the old-man-in-the-mall's internal energy practices when I became preoccupied with girls. Now, it was all coming back with a vengeance. Streams of en• ergetic force shot through me while I masturbated. With eyes closed, I saw within myself an exquisite internal circuitry through which energy flowed like a river of light.

I could see with my internal eye and feel with my body how pumping my penis increased the flow of this river of energy. Furthermore, I could see and feel how sitting all day at school, slumped with a sunken chest, had blocked the flow of energy around my heart and solar plexus. It became obvious how I could change my breath and posture to open these blocks.

After about an hour of experimenting with my internal energy flow, I was ready to stop masturbating and go to sleep. I looked at the girlie magazine and imagined myself with the perky blonde centerfold from Wisconsin. I jerked hard and fast and ejaculated.

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It was as if the light in the room suddenly became dim. My in• ternal brightness dulled, too. My breathing became more shallow and weak. Even though I was lying in bed, the slackened energy made me feel like I was slumping.

I was amazed. Orgasms had always felt good to me. Really good. They relieved me of sexual tension and left me feeling relaxed. But now I realized that this relaxation was actually depletion. I felt less stressed because I had less energy flowing through me. I got out of bed and tried to do some of the exercises the old man in the book• store had taught us, but my energy was too low. A baby would have been able to push me over. I got back in bed and went to sleep.

For many months, I continued masturbating, but without ejaculation. I discovered inner ecstasies and nuances of energy flow that I hadn't experienced when I first learned about internal energy from the old man in the mall, before I had become sexu• ally active.

Eventually I found a new girlfriend. I wasn't expecting it, but the first time we hugged I felt the energy flowing through
her
body as we embraced. It was as if I had x-ray vision; I could feelingly see the circuitry within her body. I could feel where her energy was flowing full and where it was blocked. As I hugged her, I changed my position and my breathing in order to help her energy flow more fully. I felt how our emotional closure also closed our energy, and how opening in love served to open our flow of energy.

After our hug, she stepped back and I noticed her eyes were moist. We looked into each other's eyes and felt each other, vul• nerable, opened, and astonished.

Something that was previously confounding was now so obvi• ous that I couldn't believe I had never seen it before. My girlfriends

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had always been sensitive to the internal flow of energy, to the bodily flow of love. Energetically, it was as if they could see and I was blind.

Their shifting moods - upset, anger, lust, lack of inter• est - had, in effect, been a kind of test: Would I continue to be an energetically disadvantaged nerd, trying to reduce everything to words and mentalized communication, giving up when their emotional flows didn't fit into my mental boxes? Or would I feel their deep flows of energy - which spoke the heart's true desire - and dance with the push and pull of their moods so we could both relax in love? Usually, because I didn't know any bet• ter, I had given up in exasperation.

Now everything was falling into place. The old man in the bookstore had taught me that true power is not muscular but energetic: my friend could easily bend my arm when I used only my muscles to resist, but when I felt the energy flowing through my arm like an infinite rod of light, he could not move it. I real• ized that I had been using my mental muscles to try to figure out and change my girlfriends' moods. But their emotional flows of energy were much more powerful than my seemingly more "muscular" mind. My girlfriends bent me every time. Because I didn't know what to do, I took the easy way out and masturbated. But now things had changed.

A few evenings after our first hug, I was in my bedroom with my new girlfriend. She stood a few feet away from me, her eyes downcast. Instead of being my usual doltish self and asking her what was wrong, I very slowly moved closer to her, feeling her energy every inch of the way. For a moment, I felt her energy close down, so I stopped moving. I breathed with her rhythm, synchronizing my breath with hers, feeling her mood through

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and through, until my feeling reached her heart. I felt what she felt. Her deep needs - previously so mysterious to me - were now as intimate as mine. She relaxed and I continued moving toward her, ever so slowly.

Step by step, feeling through her shifting moods into her heart, breathing her breath, feeling her energy, I embraced and kissed her. No part of her escaped my feeling. I knew what it meant to love with the whole body. I could feel her deepest heart, her toes, her ears. I was able to feel her ever-changing currents of energy tingling, warming, and slithering throughout her body. Soon we were making love.

As I lay on top of her, she made a face and turned away. In• stead of thinking about what I should do, I felt into her. I breathed her energies. I opened my heart more widely and extended my love into her body more deeply, feeling all of her.

She was incredibly responsive to my every twitch and nuance of intention, which demanded total presence on my part. If I be• came lost in my own sensations, even for a brief moment, her heart would recoil as if I had just wounded it, and I would need to gently reestablish trust, loving her, coaxing her energy to return to the fore.

If I averted my eyes or held my breath too abruptly, even for a moment, her energy flow would diminish and become choppy. What seemed to me to be tiny and insignificant - whether I touched her breasts with my fingers or palm, whether I breathed through my nose or my mouth, whether I allowed my weight to sink into her body or held myself up on my elbows - had profound and immediate effects on her energy flow and heart openness.

No wonder I previously had so much trouble knowing what my former girlfriend had wanted. What she wanted - what she

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needed in terms of energy - changed moment by moment. Sometimes she might need a delicate kiss on her neck to help her open. In the very next moment, she might need a ravishing thrust to deepen her surrender - or maybe such sudden passion would close her down entirely. It all depended on being able to feel her moment-to-moment flow of energy and openness of heart - which, in the past, I hadn't been able to feel at all. I didn't know how to open my whole body in love and allow myself to be one with my lover.

Now that I was no longer driving toward an ejaculation, lost in my own sensations, I was able to breathe and move with my girlfriend. Our energy combined in trustful harmony. She could feel my presence pervading every inch of her body. She could feel my loving intention, my constancy and fullness. So, she let her heart open ever wider, teaching me love beyond what I had ever allowed myself. Her surrendered body became an inviting exten• sion of her open heart. I was awed. And humbled.

Earthquakes of orgasms rendered her senseless in the in• tensity of love. Her convulsions, spittle, tears, and cries, her uncontrollable bliss-contortions of body and emotion all magni• fied my internal energy. This only demanded more presence on my part lest I ejaculate and put a sudden end to the magnification of energy and love that, for her, seemed endless.

Her utter surrender and bodily ecstasy were far more attractive and energizing to me than any picture in a magazine could possibly be. Her loving was so total, expressing itself so freely and powerfully through her entire body, that I was called to yield my separateness over and over again into the unending openness of our loving.

Of course, the next minute, or the next day, she might sur• prise me with a sudden change of mood. If I had ejaculated too

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frequently, or if my own internal energy was low for other rea• sons, then the weight of her mood would bend me. I would attempt to figure out what was happening and right myself through mentally muscular means: argument, analysis, and insis• tence. But her energy was usually stronger than my mind; even if she agreed with me, in the end I would be worn down. Too weakened to stand unmovable in love and humor, I might walk away from her moods, seeking solitude or refuge with my less energetically weighty male buddies - who were all too ready to smile, shake their heads, and commiserate with me.