Chapter 3 Three Pain, Pleasure and Sacredness

Below, I will repeat what I have said before proceeding further: Christianity and most other world religions actually have a core of important partnerships beneath the dominance teachings and myths.It is because of this core that these beliefs attract many women and men.But we will delve into this later. These elements of dominance in religion have been, and continue to be, a powerful means by which women and men accept and even worship unjust authority.And, Johnson points out, when they do, they directly affect fundamental things like our bodies, our pain, and our pleasure. Indeed, the most fundamental difference between the ancient, more fellowship society's view of the sacred and many of our views of the sacred has to do with the most basic things: flesh, pain, and pleasure.For, if we stop to look at the sacred images in the tradition of governing relations, we find that their center is not to give pleasure, but to create pain. In the battle of the Olympian gods, in the bloody duel of Hindu gods , either the crucifixion of Christ, or the martyrdom of Christian saints.

The apotheosis of pain rather than pleasure is of eminent political significance, since these images come from societies where the power to rule and destroy represents supreme power.Another implication of it is that in these societies, people are taught that pleasure equals selfish insensitivity, even pleasure equals domination or being ruled, we'll dig into this later when it comes to sex, pleasure equals masochism and To abuse is to hurt or be hurt. That's what brought me to the title "Holy Love".The title may at first seem startling, even blasphemous.Because of this, I decided to use this title.Or, rather, this is why the word divine joy keeps coming back to me when my perception of pleasure and pain has changed profoundly in the course of writing.This is a conception of happiness and holiness which is quite different from what we have been taught.The social structures of flesh and power are not the same in a society of dominance and a society of partnership. The latter most important symbol of power is the Holy Grail that brings life and light, not the sword that endangers life and destruction. Likewise, in both In society, the social structure of happiness and sanctity is also different.

Therefore, the divine pleasure I am talking about is by no means the kind of god-given pleasure that medieval Christian believers were encouraged to obtain by torturing themselves and destroying their bodies; The kind of pleasure obtained by degrading and degrading a woman, according to Freud, when the sexual object is degraded, the sensual sensations can be reactivated, thus producing considerable sexual power and high pleasure; nor are people the learned joy of throwing stones at someone, of laughing at someone who falls, gets slapped in the face, or is otherwise hurt; ) celebrated the massacre of the disloyal during the time of the Holy Crusades.Today, after the end of the Gulf War, the United States celebrates its victory without saying a word about the thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children who died or were wounded.The concept of divinity is nevertheless associated with thousands of religions that express cruelty and sacrifice in which human flesh is pierced, crucified, burned, staked, or tortured in other grisly ways It doesn't matter which situation the work conveys, such works abound in museums and churches to this day.

But I would also say that we have been taught a distorted view of happiness and holiness that I did not have because I was writing this book.It is a slow awakening, as the mystics say, the lifting of the veils that hide the soul or divinity.In my mental journey, a kind of exploration that caused me pain at times and joy at times, it did not take me into the remote mountains and old forests isolated from the world, but it gave me a new perspective to look at daily life. What I got was a surprise harvest. I've come to realize that some of the most important and memorable heart-touching moments of my life when I feel an indescribable sense of awe and curiosity about life's mysteries did not come from my education.Connecting the divine to some all-powerful entity that judges eternally, only this education could not prevent the tampering of my mind.I also began to understand that spiritual growth and worldly pleasures, such as orgasms and loving touching of a child or a loved one, are not incompatible.I have come to know that these experiences are at the core of my own spiritual growth.I also began to see that I urgently needed to untangle the tangle of joy and holiness that had been brought up in me, not in theory but in experience.

But it wasn't until I started writing this book that I gradually figured things out.Most importantly, I began to put my bits and pieces together into another kind of sanctity: a sanctity that fits with the notion of sanctity in partnership rather than dominance.This kind of sacredness belongs to this world, it does not belong to the illusory kingdom of the other world. It comes from the respect for life, not the worship after death or during life.This holiness does not separate us sharply from what we call God.More importantly, this holiness does not despise the flesh, so it does not despise the flesh, but regards it as an indispensable part of holiness in the most basic or complete sense.

I speak, therefore, of the spirit of partnership rather than of domination, in the full sense of the word.The things of the world, the physical things of ourselves and others, are not separate from our so-called higher self.It is for this reason that the work of theologians such as Carol Christ, Matthew Fox, Elizabeth Dodling Gray, and Carter Hayward on the inner spirit is so important.I therefore believe that the spiritual is both immanent and transcendent, and that the two merge at the core of the spiritual into a whole that is now gradually revealed in the struggle to transform from a relationship of domination to a world of partnership.

This spirit of partnership expresses both the human desire to be physically connected, i.e., physically united with loved ones, and our desire to be united with God.Great suffering is not the path it leads us to a higher consciousness, not even an essential attribute of the divine savior.What it teaches us is how to become one with that which we call sacred by reaching a higher consciousness through the immense joy that humans feel in the unique experience of loving and being loved.However, this is not love in the abstract.This divinity comes from connection not separation, therefore.In this divinity, love does not exist in another world, it is a product of this world.