The Holy Grail in the hands of a masturbator For me, a higher spiritual consciousness has resulted from a consciousness of m***********.I understand spirituality as recognition of inner balance and a dropping of the illusions that foster dualism.My dualism’s were: Believing that I needed a special partner to feel good about myself s*******. Feeling compelled to collect s***** experiences i.e. s***** materialism. Attaching myself to an achievement motif in s**. I have come to see these as the s***** illusions learned early and subtly in my life. These illusions inhibit spiritual growth.In recent years I discovered m*********** as self-befriending. I came to enjoy my own s***** company! My preference changed to wider appreciation of others and especially myself. I feel needs now, but not neediness. My s***** collecting changed to serenity and openness to my experience, without having to engineer it and without a feeling of compulsion. My goal-orientation in s** has been transformed into letting go and effortlessness in s**.My earlier experiences had been based upon a sense of scarcity, a lack in me that could only be filled from without. The more recent experiences grew from a sense of plenitude; I am enough.The oriental masters see spirituality as a return to this pristine experience of non-dual plenitude. It is the reclamation of child-like wonder, the ease that allows us to be so permeable to our experience that we become one with it. As long as what I need is outside myself, it can never be enough; as long as what I need is not outside, I am enough.Self-nurturing, joyful m*********** can engender this consciousness. It is a declaration that we are adequate, that we have the sources of power and pleasure within ourselves. This is the self-esteem that sets the psychic scene for self-transcendence and divinity.In ancient times, the p**** was adored as a god. God gives life. The p**** gives life. The fertility equation is simple.Osiris, in Egyptian mythology, created the universe by an act of m***********. The pharaohs who were revered as gods, and who had the power to give or take life, wore the symbol of and erect serpent on their headdress.The Israelites in exile fought the P****/Fertility religions of their neighbors. Their story of the lost Eden made this P****/Serpent god a villain.It is important to note here that to the pagan ancients, the male p**** was not a gay or female fetish. It was an object of universal devotion, radically connected to the continuance of life on this planet.The p**** is still such an object. How? Straight men love their penises. They may not seek other men’s’ penises as pleasure objects, but they do have a curiosity about them. Interest and desire are really two ends of the same spectrum!To worship something is to acknowledge its gift dimension in our lives. To love the gentiles and to enjoy them is to appreciate them as a gift. There is power, freedom and grace in such a gesture. It is an initiation to take a step beyond ourselves. This step is transcendence,Ecstasy, divinity as the apex of humanity.I always feared there was something wrong with me for loving the p****. I thought my interest was irrational before I knew that the heart has reasons unknown to the mind. I worried about how particular features of the male g******* arrested my attention and held my interest spellbound.For example, pubic hair on a smooth body is more than a simple patch of hair to me. It fascinates and excites me. It is a fetish, and yet more. I see it as an abstract reality: it seems sudden since it appears on the body full grown – as if from nowhere. It is thus a burning bush, holding a vision of something else, beyond s***** satisfaction.Also, it remains still during s** while the p**** and scrotum move. This feels to me like `reliability’. It is a center of accessibility and it so feels protective.In short, I see pubic hair as an epiphany, a Garden of Eden, a Golden Fleece. It does not cause spontaneous o***** as a simple fetish does. It is a locus of meditation.As my s***** esteem grows. I like this feeling. A little hair has become a node of many warm realities; it is sacramental, a visible sign of a multileveled reality.Leonardo De Vinci says in one of his notebooks:” The p**** has often a life and an intelligence of its own, separate from man, and it would appear that a man is in the wrong in being ashamed to give it a name or to exhibit it, seeking rather constantly to cover and conceal what he ought to adorn and display with ceremony as a ministrant.”Another feature of p****-veneration directly links us to m***********. Many of us have gone through a long night of feeling hotly obsessed with s** and the p**** – or more precisely `C***’. I do not mean horniness. To be h**** is to desire s**. Such desire can be fulfilled by s**. I am referring here rather to a voracious obsession with C***. It is not a desire for s** but a physical, emotional and spiritual desire for union. It cannot be fulfilled by s** because it is the fulfillment of s**. It feels like an insatiable and overwhelming desire that throws us off balance.Actually, it is the mortal side of immortal longings. It is the deep wish to be one with the source of s***** power within and outside ourselves. It is thus, too enormous to be satisfied; it is enormous enough only to be a god. It is the HOLY GRAIL, the ancient symbol of balance and completeness.Even one night of desire like this can be painful in the extreme. The pain comes from mistaking the insatiability as a defect in us. I have found that m*********** changes this. Prolonged solitary or multiple m*********** is a ritual that draws in our projections and relaxes us into the further reaches of our s********. It does this by putting us in touch with a destiny and a quest at the same time.How does it happen?We can never become C***, but we can go beyond ourselves through it. M*********** validates us as s******* rich. At the same time it is limited. It is thus, the point of contact of the mortal and immortal parts of ourselves. It does what God does: it becomes One-With-Us.Psychological maturity must happen in a realm that is ours alone. M*********** is a most appropriate rite of transition to s***** maturity. Most of us learned to m********* on our own, not with our parents. Thus, it was a crucial part of our individual unique development.To believe that it is wrong to m********* is to impugn our own m***********. Yet, many of us were taught to despise and avoid what we most enjoyed. To love m*********** after such conditioning is to make a strong choice in favor of freedom and our own personal evolution. It is a choice for self-care, instead of one for submission to the furies of self-doubt and self-abnegation. It pushes out the limits set on us by those who feared our burgeoning s***** powers. M*********** without guilt, but with joy; reverence for C*** without guilt, but with excitement: these are the hallmarks of s*****-spiritual knighthood.This brings us to one final sense in which the p**** is a god. It abides through our personal history as uniquely ours. We are creative with it. We redeem ourselves with it. We go beyond ourselves with it. We are supported and enriched by its pleasures and potential.Robert de Ropp wrote in S** Energy: “We may assume, on the basis of Neolithic art, that man has long been fascinated by his own p****. Its extraordinary capacity for erection, its independence…set it apart from the other organs of the body. Thus, the phallus early became an object of worship… It was on account of its magical power that the phallus ( was worn as the ) fascinum… It attracted the glance of stray beholders… From this aspect of the phallus cult are derived the words `fascinate’ and `fascination’.”Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy, suggest that psychological wholeness demands the ability to go with one’s fascinations. Fascination with C*** is a crucial feature of s***** wholeness.To follow this fascination, is to be in search of the Holy Grail.M*********** is the Hero’s journey.