From time to time, an intimate couple will experience bliss, sometimes referred to as ecstasy. At such times it feels as though the couple, or sometimes it may be one or other partner, is lifted onto a higher plane of consciousness and experiences a sort of “out of body” experience, yet the feelings are felt through the medium of the body. At such times of bliss, the mind is the sexual organ and yet the couple may be engaged fully in physical lovemaking. It is possible, however, for such feelings of ecstasy to be experienced during deep and passionate kissing or intimate touching and caress. Blissful ecstasy during lovemaking or other expressions of intimacy is an orgasmic state but, typically, does not involve ejaculation in the man or clitoral orgasm in the woman. True orgasm is a state of consciousness as distinct from merely a muscular contraction or physiological reaction of the nervous system to physical stimulation. The state of orgasm described as ecstatic, or blissful, is usually experienced spontaneously at first – the effect of both partners being open to one another at a deep level and consciously awake to feelings in the body, the “lower” soul and the psyche.

The intimate couple can experience such moments during deep intimacy or lovemaking when all the doors of your “home” are flung open. The body organ most influential in the experience of ecstasy is the eye; not the two physical eyes, but the eye of the human spirit. It is located between the eyebrows and is accessible to the person who is blind as well as those with fully functioning eyes. The spiritual eye can “see” and “feel” with either open or closed eyes. It can “see” the beauty behind the form of your lover, and it can recognise the soul behind the body.  In some of the ancient eastern spiritual philosophies, ecstasy is considered to be the goal of intimacy and sexuality – an expression of merging with the Divine. As vital and influential in the evolution and development of human spirituality and sexuality that this philosophy has been in a past era, I believe that it is less than that which the human being can experience at today’s current level of consciousness. The downside of the ecstatic state can be compared to a “high” from drugs or a “rush” from sugar. There is a descent from the ascended orgasmic state of ecstasy, and it can be highly disturbing when the blissful state must be broken in order to return to normal life. At this point, when the “return journey” becomes a necessity in order to reconnect with the normal bodily faculties and the normal waking states of consciousness, both partners will experience the opposite polarity to bliss and will need to be very secure in their love together and their individual spiritual practice.

Those who have touched, or who aspire to touch, the ecstatic state through lovemaking, will be best advised to go further in their discovery of feelings. It is always tempting when one discovers something wonderful, and beyond normal every-day mundane experience, to want to hold onto it and to consider that you have “arrived”. Bliss, or ecstasy, experienced through intimacy and lovemaking, is indeed wonderful and goes beyond mundane sexuality, but it is not the destination; it is a landmark along the way. Let us continue the Voyage into Love and connect with a state of being that can live in ecstasy consciously and continuously.