Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 2: The Psychological Foundation of Miracles 2
7. The Meaning of Sex
Allowing miracles to be performed through you indiscriminately means forgiving everyone so that you can love everyone, including yourself. Loving your sisters and brothers as you love yourself must be based on the principle of inclusion. Sexual attraction, regardless of sexual orientation, is lacking in Love only to the extent that it is based on the principle of exclusion or denial. Denying the beauty of some because of body structures toward which you feel repulsion is actually a concealment of fear. Such repulsion is essentially an unhealthy attempt to limit fear, but fear cannot be limited, just as Love cannot have limits. Fear must be dissolved entirely, just as Love must be universal.
Biologically, sex serves to propagate species and maintain genetic diversity. Many have misunderstood sex, regarding it as a way of establishing and maintaining human contact, while possibly experiencing strong feelings of attraction that are equated with Love. This misunderstanding can lead to body-image problems, denying one’s own beauty because of body structures that arouse disappointment, shame, or repulsion. Such feelings toward oneself or others are always a lack of Love.
Everything physical, emotional, mental, psychological, and spiritual should be interacted with selflessly. The true pleasure from interacting with anything and anyone comes from doing so in accord with its Divine Purpose. Life lived fearlessly allows Spirit to arrange human constellations, however temporary, according to Divine Purposes—Purposes that far transcend what can be understood of the relationships by those still unable to see causes and effects beyond current perceptual limits. This applies to all those of sexual maturity, not just those who have had or will have children of their own. Many children need spiritual parents, and for these children and parents to find each other is a kind of rebirth.
Children are miracles multiplied. They have received the Gift of Life, and their parents and community provide them with the opportunity to express Life.
Human birth, development and maturation are a microcosmic representation of a much larger process of creation and the development of abilities that transcend time and space. This microcosmic representation is subject to error as long as the real Purpose of free will is misunderstood and misdirected. The real function of parents, biological and spiritual, is to be wise enough to understand in their relationships with children the larger process of creation and development, and to teach the children accordingly.
Misdirected miracle impulses experienced as loveless sexual impulses result in depression if denied and guilt if expressed. As was said earlier, all real pleasure comes from interacting with people and things in accord with their Divine Purpose, which is the same as doing the Will of the Divine. Whenever this is not done an experience of lack results. This is because not doing the Will of the Divine is lack, that is, a lack of Self.
The non-biological appropriate purpose of sex is to enable minds to embark on new chapters in their experience and thus dissolve their lack of Self and enrich their willingness to engage in Divine Will. The pleasure that is derived from sex in itself apart from its appropriate purpose is reliably experienced only because such pleasure stems from an error that human beings decided to share at a given point. Engaging in sexual pleasure as an end in itself in spite of unconscious awareness of this error produces guilt. Denial of the error results in the intense mis-projection of judgment that sexual behavior outside of any norm elicits. Correction of the error brings release from loveless sexual impulses, that is, from the overwhelming urge to engage in sexual pleasure for its own sake. “Lead us not into temptation” in this context means “Let us not deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in Peace to the Divine or our sisters and brothers with anything external.”
Many have lost sight of the end and are concentrating on the means. Sex is often utilized on behalf of a very similar error. Hostility, triumph, vengeance, self-debasement, and all sorts of expressions of the lack of Love are often very clearly observed in the accompanying fantasies. But it is a significant error to imagine that because these fantasies are so frequent, occurring so “reliably,” this implies that they are valid. As stated before in this Course, a person can be completely reliable and entirely wrong.
For one who believes the passion and vulnerability of the heart to be unacceptable or dangerous, intellect may be a way of redirecting energy away from the heart into the head, or a “displacement upward,” while sex can be a “displacement outward.” It may be believed that this protects a person from having to “come close” to others through the spiritual heart, which they assume is invisible because they are unable to perceive it. Yet the spiritual heart is entirely visible to the spiritual eye, and what is invisible to the spiritual eye – the body – is hardly the right means for improving perception or relationships.
Confusing miracle impulses with sexual impulses is a major source of perceptual distortion because it deepens rather than reduces the basic mind-body level confusion that underlies all those who seek happiness with the instruments of the physical world. You can do anything you want in a desert, but as long as it continues to lack water and thus sustainability, you cannot change the desert from what it is. If something is inherently unable to nourish, one can change one’s mind about continuing to seek nourishment from it.
Child of the Divine, you were created to create the True, the Beautiful, and the Good through your holiness. Always keep sight of this. If invited, I will enter into any situation where the temptation to mis-project or to forget arises. I will transform the situation from one of misdirected inspiration to perform miracles, experienced as intensely personal sexual attraction, to one of truly interpersonal yet impersonal miracle-working.
For a little while, Divine Love must still be expressed through one body to another. That is because the vision of the Real is still so dim. Everyone can use their body best by enlarging human perception so they can perceive through true vision. The Real that this vision beholds is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body can thus be said to be to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its coming into existence, that is, the reason that has been reassigned to it by Spirit.
Sexual fantasies are distorted forms of thinking because they always involve twisting perception into what isn’t real. This kind of fantasy is thus a distorted form of vision. Vision and revelations are closely related. Their distorted forms – fantasies and mis-projection – are also closely associated because both attempt to control external reality according to false internal needs. “Live and let live” in this context is a very meaningful injunction. Twist reality in any way and you are perceiving mindlessly and therefore harmfully. The awareness of Reality was lost through a belief in usurpation, which in turn produced the tyranny of the ego. Once you correct your past poor destiny decisions both within and beyond memory, and are restored in your true abilities needed now to create a future that reflects Eternity, you must still choose freely to devote your heritage to the greater Restoration of the Divine Family. As long as anyone remains imprisoned by the ego’s tyranny of the mind, no one’s Release is complete. Complete Restoration of the Divine Family is the only true goal of the miracle-minded.
By definition sexual fantasies are distortions of perception. They are a means of making or constructing false associations, and obtaining pleasure from them. This can be done only because people are inherently creative. But although people can construct false associations in their fantasies, they can never make them real except to themselves, even with their creative ability. As this Course said before, people believe in what they make and know what they create. If their creative ability is used to perform miracles rather than make fantasies, they will be strong in their sense of knowing what is real. The strength of their conviction will then sustain the confidence of the miracle receiver.
No fantasies, sexual or otherwise, are true. This is what makes them fantasies. Fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying Nature of Reality becomes apparent. The sexual impulse is a miracle impulse when it is in proper focus. In this focus, individuals may experience one another as the right partners for procreating or otherwise parenting children, and also for their joint establishment of a creative home. This does not involve fantasy at all. If I am invited to participate in such decisions, just as if Spirit is, the decisions will rest on an even stronger foundation of clarity.
In a situation where you and/or another person experience fantasy-based sexual impulses toward the other, remember first that this is an expression of fear. Your love toward each other in this situation is not yet perfect, and this is why the fear arose. By turning to Spirit and/or me and asking us to help you replace the fear with Love, you remove the power of the fear. (See the previous section on this process.) This shifts the sexual impulse immediately to the miracle impulse, and places this impulse at my direction. Acknowledging the true creative Worth of both yourself and the other places Strength where It belongs. Note that sexual fantasies are always depleting, in that they perceive another in a misdirected creative role. The “participants” in the fantasy are perceived essentially as “objects” fulfilling the fantasizer’s own pleasure. This dehumanized view is the source of the depleting aspect of sex.
Freud’s description of this process was purely negative, i.e., as a release from the unpleasant rather than as the potential for miracle impulses. He also observed that the tension from “id” or debilitating unconscious impulses never completely abates, which isn’t accurate, as just described. He would have been accurate had he said that the shift from miracle to sexual impulses was debilitating in the first place because of the level confusion involved. This energy-depleting shift is what sets up a state in which real Release isn’t possible as long as the shift is maintained by the fearful mind and misdirected will.
Note also that Freud’s notion of sex was as a device for inducing relaxation, which he confused with peace. Depleting sex relaxes only in the sense that it may induce physical sleep. The miracle, on the other hand, creates energy. It always strengthens and never depletes. It does induce Peace, and by establishing tranquility as relaxation it enables both giver and receiver to enter into a State of Grace. In this State a person’s miracle-mindedness rather than release from tension is restored.
Tension is the result of a building-up of unexpressed miracle inspiration and impulses. Such tension can be truly released only by fulfilling the miracle impulse, which has been blocked. Converting it to sexual libido merely produces further blocking. Fostering this illusion in yourself or encouraging it in others is never a good use of creative power. An “object” is incapable of Release, because “objects” are concepts deprived of true creative Power. The Recognition of the real creative Power in yourself and others brings Release because it brings Peace. The “Peace of the Divine that is beyond understanding” can keep your hearts now and forever.
