Love, Sex, Polyamory and the pursuit of Inner Freedom - Andrew Cohen interviews Jon Darrall-Rew

very good so um [Music] so in relationship to the relation in relationship to the idea of relationship in a spiritual context um i've always been fairly conservative in my viewing my perspective so what i thought i would do is just give you a brief history of my thinking and [Music] so it'll be a point of departure and then i then i would love to just explore with you your your ideas your practices and your philosophy because um i realize i really i realized a few years ago that um i didn't know anything about post-conventional sexuality and romance i've never really thought much about it and i'm very curious because i know there's a lot i don't know i want to i want to expand the boundaries of my my thinking and my understanding about what's possible because i'm very interested in the relationship between enlightened awareness and cultural evolution and consciousness and culture are one process i believe and i think you would probably agree with me so um it makes sense to me that as our consciousness evolves then our cultural values will evolve along with them that relates to the way we organize the human experience in our own human experience and people who are interested in liberation force first and foremost should be able to express that liberation in all in all most important aspects of human life that's what that's where the rubber meets the road so that would be the background context for our discussion so my my feeling was that um i found when i i um i was very interested influenced by eastern dharma that's been my home my whole background and when i was a young young yogi i was um you know when i was in my early 20s i realized that my relationship to sexuality had been very conditioned by by the culture that i've been living in and i didn't experience a lot of freedom in relationship to it i felt like the conditioned robot so so i became very curious about what it would be like to be celibate for a while and i i've never been anti-sex i've always been very pro-sex but i wanted i wanted my relationship to sexuality to be less condition more free not just compulsive and compulsive into deeply conditioned so so i decided to take to take the bob celibacy for a period of time you know i i wasn't in a monastery i was living in manhattan surrounded by beautiful women everywhere so i i i practice celibacy uh strict celebrities very strict celibacy for almost three years and it was very it was very interesting because um i uh i learned more about my relationship to the mind through struggling with the practice of celibacy for those three years and i did in all the years i've been meditating and i gained a lot of self-confidence as a result because at a certain point i realized that my my my chosen mental discipline in relation to that practice for for that period of time that my mind was stronger than my body and i know that a lot of men i came to discover later after i became a teacher a lot of men are very intimidated by their own experiences of lust and sexuality and sexual desire and because if this defeat the feelings of less and sexual desire are so powerful that many men lose their their their center their they lose their they lose their self-confidence they feel very yeah often very victimized and not in control so that period of three years of almost three years really gave me a lot of self-confidence in that area and then of course at the end of that time i fell in love with a girl and had a and got involved in the romantic and sexual domain of life once again and uh and that was that and uh when i became a teacher and for me was always very clear when i made up my mind that i wanted to be free that i wanted to search for enlightenment that i didn't want anything to interfere with that and i was at that time i started to become aware of the fact that in a lot of i guess conventional relationships even conventional post-modern relationships that many people see they really i felt that there was a lot of compromise going on in these romantic sexual relationships i didn't feel that people are of a lot of dynamic freedom and independence and again that's it it's a gross generalization but i think there's a lot of truth in it and i was very clear i didn't want to compromise my desire for liberation and um when i went when i went i'm an alcoholic who's became my wife and we've been married for 35 years what drew us together was i told her i want to be free more than anything else and she said i want to be free more than anything else too [Music] so anyway that was a long story but eventually after i met my guru and i underwent my own transformation process we had separated and then we came back together and i said to her at that time if you want to be with me you have to want this as much as i do and she said i do that was that was basically my condition for being back in a committed sexual relationship together and so we've been together for 35 years and we're we have we have a good relationship we're both happy together and there's a lot of trust between us and it just feels it feels very it feels very sweet it feels very sweet and um mutually nurture nurturing and loving so so when i became when i became a teacher and a guru you know in 1986 and i started getting involved with lots and lots of people i started to see how in so many so many romantic and sexual relationships and couples relationships couples that had children there was so much compromise going on in relationship to the to this to the deeper spiritual aspirations people are compromised in so many ways and i i um because not everybody wanted the same thing people wanted different things when sometimes when people start to spiritually awaken it led to also just their relationship started to fall apart because they didn't want the same thing something was some one person wanted spiritual freedom and the other person wanted other things i started seeing this is just a very curious very complex stereotype so another thing that i noticed is that um some of my students who had been practicing the dharma with me very seriously for a period of years and had been and had been not and i hadn't been in sexual relationships when they had when they decided to get back into a sexual relationship i started to notice that the minute they started having sex after not having sex for a while for a period of years or they lost the plot they got totally they got they love they lost the higher higher context of meaning and purpose and they got totally lost in the sexual sexual experience and they lost touch with with depth meaning higher context and higher purpose and i found that very disappointing so so so my my position has been most of the time that um i've never i've always been pro sexuality and and i've been and i've and i've been married my whole life on life but i found that the romantic and sexual relationship it seems to be one of the places when so many people get trapped in all kinds of neurotic patterns and there's so much on freedom and so what i wanted people to do is kind of to to do whatever they needed to do to straighten that out and and often i would encourage some of my students to practice celibacy as i did for periods of time in order to kind of get their own mind straight in relationship to their own sexual identity this was very powerful for men because of how because of how overwhelmed by sexual desire men are getting how confused they get by them for women um they were the more important issue was that women often feel you know because hundreds of thousands of years of biological and cultural condition they feel that there's a pre-conscious assumption belief that unless i'm with a man then i'm that i'm not a whole and so for so a lot of women would find if they entered into a period of abstinence not just of sexual activity but of their identification with with being in a particular role they started to find a deeper freedom and deeper autonomy from which they could then re-engage with the sexual romantic process from a place of greater freedom so and you know and when people did it seriously they they gained enormous benefits and we're usually very grateful for for the for the spiritual work that they did and then that air in that area has been in and then um as i told you my attitude's usually been very conservative so i always felt that people if they're going to sleep together then they should be in a committed relationship and i didn't think that it was appropriate for people who are committed to higher spiritual development to be casual about their lovemaking i felt love if you if we're going to be making love together then it should be in a it should be in a committed relationship together forever but at least in that context i didn't think that people should uh treat could treat sexuality casualty casually because i i felt that more often than not it seemed that love and romance created as much suffering as it did happiness in the long run and that's why i thought we need to be very careful careful in this area of life careful and very conscious very responsible so that was kind of my basic attitude about the whole thing so so just to be speak honestly about myself i told you that i felt i'd always felt that my slightly conservative predisposition in relation to this area of life was the right and the true way but then i realized i realized i don't know i think it was literally about seven years ago seven years ago i kind of started to see through my own position and not not that i thought i felt not that i thought that was wrong but i thought there was many ways there's many there's many other ways to look at this that have that are equally valid and equally appropriate and equally spiritually powerful i haven't explored any of those and that's what i wanted to speak to you about because i know that you've explored polyamory and you and you have uh all philosophy and relationship to to love and to sex into romance and human relationship so i'd love to hear about some of your ideas about it and i thought we'd just have a conversation see what we end up yeah my pleasure my pleasure to have this conversation with you andrew and i um i i just have a lot of respect i have a lot of respect for um both clarity of positions that you've held and also your willingness to look within and question yourself on these things i really respect that and um yeah i mean i think i think you know a beginning point that we'd both be agreed on that we probably would have been agreed on through the whole you know course of our relationship with this topic is that human sexuality and intimate relating is dynamite you know it's very powerful it's very powerful territory and should be engaged you know um cautiously there's different ways you know and um yeah there's a few there's a few different pieces that come up for me um in in in terms of reflecting upon the path that i've been on here and and i think for me um you know if i just speak for my own journey i i was um in monogamous relationships entirely until six years ago or something like that and i think it was about six years ago and i was in a partnership where we'd been together for three years loved each other deeply committed relationship desired future um where on one level there was just a um that there was like an evolution of my relationship to love that happened where i it was actually even we even had a conversation about marriage once and of in that conversation it's like there was a word that went through there was a sentence that went through my awareness which was like oh if if i marry her then she's the last woman i'm ever going to have sex with and there was just a reflection that happened at the moment of the kind of the just like the the arbitrariness of that in a certain way like the kind of absurdity to that like but why is that necessary just because because that happens then that happens you know and i mean the woman in question is very kind of um rested in her body um liberal centered naturally connected to her sexuality woman and i and i thought it occurred to me quite quickly i was like oh well you know well actually if okay if we were to get married and then at some point we did feel like we wanted to explore in some other territory i think she'd be cool with that so you know okay so you know but it was the the seed was planted and there was just an evolution on one side of my relationship to love where i i became of the position that just because i love someone deeply and i'm committed to a long-term relationship with them and i'm committed to sharing my life with them does not need to come with lifetime sexual exclusivity and if our communication structures and our um emotional maturity and our ability to be an empathic connection with each other around it is solid enough and mature enough then actually this could be a profound path of growth to differentiate those things and that really connected to me to my other reason why i started to explore non-monogamous forms of relating which was i became just very clearly aware that that was where my trauma lived what do you mean that um i became aware that um how do i put this like i i had i had worked solidly on and with myself for about six years knowing that i had trauma emotional trauma around um abandonment within my primary attachment relationship and that that would play out through deep insecurities and fears about my partner engaging with someone else or having some having some erotic connection with someone else i became aware that and what i realized was i'd worked really really hard on myself for about this six year period talking therapies self-inquiry you know a lot of consciousness work and it really it has shifted that much it had shifted that much and so i became aware there was a certain point where i was like if i'm serious about liberation if i'm serious about healing if i'm serious about moving through what is um clouding my ability to remain true to the alignment that i want to hold in my life all the way through in through into that's my embodied stand in the world then i have to face my deepest fears and these this is where my deepest fear is and so that was my second reason to say yes to this journey one was an evolution of my relationship to love where it felt like actually this feels in alignment with the way i increasingly understand how love can work and the other was this is actually the place that i'm most afraid to go and so if i'm really serious about liberation this is where i have to go especially since i had proven to myself that not going there and trying all the other ways that i possibly could didn't work and and i also was aware that i had reactivity around this area i had judgments of people who did open relating i was i was immediately emotionally charged when there were topics around this happening in the room or whatever and it was just a kind of hedge on take a look in the mirror moment you know and um and i would say that in the next six months of the very beginning of the exploration that we entered into i probably experienced more healing wow than in the previous six years and and i would not and i would not claim that we did it perfectly and it was simultaneously one of the most frightening painful challenging dark night of the soul underworld journey experiences that i've ever been through in my life and i've had a few of them so that was that was that was it was very very painful and challenging and frightening and there were certain things in the process that just like i my perception is that um you know you and i are also dedicated to there being uh genuinely awake and integrally developed and evolved beings on the planet who can be transformational agents for cultural change right absolutely and so you and i probably also have the same experience that it's one thing for someone to be able to operate at an integral level of cognition it's an entirely different thing for some for someone to be able to operate at an integral level of emotional maturity or psychosexual development or a political aesthetic development or all these other really really important lines of development and you know something that i became aware of that i even would joke about it for a period that um non-monogamous relating for me became the most powerful pathway of it of extending my other more embodied lines of development in the direction of into a genuinely integral um level of development than anything else i'd done before because it's a forcing process because the reality entry is that um whilst some people can um manage to do non-monogamous multi-partner relating and sexuality on a without there being too much stuff that's kicked up too much emotional stuff it's possible but generally it requires the people involved to not cross a certain line of intimacy with each other absolutely yeah and and my experience even in witnessing of the last six years everyone i've witnessed closely in the journey including some of the most integrated and evolved human beings i've ever come into contact with is that there is a rule here which is that basically whenever two people whatever one person and it could be two could be one to be more cross that line of intimacy with someone where they really start to get opened up by the connection it is vulnerable okay this this is a very vulnerable territory not non-monogamous because actually even monogamous relating opening up that space is vulnerable and the reality is that what i've come to realize is that we all of us have there are individual and collective traumas that we all participate in and my traumas on an individual level to do with my attachment history it's to do with my relationship with my mother my father blah blah blah that kind of stuff and so there's a there's a certain uniqueness to that in me but what i also have realized is that there's collective traumas around intimacy love sexuality and freedom but essentially there's traumas around this the the two vectors of development that are fundamentally challenged by any relationship whether it's monogamous or non-monogamous which is our ability to be in connection with someone deeply and intimately and simultaneously to be truly in the authentic standard of our own sovereignty individuals absolutely sure that those doctrine intersection is basically the equation that every relating experience particularly those that take us more intimate demands that we find some kind of answer to and when you then add in the choice to work with forms of relating that inevitably trigger some of the deep individual and collective wounding that actually most um the most challenges most of us to really stay true to who we really are whilst we're in these deep spaces of intimacy it sets up a forcing process and the forcing process is like it you you gotta you gotta work it out you gotta work it out and and for me that became a profoundly vulnerable profoundly humbling profoundly powerful path of massively upgrading and updating my level of communication maturity my and really my relationship with myself on the most in what were formerly the most the places i was most disconnected from myself the places that i had least established integration within myself the places that were traumatized little caves living in the back of my body somewhere i had to establish connection and an entirely different ethic of being with myself in all these places and and basically what for me all of this comes down to in a more esoteric sense as it's like this is the soul-body relationship this is the relationship between each person's soul and their embodiment and actually that relationship is a bit of a mess for most people and and and actually if you if you you know if i'm serious about wanting to participate in the emergence of human beings who are awake to who they truly are all the way down to their base centers so that they are anchored in that realization that freedom that power that creativity that alignment with what is most true all the way into their body than a descent process is fundamentally necessary as well and the descent process you know it's like if we use the model of the chakras it's like it's not just through the heart like i mean i realized my development for a long time my my level my the level of consciousness i had attained to um extended as low into my body as my heart for a really long time and yeah not below that not so much like no i think like you know as if i was tested emotionally i would easily recourse to quite separate emotional reactivity in certain ways or and certainly you know i've just described like when i was tested around sexuality or you know the possibility of maybe my partner's attracted to that guy over there or something you know it would activate deep trauma which of course means deep separation in me you know so the descent journey if we're really serious about awakening landing all the way through so that we have genuinely empowered forces of awakening on the planet then it has to descend through the emotional layers of the solar plexus it has to descend through the erotic layers of the sacral center and it has to descend all the way into our survival our survival drives um in our base center and so that's the kind of path-based rationale for me on like um the why and i know that i'm also a bit different from a lot of the people i'm surrounded by i'm a very purposeful guy who's who has these motivations to take it all the way and and i'm also surrounded by a lot of people where it's like they you know they have a different view of love and heroes where they perceive you know then that which is conventional where they you know they've recognized that there is an innocence to eros which is unseen in the majority of our conventional culture that that we have so much conditioning and shaming and guilt and fear around this very powerful force of someone that doesn't need to be there that it's not true to the energy itself and you yourself have spoken about you know erotic energy your sexual energy is one expression of the evolutionary impulse you know a couple things like that's a couple of questions just before we go too much further so um so yeah i want to ask you a couple of questions just so we can clarify the territory so you express you you talked about the distinction between initially what's purely a physical intimacy and going beyond physical intimacy even though physical intimacy could be the pathway to a deeper interpersonal spiritual intimacy and you were saying that um it's possible to have to experience physical intimacy without it without it getting too without crossing that boundary for some people some people can do that for reason for some people but then when we cross that boundary we're getting into very deep dangerous and powerful territory so what i wanted to ask you a couple of things is number one if you and i'm very intrigued by a lot of things that you said if you feel that this process of this radical descent and inclusion of all dimensions of our being all the way up and all the way down is a fundamental part of the complete embodiment or spiritual potential you know awakening the embodiment of our spiritual potential in the in in this polyamorous context does this kind of physical and emotional and spiritual intimacy is it necessary is it a prerequisite and necessary that it occurs within the context of the commitment of a mutual commitment with the other person so is in other words is it is is it is it some kind of commit commitment commitment or committed relationship within other or others a prerequisite for this to be a truly to be a catalyst for a genuine spiritual process you know what what is it within that context to contribute to it being a genuinely spiritual process okay so number seven so number one that doesn't need to do is the commitment a prerequisite because we all know that um the casual love making where there isn't any commitment has is just its own kind of freedom and pleasure but most people the most sensitive people want to test it doesn't go very deep and it's ultimately not very rewarding yeah so so i wanted to ask you about the commitment issue and the other the other question is and the other question is i'm very curious how how does one deal with the inevitable experiences of attachment emotional emotional and psychic attachment to the to the other or to the others how does it deal with attachment issues and jealousy which which inevitably is going to come up for most people i guess who would who had who hadn't mastered the process that jury that you seem to be describing to me go ahead and master that they were obviously there would be problems with jealousy and attachment especially if there were this was going to be happened in the context of openness yeah because because i think that i think when people have when people are less open about it in other words if there's if there's lovemaking or sexual activity with with more than one partner if it's done in the context of secrecy and not not vulnerability and openness and transparency it's easier to avoid these these issues of jealous jealousy attachment but of course if this is going to happen in the context of vulnerability transparency and authenticity then it's going to bring these very natural and predictable gut level of violent and intense emotional responses to the surface and i i've gotten the sense from some people who are who are exploring this post-conventional process that that mastering these exactly these kinds of emotions and trying to ultimately be able to experience in that experience than we transcend them is an important part of what this deep deeper experience of liberation relationship to love and sexuality is all about nothing [Music] yeah there's a there's a lot here there's a lot here so um so first of all i'd say like i'm not um just as a as a beginning point to answering the first question i wouldn't say i'm a particular advocate for polyamory like i what i the way i kind of describe what i stand for in relating these days is i'm i'm a stand for at the moment what i'm calling soul-related right and soul relating is for me it's when two beings choose to relate intimately with each other from a place where the foundation is i recognize you as a being of innate wholeness and sovereignty and you are on a journey of remembering who you truly are and you have parts of you that are indivisibly one with the entire universe and you have parts of you that are actually pretty broken and traumatized and you're on a journey of you know rediscovering who you truly are and i'm the same and we're saying yes to go deeper with each other from a place that's about saying yes to that journey and empower and empowering that journey with each other through our connecting and if you have that frame then my experience is that actually within that frame every [Music] relating style could could be right at a particular time celibacy could be the right choice for people doing that at a particular time monogamy could be the right choice for people doing that at a particular time polyamory could be the right choice a particular time and so on it's it's basically like what is the if what is the relating structure that if we are listening to to the space between us that you know when we make ourselves available to the growth that really wants to happen when we make ourselves available to the evolution that wants to happen between us what is the relating style that at this point on our path most seems like it would support that so that's really where i come from with it and and i would say that actually you know just to be really to be really straight about it the polyamory scene is frankly as messy in different ways as the monogamy scene you know it's like okay right right and then there's a humble recognition for me that comes with that which is that we're really just collectively still trying to work out how to be with each other you know we're really just trying to work out how how can i be really how can i be as close to you as i want to be and still be me and how how could i even just still be me and there's so many people who are really you know we're really just in the early stages of this stuff and within that context there are people who i know who who do it in a you know there's deeper and deeper levels of maturity and mature engagement with the evolutionary process that's possible in in all of those relating styles and so you know that's just to say an answer to your first question you know within the polyamorous um community or people who are exploring non-monogamous relating my experience is that there are some who do it more casually and who do it more superficially there's a lot of people who do it like that and and that can be how would i put it that can be quite carefree through to um superficial and yet it can still actually contain some really significant and important growth opportunities and lessons for the people involved that are to do with you know how do i stay connected to me whilst i'm also connected to multiple sexually connecting to multiple people you know there's a certain personality and character development lessons which can be powerfully you know supported by that process without it necessarily going into these deep places of like okay now deep stuff in me is triggered and now deep stuff in you is triggered on what are we gonna do about it um and you know there are people who do take it into those deeper places and sometimes they do it for love you know sometimes sometimes they do it for the liberation of that's possible sometimes they do it for desperation because they're actually in a relationship with someone who they love so deeply who that person wants to go on that go on that journey and that can be a disaster or it can be powerfully liberating for that person involved um but so that's the general way of the land type of thing which is just not to suggest that on this side of the fence everything works just great you know it really doesn't you know it's pretty messy um as is human relationship itself and within that still there are people who who engage this deep commitment with each other and um what you're saying in relation to the commitment for some people there is a commitment for some people who isn't yeah yeah that's a short way to put it yeah and and for those for the people who i've seen do it most powerfully i mean here's the piece andrew and it kind of is a segue into the second part of your question when people um when people make that type of commitment to each other it's it and and when i've seen it really be powerfully transformational it's anchored in love and it's anchored in in a in a love that says like i'm not going anywhere you know like yes i may have sexual connections with this person and you know whilst i'm still in a relationship with you or yes i yes i may have erotic experiences which parts of you find really scary and painful and vulnerable and i'm 100 here to go through a journey with you that is about allowing us to exit the scary cinema stories that we're living in around all of this to be with the feelings and the needs that come up in a way that where we can um allow an experience of love to arrive and land in places in us that have been untouched by that in the course of our development thus far and that is transformational you know one of my teachers once said a guy who's very much around an embodiment teacher and he said it very simple said what heals trauma is having a different experience a better experience yeah yeah exactly yeah so if you and i would say that like i have been through um underworld journeys of my own deepest fears i i even said like i would put it this way andrew there's another angle on it when when the woman i was with and i first chose to open up our relationship we did it from a place where we basically were like we want to grow in love we have a sincere uh impulse to evolve in love and to be taken by love on a journey that involves our evolution and our healing and andrew i i can honestly tell you i have never in any other part of my life witnessed the initiation of a process with that commitment where there was an intelligence that started to move through our life exactly expressing in each of us meeting and having and having a connection arise with that person or that person where the nature of that connection was perfect to stretch us that next step in our growth but not so intense that it would break us in terms of the evolution that wanted to happen and when there were situations that broke the brokers in certain ways they were things that needed to break where we had fundamental stubborn resistance to looking at certain pieces and i can just honestly i've never experienced such an obvious perfection of intelligence start to operate through the field of my and that person's relationships um so clearly and and that's it's like that's the journey that's the possibility and in that there were i i in ways that i it's kind of funny to even speak about now a number of times my partner she would have connections or experiences arise with men where if you'd asked me beforehand hey john what's basically the scariest most triggering thing that could possibly you could possibly imagine happening and i was like well well actually it would be this or this or this those things happened andrew you know like those things happened and and it was incredibly painful and scary for me and i came out the other side and it's like that experience of like i'm still here like and actually i'm i don't have anything like the level of charge around those topics anymore you know it's like those feelings are around uh feelings of jealousy and attachment feeling violated um well so i mean i would not i would not say that i'm done with that stuff by any stretch of the imagination but i would honestly say like i i fundamentally do not i don't live in anything like the universal trauma that i used to live in around i'm sorry my sense of ease around these topics is fundamentally different compared to where i started and yes i'm still i've still got a way to go for sure and i don't actually know anyone in this field who hasn't got a way to go still but i can actually just interrupt you here one question along those lines yeah in in the in the pr and the practice you're describing which sounds very profound is is there a conviction this is a very open question is there a conviction that if one was truly mastered this practice then one would no longer ever be triggered if one's beloved had any kind of intimate experience with anyone else would that be a sign of attainment yeah in a certain way um yes and yes and i'm wary of that so like yes without just listening to what you were saying and it seemed like you could do what you're implying yeah yeah yeah i mean i i when we first started doing this i had a i had a vision at one point and it was like it was a vision of being in a space where people were exploring open open sexuality and it was it was like my partner was engaging with other people and the vision and the embodied experience i had it was like my being all the way down to the cells of my body had entered into such total trust of love that it was fine but there was no there was no distrust of love there was no suspicion of love there was no kind of stories that i was retreating into about my about whatever the painful thing you know and that did anchor something in me of like it was like i was given a vision of what's possible in a certain way and and i would then share how you know i remember one of my teachers telling me at one point you know john for these deepest fears and pains to really transform what may actually be needed at a certain point is you may need to be able to set up a situation with your partner where perhaps someone that someone else that she's relating with you will get together and you can actually witness her engaging with that guy and there's enough there's enough love in the space that whenever your nervous system gets to a point where it's really it's really a kind of like okay i need this to stop you can ask them to stop and and they will stop and you can then um recalibrate you know self and co-regulate your nervous systems with your partner come back to a place of connection and then maybe they engage again and then again when it becomes too much you can say stop and they stop and same process again and i've known people do that kind of process i've witnessed it a number of times where people are deliberately working with the process in that way and i've also witnessed it and i've witnessed to be very very powerful for people and i've also witnessed it um it's like um where people have been in spaces where they can witness their partner engaging with someone else and and there's such a sense of connection whilst it's happening that the person witnessing couldn't even move into actually in the polyamory scene as it were there's this word compulsion do you know this word no no it's like a word that exists in this community and compulsion is the feeling of feeling joy and celebration with your partner engaging with someone else wow and so and i can really relate to that like i've been i really i already ruined the sky around you like i think the first the first time i ever went to one of these spaces with the woman that i began this journey on i was terrified understandably terrified and yet in being in that space i can honestly tell you i will go into the journey i had in that space it was a deep journey but after i've been there for like a couple of hours i remember saying to her i was like i'm good if you you know if you if you want to explore anything you want to explore it's okay you know that some a safety had landed in me and when when a person can have reference points for experiences like that where what on one side of the fence we most fundamentally fear can we gain reference points and data points for the experience of actually i i can feel okay in that space i can even feel good in that space and i and i can feel connected to my partner even if um they're connecting with someone else those types of experiences fundamentally i believe rewire these attachment related um well i can see i can tell they would have to right because i can i can feel in myself as you're speaking that these are these are very deep emotional structures we're dealing with here that are that are literally in one's gods and one in in one soul another question in this context is that in in a in a conscious polyamorous context does one had what does one always have a primary relationship in other words one particular individual that is your true partner and and in that context you and your partner would agree that you will have other lovers but that individual is your is your main partner is that usually how it works or would it or would there not or would there be no uh hierarchical distinction between who once who ones where yeah there's there's there's different structures that um the different people work with and as i remember i'm just trying to remember there's a guy um reid mihalko who um is uh he's kind of like uh he's called himself a sex educator who's a a total nerd about all of this stuff who's worked it all out and presents models on it it's quite interesting remember re talking about this once and he was giving a presentation of like the different kinds of structures that he's observed people in the polyamorous community going with and it's certainly not always a primary partner structure that's one that's one possible structure i remember him also talking about pod relating what he called pod relating sometimes like a dolphin pod you know and like that's where there's maybe a small group of let's say five people who all are relating with each other and they may or may not also relate with other people outside that pod you know that there can also be small communities there can be you know sometimes there's triads or quadrats of people who may have they may have hierarchical differentiations within that structure they may not it may all be equal and they may or may not also relate with others outside of that outside of that small circle like there's and then there's i remember re talking about like this what he called lone wolves as well you know and that's and learn i think he talks about like they're people who tend to have multiple partners but they never really truly enter into like an ongoing relational you know kind of context with them so i i there's other there's other structures you mentioned as well but what i've observed is that often people are in a kind of primary partner um structure then there's people i remember people have spoken to me about i've witnessed it a couple of times as well more what they call like relationship anarchy which is like where there's no there's no hierarchical structures whatsoever and basically the you know the the the impulse that the kind of the how do i put it the commitment that the different people in the system have is simply to listen to what's most true and of course andrew as you can imagine there's massive bypass you know possibilities with all of these things and and also potentially very powerful growth you know so especially especially with the sexual dimension of uh yeah which i've experienced being so friends-centered when one's turned on what feels true in that moment may what i would also say is like something something i observe changing and growing and evolving within the polyamorous community currently is there is a much greater awareness that is developing around the prevalence of trauma how trauma isn't just something that certain very damaged people have trauma is actually pervasive that all of us have as i say some individual pieces and some collective pieces and that plays out through challenging painful attachment dynamics between people in these contexts and actually even as i look out on certain organizations or uh like um crews of people who run events and who are big in this space who run tantra events neo-tensor events all this type of thing i can definitely divide them into those who are more trauma-aware and those who are much less trauma-aware and um that's a that's an evolutionary shift which is happenings but there was a book that came out this year called polysecure which is has became become very popular and it's and it's yeah it's it's you know kind of um really looking into these pieces around attachment theory trauma and the the dangers and the potential healing and liberation that can happen through non-monogamous forms of relating so just to return back to one thing we mentioned a few minutes ago so just just to make sure i'm clear about it but the idea is that um that being able to have these intermittent experiences with in a polyamorous context would trigger unresolved unresolved stuff places where one has been traumatized and one can learn how to face and be with what do the reactivity without shutting down and at least the theory would be they wanted that could they could clear up the drama in some kind of primary fundamental way that could be very emotionally and spiritually eliminated yes yeah exactly yeah and a piece a piece which is important to consider there is if you if you think about it part of the psychological wiring of any traumatic piece in me or you or anyone else a kind of inherent part of the wiring is the assumption when i'm in this i'm alone and and just if you if you consider that look into yourself look into others you know like i know i know it's true and i want to think about it true yeah it's it's like part of the trauma wiring when i'm in this i'm alone so these spaces that i'm speaking about can actually fundamentally address that if you can have an experience where oh i actually i am in this and i'm not alone actually this same piece has um has been activated has been triggered in me and i can also feel that my partner is is deeply attuned to me right now and i can feel even even if my partner's actually sexually engaging with someone else right now i can still feel that they're deeply tuned to me you feel like it starts to really like shift certain very sticky wiring you know oh no that's that's that's very clear but in this context would um if not getting triggered would be a sign of uh of emotional freedom and liberation and wholeness and deeper integration in that context would any could any or would any experience an attachment or jealousy be seen as being legitimate i mean i i think i i think the way i would see that and tell me if i've misunderstood your question but when you understand when you're looking through the frame of like the fears that live in all of us around the loss of love and the loss of intimacy then all of these fears are legitimate always anyway you know sure like so but um i think i think i get where you're going yeah i mean okay i'm trying to examine the fundamentals of the fundamental principle or circle would you speak from another from another angle yeah i think i get where you're going and if i yes yes for sure because like the way i see that is you know here's a way i see that on a soul level we all [Music] have some part of us that knows the truth that this the interconnected soul field um and i am differentiating that from the indivisible absolute but the interconnected soul field we all have a part of us that knows that love is the truth of that reality and the love is the interconnected field that connects us all and that love is fundamentally transpersonal all pervasive it's everlasting and you know that it's not a finite reality like on a soul level got it right however on a kind of embodied human animal level where actually this this human animal was born and it will die there there is a finiteness to the to that section of reality to that frequency of reality that this human animal actually understands very well like and so you know there is a legitimate in my view vulnerability in parts of me knowing that when my that there is fundamental risk or in this context that you know like maybe there is some maybe maybe through my partner connecting with that person some thing is going to shift tonight maybe something is going to shift in her maybe some new face of her growth is going to open up maybe some new incredibly important connection is going to land or and actually maybe that may shift that may affect that may change our journey with each other and even if love is pervasive on the soul level even if that's true my embodied self knows that there's this there's certain magical wonderful profoundly beautiful dimensions of this particular relationship which are finite and i will never experience again you know and actually are profoundly precious to me and i think there is a legitimate vulnerability there that's based on the reality of how beautiful and precious every fleeting moment of intimacy and connection truly is and and i think there's beauty in that you know and i think there's beauty in in the in the heart and the heartbreak and the fear of that and it's an affirmation of the power of life in my view rather than it being a kind of you know um yeah like a loss of something you know and i think then what i if i were to imagine what i currently perceive would be a really integrated being in these contexts a really liberated integrated embodied being i could imagine that they would feel parts of them that they would know that whatever happens in that room whatever their partner does or does not do there's a certain stability in their being and presence which is like nothing touches this this is not of a negotiation and there would also be certain parts of them that would be deeply connected and vulnerably with oh my god this connection is so precious to me and i know that actually if i'm really honest in the way that all of us should you know in a certain way even if you're in a monogamous relationship your partner might meet that amazing person tomorrow that you know everything could change like there's never surety but when you're relating in that way it's even more present the kind of you know it's it's even like a relational version of the buddhist you know the buddhist teaching on impermanence like there's a kind of relational impermanence is so presently clearly kind of like you know when so when one's lover comes back from uh loving another another another person is that something that you need to know about or hear about or is it something that you stay away from is her would be her private experience or is part of a polyamorous intuitive relationship that one needs to know needs to hear about it's used to participate in some way different people have different agreements and um there's a range of agreements that people work from and that can extend all the way from some people do it with a kind of don't ask don't tell type type no kind of version i i've never done that because it doesn't really feel true to what the point of the journey really um but yeah then it there is then you know if i speak about my own journey i think there was certain there was when i was more vulnerable and and and it was more edgy for me i felt like i needed to know more like i felt like and would want to ask more questions if that was okay about you know my partner's experience and certainly it always happened with the context i i knew she's meeting that person tonight that's where she is right now you know and i'm i'm here at home you know having a vigil from my own painful evolutionary growth you know or my own my own ability to be with and face myself and meet myself in this context it's it's powerful um and yeah i feel like i needed to i i wanted to ask more questions then and i noticed that as time went on and i felt more relaxed i needed to ask less questions but it but it was always within the context of transparency and honesty about what was going on yeah so i want to ask you a more general question um so obviously men and women's sexuality is different in fundamental ways and we we both know that from evolutionary biology men are programmed to sew their seed far and wide and so this is a biological imperative for men and for that reason most men i know have a relatively insatiable experience of sexual desire and obviously diminishes to some degrees when one gets older but they but if one could in in some kind of another dimension at times when we want to make love with a different woman every day different attractive women every day because of course there's always this the particular allure of that which is new unexplored unexplored territory is is one uh somebody finds particularly compelling and and it became apparent to me at a certain point that that that did this was like an absolute situation being being a male a male human being that as long as i was in this body i was gonna i was gonna make love to an infinite number of women to which there would be no end until i dropped dead and you'll probably continue again probably in the subtle realm until i took rebirth and probably will continue forever so so so therefore i [Music] because i realized this was part of my own biological conditioning i didn't i didn't make a problem out of it i kind of i always i always feel that the presence of of sexual desire or sexual and romantic craving is a sign of well-being as a sign of health is a sign of vitality and whether one acts on it or not it's it's a sign of life and vibe vibrancy but i am i realized that it would that from a certain point of view it wouldn't it would never be enough and i'd never be satisfied and so and then i then when i really accepted that deeply i was able to let go of the need or the need or the desire to want to have more more lovers and i also felt that uh especially in a position i was in being being a public person and a spiritual teacher i felt it was very important that i was very careful in that area of my life and i always have been i never you know crossed that line but but i just wanted to ask you this question that um i often wondered if because i know that different that that that spiritually inspired people i've been trying to crack this particular nut for a long time and uh and and i've been and i've been trying to sort out what what which sounds more like what you're speaking about which is which is just going from a genuine genuinely spiritually inspired desire to fearlessly and embrace the human condition and a conscious aspiration for profound awakening and deep and total integration and on one hand and what's just a desire to have to be able to make love with as many women as one can possibly make love to and get away with it sometimes i can't sort out the difference yeah yeah because because because at least for men this particular aspect of life is is fundament and the bottom line is it is insatiable they will know it'll never we'll never get to the point we say okay now i'm done or it's done because because the evolutionary impulse experience at a biological level is this comes an eternal source it's becoming a becoming of the universe that i i i understand to be ceaseless and eternal so so in that context the question so how do i embrace this how do i embrace and fully embody and experience and express this impulse and fully experience its liberating power and potential without getting trapped by it and that's really the fundamental fundamental spiritual question yeah yeah it's a good question um so here's how i see this i i perceive that all human beings are at some point on a journey around the degree to which their consciousness is as strong or is at least as strong as their else right so wow that's interesting yeah so for most people for most of the path their consciousness is not as strong as their eros correct and they're eros and we know i mean eros is life force and eros is profoundly powerful and my perception is that human beings are actually we know how powerful it is i mean we experience that both in the sexual experience itself where we're blown open beyond our boundaries in so many ways and we're awed with the profound like oh my god that's incredible that's one way we know it and another way we know it is when we do things we regret you know and when human beings do things they regret and basically what has happened is that their consciousness was overpowered by the heroes and um by their desire and that is quite possible for very large sections of the path and i even think like if you if you see things through this lens then you you know i i sometimes you you know look at look at examples of um for instance orthodox uh orthodox islam for instance where in certain cultures women are there's orthodox you know laws around how women must cover so much of their skin and you know there's that's so there's one tempt exactly exactly right because there's a kind of presumption in the culture that if a woman was to have more of her skin visible then the men could not be held responsible for what they might do you know now on one level that is profoundly not okay you know and on another level it's an interesting admission of like actually we're just gonna be honest that we are just we're not mature enough to deal with this yet this force is so strong we are and we are not strong enough you know it will it can overpower us and actually that's very much you know it's that is a prevalent reality of the human condition absolutely and that said there comes a time in the past where our consciousness is as strong and and i think when if if if our spiritual practice is strong if it's a significant level of attainment i would say yes but but i mean there's been too many powerfully awakened spiritual masters who didn't do so well in this area yeah i mean i think like you know probably it's the case that just strong consciousness is itself not enough and that's and that's what i would that's where i would get into this as well which is like it actually then becomes about our relationship to eros itself and how much you know for instance how much we can allow and welcome erotic energy to circulate through our being as part of our relationship to life itself rather than making it about an objectified other that is you know kind of one that we want to kind of conquer or you know kind of have conquest with in some way there's it can we allow um yeah can can we actually allow an interflowing between our consciousness and our heroes in a way that welcomes both and i think that question directly gets to the mind over body tension that has existed in human culture for a really long time and in a certain way there's a healthy version of it which is the healthy version is i'm going to really try and strengthen my consciousness so i'm not overpowered by my heroes um but there's also a fundamentally unhealthy version of it which is um which is colonization it's like the mind and and consciousness colonizing the body and trying to this this i remember one of my teachers talking about this like you know a shadow of the way that our consciousness can work with our eros and this exists within um kind of tantric and neo-tantric communities where you see guys who are there and that you know that their consciousness is attempting to use their eros for their awakening and enlightenment and basically their body becomes an objectified tool that is to be used for their consciousness awakening and in my view that there's a certain violence to that that that actually does not recognize the multi-dimensional layers of sentiency and life that truly exist all the way down and that our bodies um deserving of much more respect and honoring than that yeah but of course if we over identify with ours it's gonna it's gonna it'll destroy that personality and pump up our either pretty big yeah exactly exactly and you know and the flip side of that is men often men in these contexts where they're actually like they're marketing deeper consciousness but they just actually really want to get laid cool so but just that's sorry to be interested to just ask you a question so okay i like the way you put that and i agree with you that would would you say would you venture to say that unless one's consciousness became stronger than one's experience of the arrows unless one's consciousness was strengthened through seriously committed spiritual practice in higher development and unless that consciousness was stronger than one than the one's experience of eros and one would you venture to say that one would not yet be prepared to practice polyamory with deep integrity or would that be going too far i think there's an element of truth to that i think there's an element of truth to that and and i would also say like i don't i wouldn't say that the consciousness needs to be stronger than i don't i don't even know whether i believe that consciousness can be stronger than but i think it can be as strong as well let me let me put it to make it very specific it would mean in terms of the element of choice yeah yeah okay and we would have to agree that actions come from conscious choice in the united not everybody would agree with that but if we would agree that actions come from such from conscious choice in relationship to sexuality yeah then uh that would mean because because once the once once the sexual mechanism is turned on it has a mind of its own as we know and it's it requires enormous and enormous clarity of mind and and our moral development to be able to keep one's to be mentally and spiritually clear-minded in the face of that overwhelming power yeah yeah so it would just say so it seemed it seemed to me that unless one had attained that level of mindful self-awareness and relationship terrorists in one's own psyche and biology that would be very difficult to navigate with integrity the very complex and challenging waters that you've been speaking about yeah that's a big ass yeah and and i would also say that i can immediately think of an a reasonably large number of beings that are in my world who totally exist in that way correct um so that they are not that they are very connected to the truth of what's happening in their erotic players and they are definitely not overpowered by them and and it also it also depends on like what are the agreement structures between the people involved you know i remember like at the beginning of the journey that i had with the partner that i started this with we had an agreement which was that of course nothing would ever happen with anyone else before we checked in with each other right but a later agreement and so that absolutely would require you know kind of like okay something something's happening and no because that's not within my agreement structure right but then you know at a certain point i there was more ease and relaxation in our system and our agreement structure changed to it's preferable you know to check in with each other and if there's something real that moves in the moment and you really and you feel in integrity and it feels authentic you can you can operate in a way that feels authentic to you and you tell me about it afterwards you know and so that requires less that that more requires a kind of like am i in integrity here like that's really the inquiry then it's it's a slightly different inquiry am i in integrity am i am i pushing something am i forcing something am i avoiding something you know or is this in integrity and so yeah and and i think um basically a major a major question that this whole journey forces people to look at is what's the soul embodiment relationship and how how good is that relationship how harmonious is that relationship how how or is there are there you know kind of impulses of domination exploitation colonization use you know is that actually the way that my soul and body relationship is working or you know i've always i was i always felt in the romantic and sexual relationship that the most important foundational ingredient that makes all things possible more than anything else is trust yeah yeah yeah and i i would actually fundamentally agree with that and i think it's it's it's trust within us and it's trust between us absolutely yeah is that because then because then then there can be freedom and space yeah and also that you know i actually feel like a lot of the main ingredient to what comes down like what is the fundamentally healing ingredient when we're talking about rewiring some of the most painful trauma patterns within us it's trust because actually if you look at any of those places in me or you're anyone else that still exists in places of trauma they fundamentally do not trust like they are they exist in massive states of distrust so if there can be a shift where frequencies of trust start to be how those parts live rather than distrust that changes everything you know absolutely then it becomes like okay and that that's the that's the flip in a certain way from you know the don't ask don't tell or you know relationships where there's a kind of even uh unspoken consent to the fact that one or other might have affairs or something like this it's like you know actually can we say yes to the reality of human the human the human condition and even say yes to being taken on a journey in it um but we prioritize doing everything from the place of trust and for me actually what i'd say is like that was game changing because whilst i whilst i used to have so much fear and insecurity and pain around the idea of like oh what if my partner you know had some kind of um infidelity moment or whatever when you're existing in a non-monogamous structure it's like well that's that's kind of the point here anyway so fascinating so do you have any do you have any um look looking at these because because that would be our shared agreements around the sexual bond these foundational structures for culture and have been for timing memorial so as we as so as we're moving from uh so we go from traditional to modern to postmodern to post plus modern and meta modern shared cultural context which is and this is this is a new world space it doesn't really exist yet but it's trying to emerge through a you know a growing number of people who are entering the integral stage of development and part of entering the interval stage of development is the recognition by deeply how deeply and profoundly conditioned we are we're all more than we'd like to believe or even recognize more like conditioned robots and free agents and the more we wake up the more we recognize how unfree we are how unconscious our behavior is in so many areas of life and of course all of all the more so in relationship to sexuality and love so in relationship to this this idea of cultural evolution evolution of consciousness and cultural evolution do you have any kind of general feelings ideas beliefs convictions about how we should but what kind of ideas and new shared agreements that we should all be we should be exploring or those of us should be exploring who believe that we are part of this pioneering group of people who are at the leading edge of this adventure to modernity or post-post-modernity yeah um and just to say andrew i'll need to jump off in a minute because i have to i'm i'm gonna go and be a daddy to my little boy oh no that's great it's been delightful yeah um but i i can answer that question so yeah i think what's from an integral perspective i think what's actually most important is if we have a developmental context on human human life and human growth then i think we and and if we're also humbly kind of honest about the dynamite that relationship and sexuality represent as far as human development and growth are concerned then we can enter into a developmentally constructive conversation about like well what really would be um the relationships strike structure or style that would most suit you know can we be flexible about recognizing the different relationship structures offer different gifts for different phases of growth and can we then start to you know i think robert augustus masters has a quote where he says you know relationship is the ashram of the 21st century and i i don't see it that absolutist but i think you know we can start to see that our choices around relationship um can be profoundly significant and powerful for our holistic growth and rather than relationship being a kind of side part of our life which provides us with some kind of homely satisfaction and sexual satisfaction hopefully thank you like it becomes this kind of crucible of growth and development and nourishment and healing in really significant ways but not in a kind of cookie cutter one size fits all type of way it's it's if we're developmentally sensitive and aware of the different gifts the different relationship structures hold then people can be invited into and supported uh into what would be you know what really would suit your growth right now for the current phase of your path i think that's the difference between a kind of pluralistic green you know kind of just you know helpful radical deconstruction of the conditioning and assumptions that we have around relationship into a kind of like well you know could be anything into a more integral perspective which is like well yes it could be anything and what would most suit people as far as where they are on their developmental path right now so so what you're suggesting is that uh at this leading edge in this emerging cultural context we should you would ask us to not have any fixed ideas about what it's supposed to look like and part of a part of our adult growth would be openly exploring and considering different options in different ways this could actually work yeah i would say on one level it's like yes not having any fixed ideas about what it should look like and on another level it's having very fixed ideas in the you know making sure ideally that the priority and the dedication is to more love and truth you know i i want that to be baked in at every level you know i want you know the reality of so that we are we learn together to be really clear about the difference between when choice is coming from an authentic and connected impulse and when it's coming from a disconnected narcissistic impulse or you know a kind of an impulse it's actually about i just want to i just want to have my experience and i don't really care about the impact on you you know right so that we also refine our awareness around what and in a certain way it is that takes us back to the fundamental equation that all relating asks us to answer which is the intersection between connection and sovereignty and how can we do the how can we how can each of us answer that equation in a way that um is really in integrity with love and truth yeah i've always i always i've always felt that uh in a truly spiritually enlightened leading-edge culture that autonomy and communion or sovereignty and coherence should be able to happen in the same time in the same space exactly and that would be what we were slowing shooting yeah i totally agree well thank you john it's been delightful man yeah it's my pleasure and it's been educational and uh let's continue the conversation and see where we can go and explore other topics together but it's going to be like i'd be delighted to do that it's always a pleasure for me to it activates my heart to speak to you andrew because it's like i i just know that um you're one of the people in my world where i can so deeply relate to the drive like the the drive that you have and the drive that you stand for and you know all the way i mean it's a pleasure for me to have contact with beings where i'm like oh yeah i can i can feel that's what they stand for as well thank you john thank you so much all right lots of love and let's do it again soon