Spirituality in BDSM

[Curtis]

I would have posted this in Nikka's 'Sex in BDSM' thread because I doubt if there'll be enough interest to sustain a thread of its own, but I didn't want to get my ankle bitten for going off-topic.

In the lower half of page two of that thread, Nikka says, "Now, I am sure that no one out there lives a one-dimensional life." (rapid cut to Spitman) "I agree with Nikka that we all have spiritual, social, physical and emotional needs, and that people can have a different focus on their own needs."

Well, maybe not one-dimensional, but not neccessarily four-dimensional, either. To the best of my ability to judge, I have no spirit and no spiritual needs. I would've said that I have physical, mental and emotional needs and considered that social was a subset of emotional. To be blunt, I don't even understand what a spiritual need is.

Now, I'm not doing this to split hairs, but to see if there's anyone out there who can explain what a spiritual need is and why it should be having an impact on me.

Should we start by defining our terms? To me, a physical need is one that you can't survive without (breathing, drinking, sleeping, eating). A mental need is something that's a requirement to live a fulfilling life (speech, mathematics, reading, writing, a survival skill set). An emotional need is something you can live without, but not live without and still be happy (love, companionship, acceptance, sex -- some people would put a challenge to test yourself against in this category). If anyone has different definitions they would like to put forward, or wants to take a crack at defining spiritual, be my guest.

(I post this here to put it in proximity to the thread that inspired it, but I recognise that the moderators may wish to move it elsewhere.)

[woodsman'sgame]

Spirituality is a need associated with religion and/or the soul. In other words, it's a need that some humans feel to bond with God, Nature, the Force, whatever you believe in. For some it must be devoid of emotion to be real and safe, for others it is not real unless it is connected with emotion. For many it is a combination of the two, an emotional and intellectual understanding of oneself and whatever one believes in.

It is something that is painful to lose, but if you have never had it, you can go through life without it and feel no sense of loss.
It is as intangible as a passing thought and as necessary for happiness to some as the emotional needs you described.
It is what many seek and never find and others know as intimately as they know their own bodies.

It is a lie that we create to make our lives and out inevitable death tolerable or the greatest of truths that gives meaning to our brief time on earth, depending on your point of view.

Faith, Hope, and Love. We all know that the greatest of these is love, but I believe that the most elusive is faith.
True faith, not the blind, ignorant belief of the masses, but a true understanding and acceptance of God or whatever else you believe guides this world is what spirituality is all about.

Spirituality in BDSM? Hmmm that would take some thinking. Spirituality separates itself from the flesh. It deals with the soul and/or the mind, and often the flesh is seen as separate, or even worse a hindrance in achieving an understanding of the spirit or God or whatever you believe in.

[Spitman]

Spirituality is associated with a higher state of consciousness.

I agree with woodsman'sgame that there are two ways of looking at it. A religious person would say that a higher state of consciousness brings us closer to God. A non religiousness person could say that in a higher state of consciousness our brain is connected differently. Conscious states can be monitored by brainwave patterns as we perform different activities. There are multiple levels of conscious states.

It is just as possible to attain a higher state of consciousness in bdsm as in prayer. How this works is well documented. It requires something continuous or repetitive. Pain? Discipline? Sensual deprivation is a good one, conducive to meditation. Calmness in sensual deprivation is very similar to a trance state.

Sensations in a higher state of consciousness may be felt differently. Does this sound familiar?

In higher states of consciousness, because the brain is connected differently, we see problems differently. How many times has the answer to a problem popped into your head after a bdsm scene?

A religious person would say that in a higher state of consciousness we are closer to God. In Christianity there has long been an association between suffering and sanctity, but there I risk crossing into yet another topic!

BDSM is actually practised today by Shiite Moslems, various Christian orders and others in the form of self flagellation, for exactly the purpose I have described.

Yes, there are spiritual needs, and we are the poorer without satisfying them. A spiritual need is a need to spend some time in a higher state of consciousness, and can be satisfied in many different ways, as I have described.

[WANDA's_toy]

I understand that this spirituality should be in connection to S/M-BDSM-D/S in a way (?), ok.

Instead of my usual approach I'll go a different way this time and set a personal example. A quote from one of my posts on the "place of sex in D/S-BDSM"-Thread, which was there (ment to be a truly warm) reply to FF (unfortunatly over all the rest on that thread it was never replied to)...

Now, this goes really back to a personal experience some years ago.
I had been bound spread-eagled, naked, blindfolded and with earplugs in and been left there alone for a long time (don't know how many hours?). And despite the fact, that this was in a setting somehow connected to sex / sexuality ;) (I didn't know what would be next, the Lady of my heart could return any minute - I wouldn't know what she'd wanna do if she'd reappear, fuck me, ride me, sit on my face, whip me or... you name it), something else happened. First of all the Lady of my heart just did not show up. Secondly I was loosing any feeling for time. I was freezing and also started to seriously worry some when I realized that my blood pressure seemed to fall very low and blood circulation sort of started dipping away. I concetrated on that in an attempt to control it. First in a way like "DO NOT HYPERVENTILATE NOW - JUST DON'T!! RELAX!! But it got worse and worse anyway and I was even shivering ("CALM DOWN NOW! - DON'T MAKE IT WORSE!! - JUST DON'T!! ABSOLUTELY DO NOT MAKE IT WORSE AND DO NOT LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS!!!!"). Then, while not having lost consiousness, I seemingly controled the physical problems or, that is, they stopped to matter. I was carried away into a differnt state of consciousness, which is hard to discribe, so I have put it into sort of lyrical words / poem, which reflects this experience. That was what I posted (replying to FF on that other thread), here it is:
...
And yet I've had very deep submissive moments!

Moments, session, whatever, that did carry me over... some strange sea that had no sexuality in it at all!

It was like DEEP MEDITATION!

DEEP MEDITATION!

I saw Mountains fading, Stars climbing off Time and I was drawn into them, away from Light and yet Darkness ceased.
There was no existence and yet all of it in ONE Moment!
It was beautiful - colors unseen, sounds unheard!
I could smell the Morning of Dawn!
Eva set next to my Father, teasing.
Adam gave Flowers to my Mom, seriously, pretending!
Next they were all gone and I kept flying...
faster and faster, screams beneath
the rhythm of humdrums
monotonous
a devil who wants to wake me
from this trip

copyrigth MK - 2004
(that's me=WT)

Now to me this seemed a spiritual experience - one I don't want to miss, also.
And for categorization: I may have been able to live without it, true, but its certainly better to having had that!
And to woodman'sgame: Here you go... seperation from flesh / or hinderence through the flesh...

nice to have this thread - goodie!

[Jones, Nikka]

I believe the spirit is the part of every person that is aware of its place in the universal order of things. The spirit, being part of the universal oneness that can be represented by Nature, God, The Force, or whatever other image we may concoct to describe that which is larger than our intellectual consciousness, IS always aware of itself and the rest of the cosmos, but sometimes the body and mind it inhabits are not.

The only way to allow our spirit to get in touch with the larger spiritual universe is to begin to satisfy the needs of the other levels of our consciousness: the physical, the social, the emotional. Only once these are satisfied or at least have been promised satisfaction will the spirit emerge from our deepest subconscious to remind us that there is more to existence than what our physical, gregarious, self centered feelings demand.

In bdsm the need to be one with our partner or partners or existence in general in sharing feelings, emotions and sensations that go beyond the "normal" (I would say traditional) wants of more average relationships could be considered a spiritual need.

[WANDA's_toy]

sorry to see nobody is replying to this Thread anymore... :(

[Curtis]

It's cool. My threads don't usually draw much attention. Besides, the Forum seems to be going through a phase where non-BDSM threads are predominating. (Can you say "predominating" in a BDSM thread?)