Desire And Spiritual Awakening: Navigating Sex, Love & Romance

The Great Lie: Spiritual Bypassing and the Denial of Desire

Let’s get one thing straight. You are a creature of desire. A wild, unpredictable, and ravenous being of want. And if you’re on a spiritual path, you’ve probably been taught to be ashamed of this fact. You’ve been told that your desires are a distraction, a lower vibration, an obstacle to enlightenment. You’ve been encouraged to transcend them, to ignore them, to meditate them away into some blissed-out state of non-wanting. And it is all a striking and dangerous lie.

This is the great deception of modern spirituality, the pervasive sickness of spiritual bypassing. It's the act of using spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep our real, messy, human experience. We plaster "love and light" over our gaping wounds of loneliness. We chant mantras to drown out the primal scream of our sexual frustration. We convince ourselves we are above the muck of human emotion, all the while sinking deeper into the dissociated fantasy of a life that isn't ours. I've watched this play out countless times ~ spiritual seekers who can quote Rumi but can't handle a fight with their partner. People who meditate for hours but flee the moment desire gets too real. They build elaborate spiritual identities while their actual life force withers on the vine. Know what I mean? The irony is brutal: in trying to transcend their humanity, they become less human, not more divine. Real awakening doesn't happen despite your desires ~ it happens through them, in them, with them.

Real awakening isn't soft or cozy. It's messy and juicy. It's violent in its destruction of lies and release of emotions. It's insane and chaotic in how it can rip something from you so resolutely that you become a new being in an instant. I've watched people literally sob for hours as decades of bullshit just... falls away. Think about that. One moment you're clinging to some story about who you are, what you need, how love should work ~ and then boom. Gone. The personality you thought was so solid? It crumbles like wet paper. The desires you were so sure defined you? They evaporate or transform into something unrecognizable. This isn't some gentle meditation cushion experience where you feel peaceful and enlightened. This is getting your guts rearranged by reality itself.

You cannot pleasure yourself to a vision board and declare your life is renewed. You can’t just lock your pain in a closet and say you’re free from it. It’ll break through that door in moments that will be truly devastating. Your desires are not the enemy. They are the gatekeepers to your most authentic self. They are the raw, untamed energy of life itself, coursing through your veins. To deny them is to deny the very force that animates you. It is to choose a half-life, a beige existence of polite smiles and quiet desperation, while your soul is screaming for the full spectrum of what it means to be alive.

Your Body Knows: Desire as a Gateway to Embodiment

Your mind is a masterful liar. It will weave detailed stories, build sophisticated spiritual egos, and construct entire philosophies to keep you safe and separate from the raw, visceral truth of your experience. Know what I mean? It's fucking brilliant at creating distance between you and what's actually happening. Your thoughts will tell you desire is "low vibration" or that wanting someone sexually means you're not spiritually evolved enough. Bullshit. Complete bullshit. But your body? Your body cannot lie. It is the vessel of your deepest knowing, the sacred ground where the divine and the animal meet. It doesn't give a damn about your spiritual concepts or how enlightened you think you should be. And right now, it is screaming with the truth of your desire. That heat you feel? That pull toward someone? That's not your enemy ~ that's your teacher wearing a disguise your mind refuses to recognize.

Stop trying to think your way through this. Stop analyzing and conceptualizing your longing. Drop out of the head and into the flesh. Where do you feel it? Is it a gut-punch of loneliness that doubles you over? An ache in your heart for a love you've never known? A fire in your blood, a primal heat in your loins that speaks of a longing for deep, soulful connection? That's not a distraction. Here's the thing: it's the divine knocking at your door. That's the life force, the Shakti, demanding to be felt, to be honored, to be lived. I spent years trying to meditate my way out of desire, thinking I could transcend my human needs through sheer spiritual force. What bullshit. The body doesn't lie ~ it knows things your clever mind will never understand. When desire rises, when longing burns through you like wildfire, that's not your ego getting in the way of enlightenment. That's enlightenment itself, raw and unfiltered, showing up in the only form it can: as pure, undeniable aliveness. Think about that.

In the sacred traditions, this energy is rooted in the muladhara chakra, the foundation of our very existence. It is the will to live, to survive, to create, to procreate. It is the engine of our incarnation. And here's what most spiritual seekers miss ~ this isn't some primitive force we need to transcend. It's the goddamn fuel for everything else. Your compassion? Your wisdom? Your ability to serve others? All of it flows from this primal aliveness. To sever ourselves from this raw, earthly power in the name of a disembodied "spirituality" is the ultimate act of self-betrayal. It is to become a ghost in our own lives, floating a few inches off the ground, terrified of the very ground that gives us life. I've seen too many seekers do this ~ cutting themselves off from their sexuality, their anger, their hunger for connection. They think they're becoming pure. Really? They're becoming half-dead.

Palo santo has been used for centuries to clear negative energy and invite in the sacred. *(paid link)* The indigenous peoples of South America didn't burn this "holy wood" just for kicks ~ they understood something we're rediscovering now. When you light that stick and let the smoke drift through your space, you're not just performing some trendy ritual. You're creating a boundary. A reset. Think about that. Sometimes before we can welcome love or spiritual connection, we need to clear out the energetic debris from past relationships, old wounds, or just the accumulated heaviness of daily life. Seriously.

Your desire is not a problem to be solved. It is a portal to be entered. It is the doorway back home to yourself, to the stunning, messy, and sacred reality of being a soul in a human body. Think about that for a second. We spend so much damn time trying to transcend our hungers, our longings, our raw human needs ~ as if enlightenment meant becoming some kind of sexless, passionless ghost floating above it all. But what if that's backwards? What if your ache for touch, for connection, for that electric moment when two people truly see each other... what if that's not the obstacle to awakening but the very fuel for it? Your body knows things your mind has forgotten. Your desire carries intelligence older than your thoughts.

The path to liberation is not paved with the denial of our humanity, but with the full, courageous, and embodied embrace of it. It is about having the courage to feel the full force of our wanting without being consumed by it. It is about learning to dance with the fire of our desire without getting burned. Think about that for a moment ~ we've been taught that spiritual growth means rising above the messy stuff, transcending our animal nature, becoming "pure." What bullshit. The body isn't something to escape from; it's the very vehicle through which consciousness experiences itself. Your sexual energy, your longing for connection, your raw human hungers ~ these aren't obstacles to awakening. They're the fuel. It is about finally, finally coming home to the temple of the body and realizing it was never a prison, but a gateway to the infinite. Every sensation, every pulse of desire, every moment of vulnerability is spirit expressing itself through flesh. Are you with me? This isn't about becoming some sexless saint floating above human experience. It's about becoming so present, so awake, that even your horniest moments become doorways to the sacred.

The Seven Veils of Memory: How the Past Shapes Your Present Desires

Your desires do not arise in a vacuum. They are not random, meaningless impulses. They are the flowering of a deep and complex root system, a system nourished by the soil of your past. To truly understand the nature of your wanting, you must be willing to dig. You must be willing to get your hands dirty in the tangled, often painful, memories that live within you. These are not just the stories you tell yourself; they are the energetic imprints, the cellular records, the karmic echoes that shape your every perception and choice. We can see this through the lens of at least seven types of memory.

Emotional Memory’s Ghostly Grip

Love, romance, and sexual connection are the crucibles of our most intense emotional experiences. The searing joy of a first love, the shattering betrayal of a trusted partner, the quiet comfort of a long-held hand ~ these moments are not just in the past. They live in you as emotional memories, potent energetic charges that dictate your present-day attractions and aversions. Is the person you’re drawn to today a genuine soul resonance, or are they simply a ghost of a past love you’re trying to resurrect? Is your fear of intimacy a wise boundary, or is it the echo of an old wound that has never truly healed? Until you make the unconscious conscious, you are a puppet to these emotional ghosts, replaying the same dramas in different costumes.

The Whispers of Intuitive Memory

Your intuition is your soul’s GPS. It is the quiet, persistent whisper of your deepest truth, guiding you toward what is aligned and away from what is not. In the area of desire, this intuitive memory is crucial. It’s that gut feeling you get about someone, that inexplicable sense of “yes” or “no” that arises before your logical mind has a chance to build its case. But here is the challenge: many of us have confused the voice of intuition with the voice of trauma. A trauma response, born of past pain, can feel just as urgent and compelling as a true intuitive hit. Learning to distinguish between the two is a critical life mastery. It requires a deep and radical honesty, a willingness to feel into the subtle energetic difference between a warning that is trying to protect you and a wall that is trying to keep you small.

The Chains of Cultural Memory

You are not just an individual; you are a living library of cultural memory. Your ideas about love, sex, romance, and success have been deeply shaped by the society you were born into, the family that raised you, and the media you consume. You have been handed a script, a set of rules and expectations about what a “good” life and a “successful” relationship should look like. This is where it gets interesting.For many, this script is a prison. It forces us into roles we were never meant to play, chasing desires that are not our own. The work here is to become a cultural archaeologist, to excavate the inherited beliefs that are running your life. Whose desire are you actually living? Your mother’s? Your father’s? Society’s? The courage to question these inherited truths is the first step toward authoring your own, more authentic story.

Archetypal Memory’s Grand Drama

Within the collective unconscious, there are universal patterns, or archetypes, that play out through all of us. The Lover, the Martyr, the Savior, the Orphan, the King, the Queen - these are not just characters in myths and fairy tales. They are living energies within your own psyche, and they are often the hidden drivers of your desires. You might be unconsciously playing out the role of the Rescuer, constantly drawn to “broken” partners you can fix. Or perhaps you are trapped in the Martyr archetype, believing that your needs must always come last. Recognizing these archetypal dramas in your personal life is rawly liberating. It allows you to step off the stage of unconscious role-playing and reclaim your power as the conscious creator of your own reality. The Personality Cards are a powerful tool for this very work, allowing you to see with stunning clarity which archetypes are running the show.

The Echoes of Energetic & Karmic Memory

Some connections defy logical explanation. The instantaneous recognition of a “soulmate,” the obsessive pull toward someone who is clearly not good for us, the recurring patterns of relationship that seem to follow us through life ~ these are often the echoes of energetic and karmic memory. From a post-karmic mystic perspective, we understand that we are weaving a vast and detailed pattern of connection across lifetimes. Sexual and romantic encounters, in particular, can create powerful energetic imprints and karmic ties that bind us to others. Here's the thing: it's not about blame or fatalism. It is about recognizing that you are a being of immense energetic consequence. The work is to become a conscious weaver, to clear the karmic debris of the past and to enter into new connections with a radical level of presence and accountability. It’s about understanding that every interaction is an energy exchange, and you have the power to make it a sacred one.

I remember sitting in Amma’s darshan one evening, utterly raw after a painful breakup. The crowd was humming with devotion, but inside me, desire was raging like a storm I couldn't calm with prayer or breath. Amma’s hug didn’t erase the ache or quiet the want—it held all of it, fierce and tender at once. That moment taught me desire isn’t something to run from or fix; it’s a pulse that demands to be felt in the body, not shushed by the mind. There was a period in my life when I was teaching emotional release workshops in Denver, guiding people through shaking and breath work to drop trauma stored deep in their nervous systems. One client resisted fully leaning into her rage, calling it “unspiritual.” I challenged her—what if that fire is the doorway, not the enemy? Watching her finally surrender to the tremors running through her limbs shifted something in me. Desire, anger, grief—they’re raw energy waiting to be met, not spiritual failures to be perfected away.

The Blueprint of Environmental Memory

The places of your past are not inert backdrops to your life’s story. They are active participants, imbued with the energetic residue of your experiences. The childhood home where you felt unsafe, the city where you first fell in love, the sacred land that held you in a moment of striking awakening ... these environments live within you. Their memories are stored in your very cells, shaping your present-day longings and aversions. You might find yourself inexplicably drawn to a certain terrain, or repulsed by a particular type of architecture. Often, this is your environmental memory speaking, guiding you toward places that hit home with your soul’s journey and away from those that echo with past trauma. Honoring this deep, instinctual connection to place is a vital part of creating a life that is not just spiritually aligned, but also deeply and physically nourishing.

Sacred Sexuality: Beyond the Taboo

Let's talk about sex. Not the cheap, commodified, soul-deadening version that our culture tries to sell us, but the raw, sacred, life-altering power that is our birthright. For too long, spirituality has been at war with sexuality. Centuries of this bullshit. We've been taught that to be holy, we must be chaste, that to touch the divine, we must deny the animal. That's a devastating lie, a wound in the collective psyche that has caused immeasurable suffering, shame, and distortion. I've watched brilliant, sensitive people tear themselves apart trying to be "spiritual" while hating their own bodies, denying their desires, cutting themselves off from one of the most powerful forces of creation flowing through them. Think about that. We're literally taught to reject the very energy that brought us into existence, the same force that moves planets and grows forests. Wild, right? This split has created generations of walking wounded ~ spiritual seekers who meditate for hours but can't look their lover in the eye during intimacy, religious folks who preach love while drowning in sexual shame.

Sacred sexuality is not about technique or performance. It is about presence. It is about bringing the totality of your being ... your heart, your soul, your messy, beautiful humanity ... to the act of union. It is the recognition that when two souls meet in a space of reverence, honesty, and deep connection, the body becomes an altar. The physical act becomes a prayer, a gateway to the divine, a merging that can dissolve the boundaries of the small self and offer a glimpse of the infinite. Think about that. When you drop the masks, when you stop trying to be some fantasy version of yourself, when you allow your partner to see you ~ really see you ~ something sacred happens. Your vulnerability becomes a doorway. Your authenticity becomes foreplay for the soul. The trembling, the awkwardness, even the imperfections ... they're not obstacles to transcendence. They ARE transcendence. Because real intimacy isn't polished. It's raw. It's human. And in that rawness, in that beautiful mess of two people meeting without pretense, something holy emerges that no technique could ever touch.

To engage in conscious sexuality is to declare that your body is not a source of shame, but a vessel of sacred power. It is a powerful act in a world that wants you to be numb, disconnected, and easily controlled. Think about that for a second. Every institution of control ~ religion, advertising, politics ~ profits from your disconnection from your own flesh. They need you ashamed of your desires, convinced that pleasure is somehow "less spiritual" than suffering. But here's the thing: your body holds intelligence that your mind can't touch. When you reclaim your sexuality as conscious practice, you're not just getting laid better. You're dismantling thousands of years of programming that keeps you small, keeps you seeking approval from outside authorities instead of trusting the wisdom pulsing through your own skin.

Rose quartz is the stone of unconditional love, keep one close when you are doing heart work. Seriously. I know it sounds like crystal hippie bullshit, but there's something about holding that smooth pink stone while you're wrestling with your demons that just... settles you. Maybe it's placebo. Maybe it's real energy work. Who gives a fuck? If it helps you stay centered while you're digging into the messy reality of desire and spiritual growth, use it. The heart work gets brutal sometimes, all that buried shame and fear coming up, and having something tangible to anchor you makes the difference between breakthrough and breakdown. *(paid link)*

This path requires courage. It requires the courage to face the shame and guilt that you have been conditioned to feel around your own desires. It requires the courage to be vulnerable, to let down your armor and allow yourself to be truly seen. And it requires the courage to demand more than the empty, transactional encounters that pass for intimacy in our world. It is about choosing connection over consumption, presence over performance, and soul-union over ego-gratification. It is a path of real healing, a way of reclaiming the lost parts of ourselves and coming home to the wholeness that has always been our true nature.

Love That Liberates: Distinguishing Attachment from True Connection

We are drowning in a sea of counterfeit love. From the time we are children, we are fed a fantasy - the Hollywood script of the one perfect person who will complete us, save us, and make all our pain disappear. We are taught to seek a "better half," which implies that we are, by our very nature, incomplete. This fantasy is the source of immeasurable suffering, for it is the blueprint for attachment, not love. Think about it... how many rom-coms end with the couple three years later, when the initial rush has faded and they're arguing about whose turn it is to take out the trash? The script cuts to credits right after the kiss because real intimacy - the messy, ordinary, sometimes boring stuff - doesn't sell tickets. We've been sold a lie that keeps us perpetually hunting for something that doesn't exist, like chasing a mirage in the desert. And the worse part? This programming runs so deep we don't even question it.

Attachment is a prison, and most people are serving a life sentence without even knowing it. It is a state of being born of fear, lack, and a deep, unacknowledged sense of unworthiness. When we are in attachment, we are not relating to the other person; we are using them. We are using them to fill our inner emptiness, to validate our existence, to distract us from our own pain. The other person becomes a drug, and we become addicts, caught in a desperate cycle of craving and clinging, terrified of the withdrawal that their absence would bring. I've watched people literally lose their minds when their person threatened to leave - not because of love, but because their primary coping mechanism was being yanked away. Think about that. The desperation you feel when your phone doesn't buzz back immediately? That's not romance. That's withdrawal. You're jonesing for your next hit of validation, your next dose of proof that you exist and matter. The scariest part? Most of us call this love and spend our whole lives chasing it, never realizing we're just addicts looking for a dealer.

True love does not cling. It does not possess. It does not seek to complete itself through another. True love liberates. It is the joyful resonance of two whole beings choosing to walk side-by-side, not because they need each other, but because their journey is amplified by the other's presence. Think about that for a second. Most of us have been taught that love means "I can't live without you" ~ but that's fear wearing love's mask. Real love says "I'm completely fine on my own, and I choose you anyway." That's scary as hell for the ego because it means the other person could leave tomorrow and you'd still be whole. But it's also the most freeing thing you'll ever experience. When you love from wholeness instead of emptiness, you stop trying to extract something from your partner and start giving freely. The difference is everything.

What we're looking at is a love that is not afraid of space, of solitude, of the inevitable changes that life brings. It is a love that wants the other to be free, to become the fullest expression of their own soul, even if that means their path eventually diverges from our own. It is a fierce, uncompromising love that refuses to settle for the comfortable cage of codependency. It demands everything from you ... your honesty, your courage, your willingness to stand on your own two feet and be a whole and complete universe unto yourself. And in return, it offers the greatest gift of all: a connection that does not bind you, but sets you free.

If you are serious about a daily sitting practice, a proper meditation cushion makes all the difference. *(paid link)* Look, I get it ~ you think you can just plop down on any old pillow or sit cross-legged on the hardwood floor like some kind of spiritual warrior. Trust me, I tried that shit for months. Your back starts screaming after fifteen minutes, your legs go numb, and suddenly you're more focused on physical discomfort than any kind of inner awareness. A decent cushion elevates your hips just enough to keep your spine naturally aligned, which means you can actually stay with whatever's arising instead of wrestling with your body the whole time.

The Romance of the Soul: Finding the Beloved Within

For years, perhaps lifetimes, you have been a beggar for love. You have searched for it in the arms of another, in the approval of your parents, in the validation of society. You have contorted yourself into a thousand different shapes, hoping that if you could just be good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, you would finally be worthy of being loved. Think about that for a second ~ how exhausting it's been to hustle for something that was never actually missing. You've been like someone searching frantically for their glasses while wearing them. The seeking itself became the barrier. And now, the path demands that you undertake the most radical journey of all: the journey home to the Beloved who has been waiting for you in the silent chamber of your own heart. Not patiently waiting, mind you ~ just waiting, like the sun waits behind clouds. Always there. Always whole.

What we're looking at is the great romance of the soul. It is the devotional path, the path of Bhakti Yoga, the path that my own beloved teacher, Amma, embodies with every breath and every embrace. And let me tell you, when you've been held by someone who literally radiates unconditional love, you start to understand what we're pointing toward here. It is the realization that the love you have been seeking outside of yourself is, and always has been, your own essential nature. Think about that for a second. All those desperate searches, all that longing, all those sleepless nights wondering if you're worthy of love... you were looking for yourself. The divine is not some distant, judgmental father-figure in the sky keeping score of your mistakes. It is the very substance of your own being. The love, the beauty, the wholeness you crave is you. Not some idealized version of you. Not you after you fix all your shit. You, right now, exactly as you are.

That's not a consolation prize. not a spiritual platitude to make you feel better about being alone. It is the most real and liberating truth of existence. To turn inward and begin to cultivate this inner union is the most courageous act you will ever perform. It means sitting with your own loneliness until it blossoms into a sacred solitude. It means offering yourself the same unconditional presence and tenderness that you have so desperately sought from others. It means becoming so radically full of your own love that you are no longer a beggar, but a fountain, overflowing with a love that is not dependent on any external source.

When you find the Beloved within, you do not stop loving others. You begin to truly love them for the first time. You love them not from a place of need, but from a place of overflowing fullness. Think about that. Before this shift, every "I love you" carried invisible strings attached. You loved them for what they reflected back to you, for how they made you feel, for the validation they provided your hungry ego. But now? You love them for who they are, not for what they can give you. You can actually see them clearly for the first time because you're not looking through the lens of your own desperate need. And you are finally, blessedly free. Free to love without grasping. Free to let them be themselves without trying to mold them into your perfect fantasy. It's the difference between drowning and swimming ~ one is about survival, the other is pure movement through the water.

the love that liberates. It is the end of the desperate search and the beginning of a life lived from the unshakable ground of your own divine heart. No more chasing shadows or begging for scraps of affection from people who can't even love themselves properly. Think about that. It is the romance that will never fade because it doesn't depend on someone else's mood or whether they remember to text you back ~ the connection that can never be broken because it's not hanging by the thread of another person's approval or availability. This is the love that will carry you all the way home, and here's the thing: home was never a person or a place. It was always this... this fierce tenderness you've been running from your whole damn life.

Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart is the book I give to anyone going through a dark night. *(paid link)*

Tools for the Trenches: Navigating Desire with Clarity and Courage

This path of integrating desire is not for the faint of heart. It is a warrior's path, and it requires practical, effective tools for navigating the often-treacherous terrain of your own inner world. Spiritual platitudes are useless when you are in the grips of a powerful longing or a devastating heartbreak. Seriously. When your heart is split open and your body is screaming for someone who doesn't want you back, pretty words about "letting go" feel like a slap in the face. You need tools that can cut through the confusion, reveal the hidden truth, and help you to take sacred, aligned action. Tools that work in the messy middle of desire ~ not just in meditation cushions or workshop rooms. These are not quick fixes, but instruments of deep self-inquiry and transformation that can hold up under the real pressure of longing, jealousy, and the raw vulnerability that comes with actually giving a damn about someone.

The Shankara Oracle: Your Personal Bullshit Detector

When you are lost in the fog of desire, your mind can be your own worst enemy. It will rationalize, justify, and spin endless stories to keep you trapped in familiar patterns. The Shankara Oracle is a tool for bypassing the deceptive mind and accessing the clear, unwavering wisdom of your soul. It is a multidimensional system ~ an oracle board, sacred stones, and over 300 cards - designed to give you brutally honest and stunningly accurate answers about the nature of your reality. When you ask the Oracle about a desire, it will not give you what you want to hear. It will show you the truth. It will reveal the karmic roots of your attraction, the unconscious needs that are driving you, and the highest potential of the connection. It is a mirror that reflects not just your surface wants, but the deepest longings of your soul.

The Personality Cards: Meet the Inner Cast of Characters

Your personality is not a monolith. It is a complex and often-conflicted cast of inner characters, or archetypes, each with its own voice, its own fears, and its own desires. The Personality Cards are a powerful tool for identifying and understanding these inner parts. Perhaps it is your inner Orphan who is desperately seeking a partner to rescue you from loneliness. Or maybe it is your inner Addict who is driving an obsessive and unhealthy craving. By giving these parts a face and a voice, you can begin to move from being a victim of your inner conflicts to being the conscious, compassionate leader of your own inner world. You can begin to parent your wounded parts, to use the power of your archetypal energies, and to make choices that are aligned with your highest self, not just your most wounded aspects.

Sacred Action: From Passive Wishing to Embodied Creation

Insight without action is just spiritual entertainment. You can have the most intense realizations, but if they do not translate into a change in your actual, lived reality, they are meaningless. The practice of Sacred Action is the bridge between the inner and outer worlds. It is about asking, in every moment, “What is the next right, aligned, and courageous step?” It is often not the easiest or most comfortable step. It might be the difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding, the boundary you need to set, or the leap of faith you are terrified to take. The Sacred Action Cards can be a powerful ally in this practice, offering clear, direct guidance on how to move from a state of passive wishing to one of embodied, creative power. how you stop being a victim of your desires and start becoming the conscious creator of your life.

The Fierce Embrace of Wholeness: Integrating Your Desires, Liberating Your Soul

The spiritual path is not a journey of subtraction, but of integration. It is not about cutting off the parts of yourself that you deem unworthy or "unspiritual." It is about having the courage to embrace the totality of your being ~ the sacred and the profane, the animal and the angel, the fierce fire of your desire and the deep stillness of your soul. This includes your messy, complicated relationship with sex and love. Your longing for touch. Your jealousy. Your fantasies that would make your meditation teacher blush. All of it matters. All of it belongs. Liberation is not found in the denial of your humanity, but in the full, embodied, and unapologetic living of it. The moment you start chopping off pieces of yourself in service of some sanitized spiritual ideal, you've missed the whole damn point. Wholeness means whole ~ not just the pretty parts that look good on your Instagram feed.

Your desires are not a mistake. They are the raw material of your awakening. They are the fuel for your transformation. When you learn to meet them with presence, with honesty, and with a fierce and tender love, they cease to be your masters and become your allies. They lead you to the unhealed wounds, the unconscious beliefs, and the disowned parts of yourself that are crying out for your attention. Think about that. Every craving, every ache, every moment you find yourself wanting something or someone... that's not weakness talking. That's your soul giving you coordinates. Your desires know exactly where you need to go, what needs healing, what parts of you have been locked away in shame or fear. They are the breadcrumb trail back home to the wholeness that you are. And here's the thing most people miss: you don't need to eliminate desire to be free. You need to dance with it. Seriously. The moment you stop fighting your wants and start listening to what they're actually telling you, everything changes.

the work. Not to eradicate desire, but to purify it, to align it with the deepest truth of your heart, and to use its immense power in service of your soul's liberation. It is to stand in the fire of your wanting and not be consumed, but to be forged anew, stronger, clearer, and more fully alive than you ever imagined possible. This isn't some bullshit spiritual bypassing where you pretend you don't want what you want. Fuck that. This is about feeling everything ~ the ache, the hunger, the desperate pull toward connection ~ and learning to let it move through you without grabbing the steering wheel and crashing into a ditch. Think about that. When you can hold desire like a flame in your palm instead of getting burned by it, you discover something wild: the very thing you thought would destroy you becomes the energy that transforms you.

May you have the courage to want what you want, the wisdom to know its true source, and the love to hold it all in a fierce and holy embrace. May you come to know the stunning beauty of your own untamed heart ~ that wild, messy, gloriously human part of you that refuses to be sanitized or spiritually bypassed. Because here's the thing: your desires aren't the enemy of your awakening. They're the raw material. The very fire that can either burn you down or forge you into something real. And may you, in this lifetime, be free ~ not from desire, but free to desire without shame, to love without apology, to be exactly who you are without needing permission from anyone, including the spiritual voices that would have you believe you're too much.

May All The Beings, In All The Worlds, Be Happy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it wrong to want a relationship or sexual connection on a spiritual path?

Absolutely not. The idea that desire for connection is "unspiritual" is a harmful and pervasive lie. We are relational beings, and our connections are one of the primary arenas for our spiritual growth. Seriously. Think about every major growth you've had ~ I bet most came through relationship. Through love, through heartbreak, through seeing yourself reflected in another's eyes. The question is not whether you should want a relationship, but what the nature of that wanting is. Is it coming from a place of lack, neediness, and a desire to be completed? That desperate energy that makes you swipe right on anyone with a pulse? Or is it coming from a place of wholeness, a desire to share your journey with another, and a resonance at the soul level? There's a massive difference between "I need someone to fix my loneliness" and "I'm full, but I'd love to dance with another soul who gets it." The path is not about denying the desire, but about purifying it. About getting clear on whether you're seeking completion or celebration.

How can I tell if my desire is a ‘distraction’ or a true soul calling?

That's a critical discernment. A true soul calling feels expansive, even if it’s scary. It strikes a chord deep within your bones and aligns with your highest values. Here is the thing most people miss.It will continue to return, not as a needy craving, but as a quiet, persistent pull toward a fuller expression of yourself. A distraction, on the other hand, often feels contractive, obsessive, and rooted in a sense of lack or anxiety. It’s a craving to fill a void. The best way to discern the difference is to get quiet, drop into the body, and feel the energetic quality of the desire itself. Tools like the Shankara Oracle are designed specifically for this kind of deep inquiry.

What if my desires feel shameful or ‘unspiritual’?

Shame is the great enemy of liberation. Your desires are not wrong or shameful; they are simply energy. The shame you feel is almost always a product of cultural, religious, or familial conditioning. The work is to meet these desires with curiosity and compassion, rather than judgment. What is the deeper need or longing beneath the surface of the desire? Often, our most “shameful” desires are connected to our most deeply disowned parts. By bringing the light of your loving awareness to these places, you can begin to heal the root of the shame and integrate the energy in a more conscious and life-affirming way.

Can I use spiritual practice to manifest a specific person or outcome?

That's a dangerous and ego-driven game. While spiritual practice will undoubtedly make you a more powerful creator, the attempt to use it to control another person or force a specific outcome is a intense misunderstanding of the path. It is a form of black magic, rooted in the illusion that you know what is best for your soul’s journey. The true purpose of spiritual practice is to align yourself with the divine will, not to bend it to your ego’s desires. The most powerful prayer is not “Give me what I want,” but “Make me an instrument of your peace. Use me. Show me the way.” When you surrender your personal will to this larger intelligence, you open yourself to a love and a destiny far greater than your small self could ever conceive.