86. Pleasure As a Tool for Success

©2002 Athene Bitting All Rights Reserved

LXXXVI

Body Disciplines Required for 5DI:

Part 2—Pleasure as a Tool for Success

Lecture based Questions:

1. Draw or describe a reminder or symbol of one of your helpers.

You have hundreds of helpers—angels, teachers, guides, Masters, friends, loved ones, pets, nature spirits—pick one!

2. Are there helpful as well as destructive pleasures?

Yes. Of course, the approach to any pleasure is the key to its effect on one’s life. If a person is restless, full of desire, and off-center, pleasure can become a focus of abuse. The individual who is simple, childlike, and grateful can harness pleasure like a strong horse to speed the path of correct behavior.

3. How can using pleasure help to create good choices?

The physical body has a yes-no response that is basically a pleasure-pain mechanism. It operates at a very subtle level besides the obvious wahoo responses. When a behavior is nurturing and empowering, the body responds to the idea and then to the performance with an endorphin flush. This cycle is useful in behavior reinforcement.

4. What happens to the Astral Body while experiencing pleasure?

In proportion to the intensity of the experience, the Astral Body appears engorged with a type of red energy, which varies in hue from deep red to delicate pink. This condition is communicated to the physical body through the Solar Plexus Chakra, sending the message to the glands to secrete endorphins into the bloodstream.

5. What creates pleasure for the Astral Body?

We are incomplete creatures, and the Astral Body always feels a sense of yearning for something that will fill in the empty spaces. When it takes into itself some idea or behavior that (permanently or temporarily) satisfies a particular lack, pleasure is the result—namely a sensation of fulfillment.

6. How are we supposed to use pleasure on the path of discipleship?

The logical mind must become perpetually involved in this process. Without the correct attitude, the Astral Body can sometimes go on a bender as it seeks to find the answer to the hollow places in one’s being. Misbehavior is usually someone’s way of seeking for the meaning of life.

7. What is hedonism?

Every one of us must explore this path after the 1st Degree of Initiation. Hedonism is a headlong leap into the arms of stimulation. You could call it living for the sake of the Jack-Off. This attitude even includes those who seek stimulation through religious experiences. The person rushes from one wahoo to another. He or she misses the goal, which is to find and maintain the inner center. Thus such a one always feels empty.

When someone you love is going this way, try to avoid interfering, even though it irks you. You have to honor the processes of others and not meddle. We are all looking for the meaning of life in our adventures, and we all find it in various degrees of meaning and wisdom. Everyone finds the answers they are seeking, and you should just be busy finding your own and not minding other folks' business.

9. Exercise: Golden Moments

Taking any moment from life and extracting the delight inherent within it is one of the valuable attitudes for harnessing pleasure.

•The Pleasure of Breathing

Sitting comfortably, close your eyes and breathe deeply and slowly.

As the fresh air fills your waiting lungs, enjoy the good things entering your aveolae.

As you exhale, feel the satisfaction of releasing stale molecules from your body.

You should feel a coolness and tingling from your upper arms and back all the way to the top of your head.

•The Pleasure of Flame

Fire is a prana conduit.

Through flame, prana flows into a room like water through a spillway.

Watching a candle flame, notice the shooting out of many needle-like energy beams.

Allow the glow of the flame to relax your nervous system and your Solar Plexus Chakra.

Feel the friendliness of the small flame.

•The Pleasure of Drinking

Leisurely sip a cup of water.B

e aware of the texture of the cup on your lip and in your hand.

Hold a small amount of water in your mouth.

Notice how it cools your tongue, the walls of your mouth.

Feel your salivary glands reacting to the presence of water.

Swallow the water and feel it cooling your throat.

As it enters your stomach, you feel more full and relaxed.

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Rollerblading on the Path to Enlightenment

Within the mind is the strength and intuitive capacity to find the elements that you need to succeed in this way. Using these mental approaches puts you in the mode for constructive living. When we live the discipline of the subtle pleasures, we do not need validation from others, we do not need blatant stimulation, nor do we need someone to save us. We are already at a place and time of satisfaction and fascination.

Simplicity is again one of the most important parts of a successful attitude for using pleasure as a means to train the body in good behavior patterns. Without simplicity, there is no time for real pleasure.

Gratitude is also a mode of perception that we need to make this tool a winner. The emotional position of appreciation carries more power and transformational influence than you can suspect.

Sensual awareness of all faculties stimulates a rainbow of reactions in the body and emotions. This practice resurrects the bored, the depressed, and the wilted.

Verbal anticipation revs up the importance of any experience. When we are enthusiastic and express it with the word, the mind is primed for reception to pleasure. The smallest moment is heady with sensuous juices.

This is how we use pleasure in cultivating good behavior in the Astral Body and in the Physical Body.

•Whenever engaged in a nurturing activity, we filter out distractions. We focus as completely as possible on the behavior that brings healing, nourishment, peace, or strength to emotions, character, and physique.

•With all our senses, we appreciate the benefits of the activity. As we act out the behavior, we feel the goodness of what is happening to body and spirit. We feel grateful for the empowerment of this opportunity.

•After the behavior is completed, we revel in our new capacity for strength, well-being, and perception.

Make Your Own Archetypal Mommy

One cannot commit to a nurturing lifestyle without the help of a strong and healthy Primal Mother in the emotional landscape of the Astral Body. If the mother of this incarnation is neglectful, harmful, competitive, or needy, then the disciple must do therapeutic work to repair the damaged archetype and make her a strong and supportive ally. Lucid dreaming techniques are very helpful in this regard, but some people need deeper help. As a starter on this personal quest, let us paint a portrait of an Archetypal Primal Mother who can bring us permission to be healthy and nurturing to ourselves.

In a rose pink cloud, swirled with gold and flecked with rainbows,

you see the exquisitely beautiful face of a young woman.

She gazes at you lovingly.

Her hair is bright, full, thick, healthy, wavy, and long—all the way down to her knees.

Her body is perfectly proportioned and her hands and feet graceful and strong at the same time.

She is nine months pregnant.

She wears a sky blue gown sparkling with stars.

On her lovely head is a golden crown.

On her dress sit hundreds of tiny living embryos.

They also float all around her in her aura.

Thousands of tiny embryos glow with life and potential.

Each of these babies is awaiting culmination of power for success.

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At the end, as we face the Great Angel

And view the cinema of this life

We clearly see the catch.

It doesn’t matter how many ditches we have dug,

or books we have written, or corporations we have conquered.

All that matters is the way we have touched people—

that is, all living beings—

And how we have allowed people to touch us.