International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Volume 38 Issue 1 Article 16

9-1-2019

The Path to Enlightenment of Sacred Married Home Life: Grihasthya Dharma as a Guiding Ideal for the Transpersonal Marriage Therapist

Stuart Sovatsky Private Practice, Richmond, California, USA

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Recommended Citation Sovatsky, S. (2019). The path to enlightenment of sacred married home life: Grihasthya dharma as a guiding ideal for the transpersonal marriage therapist. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 38 (1). http://dx.doi.org/https:// doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.236

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This paper attempts to correct the unwitting reliance of much transpersonal psychology upon Indian texts that were indigenously specific to sannyasins (non- householder, monastics). This includes teachings from advaita vedanta, , and many Buddhist schools on releasement from desire, the diminishing role of the ego, guardedness toward “the mellow-drama” of “worldly” life (as Ram Dass famously cast relational involvements). Some forty years of the unwitting over-application of such teachings to modern non-monastic lives has helped create an artificial split in transpersonal and East-West spirituality teachings involving “engaged/ embodied” and implied “un-engaged/un-embodied” spiritual paths. This article describes the value system and lifelong spiritual developmental path of the married householder (grihasthyin), where healthy ambition and egoic traits such as loyalty and lifelong commitment are emphasized en route to a balanced “ego-dissolution” and “ego-development” within the crucible of lifelong marriage, daily family life, and conscious aging. Thus, “spiritual bypass” issues are highly age-specific. Suggestions for a grihasthya-based marriage therapy are also described, drawing from forty-four years of clinical practice, as well as from the two-thousand-year- old Greco-Judeo-Christian soteriological (spiritually-healing) psychology based in admiration, gratitude, longing, apology, and forgiveness.

Keywords: embodied spirituality, engaged spirituality, marriage therapy, family therapy, Michel Foucault, fertility, sacred sexuality, nondualism, Positive Psychology, forgiveness, admiration

“Where man and woman worship one another mathematics, physics, physiology and other sciences, is the play of the Divine” — Shastras ethics, philosophy, aesthetics, technologies, and psychology, thus confounding the academic category It’s not in some clever metaphor that you toss of “religion” that “Sanatana Dharma” exceeds or, at out to help, it’s whether you will swim out to least, “does not fit into”) followers have believed where the drowning people are and haul them they would attain their highest spiritual maturity via back. — Anonymous the love and responsibilities of lifelong grihasthya dharma (“sacred married household ideal ways of or five thousand years, or two-hundred life”), more so than by specialized spiritual practices generations, the vast majority of Sanatana —years and years of long sessions and FDharma (“The Eternal Way of Salutary Practices,” the practice of various . the indigenous name for “Hinduism” which is a The latter were always considered to be proper Persian coinage, and the umbrella term inclusive of to the second great lifestyle of Sanatana Dharma, all the variations of Indian traditions and empirical- lifelong celibate monasticism (sannyasa, “world- experimental knowledge systems, including its shedders”) of lamas, swamis, arhats, munis, brahma-

TheInternational Path to Enlightenment Journal of Transpersonal of Sacred Marriage Studies, 38(1), 236–250International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 236 https://doi.org/10.24972/ijts.2019.38.1.236 charis,­ yogis and, according to the doctrine Indeed, the “scientific vocabulary and of ashrama, (stages of life), to retiring elders (also its ‘gaze’” may sound and seem unquestionably known as sannyasa) who have completed their persuasive regarding the body, breastfeeding, parental and community responsibilities, emerging “sexological sciences,” the “institution” of marriage between the ages of fifty and seventy-five and and the “finality” of physical death, but from our more so thereafter, unto death, named, maha- Foucauldian perspective, this Scientia Sexualis is , “great knowing of origin-consciousness,” reductive and arbitrary, and we choose to draw from and thus understood as an enlightenment itself. Foucault’s far more subjective “science of profound What is the greatest spiritual maturity of pleasures” he called the world’s Ars Eroticas of India, either grihasthya or sannyasa? It is the cognitive- Japan, Sufic, and ancient Greco-Roman culture. emotional capacity to grasp life as an all-inclusive In the Ars Eroticas of tantra, neidan (Taoist whole—everyone and everything included just yoga) and the ancient fertility cults of the world, it as it is, with all the conflicts, joys, sufferings, is the incomparable power of life-creating fertility fleeting impermanence, truths and half-truths that gives these non-Modern erotic practices their regarding Reality and “reality”—and to operate profundity, whether for any gender-identity LGBTQ in it as an essential part of it all, in humbling awe or even post-menopausal or infertile persons/ that it is (and we are) so much greater than one’s couples, for tantra deals with respect for the idea unenlightened state surmised. And, especially, of fertility (including adoption and “fertility clinic” to know the subjective-knower Who (“Ka”) is fertility) as much as with respect for naturalistic- common to all, that “Who” who is subjective- physically available fertility. Thus, we see that pop, consciousness itself, regardless of moral, ethnic, “neo-tantra” (that pays no attention to fertility) lacks personality, intellectual, or any other differentiating the essential ground to be much more than, as the qualification. Thus, grihasthya soars into the grand great translating yoga scholar Georg Feuerstein put ideal of an all-embracing, harmonious world it, “souped up nookie.” family, as seen in the centermost and wistfully This profundity is known via a meditative- emphatic maxim of Sanatana Dharma, “Vasudhaiva devotional respect for the holiness of everything kutumbakam” (“The world is, indeed, one family”). about fertility, conception, gestation, parenthood, Within numerous spiritual traditions home-creation, the Divine Mother-Father, the worldwide, these claims regarding family are no Great Seed Mystery (urdhvaretas) and a “perineum mere idealized constructs or social institutions, to pineal puberty” within kundalini awakening, no more than breast-milk should be seen the secretion of soma-rasa, amrita, madhu that fundamentally as a mere bio-commodity or “aspect are the “hormones of enlightenment” and not of the ‘role’ of Motherhood”—they are considered mere “semen-retention” that are at the core of the accurate perceptions of the organic continuity and endlessness of tantric pariyanga, Ars Erotica sexo- challengingly inter-relatedness of life on this planet, yogic practices. as genetic, evolutionary, ecological, and political- Unfortunately, Margot Anand, David Deida, historical research corroborates, over and over and other widely read “sacred sex” authors (and most again. Likewise, “ecologically ethical” ways of life translating scholars) have missed the essentiality of proceed from long-observed (sanatana) perceptions fertility in their depictions of tantra, specifically. I of “how to best (dharmically) live.” attribute this blindspot to the immense power of They are reports from the highest state the modern Scientia Sexualis that, too, sequestered of consciousness about what life and existence fertility via contraception and legalized, safe backup look like, beneath the layers of an overbearing abortions in giving the modern world of all gender “otherness,” with its millennial history of modalities what it has called for over fifty years, reverberating wars and wars against wars, whether “sexual liberation.” global, in one’s own family, or within one’s own The awakening from “history-as nightmare” mind-dialogues. that James Joyce wanted Daedalus to find is the

237 International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Sovatsky awakening into the indivisibility of universal familial power) absorbed the blows of British soldiers without love and loyalty, based in the universality of Ka or fighting back, we all got to see the radical nature of subject-ness and in the profound, incarnating this nondual, one-family state of consciousness. powers of life-giving fertility. And, it is the awakening In his Nobel Prize winning book, I and the grihasthya sacred marriage therapist is guiding Thou, Martin Buber called this grihasthya state, others toward. In this awakened reality, we all “the terrible point of loving everyone.” There is no personally find a substrate of mind that is capable other choice but to live as one all-embracing family, of resolving conflict in the poignancy of shared because the alternatives are lies, immature half- existence and collectively live embarrassingly close perceptions, justifications for lesser ways of living, to a world culture of global cooperation and even or worse, mere domination or vengeance. love, as if the child of one family is the child of Likewise, this grand embrace is no all families, and the Mother/Father of one child is quiescent, meditative passivity. Indeed, all one’s that of all children and, likewise, Grandparents and capacities are challenged to make every conceivable Great-grandparents, that is, the entire Great Seed positive difference and improvement in oneself and Mystery of incarnate, earthly life. It is always right the world, up to one’s lattermost sannyasa (world- there in the openness of the moment, Vasudhaiva shedding) years when we each succumb to physical kutumbakam: The world is, indeed, One Family. demise and bodily death. The greater the efficiency

of any means of amelioration, that is, the greater the Everything hangs together, we are all in one congruence or “oneness” of means and goal (“skillful rocky boat or, rather, means”), the more matured one’s enlightened action there is only one boat and we are all in it. would seem to be. The great eighteenth-century theologian Freidrich This is also the inner meaning of the Shleiermacher called our condition “absolute term yoga, where the path (methods) and the dependence within the Whole,” the contemporary goal become the same thing by loving the path Zen Buddhist poet Gary Snyder called our collective and everything about it as an act of devotion, of situation “The One Earth Household,” and the bhakti. That is, one sustains (is devoted to) the visionary thinker Marshall McLuhan called our poignant mood of truing all variances (maya) toward planetary family “The Global Village.” And even this ideal that is also considered the most real of the most dysfunctional family or marriage is in this possibilities. For, all marital and family duress and collective whole, this Great Seed Mystery, struggling dysfunction is only made more poignant by an against all sorts of counter-forces and ideas, trying to ongoing longing for an ideal that slips away, returns, manifest the real dharma, their greatest hope—the and slips away, again and again. happy family—as distant as it might appear to some. Such passion and involvement is what The happy family, with erotically and I will mean by embodied advaita or, more romantically creative spouse-partners, is not precisely, dvaita-advaita, dualism-nondualism, a some distant possibility. It is always only a few historical refinement of the latter to abide obvious words away but then must be sustained via differences such as gender, degrees of maturity, words, deeds, openness of heart, moment after and the fluctuations of longing for the ideal, for moment. The purpose of time in the Great Seed consummate romantic love (as in bhakti and Mystery itself is: to perfect the manifestation of certain tantric dvaitic-advaitic traditions), security, this dharma within individuals (“enlightenment”), well-being, living honorably and evermore labor-specialized societies, and interconnected effectively in the current situation we are in as the culture-state worlds. Thus, the ideal of Vasudhaiva “one situation without a second.” It is to be the kutumbakam is the embodied manifestation of an therapist’s level of devotion to the couples she is enlightened, whole-culture. guiding in grihasthya, as well. When Christ forgave his crucifiers and Indeed, the therapist must often engage Gandhi’s satyagrahi’s (followers of Nondual truth- with the couple like a surgeon who is working to

The Path to Enlightenment of Sacred Marriage International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 238 save the life of an emergency room patient who, Hence we look for the way spiritual teachers of course, does not know the way to save himself, actually live to see the depth of their awakening, not though it is the life of his own body that is being merely in their lectures or books. The groundedness saved. In even more extreme cases, she is like a of their attainment is seen not just in the glow in fireman cajoling people to jump with their partners their eyes, but also in the glow in the eyes of their out of burning buildings of their own horrified closest family members. Do they work with the poor making and into the romantic net of grihasthya, a net and most anguished? Perhaps they are so consumed of the interconnectedness of all life whose human with loving service, they forgot to tell others that threads are romantic love and the urges to nurture they are “spiritual teachers.” and mature beings throughout their whole lifetime. This is the “profound Ars Erotica eros” of In contemporary transpersonal discourse, grihasthya, too—a kind of collective awakening to grihasthya, with its focus on homebuilding, worldly being together, holding everybody together, those security, and child-rearing is more of a “descending,” with homes (grihasthins) supporting the homeless grounding path, as compared with the minimalism and the needy with alms, living our years together, and self-sufficiency of celibate sannyasa. It is a path and, one by one, eventually dying into the invisible. committed to fostering and sustaining relationships, All such experiences show us the actual not reducing them to ideas of mere “attachment,” expanse of life that psychotherapies aspire to help us ill-fated searches for false-security or something become equal to, and a very broad expanse it is— dismissible, like a “mere institution of marriage,” from helping those imprisoned by anger and self- when times are even extremely dif ficult, par ticularly criticism, or fame and money, to those imprisoned when there are children involved. in abusive relationships, or in the loneliness of For, children are the embodiment of a psychotic delusions, or those behind steel bars future that adults must hold as a sacred trust, often as murderers, tragically bonded to their victim’s whether they “feel like it” or not. Thus, staying families—in a deeply emotionally-embodied way. married “for the sake of the children” can be an I have written elsewhere about the profound incredibly powerful launching pad into renewed psychophysical stages of maturation that further marital passion, creativity, and happiness. ground this awakening in a body that can mature Often, in cases of anguished marriages, it is so far beyond Western developmental theories the last barrier to divorce: such is a sign of the power that only the terminology of kundalini yoga (and of grihasthya, parenthood taps modes of passion a scattering of less comprehensive, cross-cultural that exceed all manner of personal gratification. cognate terms such as Bushman thxiasi num, the Such passion can be deftly fanned by a nondual shamanic “dance,” Buddhist uju kaya, Tibetan tumo, marriage therapist to solve numerous problems Quaker and hesychast “quaking,” the charismatic and to re-ignite a happy marriage—it is that deep. “Holy Ghost” shaking and spontaneous Judaic It—parenthood—is the source of incarnation itself, davvening) has described it (see Sovatsky, 1998, grounded in the natural mystery of gender-attraction, 1999, 2005, 2014). nesting or home-building instincts, and the innocent In this essay, I focus on the maturation of passage of time unto aging and bodily death. certain emotional capacities known in Western This “descending” path thus broadens into advaitic traditions as “soteriological” sentiments the all-consuming endeavor of family creation and (sentiments that “bring us into Ultimate Wholeness”). the proliferation of supportive (sustainable) industries These sentiments—guilt-apology, outrage- and technologies (the dvaita-advaitist, Heidegger’s forgiveness, desperation-longing-missing, fear-reverence- “care,” the “worlding” of a world), while (lifelong or awe, unworthiness-appreciation-gratitude, doubt-faith- elder) sannyasa is more unfolding of very much of hope, fickleness-devotion-attentiveness, infatuation- the world of descent. Thus, the preliminary stage love-praise—range in potency from the most of elder sannyasa is called vanaprasthya, forest- mundane levels to the most matured and saintly. dwelling life. Thus, their power can become so towering that

239 International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Sovatsky the course of world history, or family histories, can I mean. Living there, “through thick and thin, till swerve radically toward the ideal when we resort death do us part,” is the primordial challenge. to them, instead of allowing unmitigated anger and Indeed, in this land there is only one final immaturities to reign, or what the Western dvaita- shadow—that we will die even though we might advaitist Freidrich Nietzsche predicted would be the wish to stay here with all the others, forever, just the time-arresting disease of the modern era, unforgiving way it is, making our way, one step at a time. Within vengefulness or unapologetic resentment. this existential shadow of human mortality, all the In the failure to awaken deep soteriological lesser “dark-side” emotions—jealousy, angers, fear, powers within family members, a quagmire begins to arrogance, and so on—shrivel; we just don’t have form that we call “clinical histories of ‘dysfunctional enough time to dawdle in those shoals once we families’” (or “world political history”). But, in grasp the poignancy of our condition. Suddenly, so doing, we leave real time (anicca, the always- we become inspired and soar upon soteriological new impermanence of Buddhist enlightenment) powers. and its washing-away ephemerality wherein love, For example, you, reader, are more forgiveness, compassion, apology, and so forth are beautiful than words can convey, and so sincere the only living emotional realities, forever truing and passionate about your dreams that I stand and re-truing our lives from even the most horrid of amazed. Your accomplishments blow me away, strayings into shadowy realms, a shadowiness that as the integrity of your struggles, however under- is a sign of their pseudo-existence, compared to the acknowledged you might be. Come, let’s put these light of dharma. books down and live the ultimate that is here-now, For, what makes relational dysfunctions so beyond books and teachings and therapies…come tragic is not merely the agony involved but how to my home, or invite me into yours, and let us unnecessary such situations can be. Yet, beginning create ten-thousand wonderful days together—such with Freud’s interest in “the repressed” and Jung’s in words point in the living direction I now have in “the shadow,” generations of therapists of all stripes mind, a “direction” that exceeds the medium of the have been overly-encouraged to measure and work printed page and is not afraid to go forth, as the with the shadows thrown onto the interior walls of Western dvaitic-advaitic traditions of existentialism the proverbial Platonic cave, and devoting far less exhort. attention to the equally challenging problematic of For, how would we engage with the daily life of leading clients into the light to feel its constantly our marital and family relationships if we were fleeting beauty and warmth. And, however well inspired by the conviction that our enlightenment intended and helpful, transpersonal admonitions was in the balance? How would family members against “flight to the light” have set up other barriers and those in love with one another appear to to the soteriological powers within us. one another if we were deeply moved by the Drawing from forty-four years of therapeutic “fact” that these relationships were our greatest experience, I wish to convey how most any pathways to enlightenment? What quotidian marital problem or crisis can be resolved from the matters of domestic life, preparing dinner, nondual state using these sentiments—delivering washing clothes, going to sleep—would not on the soteriological claim regarding their near- suddenly become holy endeavors of grihasthya, omnipotence, the Tantric claim in my epigram evoking moods of gratitude and awe at the regarding the power of sustained romantic adoration, beauty of daily life? and on the grihasthya dharmic claim that a life-long marriage can deliver enlightenment. I wish to show Soon enough we will be as dead as the a way out of the dank cave into the land where love corpse that provoked Buddha’s enlightenment. What songs and poems are and always will be sung and are we waiting for? And, further, what if therapists, written, the enlightened realm of grihasthya. If you so inspired, could mobilize “untapped” powers of have ever been “in love,” you know exactly what apology, forgiveness, renewed love and problem-

The Path to Enlightenment of Sacred Marriage International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 240 solving capable of resolving the strife of daily life And, should this teenaged couple marry and and even of the extreme strife of the vast majority of have children who will stumble in their romantic divorce-bound marriages? relationships, they might pass on the story of their What if the claimed unconditional powers parents’ (the child’s grandparents) marital healing— of nondual consciousness were to bring alive the instead of some story of divorce and pessimism— freshness of each moment so vividly that new that will serve as a model of what “can be done.” beginnings in a love relationship or marriage Such a strengthened lineage history becomes a seemed always at hand for both parties? Perhaps our conduit of embodied advaita, no longer a mere “differences” really aren’t that great. Such humility is philosophy or meditative glimpse into the subtleties surely at the core of advaita. Why shouldn’t this so- of consciousness. forgiving mood be capable of resolving problem after Earlier in my career, I often found myself problem, together, with very little lost to anyone? supporting “freeing” individuals from “dysfunctional” relationships. I would help them to “individuate” and In stretching ourselves thin for one another, we “recover” and felt rather helpful, as did my clients, became vast. (Sovatsky, 2005, p. 84) who thanked me, at the time. In the last twenty- For, in every Now is the opportunity to live the five years, however, after thousands of nondual soteriological life and to discover its stream of soteriological sessions, I can no longer say, with any emotions to be a path into ever-deeper powers that certainty, which marriages are “beyond repair.” keep us close to the heart of the matter. The power of people once in love to do When a couple I saw as clients for ten the “impossible” has come to amaze me. Such months, who had been married for fourteen years wonderment can break through statistical norms and bitterly divorced for two, remarried each other of spiraling divorce rates and into the nondual after some twenty nondual soteriological sessions, power, beyond the cynicism bred from such group- they and their children and extended families and mentality norms. Group norms of wholeness could friends were all confronted with the power of such thus come to replace the latter, making the path of regenerative emotions. Based in (overly) dualistic grihasthya easier for future couples within such a consciousness, no one could believe this remarriage culture of enlightenment. could (or, maybe, “should”) happen. But it did. It is from this power that a broken culture When a two-generation, incest-laden family such as ours can rebuild itself, one relationship, met for a single two-hour session, the overseeing one marriage, one family at a time. In this way, the court could not believe that a despairingly apologetic five-thousand-year pathway of grihasthya can be incestuous stepfather and long-victimized stepdaughter made real, just as meditation and yoga (methods and their sexually acting-out young child could all belonging more to the sannyasa path) have become meet and end up planning a family reunification. rather normal endeavors for some twenty-two But this is what happened. Why shouldn’t relentless million Americans, practices that seemed odd to the contrition be able to rectify any horror? Who would vast majority, only twenty-five years ago. really prefer a life of bitter animosity to one of having The living powers of love, loyalty, and conquered the “unconquerable?” familial coherence can prevail over the deteriorating When a man’s third marriage was on the effects that too often defeat us. brink of failing due to infidelity, and after thirty The “ascending powers” modeled by Wilber’s grueling sessions of apology, trust-building, and “spiritual heroes” can raise the emotional norms of incremental forgiveness, the marriage deepened and “descenders” beyond the instinctive “get into your was saved, on-looking family members feared the feelings” clinical theories which easily lead to cycles worst. It is four years later, and I recently saw their of venting and breakdown, when not complemented teenaged daughter and her boyfriend for couples with matured, soteriological sentiments. Advaita counseling to steady their way, "like what happened consciousness can give birth to ideal possibilities no for my parents…” matter how horrific the situation.

241 International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Sovatsky For example, few know that the Camp one another and getting help, when necessary, from David accord was triggered by an off-hours sharing elders who have been successful themselves and of baby pictures by fathers and grandfathers, Sadat, inspire such couples in myriad ways that modern Begin, and Carter, who suddenly awoke to the marriage therapists, with their past-oriented and preciousness of life and forged the famous accord desire-centric theories, may know very little about. that ended a war. For some, a profound sexuality opens involving a pineal orgasm of soma-madhu-amrita Lineage as Embodied Advaitism: [correlating with oxytocin, endorphin, serotonin, The Unbroken Flow of Life melatonin, dopamine, “matured” testosterone he theme of this chapter is Ars Erotically embodied and estrogen that, altogether become natural and Tadvaita. In the grihasthya dharma, such embodied endogenous entheogenic and psychedelic-like nondualism lives as the unbroken contemporary hormones that give a somatic basis to “higher lineage of five intact generations of family life. A states of consciousness,” that is well-described in locale comprised of a vast majority of such lineages texts such as Thirumular’s Pariyanga stanzas, that could be termed a “culture of enlightenment,” where awakens deep bodily energies whose maturational the deepest powers of the soteriological sentiments powers can deliver on one of the oldest claims sustain and celebrate each family, where divorce is of the physical yogas, shamanica medhra, “going an extreme rarity (even in modern India, the rate beyond genital puberty” and into what amount to a is a mere two to five percent while the US rate is series of “post-genital” puberties, each adding new ten to over twenty times that), and whole, unbroken dimensions of bliss, maturity, and bonding to the families, the overwhelming norm. awakening couple. One must ponder such a culture without Thus, the soteriological powers are a second. Nearly everyone believes he or she is further enhanced with erotic ecstasies and the already attaining his or her highest swa-dharma awakening of spontaneous (delight (personal spiritual destiny) within his or her marriage, gestures) centermost, the khecari wherein family, and community. Such mutual commitment, the pineal gland undergoes a puberty of melanin- such ubiquitous social support! Only a few persons endorphin engendered equanimity, inner light, are otherwise drawn to the lifelong sannyasa path, and rejuvenation. As I wrote in poetic form of the an unlikely possibility in modern Western culture nondual kavi tradition, (interestingly, “renouncing the world” is a legally Like shiny brass, turquoise and garnet acceptable and honorable basis for divorce in bejeweled Tibetan icon couples modern India). in upright thrilled embrace, In such cultures, the powers of the soterio- Dvaita-Advaita blossomed in those icons as logical sentiments are considered great enough to secret truths sustain the vast majority of marriages, through thick mystico-erotica, original religion, and thin, for fifty years. Family members believe fully matured, upward, inward, all glands alive, themselves to be part of something unbroken and tumescent, engorged eternal, the lineage of incarnations, and whose totally intent the one upon the other sacred duty is to care for each generation. perfectly in love The idea of breaking a marriage to “start designed by the Cosmos anew” would seem as contradictory as drilling holes each quantum crystal species plant animal into one’s boat to make it go faster. Indeed, the ideal male and female is that each believes him or herself to be married to to capture the full attention, someone worthy of reverence and believes he or she the one of the other, the other of the one, is receiving the same from his spouse. Thus, creative, in perfect symmetry. maturing marriage in the sacred family household (Sovatsky, 2005, p. 30) is a life-long dedication to bringing the best out in

The Path to Enlightenment of Sacred Marriage International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 242 Such eroticism brings desire to the level of devotion, this same skewed preparation to listen for client based in the fundamental attraction between the suffering, plainly. From the model I am proposing, genders, and goes on to foster the embodiment of the fundamental therapist mood should be one of the nondual state felt as constantly “being in love.” “clinical admiration” for a suffering set within a Likewise, Tantric and many goddess-based noble struggle of longing for ideal states. For, an (Shakti) traditions of Sanatana Dharma assert that essential part of all suffering, frustrations, and angers mind or consciousness is absolutely vibratory in its is that we wish things could be going better than essence. This inward duality, reflected in the advaitic they are. It is in this conflict of dvaitistic (dualistic) “emptiness/fullness” two-sided concept has an longing, beyond mere defeatism, that suffering outward form of the grihasthya marriage. Meditative becomes noble and deserves to be named as such. states emerge, not via long internally-focused sitting It deserves the poignant admiration of the therapist. retreats only, but naturalistically in the harmonious, Empathy from a therapist is not enough; mutually committed relationship between spouses. it is in fact too narrow to grasp the nobility of The inner energies of mind come into a struggle that the struggler has surely also lost harmony, as in the opening epigram, “Where man touch with. Admiration from the outside, from the and woman worship (adore, love, revere) each other therapist, can awaken the struggler to his or her is the play of the divine.” own nobility. Empathy can easily miss that which is Likewise, when there is disharmony between noble by focusing on duress with no context such as spouses, a kind of hellishness emerges. The tautology grihasthya to grant it dignity. One is left with “mere” of the couple’s problem, “since we are not each anger, devoid of the disappointed hopefulness that is other’s complement, we are now each other’s the meaning of the anger. In the cathartic embrace of antagonist” implies a similarly circular solution, “once “negative feelings,” therapists often lose touch with we are happy together again, our biggest problem their, often, ironically hopeful inner-dimension. will be over.” The empathic, accepting stance sought to Indeed, at that time, deep synergistic powers help clients bear with duress, to “be with the pain,” of the dual energies of mind begin to generate to locate it in the body and observe it, and so on. wonderfully creative solutions to the problems of daily But “the pain” itself has more meaning in it than life that will always require our attention. When it this monochromatic term can convey. Suffering seems like a couple cannot agree on “anything,” there does not end merely via “accepting” it. It mitigates is usually one thing they will agree upon, they would via elevating it to something noble. Staying married, enjoy being as happy as they can ever remember or holding families together, are noble acts; they are imagine themselves being. I am often embarrassed grihasthya. to charge embittered couples for such a simplistic And when the sufferings of infidelity, incest, intervention. But this koan has dislodged too many drug addiction, money woes, bitter arguing, and so couples from their hostilities, so I keep using it. forth are resituated in the hopes for health, love, Instead of numerous clinical maps of ways and familial happiness, the soteriological process of to sustain a “till death do us part” love, models of rebuilding the family becomes the path to individual psychopathology abound, based in the consequences maturation and enlightenment. It is often up to the of multi-generational broken families and short- outsiders, elder family members or therapists, to term, serial premarital relationships. Of course, this convince those who suffer in these ways that they would be the case in a broken culture. Thus, the are admirable, not just woefully suffering...and language of these models is replete with terms such then to lead them, little by little, into the dharma, as abandonment and separation anxiety, abusive, the deep cosmic forces of love, maturation, and betraying and traumatic relationships, boundary reconciliation. Clinical admiration re-emphasizes issues, disturbed relational constancy, and so forth. what was “lost” in any separation, abandonment, Indeed, the entire therapeutic regime of betrayal, abuse—connection—but more so, the “empathy” and “compassion” (for suffering) reveals ideal connectedness that can last a lifetime....

243 International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Sovatsky ...and, beyond mere admiration, this stance According to the Sanatana Dharma doctrine sees such connectedness already existing in even of ashramas, each generation is at the peak of the darkest moments of breakdown: dharmic kama (matured desire) to marry and (a) murderers, as I have seen in corrections begin bearing children around twenty-five years of rehabilitation, where murders awaken in a age, with the hope of living to one hundred years shocking moment of confessant enlightenment of age, the dharmic “full allotment” of a human wherein profound guilt and innocent love life, thus becoming great-great-grandparents commingle strangely, (with their own great-great-grandparents, great- (b) in acute psychotic breaks, as I have seen grandparents, grandparents and parents, all still in twenty-five years of spiritual emergence alive or commemorated as ancestors along with “psychosis or transcendence” work, where sheer countless other preceding ancestors) with children longing for personal connection has reversed who have been married some fifty years and are psychotic symptoms, and by then seventy-five year-old great-grandparents (c) in conflicted marriages involving multiple who have children who have been married some affairs, violence, or just the hopelessness of twenty-five years who are now fifty-year old “irreconcilable” differences (Sovatsky, 2001). grandparents, who will then have children who Perhaps the depth of a nondual therapist’s are just becoming twenty-five year old parents of awakening can be measured by her rates of gestating or toddling babies, thus revealing for the success with ever-more serious issues. centenarian the grand vista and birth after birth For, we are not talking mere New Age dogma after birth after birth, deeply embodied sense of here. We are talking about the primordial powers of potentially endless incarnations while she naturally the universe that should always conjure images of ages evermore toward her own (bodily) death, greater effectiveness that can be measured in ways itself understood via the term, maha-samadhi, that convince even the most skeptical observer. moment of “highest-knowledge,” a knowledge The vista of the inter-generational grihasthya that hovers around advaita, “non-duality,” for, at ideal is worth depicting, for, in this regard Western this high point of recognition, all aspects of life: culture is a broken culture, and therapists are longings, woes, joys, things, ideas, death, past, the repair-persons whose clients, theories (and, present, future are all felt to exist in one embraced typically, their own lives) are so submerged in this wholeness without a second against which it could brokenness that such ideals are barely imaginable. be compared, thus emerges wisdom without I have constructed the rather long run-on any struggle: everything is exactly the way that sentence in the next paragraph (the reading of which it is and that is that, but includes the possibility is a meditation in itself) as an attempt to grasp a one that there could be more enlightenment and hundred year, unbroken, five generations lineage in wisdom than one now experiences since there is one continuous breathless swoop. For a lifetime is in Sanatana Dharma a continuity for any human, a singularity of human duration without a second, from human being to saint to demi-god and avatar as becomes more apparent within the advaitic or world savior, and thus the humbling meaning awakening, whenever it might occur, but certainly to of The Infinite shudders through this apparent some degree merely through the constant passage of “summit” of knowing, suggesting even greater embodied time. And, like the term, “enlightenment,” states and requiring the paradoxical term (as the from the perspective of advaita, the next paragraph most-renowned advaitist, Adi Shankara came to stands as an ideal that is always trying to come into realize late in his short life) dvaita-advaita, “the evermore complete realization. Why? Because its longings of dualism for a “Greater-Beyond,” plus continuity is the nature of earthly life, an ongoing the non-longing acceptance of non-dualism’s ecological and largely self-sustaining whole, always enlightenment claim: “The ultimate is Here and seeking to rectify the (adharmic) brokenness that Now.” now abounds.

The Path to Enlightenment of Sacred Marriage International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 244 In a broken culture, this ideal is more than and the term, “pain of grieving” misses that this a latent possibility. It is the “eternal” (sanatana) “pain” is a kind of anguished love. It will be in possibility that is always trying to make headway the grieving-one’s ability to project this love and to come into existence. As Rta, it is the cosmic into the present-future that lives the redemptive order of things, more real and deeper than any power wherein new life and love grows out of dysfunction, historical betrayal, or violation. It is past loss. In so doing, the nondual awakening to the longed-for order that is the standard by which the unbrokenness of Love can emerge, such as “dysfunction” and such is measured. the legend of Buddha’s awakening conveys: upon And it lives, not as some harsh and impossible seeing a funeral, He awakens to loving everyone. standard, but as the alluringly romantic ideal of love songs and love stories and the wondrous hope Some Clinical Pointers within any dashed or even “destroyed” hope. It is 1. Ask client couples to tell you the greatest possible so deep, that a near-universal belief in Sanatana outcome they can imagine, far beyond merely Dharma is a range of conjectures on reincarnation solving some communication, infidelity, or wherein the force of this ideal carries on after the constant-fighting problem. Inspiration comes bodily death of any being, engendering lifetimes from aiming high, the higher the aim, the greater upon lifetimes to ever-more mature each being the motivation, for such indicates the greatest toward this ultimate and full embodiment of the congruence with grihasthya dharma. Example: inherent Rta and Dharma of human existence. “We would like to live together happily, see our children grow up, travel together, and grow old Soteriological Sentiments together.” motions such as anger, hopelessness, grief, 2. Tell couples we are in a therapeutic process that Eenvy, and jealously reveal an auspicious will affect not only their marriage but their ambiguity within the context of dvaita-advaita. children’s marriages, and even their children’s The soteriological, “redemptive” approach owes children’s marriages. “Imagine the difference its therapeutic potency to this ambiguity wherein between sitting together at your children’s these “shadow emotions” reveal a flickering “light- weddings, or sitting on opposite sides of the side.” This missed light-side offers the clinician and church sending either a message that marriage her client couples a pathway from mere empathic, can endure, or one that, no, we were not able “being with” verbal sharing of such negative affects to find a way through our problems, as you take into the greater hopes for love, partnership, and your vows, my children, stepping onto this same futuristic optimism. path.” But, more subtly, dvaita-advaita claims that 3. I have the couple look at each other as I repeat we have been trying to “be with” a set of falsely these highest of goals and add that they are monochromatic emotions when trying to be each with a partner who is willing to do all they with “anger” or “grief.” If we were to look more can to make these goals happen. I ask them to carefully, we would see that all “anger” involves a believe in the other taking on this challenge as disappointment that events did not go the way we they believe in themselves taking it on. I say I hoped. Buried in anger is a dashed-hope, waiting have 44 years of experience of many hundreds to be revived by the skillful soteriological therapist. of couples rooting for them who have been And, because there is always a next moment successful solving similar problems. I ask them of conscious opportunity (perhaps even after bodily to tell one another they will be whole-hearted death), “hopelessness” is always an overstatement. and can be counted on to do his or her best. We do not know what might happen next and 4. I have couples tell me for at least five to ten therein lies hopefulness. minutes, what they have ever admired or loved Likewise, “grief” contains the love that has or received from their spouse, an approach been lost through death or some other ending, that is central to positive psychology. After

245 International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Sovatsky they speak, I ask for the most mundane details, of shared creative time together and ask each to for advaita finds everything to be a pathway. begin to let in the apologies, to let in the courage What food did you have at that special dinner? and quavering optimism of hope that is being How does she look when asleep? Can you created. I ask each to begin forgiving each other. describe how she looks when she is being the 8. I ask them each to notice that their admirations great Mom you admire? I go into greater and and apologies and forgiveness are causing certain greater detail, so that the wholeness is brought blushes in the recipient, blushes of nourishment out of each summarized admiration. It is far and tearing-up of revived hope. I say, now that easier to solve substantive problems in a loving you see you can help cause the good feelings state of mind, so I typically only proceed to in one another, you must live knowing that you issues of lying, infidelity, abusive language, and also deprive one another of such nourishment so forth, after love and respect have become when you miss opportunities to be so-giving. I vivid. I repeatedly ask the couple to look at one ask them to pledge to give more and upon another at poignant moments to nourish their receiving, to express their appreciation and visual-emotional experience of one another. I to watch it sink in to the other, as revealed in have them compliment each other on the blushes, smiles, and tearful brimming. Thus, beauties they see. the nondual resonance between them deepens 5. I then say, no wonder you are suffering from not and stabilizes, no matter what upsets may arise. being able to share such appreciation for one 9. Surprisingly, it might seem to some therapists, another, but instead to be fighting all the time. couples can easily be invited to give a tiny kiss to 6. The circularity of love that traces the nonduality one another at such moments of reconciliation, of resonance is that when my expression of even during the first half-hour of the first session. love to another makes her happy, that instantly Perhaps it can only be a kiss delivered from the makes me happy and that will make her happy tip of one’s forefinger to the cheek. Indeed, such and that will make me happy….ad infinitum. tiny kisses are, poetically, even more powerful Describing this circularity leads to something we that a lip-to-cheek kiss. Often, the other partner might call “the One Happiness Reverberating,” can be successfully asked to reciprocate such a that is, a “resonance of happiness.” But, instead of kiss, leaving them both glowing brightly. “Take a being between client and therapist, it is between look at each other, now!” I will say and, as they love partners or husband and wife. When deftly do, they [at least momentarily] “fall in love with supported, this resonance of nondual rapport one another” again. I will then say, “Let’s tap the is the crux of grihasthya, the sacred center resilience of Unconditional Love, you deserve where “marriage” is this resonance brought it, everyone deserves this.” into a daily life of homebuilding and family 10. Week after week, we celebrate the moments of creation. When it has reverberated throughout love as they occur in the mundane life of meals the body for a few decades, and allowed to shared, bills paid, sleeping and waking together, circulate through the spine, the eroticism I call and make headway, back and forth, on issues “post-genital puberty” can emerge and become of substance abuse, destructive [even multiple] the basis for pariyanga, the little-known tantra of affairs, money problems, lying and abusive lovemaking involving ajna chakra, the yogic treatment, and so forth. center of nondual knowing, and khecari 11. Thus, they awaken the ominous and profound mudra, the puberty of pineal and tongue, which Ars Erotica power of Unconditional Love, with is perhaps the culmination of all Kundalini yoga, its entheogenic hormones now physically, as well (see Sovatsky, 2014). erotically shareable in what I call the Uroboric 7. Sometimes, I will immediately ask each spouse Oral Cathedral. to apologize in a general way for any way he or 12. No mere “oral sex,” this profound uroboric she might have caused the other any pain or loss sexual lovemaking matures ever-deeper entheo-

The Path to Enlightenment of Sacred Marriage International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 246 genic chemistries within each other’s body that due to colonialism and modern pressures. Thus, are then imbibed: a holy communion of the Ars all Indian spiritual teachers for millenniums Erotica Body of Unconditional Love that is at assumed its audience to be living according to the hidden core of pariyanga (erotic Yoga of the its four 25-year stages, a fact that Westerners— “pineal puberty”). who do not observe celibacy till age 25, then 13. Its maturational power is so great that endless marry and raise a family for 25 years, then retire devotion and lila (erotic play) replace the male as married couples for another 25 years, and “point of no return ejaculation-urge”—not with then take up celibate single lives till death—who mere “retention”—with an endless erotic sharing draw from Indian traditions such as advaita, and interaction, multiple orgasms for the female tantra, or bhakti teachings must ponder to avoid and an end to reliance on artificial contraceptives problems of “piece-meal” cultural borrowing. and the near obsolescence of unintended In “The Sixties,” when Western attention pregnancies and contraceptive-failure “back-up” became strongly interested in the psychologies abortions. of Santana Dharma, a “counter-culture” rebellion 14. All of the 13 points are in numerous tantric against institutions such as marriage and even texts concerning khecari mudra, the “tongue- monogamy prevailed among “baby-boomers” mindspace puberty” that is the maturational whose nascent East-West psychology was summit of kundalini, all-chakra and fully- seeking explanations to the apparent entheogenic embodied enlightenment. effects of psychedelic drugs. Very little attention was paid to grihasthya, in comparison with Notes the more mystical Indian texts that seemed to pertain to psychedelic experiences. 1. The original Huffpost article, Ram Dass Has a Son, Unbeknownst to them, the texts they posted November 3, 2010, as quoted in https:// have been consulting were meant for www.academia.edu/4112183/Ram_Dass_Has_a_ celibate sannyasin monastics engaged in full- Son shows the evolution of Ram Dass's teachings time meditative practices either for their whole on "family love" in contrast with "spiritual love," as lifetime (the sannaysin path or marga.) or from age seen in the updated version of the Huffpost article, 75, for those who married and created families posted November 17, 2011: "When the [positive at age 25. Unwittingly, millions of Westerners paternity] DNA results came back, Ram Dass was have been trying to implement teachings on dismayed. He'd made a point of avoiding family desire, the place of egoic ambition, meditation ties . . . believing they might hold him back from and yoga practice into their daily lives that were attaining spiritual freedom. [He taught that family meant for monastic, full-time practitioners. life was a kind of "melodrama," a testing ground for Likewise, pseudo-problems regarding one's "spiritual growth" of Love Everyone, Serve “embodied” (and an implied “un- embodied” Everyone] . . . [After meeting his adult son and spirituality that was construed as such via young grandson in 2010] Ram Dass developed a the misapplication of specifically monastic deeper understanding of the love parents feel for texts) spirituality emerged, which The Sacred their children and began to see [for the first time in Mirror series (Prendergast, Fenner, & Krystal, his adult life?] that personal and soul love are not 2003) is trying to rectify. My chapter highlights mutually exclusive but can coexist in nourishing the path (second ashrama) of grihasthya, a ways." term that has been unknown in the East-West 2. The ashrama schema of four stages of life is psychology field, for the above-stated reasons. discussed in great detail later in this article. It The foundation of this non-celibate, non-monastic has been fundamental to the Indian culture “lay-community” home, family and career of Santana Dharma for thousands of years— creating lifestyle is procreation of and caring for though it has broken down in the last century the continuity of incarnations, as families.

247 International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Sovatsky 3. Thus, a rocky and teetering chariot-ride is a central fluctuations that deepen our character as we metaphor for cosmic existence, as in the Ratya patiently cultivate more of the ideals of love, Yatra “Chariot Festival of Lord of the Universe, forgiveness, faith, and so forth, from the less- Jagganatha” whereby comes the English term, mature moods of infatuation, outrage, doubt, an so juggernaut, meaning a wild and unpredictably forth, over and over, again and again, throughout unfolding event. a lifetime. 4. Of course, we must consider an emotional 8. For more on “the growing cottage industry” of calculus wherein amiable—or even hostile— scholarship on Nietzsche and advaita vedanta, divorce is seen as the favored response to an see David R. Loy’s review of Nietzsche and intractably destructive marriage, for the sake : A Study in Nihilism and Ironic of all persons involved. Thus, unfolds the path Affinities by Robert G. Morrison at http://ccbs. of restraining orders, police-supervised child ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/loy.htm. custody exchanges, repeated court-hearings, 9. Did we really believe that psychological theories criminal charges, and so forth. For, the absence of Freud, Jung, and others, created within the of grihasthya provokes moods of desperation, as era of two world wars, including a devastating if one has been robbed of the most valuable of holocaust, were unbiased by such horrors? Of hopes. Likewise, the unfoldment of wonderful course, these psychologists would be concerned second marriages and blended families can also with “repressed shadow issues,” given how emerge, for the organic pull grihasthya keeps Nazism arose from its “repressed state” after reasserting itself, even in the one-night stand, Versailles. no doubt. 10. Grihasthya thus embodies both the liberal ideals 5. Not belonging to any one family, the sannyasin of an expansive love with the conservative ideals often serves as mediator or village teacher- of group coherence and “family values,” with advisor or healer (vaidika), thus he belongs to broad implications for contemporary political all families. debates concerning abortion, gay marriage, 6. Soteriology is an ancient Greek term with gender politics, and the so-called “clash of functional equivalence to the modern term, civilizations,” where spiritual and secular “psychotherapy.” The crux of its etymology is societal values have fomented armed conflict. the middle syllable, “te,” as in tumescence or 11. Personal communication with Milton Friedman swelling and refers to two ways to respond (Hubert Humphrey’s speechwriter) in 1978, to suffering, by gaining in strength, as in at the Association for Humanistic Psychology muscle development via weightlifting, or the Annual Meeting, Atlantic City, NJ. bruised swelling of injury. Via a response of 12. My conversations with Indian psychologists compassionate understanding and forgiveness reveal a less-than-hidden sizeable group of to the blows of abuse and suffering, one grows unhappily married Indian couples who remain (“swells”) in character, thus the term was used married their whole lifetime. After having done by the Christian Church to indicate belief marriage counseling sessions in India with some in Christ’s power to forgive as redemptive. ten couples, I conclude that this unswerving Redemption, the return to ultimate wholeness, loyalty (along with the other soteriological I suggest, it a cognate for the a priori wholeness sentiments discussed in this chapter) is an of nondual consciousness, and radical forms under-tapped resource for the rejuvenation of of instantaneous compassionate understanding troubled but intact Indian marriages. and forgiveness are two of its soteriological or 13. See Sovatsky, 2005, for an account of Meher therapeutic powers. Baba, an Indian saint who initiated the first 7. Please infer the continuity of each set of hyphenated spiritual emergence work ever, reaching out terms as trying to convey the in vivo fluctuations to chronically psychotic persons whom he toward the more ideal or matured emotions, called, masts, “God-intoxicated.”

The Path to Enlightenment of Sacred Marriage International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 248 14. See Chapter VII, verse 11 of the Bhagavad-gita utter infuriation you now feel and recall those where Krishna deified this dharmic kama, “I other memories. Forget about marriage, the am the passion [kama] that is in harmony with ability to recall a positive experience while in [Sanatana] Dharma.” extreme duress could someday save your life 15. This force of reincarnation is considered so great during some crisis, or the life of your child…. that the life-stories of nearly all the saints of You can go back to the infuriating mood in all world spiritual traditions involve a poignant the next moment, if you wish.” I watch for the departure from family life, as in the case of Buddha slightest facial sign that I have stirred interest and and as depicted in Kazantzakis’s Last Temptation will say, “That querulous look on your face, the of Christ, or life-long sannyasa. Likewise, Indian slight frown of doubt you have now makes me traditional marriage vows often extend for seven wonder that you do know what I am referring incarnations into the future. to…you don’t need to say anything . . .[turning to 16. Dissociative, defensive fantasy takes place in the other partner]…see, your partner is grappling the imagined “elsewhere” of some “other time/ with the hope in the rubble…you know how hard place” where someone undergoing torture or that is?? Very, very hard…I would like you to try abuse in the present can project themselves and to admire your partner for letting in some vague find solace. Thus, soteriological approaches have memory of love for you…especially now, while always been susceptible to “flights to the light” you are in the horrible crisis. I would say this where a chronic stance of pollyannic hopefulness is heroic….if your children could see you both covers over fearfulness and repressive traumatic struggling right now, they would be inspired and affect. moved . . . Yes, we will work on all the issues in Yet, without this realm of “the next moment,” this crisis, but right now is the crucial opening of we can lose access to the flickering hopefulness hearts that will give us that chance.” and its power to dissolve and forgive and Other times, I ask the aggrieved partner mature at what we might call a “soul-level” that to describe the anguish he or she is in, but to the saints of all times have modeled. We can see the resultant anguish in the face of his or know the Christian nondual compassion toward her partner, as he or she listens. Such are the abuse that minimizes one’s own suffering, “they conventional techniques of empathy given and [the abusive others] know not what they do,” a received by one partner, then the other. compassion that is available regarding our own abusive moments. References At this time in the history of psychotherapy, however, we have little guidance for clinicians Bhagavad-Gita. (2002). (S. Mitchell, Trans.). New to help their clients attain saintly levels of York, NY: Harmony. functioning. See my discussion of “spiritual Buber, M. (1958). I and thou. (R. Smith, Trans.). surpass” issues in “Clinical Admiration…” in New York, NY: Scribner. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 2004(2) that Prendergast, J. J., Fenner, P., & Krystal, S. (Eds.). explored the problematic of spiritual attainment (2003). The sacred mirror: Nondual wisdom and itself, in contrast to “spiritual bypass” issues that psychotherapy. St. Paul, MN: Paragon. deal with residual immaturities, per se. Seligman, M. E. (2002). Authentic happiness: Using 17. For couples in hostile crises where even the the new positive psychology to realize your slightest request to recall anything positive is potential for lasting fulfillment. New York, NY: greeting with scorn, I might say, “I believe that Free Press. deeper down, you wish that you were able to at Sovatsky, S. (1998). Words from the soul: Time, least describe some previous time when things East/West spirituality and psychotherapeutic were very good between the two of you….I narrative. Albany, NY: State University of New believe that you wish you could pause from the York Press.

249 International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Sovatsky Sovatsky, S. (1999). Eros, consciousness and Dalai Lama.] He is author of Words From the Soul, Kundalini. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions. Advanced Spiritual Intimacy, Passions of Innocence, Sovatsky, S. (2001). Psychopathology and DSM-IV Your Perfect Lips and articles on kundalini and religious issues. Review of Existential Psychiatry complete maturation, clinical admiration, suicidal and Psychology, 25(1), 93–103. linguistics, Divine Mothering, infant awe and the Sovatsky, S. (2002). Spirituality and psychotherapy: history of Euro-Hinduism in America. A kundalini The matter of separation anxiety and chantmaster, he has 4-CDs and now leads chanting beyond. International Journal of Transpersonal retreats in the Ocala Florida National Forest, Amrit Studies, 20(1), 79–84. https://doi.org/10.24972/ Yoga Institute. ijts.2001.20.1.79 Sovatsky, S. (2004). Clinical forms of love inspired About the Journal by Meher Baba’s mast work and the awe of infinite consciousness. Journal of Transpersonal The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Psychology, 36(2), 134–149. is a is a peer-reviewed academic journal in print Sovatsky, S. (2005). Your perfect lips: A spiritual- since 1981. It is sponsored by the California erotic memoir. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse. Institute of Integral Studies, published by Sovatsky, S. (2014). Advanced spiritual intimacy. Floraglades Foundation, and serves as the official Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions. publication of the International Transpersonal Thirumoolar, S. (1993). Thirumandiram: A classic of Association. The journal is available online at www. yoga and tantra, Vol 1. (B. Natarajan, trans.) M. transpersonalstudies.org, and in print through www. Govindan (Ed.). Montreal, Canada: Kriya Yoga. lulu.com (search for IJTS).

For all Stuart Sovatsky’s papers, see: https://princeton. academia.edu/StuartSovatsky and How Tantra Saves the World at http://www.sutrajournal.com/

About the Author

Stuart Sovatsky, PhD is degreed in Religion from Princeton University and Psychology from CIIS [where he received its 40-year Most Outstanding Alumni Award] and was co-president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology for 20 years. He was first to bring yoga, meditation, and chanting into a youth correctional facility in 1976 and to the homeless-mentally ill in 1978, directed the first "spiritual emergence" service, the Kundalini Clinic [founded, 1976 by Lee Sannella, MD] where he specialized in transforming divorce-bound couples. He convened the first Prison-Meditation conference in 2002 and was secretly flown to post-Balkan War Slovenia to over the dying president and chair of Unaligned Nations of the World, J. Drnovsec and convened a 40-country World Spirituality Conference in India in 2008, keynoted by Robert Thurman, BKS Iyengar, S.S. Ravi Shankar and Lama Santem [representing The

The Path to Enlightenment of Sacred Marriage International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 25015