ChainsandFreedom
Posts: 222
Joined: 6/20/2007
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Bob, sorry I took so long to post.
thanx for the oppertunity.
for me, my spirtituality through life led me to bdsm and ds. Although they are not dependant on one another, I may not have come to these lifestyles if not for spirtuality.
Let me preface this by saying that at this stage in my life I do not belong to any organized religon. It isnt that
the bible or other scripture isn't factually correct, and it isnt that other peoples abuses in the name of religion
holds me back from my own exploration. Its a simple matter of faith. Religion has commited great evil because of
blind faith, and I'm pretty sure, were the "devil" to want an organization of evil, he'd disguise it as something
positive and exercise his will through peoples faith in untruths.
1) christianity.
when I was eleven or twelve, I spent a year in africa. Many of the people I met were quite christian. At the time, I
wondered how so many people could so fully take part in a religion which had not only origionated from the people who had exploited them for centuries, but continued to benifit from this exploition at present while their own cultures suffered in poverty.
As I rolled the question around my head growing up, I realized something. Love and sacrifice (the basic idea of the Jesus story as I see it) transend history and culture. I realized I don't have to be Christian to utilize the
positive which comes from sacrificng out of love.
Another major factor also happened when I was 13 or so. My grandmother died. My parents, not thinking her illness was quite that terminal, had left me and my brother with family friends when they flew down to see her in the hospital. I recieved a phone call from my father, about 30 minutes before dinner. He called because he needed to talk, as much as he needed to tell me. He asked that I not tell my eight year old brother myself, rather wait and
let him/my mother break it to him more gently. In the 20 or so minutes before dinner, I had my one and only 'true'
conversation with god. I had twenty mintues to greive and then compose myself before a supper that, looking back, my own parents whould have excused me from attending in the first place.
The only way to get through this was to come to the realization that I was willing to swallow greif, to realize that
I was wiling to be literally condemned to hell should it exist, as long as my grandmother went to a better place and
my brother didn't loose his innocene. The willingness to be condemned so that others around me could achieve
something positive, in turn, endowed me with a better moral charicter myself.
So the only thing that made me strong enough to accomplish the task at hand was knowing that I was sacrificing for those I cared about. And you know what? My grandmother was a very religious woman. I think I learned why religion ment so much to her-strength out of love. I know this was the one lesson she would have wanted me to impart from knowing her, and ironically, it wasn't untill she passed that she taught it to me.
So yeah, I think sacrifice for those I love makes me a better person. I think sacrifice is one of the few good
things anyone can do for another which is truly pure in intent. Sacrifice is a good thing with very few negitive
consequences. When I offer up my service, flesh, and pain out of love for another, to me, it means I'm giving them
something very positive that has a minimal of negitive reprocussions. It seperates simple desire from actual love-I
would not sacrifice greatly for someone simply because they are attractive or intellectually interesting...I
sacrifice for those I truly love. This in turn heightens my awareness of how much I love them, as they are worthy of sacrifice.
2) buddhism.
In college, I had the benifit of fullfilling a required-course slot by stumbling upon an amazing teacher. The man
was a practicionar of the Quantum School of Zen. A contributor to local montastaries. A well published philosipher.
He was devote enough that he took it upon himself to learn san-skrit and translate any buddhist scripture he taught
into English himself.
Now I have no interest in being one of the young generation who says 'karma, man...thats beautiful. I'm a buddhist'.
I am not a buddhist because it requires a level of disiciplne I don't have. I'm not a Buddhist because there are
certain sacrifices, such as abandoning attatchment to the family and friends you love as well as abandoning
attatchment to music, that I am unwilling to make.
I can, however, say that reading and learning about Buddhism have changed my life and influenced my BDSM and DS predilictions a great deal. It reinforced my belief that sacrifice and suffering are virtues, but it taught me the
differance between empty and meaningful suffering. It opened my mind to the possibility of not being attatched to
physical things, and suggested to me why this would be a positive thing.
Just as importantly, it showed me that while I may suffer to improve my charicter, helping someone to cause me to
suffer in a healthy way to them might be equally benifical - what is known as 'skillful means' if practiced by a
monk.
It gave me words to describe subspace, when I achieved it...that empty, complete, pleasurable, numb, eye opening, outwardly and inwardly aware feeling. Strange to think it, but I think Buddhism encourage me to seek out the experience of being held in bondage-the act of seeking out a passive state as a way to increase my awareness of my presence in the world.
It taught me that physical sensation, and by extension sexuality, can be about growth as well as hedonism.
One of the things it also did for me was to teach me that just because you're not naturally inclined at something
doesnt mean you should abandon it. Life is about personal growth, not just talent fullfillment. I am a submissive,
in part, because in my real life I can be quite aggressive and leader-like. I have vocal opionions and through
argumentitive debates with those who see things differntly. Growing up I was always the kid others looked to for
direction when it came to which part of the woods to explore or which part of the town to hit up during a weekend ofhedionism. I was the kid that stood up when someone was being picked on by a teacher or a bully, and I was the kid who was willing to occasionally find himself alone or punished as a result. For the first time, I had the benifit of experiencing somebody elses descions instead of reliying upon my own.
Through Buddihism, I have learned to submit to the will of another, and that this can benifit myself greatly. It is
a practice in graciousness, it is a practice in trust, it is a practice of opening up my eyes and letting somebody
show me something new. Buddhism showed me that suffering and working hard at positive charicter traits can indeed bring about these traits in my charicter where there was otherwise an empty void.
I guess the point to my diatribe is that spirituality has helped me grow, and spirituality has helped me grown into
WIIWD as a means to continue to mature in other aspects of my life. Spirituality taught me not to repress urges,
sexual or otherwise, but to cultivate them in a healthy way-to take hedonism and use it as a vehicle toward
responsibility and growth. Spirituality led me to exploration led me to BDSM scenes led me to this website led me to my wife and Madame. In turn, what I rejected most about conventional religion, faith, is a quality I have come to understand through placing ultimate trust with my wife.
< Message edited by ChainsandFreedom -- 9/6/2007 10:18:36 AM >
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RE: Spirituality and BDSM - 
Profile
). So understand that where morality is concerned, I don't believe in an absolute morality. Sure I think it's generally better to tell the truth than not, but I know there are situations where the moral thing to do might be to lie. 
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