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FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III
FINDING GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: The Journey Expanded
GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness
GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe
SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with wonderful "aliens" with an Afterword by Mark Jordan
GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE: A Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods
THE FOURTH QUILL, a novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams
CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with Steve Berman and some 30 other writers
THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell
IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey
Books on Gay Spirituality:
White Crane Gay Spirituality Series
Articles and Excerpts:
Review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness
Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"
The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate
A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality
Why gay people should NOT Marry
The Scriptural Basis for Same Sex Marriage
Gay Consciousness
Advice to Future Gay Historians
Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness
What Jesus said about Gay Rights
Myths, Salvation and the Great Secret with Rich Grzesiak
Common Experiences Unique to Gay Men
Is there a "uniquely gay perspective"?
Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality
What the Bible Says about Homosexuality
Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men
Waves of Gay Liberation Activity
Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?
The Reincarnation of Edward Carpenter
Queer men, myths and Reincarnation
Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium
Easton Mountain Retreat Center
Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism
The Mysticism of Andrew Harvey
Enlightenment
The myth of the Bodhisattva AvalokitesvaraJoseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara
The Nature of Suffering and The Four Quills
You're Not A Wave
Joseph Campbell Talks about Aging
Toby's Experience of Zen
What is Enlightenment?
What is reincarnation?
What happens at Death?
How many lifetimes in an ego?
Emptiness & Religious Ideas
Experiencing experiencing experiencing
Going into the Light
Meditations for a Funeral
Meditation Practice
The way to get to heaven
Buddha's father was right
What Anatman means
Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal
The Danda Nata & goddess Kalika
A Funny Story: The Rug Salesmen of Istanbul
Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva
John Boswell was Immanuel Kant
Cutting edge realization
The Myth of the Wanderer
Change: Source of Suffering & of Bliss
World Navel
What the Vows Really Mean
Manifesting from the Subtle Realms
The Three-layer Cake & the Multiverse
The est Training and Personal Intention
Effective Dreaming in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven
Drawing a Long Straw: Ketamine at the Mann Ranch
Alan Watts & Multiple Solipsism
How I Learned Chakra Meditation
Je ne Regrette Rien
Gay Spirituality
The Joseph Campbell Connection
The Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)
Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy
Gay Relationship Rings: Symbols to Help Cement Our Commitment
The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.The Sinfulness of Homosexuality
Proposal for a study of gay nondualism
Marian Doctrines: Immaculate Conception & Assumption
Monastic or Chaste Homosexuality
The Monastic Schedule: a whimsy
Is It Time to Grow Up? Confronting the Aging Process
Gay Consciousness changing the world by Shokti LoveStar
Alexander Renault interviews Toby Johnson
Mystical Vision
"The Evolution of Gay Identity"
"St. John of the Cross & the Dark Night of the Soul."
Religious Articulations of the Secret
The Moulting of the Holy Ghost
Revolution Through Consciousness Change: GSV 2019
Tonglen in the Radisson Varanasi
The Hero's Journey
The Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016
The Gay Hero Journey (shortened)
Seeing Differently
Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil
Allah Hu: "God is present here"
Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery"Facing the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom
What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?
A Different Take on Leathersex
Seeing Pornography Differently
The Vision
The mystical experience at the Servites' Castle in Riverside
A Most Remarkable Synchronicity in Riverside
The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis
The Techniques Of The World Saviors
Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby
Part 2: The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Part 3: Jesus and the Resurrection
Part 4: A Course in Miracles
How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated
Joseph Campbell, the Hero's Journey, and the modern Gay Hero-- a five part presentation on YouTube
In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke
Intersections with the movie When We Rise
Toby at the California Institute
Toby Marotta & Sons of Harvard
Toby Marotta's Politics of Homosexuality
People
Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.
Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement
About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first man to really "come out"
About Michael Talbot, gay mystic
The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement of Spirituality"
Book Reviews
Be Done on Earth by Howard E. Cook
Pay Me What I'm Worth by Souldancer
The Way Out by Christopher L Nutter
The Gay Disciple by John Henson
Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry
Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth A. Burr
Extinguishing the Light by B. Alan Bourgeois
Over Coffee: A conversation For Gay Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson
Dark Knowledge by Kenneth Low
Janet Planet by Eleanor Lerman
The Kairos by Paul E. Hartman
Wrestling with Jesus by D.K.Maylor
Kali Rising by Rudolph Ballentine
The Missing Myth by Gilles Herrada
The Secret of the Second Coming by Howard E. Cook
The Scar Letters: A Novel by Richard Alther
The Future is Queer by Labonte & Schimel
Missing Mary by Charlene Spretnak
Gay Spirituality 101 by Joe Perez
Cut Hand: A Nineteeth Century Love Story on the American Frontier by Mark Wildyr
Radiomen by Eleanor Lerman
Nights at Rizzoli by Felice Picano
The Key to Unlocking the Closet Door by Chelsea Griffo
The Door of the Heart by Diana Finfrock Farrar
Occam’s Razor by David Duncan
Grace and Demion by Mel White
Gay Men and The New Way Forward by Raymond L. Rigoglioso
The Dimensional Stucture of Consciousness by Samuel Avery
The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love by Perry Brass
Love Together: Longtime Male Couples on Healthy Intimacy and Communication by Tim Clausen
War Between Materialism and Spiritual by Jean-Michel Bitar
The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal
Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal
The Invitation to Love by Darren Pierre
Brain, Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration by Daniel A Helminiak
A Walk with Four Spiritual Guides by Andrew Harvey
Can Christians Be Saved? by Stephenson & Rhodes
The Lost Secrets of the Ancient Mystery Schools by Stephenson & Rhodes
Keys to Spiritual Being: Energy Meditation and Synchronization Exercises by Adrian Ravarour
In Walt We Trust by John Marsh
Solomon's Tantric Song by Rollan McCleary
A Special Illumination by Rollan McCleary
Aelred's Sin by Lawrence Scott
Fruit Basket by Payam Ghassemlou
Internal Landscapes by John Ollom
Princes & Pumpkins by David Hatfield Sparks
Yes by Brad Boney
Blood of the Goddess by William Schindler
Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom by Jeffrey Kripal
Evolving Dharma by Jay Michaelson
Jesus in Salome's Lot by Brett W. Gillette
The Man Who Loved Birds by Fenton Johnson
The Vatican Murders by Lucien Gregoire
"Sex Camp" by Brian McNaught
Out & About with Brewer & Berg
Episode One: Searching for a New Mythology
The Soul Beneath the Skin by David Nimmons
Out on Holy Ground by Donald Boisvert
The Revotutionary Psychology of Gay-Centeredness by Mitch Walker
Out There by Perry Brass
The Crucifixion of Hyacinth by Geoff Puterbaugh
The Silence of Sodom by Mark D Jordan
It's Never About What It's About by Krandall Kraus and Paul Borja
ReCreations, edited by Catherine Lake
Gospel: A Novel by WIlton Barnhard
Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey by Fenton Johnson
Dating the Greek Gods by Brad Gooch
Telling Truths in Church by Mark D. Jordan
The Substance of God by Perry Brass
The Tomcat Chronicles by Jack Nichols
10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives by Joe Kort
Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same Sex Love by Will Roscoe
The Third Appearance by Walter Starcke
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann
Surviving and Thriving After a Life-Threatening Diagnosis by Bev Hall
Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods by Ronald Long
An Interview with Ron Long
Queering Creole Spiritual Traditons by Randy Conner & David Sparks
An Interview with Randy Conner
Pain, Sex and Time by Gerald Heard
Sex and the Sacred by Daniel Helminiak
Blessing Same-Sex Unions by Mark Jordan
Rising Up by Joe Perez
Soulfully Gay by Joe Perez
That Undeniable Longing by Mark Tedesco
Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman
Wisdom for the Soul by Larry Chang
MM4M a DVD by Bruce Grether
Double Cross by David Ranan
The Transcended Christian by Daniel Helminiak
Jesus in Love by Kittredge Cherry
In the Eye of the Storm by Gene Robinson
The Starry Dynamo by Sven Davisson
Life in Paradox by Fr Paul Murray
Spirituality for Our Global Community by Daniel Helminiak
Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society by Robert A. Minor
Coming Out: Irish Gay Experiences by Glen O'Brien
Queering Christ by Robert Goss
Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage
The Flesh of the Word by Richard A Rosato
Catland by David Garrett Izzo
Tantra for Gay Men by Bruce Anderson
Yoga & the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darren Main
Simple Grace by Malcolm Boyd
Seventy Times Seven by Salvatore Sapienza
What Does "Queer" Mean Anyway? by Chris Bartlett
Critique of Patriarchal Reasoning by Arthur Evans
Gift of the Soul by Dale Colclasure & David Jensen
Legend of the Raibow Warriors by Steven McFadden
The Liar's Prayer by Gregory Flood
Lovely are the Messengers by Daniel Plasman
The Human Core of Spirituality by Daniel Helminiak
3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Religion and the Human Sciences by Daniel Helminiak
Only the Good Parts by Daniel Curzon
Four Short Reviews of Books with a Message
Life Interrupted by Michael Parise
Confessions of a Murdered Pope by Lucien Gregoire
The Stargazer's Embassy by Eleanor Lerman
Conscious Living, Conscious Aging by Ron Pevny
Footprints Through the Desert by Joshua Kauffman
True Religion by J.L. Weinberg
The Mediterranean Universe by John Newmeyer
Everything is God by Jay Michaelson
Reflection by Dennis Merritt
Everywhere Home by Fenton Johnson
Hard Lesson by James Gaston
God vs Gay? by Jay Michaelson
The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path by Jay Michaelson
Roxie & Fred by Richard Alther
Not the Son He Expected by Tim Clausen
The 9 Realities of Stardust by Bruce P. Grether
The Afterlife Revolution by Anne & Whitley Strieber
AIDS Shaman: Queer Spirit Awakening by Shokti Lovestar
Facing the Truth of Your Life by Merle Yost
The Super Natural by Whitley Strieber & Jeffrey J Kripal
Secret Body by Jeffrey J Kripal
In Hitler's House by Jonathan Lane
Walking on Glory by Edward Swift
The Paradox of Porn by Don Shewey
Is Heaven for Real? by Lucien Gregoire
In Search of Lost Lives by Michael Goddart
Queer Magic by Tomas Prower
God in Your Body by Jay Michaelson
Science Whispering Spirit by Gary Preuss
Friends of Dorothy by Dee Michel
New by Whitley Strieber
Developing Supersensible Perception by Shelli Renee Joye
Sage Sapien by Johnson Chong
Tarot of the Future by Arthur Rosengarten
Brothers Across Time by Brad Boney
Impresario of Castro Street by Marc Huestis
Deathless by Andrew Ramer
The Pagan Heart of the West, Vol 1 by Randy P. Conner
Practical Tantra by William Schindler
The Flip by Jeffrey J. Kripal
A New World by Whitley Strieber
Bernhard & LightWing by Damien Rowse
The Mountains of Paris by David Oates
Trust Truth by Trudie Barreras
How to be an Excellent Human Being by Bill Meacham
The Deviant's War by Eric Cervini
What Is the Grass by Mark Doty
Sex with God by Suzanne DeWitt Hall
The Sum of All the Pieces by Paul Bradford
All the Time in the World by J. Lee Graham
Jonas and the Mountain by Janis Harper
Two Hearts Dancing by Eli Andrew Ramer
Where's My Pizza? by Larry Armstead II
A New Now by Michael Goddart
Heavenly Homos, Etc by Jan Haen
The Erotic Contemplative by Michael Bernard Kelly
Our Time by Chuck Forester
Queer God de Amor by Miguel H. Diaz
I Came Here Seeking a Person by William Glenn
Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood by John D'Emilio
Ever After by Andrew Ramer
Scissors, Paper, Rock by Fenton Johnson
Toby Johnson's Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:
Gay Perspective
Things Our [Homo]sexuality
Tells Us about the
Nature of God and
the Universe
Gay Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated by Matthew Whitfield. Click here
Gay Spirituality
Gay Identity and
the Transformation of
Human Consciousness
Gay Spirituality is now available as an audiobook, beautifully narrated by John Sipple. Click here
Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling
edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman
Secret Matter
Lammy Award Winner for Gay Science Fiction
updated
Getting Life in Perspective
A Fantastical Romance
Getting Life in Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated by Alex Beckham. Click here
The Fourth Quill
originally published as PLAGUE
Two Spirits: A Story of Life with the Navajo
with Walter L. Williams
Two Spirits is available as an audiobook narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click here
Finding Your Own True Myth: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell
The Myth of the Great Secret III
In Search of God in the Sexual Underworld
Finding God In The Sexual Underworld: The Journey Expanded
2020 Revised Version
The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.
This was the second edition of this book.
Toby Johnson's titles are available in other ebook formats from Smashwords.
A major challenge LGBTQ people face is finding “meaning” in their life.
A major challenge LGBTQ people face is finding “meaning” in their life. Why are we alive? Why are we gay or lesbian or trans or whatever? What are we supposed to with our lives? What good are we?
These are issues of psychological health, but also of what is called SPIRITUALITY.
Religion has been the traditional provider of symbols and metaphors for human meaning. God gives people’s lives meaning, and serving God is what you are supposed to do.
Religion, in general, is failing to do this because many of the symbols and stories don’t make sense anymore—partly because of science and partly because of the maturation/civilization of humanity. Most of us are more moral and more virtuous than God today.
But LGBTQ people have had a whole other reason for doubting and rejecting conventional religion. It rejected us first.
Thus we have to make our own spiritual meaning for our lives. We have to create—i.e., mythologize—our own God.
Some gay/queer people never manage to do this. Perhaps they were victims of various forms of sexual/psychological/religious abuse. Perhaps they suffer from what we now call Post Traumatic Shock. Perhaps they “just don’t have time for this.” In the cliché, maybe they’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
Still the issue of meaning remains pertinent for psychological health and well-being.
As we address the various issues of importance to maturing and aging well as a gay/queer person, we should include the so-called “Spiritual” dimensions.
What does religion really say about homosexuality
Bible: What we mostly hear is about a single line from the most ancient part of the Bible that says men should not have sex with other men the way they have sex with women. That rule is stated twice, and referred to later on in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. It is not entirely clear what it means. It was probably a broad objection to male homosexual anal intercourse, partly for hygienic reasons (in a desert culture), partly for purposes of maintaining tribal ritual purity (among the goyim cultures around them which allowed ritual homosexuality), and partly for well-being, but misguided, morality. It also meant not sodomizing prisoners of war and vanquished soldiers—that’s rape not sex. Ironically, it means something we would agree with today for reasons of “political correctness” of the best sort: You shouldn’t treat a sexual partner the way straight men of that day treated women. Today you shouldn’t treat women the way those men did—and maybe still do. The commandment is to treat equals as equals.
Judeo-Christianity: The big popular religion in the Western world teaches that sex is for procreation and no other form of sex is allowed—for anybody—except heterosexual intercourse that could result in conception. There’s been some loosening up to include expression of love between husband and wife. But still there’s no spirituality of sex. But within Christianity there are so many sects and some of them and some of the spin-offs (like Unitarianism) have very progressive and accepting and sex-positive ideas about gay love. There are gay-identified Christian churches (like MCC). Modern mainstream Protestant churches, like the Episcopal/Anglican and some Methodist and Church of Christ that are positively welcoming to gay people.
Other Religions: We have all become more diverse and aware of the larger world. So the other Great Traditions are not so strange. Most of the orthodox and visible religions teach that heterosexuality is normative: Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism. But they also have stories of homosexual characters in their history and/or gay gods and androgynous deities. Hindu gods all come in both male and female forms and in the Tantric traditions of both Hinduism and Buddhism, violating the rules is a spiritual practice in itself and sexuality is mythologized as an experience of divine energy.
The Gay & Lesbian Review November-December 2018 has an article by Tomás Prower titled Between the Greeks and Stonewall which highlights such religio-cultural tales and characters as Richard the Lionhearted; Queen Christina of Sweden; Rumi and Shams in Sufism; Ruth and Naomi and Jonathan and David in the Hebrew Scriptures; the Chinese Han Dynasty emperor Ai know for the story of the “cut sleeve”; Chin in Mayan myth; Zuni Two-spirit people like We ’wha; and Erinle and Ogún in Yoruba/Voudun myth.
Arthur Evans and the Gay Counterculture: I’m a writer and do literary editing and book design. It happens that I’m currently working with White Crane Books to bring out a new edition of the book by gay founding activist Arthur Evans called Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture. It’s written in the jargon and angst of the 1970s, but is a foundational text in gay consciousness. It reports on the presence of homosexuals and gender-nonconforming people throughout the world, but mostly in pagan—and heretical—European history.
The History of Religions: History shows that many ancient peoples and non-Western cultures have revered homosexuals as spirit guides and magicians. We don’t learn about shamanism or Hopi/Zuni/Navajo two spirit teachers.
Comparative Religions: Just knowing that other traditions (and discreetly within our own) include various kinds of gay consciousness frees us from— and disabuses us of—the rigid and orthodox anti-homosexuality of modern day popular Christianity and uninformed secularized Christianity which just results in a naïve Black and White view of the world that is quite “unreligious” but usually anti-gay as though that were the one commandment that matters. (And for many straight people, it is convenient that the worst sin of all is one they aren’t even tempted to commit; all they have to do is blame certain other people in order to assure they are not guilty of what they don’t have any inclination to do anyway.)
For me personally, learning of the comparative religions model from the mythology scholar Joseph Campbell whom I happened to discover in my early adulthood when I was dealing with coming out gay and “coming out of religious life” was a godsend.
Gay Spirituality
I am making this presentation partly because I am author of a book called Gay Spirituality: Gay Identity and the Transformation of Human Consciousness.
I was a Catholic seminarian out of high school. Through that monastic experience I got to California and San Francisco in the late 1960s and, having read Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, had seen beyond simple Catholicism and so had left the Order to move to San Francisco to study Comparative Religion and to be a gay man—and a hippie! As a grad student I took a seminar at a retreat center out in the country from Campbell; I befriended him and corresponded with him over a ten-year period till he retired and moved to Hawaii and I left San Francisco and moved back to Texas. And I got a job at the retreat center and so met many of the luminaries of the West Coast Jungian psychological/spiritual scene.
Back in Texas in the 1980s, I was a gay therapist in San Antonio, and then with my partner/husband now of 35 years, moved to Austin to run the gay/lesbian community bookstore in 1988. I was writing and had had several books published during that time, and was asked to take on the job of editor/publisher of White Crane Journal, a ’zine of gay men’s spirituality created by ex-priest Robert Barzan in S.F.
In that role I was invited to do a couple of books for Alyson Books when it was owned by the Advocate. They are Gay Spirituality and Gay Perspective: Things our [homo]sexuality tells us about the nature of God and the Universe.
By “Gay Spirituality” I mean a kind of point of view on religion and culture and humanity that LGBTQ experience tends to foster. It’s not a religion of itself; it’s not exactly pro-religion or anti-religion. It’s an understanding from outside and over and above of what religion is for and what it really is.
And what that is is a system of stories and tales and fanciful adventures and myths about how to live a good life and how to understand one’s place in the big picture. They are not about reality or metaphysical entities, they are about the nature of consciousness. They are neither true nor false, right or wrong. But believing them changes how people see the world and live their lives, so the criteria for a religion is whether believing in it makes you a better, more sensitive, compassionate, loving, cooperative, helpful member of humanity.
I observe that the Comparative Religions model popularized by Joseph Campbell and now sort of routinely acknowledged on TV and in pop culture champions the notion that there’s truth and value in all the religions and that they are historical phenomena with good and bad aspects. But there is a deeper—maybe secret or semi-secret—truth behind them and which they point to. (My first book was called The Myth of the Great Secret.) Modern day humanity has achieved the global perspective of seeing the religions from over and above. One of the ways of articulating this is the internet profile lingo for religious affiliation: “Spiritual, not religious.”
I also observe that that perspective of viewing religion—and indeed all of life—from outside and over and above is the talent gay/queer people almost necessarily learn growing up. We become outsiders. And we know things other people don’t know.
So there is an interesting parallel here of the “Gay Perspective” and the Comparative Religions/“Spiritual, not religious” Perspective. We’re at the cutting edge of the evolution of consciousness.
This spiritual development—from believing in religion with child-like credulity to questioning the details to seeing through religion but incorporating the moral and ethical teachings to seeing a greater reality—is described with more stages and more details in James Fowler’s model of the Stages of Faith. I have printed out the Wikipedia article to include in the handouts.
There is another theme in LGBTQ consciousness—that is even more specifically [homo]sexual—that is also hinted at in Fowler’s stages and in the long-standing historic traditions of esoteric mysticism.
Fowler’s mature stage is Stage 6 – "Universalizing" faith, or what some might call "enlightenment". The individual would treat any person with compassion as he or she views people as from a universal community, and should be treated with universal principles of love and justice.
In the mystical traditions this is called Oneness with God or realization of the Cosmic Christ or the Dharmakaya of the Buddha or Insight into I AM, moksha, bodhi, satori, Samadhi, Unity consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, Gaia the planetary being.
This is the insight that on some fundamental level we human beings are all interconnected with each other, all part of the One Mind.
And this is true without being magical or supernatural at all. Humankind is one. If you move your perspective to anyplace else in the universe, we all turn out to be so small that our individuality vanishes. That’s the higher perspective from which we all waves in the sea—and we’re not waves, we’re water!
“Love your neighbor as yourself” was how Jesus said this. And while on the surface that means be as kind to others as you would want them to be kind to you—in quality and quantity: Love others as much as yourself. But it also mean, mystically, Love your neighbor as yourself because your neighbor IS your self; the self that is in your neighbor is the same Self that is in you. We are all One. See yourself in the neighbor.
In just the same way that heterosexuality witnesses to the complementarity of opposites, this realization of oneness with another is what homosexuality witnesses to.
Heterosexual attraction across the duality of male and female demonstrates how duality is resolved by joining opposites to form a new life. Heterosexual attraction demonstrates how God loves the world in the way they are seen as opposites and forever alien to one another but loved by one another.
Homosexual attraction demonstrates how God—a deeper, more mystical God—loves the world as itself. God sees the world as “His” own reflection. We love one another as sames.
This, I think, is how we can understand the mystical role—the spiritual meaning—of homosexuality to be this insight into Oneness. At the deepest foundation of universal consciousness there is only “homosexual” attraction because everybody is attracted to themselves, to sames, because there is only One Being.
This is a gay mystical vision, a myth we create out of the mythological consciousness of humanity. It’s true because you choose to think of it.
What you do to the least of these, my brethren (and sistren), that you do to me. In mystical Christianity, the being in every other person you meet IS Jesus and they experience that to them you are Jesus, and so you are.
This is religious/spiritual insight that transcends all religious differences. And it certainly transcends the history of religion and sects and churches and denominations and all those wars, Crusades and Inquisitions.
But this isn’t just a Christian insight; it’s behind virtually all the traditions.
There is a particularly appealing way this story is told in Mahayana Buddhism that, in closing, I would like to share. This is about my favorite God.
The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Early Buddhism was a monastic reform within the wide spectrum of religions in India usually lumped together under the term Hinduism. Buddhism dismissed all the various gods as imaginary and the elaborate yogic and self-abnegating/self-torturing practices as unnecessary, and urged monks—almost all male—to live simply in community and without greed, anger or desire. Thus they would avoid suffering and stop accumulating karma and after a few lifetimes achieve nirvana—which meant not being reincarnated anymore.
As the popularity of Buddhism spread, it became more of a popular religion. Instead of escape from reincarnation by monastic simplicity, the popular religion called the Mahayana taught that compassion for others, loving kindness, joy in the joy of others and equanimity was the key to fulfilling karmic destiny and living a good life free of suffering. Early monastic Buddhism was called Hinayana, “the little ferryboat” because there was only room for the monks to get across the river of samsara to nirvana. The role of the laity was to give alms to the monks to accumulate good karma to get to be reincarnated in the next life as a monk. Mahayana is “the big ferryboat” cause there’s room for everybody and you don’t have to wait to be reincarnated as a male and a monk. To illustrate and dramatize this reform, the sages taught the story of Avalokiteshvara. The mouthful of a name means “The Lord who looks down in Pity.” But it also means “The Lord who is seen Within.”
A bodhisattva was somebody who was on the verge of entering nirvana. In the next lifetime—or maybe just their next meditation, they were going to pop out of samsara and suffering and stop incarnating and become absorbed into the Bliss of Buddha who has seen that everything is an illusion and there’s no Self and no suffering.
So the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara was this lovely androgynous young man who’d been through many lifetimes as a monk and was just about to go into nirvana. He was sitting in a final meditation. He is usually shown bare-chested, sitting on a wall or by a stream with one leg cocked in a relaxed half-lotus, wearing ladies’ jewelry. As he was entering his final meditation, he heard a groan go up all around him. He came out of his trance to ask “What is this? Why a groan when I am about to achieve my goal of lifetime upon lifetime.” And nature answers in a single voice, “Life is a vale of suffering and it’s hard for all of us. You, Oh Avalokiteshvara, are so beautiful and kind and loving and lovable. Our love for you has given us a reason to go on. Now you are about to enter nirvana and leave us. We are happy for you that you are achieving your goal of lifetime upon lifetime, but we are sad to see you go. And so it is for ourselves that we groan.”
“Well, then I won’t go,” the young saint declared. “I vow to stay in the rounds of incarnation until all sentient beings have achieved nirvana.
“Indeed, since it is better than one suffer than all, I vow to take upon myself the suffering of all future reincarnations of all sentient beings.”
The merit of his selfless vow paid everybody else’s karmic debt and everybody else went into nirvana, leaving Avalokiteshvara alone to live out all their lifetimes for them.
Hence he is the Only Being. We are all reflexes of the Bodhisattva. The reason for compassion is that that’s you incarnated in the other person.
This is just a story, of course. It’s a very nice story about how we are all one being. Avalokiteshvara saves the world—like Jesus—but in a more spiritual way that being crucified as a final blood sacrifice to appease an angry God. In a culture that believes in reincarnation, his taking on everybody’s reincarnation is clearly saving the world.
You don’t have believe in reincarnation to understand that this story is about the One Mind and the unity of consciousness.
I think it has nice gay overtones. The bare-chested boy whom everybody loves for his kindness and sensitivity and who impetuously gives up nirvana out of generosity sounds like so many earnest young gay men.
And his saving act is to overcome the dualism of nirvana and samsara, of male and female, loving himself in everybody.
In Chinese mythology, the androgynous boy was perceived to be a young maiden, and in China and Japan—and the American garden industry—she is called Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. Kwan Yin is usually shown standing, often with a water pitcher from which she pours mercy. (Catholic missionaries, by the way, appropriated her into their religion as the Blessed Mother Mary.)
I learned of Avalokiteshvara from Joseph Campbell. I loved how he told the story. Campbell said there are Three Wonders of the Bodhisattva. The first wonder is that he is both male AND female equally, transcending gender. The second wonder is that he sees that there is no difference between samsara and nirvana, between the world and heaven. This, our lives right now, IS nirvana. This is It. And the third wonder is that the first two wonders are the same.
Practice
I don’t think this understanding of religion and spirituality necessarily change how you practice or don’t practice religion. Though it probably does free one from compulsion and guilt about religious obligations that were imposed in childhood when you were too young to understand. This is probably especially true around sexuality.
A higher perspective on religion and sexuality allows for spiritualizing sexual consciousness. In mythological traditions all over the world— specifically, Wicca, Tantra, and Taoism— sexual pleasure was understood as an experience of divinity: God’s pleasure in creation. Experiencing your own pleasure as God’s pleasure in you spiritualizes and gives meaning to our interest and pursuit of sex. In the myth I just told, it’s Avalokiteshvara in you who is enjoying the bodily pleasure as compassion and joy in the joy of the others and receiving the pleasure as reward for his love of incarnation in flesh. This is It.
In sexual arousal, as you are approaching orgasm, think “Here comes God.” And as you are experiencing orgasm, think “May all beings be happy.” That’s the mantra of Avalokiteshvara. Let your pleasure be the good intention to save the world.
All the religious traditions have some form of meditation or silent, inner prayer. That’s a good way to process this insight. Meditation on the nature of God and of Self is a basic spiritual practice that’s good for body and soul. And it transcends belief altogether.
From Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell and a whole raft of “New Age” writers and therapists, I learned the idea of “mythologizing” your own life, i.e., using the myths and metaphors of religion to explain or connect the real patterns of your own life.
Everybody’s life can be understood in some ways as a Hero’s Journey—with helpers and guides and ordeals and crises to endure and overcome and lessons to learn and then to teach.
My most recent book is titled Finding Your Own True Myth. We are creating our own very personal experience of “God” and the meaning of the universe by how we think. So let’s think our homosexuality into our meaning.
Self-Assessment
Figuring out where you are in the stages of spiritual development is a little vague. It’s not like blood pressure or cholesterol. It’s not even like assessing your skills at golf. There’s really nobody to compare yourself with because you can’t be inside anybody else’s head to know what they are experiencing or whether it’s better or worse.
But if your experience of religion is fraught with guilt or anger, then perhaps you’d be happier if you change how you thought about these issues.
If you’re feeling worthless or like your life has been wasted—those are spiritual questions—then you’d be happier if you searched for a way to give meaning to your life.
Fowler’s Stages of Faith give a scale to assess psychological maturation.
But there isn’t a scale to measure your meditation or wisdom or insight.
I’m being intentionally playful here, but let me end by saying that maybe the way to assess yourself “spiritually” is to question what you think is meant by: Compassion, Loving kindness; Joy in the joy of others; and Equanimity.
If you’re not sure, keep thinking. Here’s a self-assessment that is also the meditative practice that brings about what it is trying to assess.
James Fowler’s Stages of Faith
Wikipedia entry
He is best known for his book Stages of Faith, published in 1981, in which he sought to develop the idea of a developmental process in "human faith". [2]
These stages of faith development were along the lines of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development and Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development.[3]
Description of the stages
No. Fowler Age Piaget
6 Universalizing 45+? Formal-operational
5 Conjunctive 35+ years?
4 Individual-Reflective 21+ years?
3 Synthetic-Conventional 12+ years
2 Mythic-Literal 7–12 years Concrete operational
1 Intuitive-Projective 2–7 years Pre-operational
0 Undifferentiated Faith 0–2 years Sensoric-motorical
• Stage 0 – "Primal or Undifferentiated" faith (birth to 2 years), is characterized by an early learning of the safety of their environment (i.e. warm, safe and secure vs. hurt, neglect and abuse). If consistent nurture is experienced, one will develop a sense of trust and safety about the universe and the divine. Conversely, negative experiences will cause one to develop distrust with the universe and the divine. Transition to the next stage begins with integration of thought and language which facilitates the use of symbols in speech and play.
• Stage 1 – "Intuitive-Projective" faith (ages of three to seven), is characterized by the psyche's unprotected exposure to the Unconscious, and marked by a relative fluidity of thought patterns.[4] Religion is learned mainly through experiences, stories, images, and the people that one comes in contact with.
• Stage 2 – "Mythic-Literal" faith (mostly in school children), stage two persons have a strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are almost always anthropomorphic. During this time metaphors and symbolic language are often misunderstood and are taken literally.
• Stage 3 – "Synthetic-Conventional" faith (arising in adolescence; aged 12 to adulthood) characterized by conformity to authority and the religious development of a personal identity. Any conflicts with one's beliefs are ignored at this stage due to the fear of threat from inconsistencies.
• Stage 4 – "Individuative-Reflective" faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties) a stage of angst and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for his or her beliefs and feelings. As one is able to reflect on one's own beliefs, there is an openness to a new complexity of faith, but this also increases the awareness of conflicts in one's belief.
• Stage 5 – "Conjunctive" faith (mid-life crisis) acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems. The individual resolves conflicts from previous stages by a complex understanding of a multidimensional, interdependent "truth" that cannot be explained by any particular statement.
• Stage 6 – "Universalizing" faith, or what some might call "enlightenment". The individual would treat any person with compassion as he or she views people as from a universal community, and should be treated with universal principles of love and justice.
