The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

“As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift.”

The Way of the Superior Man” by David Deida is a book that offers guidance on improving and managing various aspects of men’s lives, and it aims to help you achieve freedom, success, and joy in relationships. The book emphasizes the existence of masculine and feminine traits in individuals, and Deida primarily focuses on helping people of the “masculine” sexual essence. He promotes and encourages individuals to take control, particularly in interactions with their more feminine partners, and to live just on the edge, where growth will come naturally. Despite potential room for disagreements, the book contains valuable truths for anyone willing to immerse themselves in this masterpiece.

You should by all means read this book for yourself. Below, I have written out my book notes, but I couldn’t cover hundreds of pages in just a couple of bullet points. That is why I highly encourage you to create your notes whilst going through the book, and for the time being use mine as a guide on what this book is about.

For more books check out Best Self-Improvement Books or Best Classic Books, and for a full self-improvement guide, you can also take a look at my Roadmap to Overman.

Book Notes

“In our new world, a man’s presence—his depth of awareness—is his most valuable asset.”

Sexual attraction is based on sexual polarity, which is the force of passion that arcs between masculine and feminine poles. The love may still be strong, the friendship may still be strong, but the sexual polarity fades, unless in moments of intimacy, one partner is willing to play the masculine pole and one partner is willing to play the feminine. You have to animate the masculine and feminine differences if you want to play in the field of sexual passion. You don’t need this difference for love, but you do need it for ongoing sexual passion.

If you have a more masculine sexual essence you are driven by a sense of mission. If you have a more feminine sexual essence your core won’t be fulfilled unless love is flowing fully in your family or intimate life. The “mission” or the search for freedom is the priority of the masculine, whereas the search for love is the priority of the feminine.

You must know your natural sexual essence — masculine, feminine, or balanced—and live true to it. You can’t deny your true sexual essence by covering it with layers of false energy for years, and then expect to know your authentic purpose and be free in the flow of love.

PART ONE A Man’s Way

1 STOP HOPING FOR A COMPLETION OF ANYTHING IN LIFE

The masculine error is to think that eventually things will be different in some fundamental way. They won’t. It never ends. As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift.

2 LIVE WITH AN OPEN HEART EVEN IF IT HURTS

Closing down in the midst of pain is a denial of a man’s true nature. A superior man is free in feeling and action, even amidst great pain and hurt. If necessary, a man should live with a hurting heart rather than a closed one. He should learn to stay in the wound of pain and act with spontaneous skill and love even from that place.

Notice if you react to a person or situation that hurts you by withdrawing, hiding, or closing in on yourself. The superior man practices opening during these times of automatic closure. Only when the front of your body is relaxed and opened, your breath full and deep, and your gaze unguarded and directly connected with another person’s eyes, can your fullest intelligence manifest spontaneously in the situation.

3 LIVE AS IF YOUR FATHER WERE DEAD

A man must love his father and yet be free of his father’s expectations and criticisms in order to be a free man

4 KNOW YOUR REAL EDGE AND DON’T FAKE IT.

It is honorable for a man to admit his fears, resistance, and edge of practice. It is simply true that each man has his limit, his capacity for growth, and his destiny. But it is dishonorable for him to lie to himself or others about his real place. He shouldn’t pretend he is more enlightened than he is—nor should he stop short of his actual edge. The more a man is playing his real edge, the more valuable he is as good company for other men, the more he can be trusted to be authentic and fully present. Where a man’s edge is located is less important than whether he is actually living his edge in truth, rather than being lazy or deluded.

5 ALWAYS HOLD TO YOUR DEEPEST REALIZATION

Make your life an ongoing process of being who you are, at your deepest, most easeful levels of being. Everything other than this process is secondary. Your job, your children, your wife, your money, your artistic creations, your pleasures—they are all superficial and empty, if they are not floating in the deep sea of your conscious loving.

You should live from the core of your being. This source is never changing and always present. It is the constant, silent tone behind and pervading the music of life. Feel into this source as deeply as possible, and then re-approach your work, intimacy, family, and creative efforts.

6 NEVER CHANGE YOUR MIND JUST TO PLEASE A WOMAN

If a woman suggests something that changes a man’s perspective, then he should make a new decision based on his new perspective. But he should never betray his own deepest knowledge and intuition in order to please his woman or “go along” with her. Both she and he will be weakened by such an action. They will grow to resent each other, and the crust of accumulated inauthenticity will burden their love, as well as their capacity for free action.

7 YOUR PURPOSE MUST COME BEFORE YOUR RELATIONSHIP

Every man knows that his highest purpose in life cannot be reduced to any particular relationship. If a man prioritizes his relationship over his highest purpose, he weakens himself, disserves the universe, and cheats his woman of an authentic man who can offer her full, undivided presence.

Tell your woman that you love her, but you cannot deny your heart’s purpose. Your woman will be more fulfilled with thirty minutes a day of undivided attention and ravishing love than she will with a few hours of your weak and divided presence when your heart really isn’t into it. Time you spend with your woman should be time you really want to be with her more than anything else. If you’d rather be doing something else, she’ll feel it. Both of you will be dissatisfied

8 LEAN JUST BEYOND YOUR EDGE

In any given moment, a man’s growth is optimized if he leans just beyond his edge, his capacity, his fear. He should not be too lazy, happily stagnating in the zone of security and comfort. Nor should he push far beyond his edge, stressing himself unnecessarily, unable to metabolize his experience. He should lean just slightly beyond the edge of fear and discomfort. Constantly. In everything he does.

You are willing to be with your fear, rather than trying to escape it by pulling back from it, or trying to escape it by pushing beyond it into some future goal.

9 DO IT FOR LOVE

The way a man penetrates the world should be the same way he penetrates his woman: not merely for personal gain or pleasure, but to magnify love, openness, and depth.

Most men’s ultimate reason for doing anything has to do with discovering their deepest truth, enjoying total freedom and love, and giving their fullest gifts.

10 ENJOY YOUR FRIENDS’ CRITICISM

A man’s capacity to receive another man’s direct criticism is a measure of his capacity to receive masculine energy. If he doesn’t have a good relationship to masculine energy (e.g., his father), then he will act like a woman and be hurt or defensive rather than make use of other men’s criticism. About once a week, you should sit down with your closest male friends and discuss what you are doing in your life and what you are afraid of doing.

Your close men friends should be willing to challenge your mediocrity by suggesting a concrete action you can perform that will pop you out of your rut, one way or the other. And you must be willing to offer them your brutal honesty, in the same way, if you are all to grow. Good friends should not tolerate mediocrity in one another.

(A side note: poker is a fun and competitive activity you could incorporate into your weekly hangouts. If you find this intriguing and want to learn how to play poker at a high level, check out Daniel Negreanu’s masterclass. His PDF workbook will teach you everything you need to know.)

11 IF YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR PURPOSE, DISCOVER IT, NOW

The core of your life is your purpose. Everything in your life, from your diet to your career, must be aligned with your purpose if you are to act with coherence and integrity in the world. If you know your purpose, your deepest desire, then the secret of success is to discipline your life so that you support your deepest purpose and minimize distractions and detours. Living the truth of your life, and giving the gifts of your love, moment by moment. Such a life is complete unto itself in every instant. The superior man is not seeking for fulfillment through work and woman, because he is already full. For him, work and intimacy are opportunities to give his gifts, and be vanished in the bliss of the giving.

12 BE WILLING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIFE

A man must be prepared to give 100 percent to his purpose, fulfill his karma or dissolve it, and then let go of that specific form of living. He must be capable of not knowing what to do with his life, entering a period of unknowingness and waiting for a vision or a new form of purpose to emerge. These cycles of strong specific action followed by periods of not knowing what the hell is going on are natural for a man who is shedding layers of karma in his relaxation into truth.

13 DON’T USE YOUR FAMILY AS AN EXCUSE

If a man never discovers his deepest purpose, or if he permanently compromises it and uses his family as an excuse for doing so, then his core becomes weakened and he loses depth and presence. His woman loses trust and sexual polarity with him, even though he may be putting much energy into parenting their children and doing the housework. A man should, of course, be a full participant in caring for children and the household. But if he gives up his deepest purpose to do so, ultimately, everyone suffers.

The priority of the feminine, in men and women, is the flow of love in relationship. The priority of the masculine, in men and women, is the mission which leads to freedom. Ultimately, true freedom and true love are the same. However, the journey of the masculine and feminine to this unity of love and freedom is very different.

A short period of time with a father who is absolutely present, full in love, undivided inside, and sure of his mission in life, will affect your children much more positively than if they spend lots of time with a father who is ambiguous in his intent and has lost touch with his deepest purpose, no matter how much he loves his children. It is not the amount of time but the quality of the interaction that most influences a child’s growth. Children are exquisitely sensitive to emotional tone. If you are not full in your core, aligned with your deepest purpose and living a life of authentic commitment, your children will feel it.

14 DON’T GET LOST IN TASKS AND DUTIES

Whatever the specifics of a man’s purpose, he must always refresh the transcendental element of his life through regular meditation and retreat. A man should never get lost in the details of his life and forget that, ultimately and in truth, life amounts to nothing other than what is the deepest truth of this present moment. Tasks don’t get a man anywhere more conscious or free than he is capable of being in this present moment.

Whereas many women waste precious time swirling in emotional currents and eddies, many men waste their birth seeking the completion of tasks. Nose to the grindstone, day after day, year after year, and you become a robot of duty.

15 STOP HOPING FOR YOUR WOMAN TO GET EASIER

A woman often seems to test her man’s capacity to remain unperturbed in his truth and purpose. She tests him to feel his freedom and depth of love, to know that he is trustable. Her tests may come in the form of complaining, challenging him, changing her mind, doubting him, distracting him, or even undermining his purpose in a subtle or not-so-subtle way. A man should never think his woman’s testing is going to end and his life will get easier. Rather, he should appreciate that she does these things to feel his strength, integrity, and openness. Her desire is for his deepest truth and love. As he grows, so will her testing. Every moment of your life is either a test or a celebration. The same is true about every moment with your woman, only doubly so. Not only is her simple existence a test for you, but one of her deepest pleasures in intimacy is testing you, and then feeling you are not moved off course by her challenge. The most erotic moment for a woman is feeling that you are Shiva, the divine masculine: unperturbable, totally loving, fully present, and all-pervading.

Your woman is testing you because she loves you. She wants to feel your truth. She wants to feel your love.

PART TWO Dealing With Women

16 WOMEN ARE NOT LIARS

“Keeping your word” is a masculine trait, in men or women. A person with a feminine essence may not keep her word, yet it is not exactly “lying.” In the feminine reality, words and facts take a second place to emotions and the shifting moods of relationship. When she says, “I hate you,” or “I’ll never move to Texas,” or “I don’t want to go to the movies,” it is often more a reflection of a transient feelingwave than a well-considered stance with respect to events and experience. On the other hand, the masculine means what it says. A man’s word is his honor. The feminine says what it feels. A woman’s word is her true expression in the moment.

The basic rule is this: Don’t believe the literal content of what your woman says unless love is flowing deeply and fully in the moment when she says it. And even then, know that she is probably talking about her current feelings, not necessarily about the subject of whatever she is talking about.

17 PRAISE HER

The masculine grows by challenge, but the feminine grows by praise. A man must be unabashed and expressed in his appreciation for his woman. Praise her freely.

Praise always magnifies the quality of your woman that you praise. If you want your woman to grow in her radiance, health, happiness, love, beauty, power, and depth, praise these qualities. Praise them daily, a number of times. Praise works. Information doesn’t. Praise motivates. Challenge doesn’t. Try it. Praise specific things you love about your woman five to ten times a day. Find out what happens

18 TOLERATING HER LEADS TO RESENTING HER

A man gets resentful and frustrated with his woman when he is too afraid, weak, or unskilled to penetrate her moods and tests into love. He wishes she were easier to deal with. But it is not entirely her fault that she is bitchy and complaining. It is also a reflection of her lack of being penetrated by love. When a man resigns, and simply tolerates his woman’s self-destructive moods, it is a sign of his weakness. His attitude has become one of wanting to escape women and the world, rather than wanting to serve women and the world into love. A man shouldn’t tolerate bitchy and complaining moodiness in his woman, but he should serve her and love her with every ounce of his skill and perseverance.

Instead of tolerating your woman’s moods of closure and complaint, open her moods with your skillful loving. It is your gift to give. Both of you will grow more by your giving than by your tolerating. A superior man sees his woman’s moods not as a curse, but as a challenge and an amusement.

19 DON’T ANALYZE YOUR WOMAN

The feminine’s moods and opinions are like weather patterns. They are constantly changing, severe and gentle, and they have no single source. No analysis will work. There is no linear chain of cause and effect that can lead to the kernel of the “problem.” There is no problem, only a storm, a breeze, a sudden change in weather. And the bases of these storms are the high and low-pressure systems of love. When a woman feels love flowing deeply, her mood can instantly evaporate into joy, regardless of the supposed reason for the mood.

You are under the illusion that when you find out the cause of her affliction, then the cure will easily follow. But it doesn’t work that way; your questioning is probably making her mood worse. The amazing thing is this: 90 percent of a woman’s emotional problems stem from feeling unloved. So don’t stand back and analyze her, like a doctor diagnosing a patient, or like a therapist questioning a client. Give her your love —the same love that is motivating your questioning—immediately and unmistakably. Walk over to her, look deeply into her eyes, hold her and stroke her, tell her how much you love her, smile, hum her favorite song and dance with her, and chances are, her emotional problem will evaporate. She may still have some situation to deal with, and you may be able to help her with that, but the emotional aspect will be converted to love.

If you ever find yourself asking your woman questions about her mood while she is still in it, you are already on the wrong road. First, give her love through your eyes, touch, movement, and tone of voice. Then and only then, after the connection of love has been made, find out what remains to be talked about.

20 DON’T SUGGEST THAT A WOMAN FIX HER OWN EMOTIONAL PROBLEM

Asking a woman to analyze or try to fix her own emotions is a negation of her feminine core, which is pure energy in motion, like the ocean. She can learn to surrender her mood to God, she can learn to open her heart in the midst of closure, she can learn to relax her edges and trust love, but she will never “fix” anything by analyzing her “problem.”

What she really wants is a man who can figure it out for himself. She wants a man who loves her, and escorts her with his loving, without having to ask her what she wants all the time. One of the deepest feminine desires in intimacy is precisely not to have to always figure it out for her man and guide him. She wants to be able to trust him in his direction.

One of the deepest feminine desires in intimacy is to be able to relax and surrender, knowing that her man is taking care of everything. Then, she can simply enjoy without having to plan it all herself and tell her man what to do. She can be pure energy, pure motion, pure love, without having to analyze all the options and decide which ones are best. She can enjoy her man taking responsibility for the direction, so she can be what the feminine is: pure energy.

Let her be the ocean. Encourage her to be as free as the ocean, as deep as the ocean, as wild as the ocean, and as powerful as the ocean. Be so full in your loving, so strong and stable in your presence, that she can just let go and surrender the limits she has put on her feelings. Let the emotions of her heart flow unguarded. Let her love be expressed with no limits. Let her go mad with love.

21 STAY WITH HER INTENSITY—TO A POINT

When a woman gets emotionally intense, a mediocre man wants to calm her down and discuss it, or leave and come back later when she is “sane.” A superior man penetrates her mood with imperturbable love and unwavering consciousness.

You have mastered women and the world when no desire either to avoid or attain sways your loving or limits your freedom.

22 DON’T FORCE THE FEMININE TO MAKE DECISIONS

A man abandons responsibility by expecting that his woman will always make her own decisions and then be accountable for the results. This expectation is a withholding of his masculine gift. It puts a woman in the position of magnifying her own masculine. It is good for some women to learn to animate their masculine capacity to make a decision and stick with it. But if a man abnegates his responsibility to provide his woman with the gift of masculine clarity and decisiveness, then she will become chronically sharp, angular, and distrustful of his love. She will cease surrendering in love with him, cease trusting his masculine capacity, and, instead, become her own man.

Your woman asks you for input, and you say, “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.” This is the statement of a friend, not a lover. As friends, you want to treat each other fairly and give each other space and independence. As lovers, you and your woman are more than just friends. You are playing the full dynamic of masculine and feminine polarity. Wouldn’t you like your woman to be a goddess and offer you her feminine gifts? To evoke them, you must offer her your masculine gifts. One of your most valuable gifts is the ability to see all the options and make a decision based on this view of all the potential outcomes.

You need to play the masculine pole if you want your woman to play the feminine. Offering your perspective on decisions is one way to give your masculine gift. Even on the most trivial decisions, never say, “Do whatever you want.” If she asks you which shoes you think look better on her, make a decision, and tell her. Don’t just say, “They’re both nice.” Say something like, “I’d like the red shoes, but what’s most important to me is that you’re happy.”

As a practice, always help your woman make decisions by giving her your perspective and telling her your choices, while letting her know that you love her regardless of the decision she makes.

PART THREE Working With Polarity and Energy

23 YOUR ATTRACTION TO THE FEMININE IS INEVITABLE

Masculine men are attracted to forms of feminine energy: radiant women, beer, music, nature, etc. If a man tries to hide his attraction, it reveals some degree of shame with respect to his own sexual core.

Sexual attraction, however, is very different from having sex. There is a big difference between choosing to be intimate with a woman and simply being attracted to her energy and radiance. Intimacy is a choice between people who want to commit to loving and serving one another. Whereas the zing of attraction is a choiceless natural flow of energy between your masculine core and feminine energy, wherever it is found. When a woman is relaxed in her feminine radiance, she is like beautiful music or a warm ocean breeze. You don’t need to have sex with her to savor inexpressible joy.

24 CHOOSE A WOMAN WHO IS YOUR COMPLEMENTARY OPPOSITE

If a man is very masculine by nature, then he will be attracted to a very feminine woman, who will complement his energy. The more neutral or balanced he is, the more balanced he will prefer his woman. And, if a man is more feminine by nature, his energy will be complemented by the strong direction and purposiveness of a more masculine woman. By understanding their own needs, men can learn to accept the “whole package” of a woman. For instance, a more masculine man can expect that any woman who really turns him on and enlivens him will also be relatively wild, undisciplined, “bonkers,” chaotic, prone to changing her mind and “lying.” Still, from an energetic perspective, this kind of woman will be much more healing and inspiring to him than a more balanced or neutral woman who is steady, reasonable, “trustworthy,” and able to say what she means in a way he can understand.

25 KNOW WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN YOUR WOMAN

The more you seek a woman who gives you everything, the less you get of anything. Business skills are for the most part masculine skills (in both men and women). Friendship, in itself, is a neutral, nonsexual matter. And sexual passion requires a clear polarity between your masculine core and your woman’s feminine energy. When you don’t prioritize the purpose of your relationship, these different energies often cancel each other out, and you are left with a sexually neutralized alliance. You can share many aspects of intimacy—business, friendship, parenting, and sexual passion—only if you choose a single priority to the relationship and allow all the other activities to align themselves around your main purpose for being together.

26 YOU WILL OFTEN WANT MORE THAN ONE WOMAN

Even if you are totally committed to your intimate partner in love, you probably think about having sex with other women. Even if you are totally fulfilled by the sex you share with your woman, you probably still desire sex with other women. Your desire for other women is not a reflection of any lack in your intimacy, it is a reflection of your nature as a masculine sexual being.

But this desire is not an excuse for promiscuity, any more than your enjoyment of TV is an excuse for becoming an obese couch potato. To live a life of impeccable integrity, you must discriminate the source of your desire, so you know when to discipline your behavior for everyone’s benefit, including yours. Self-discipline is not self-suppression. Suppression is when you resist and fight against your desires, keeping them as buried and unexpressed as possible. Self-discipline is when your highest desires rule your lesser desires, not through resistance, but through loving action grounded in understanding and compassion.

27 YOUNG WOMEN OFFER YOU A SPECIAL ENERGY

Our culture reduces this youthful energy to a sexual thing, whereas it is actually a whole-body transmission of energy, affecting the heart as much as or more than the genitals. As a man, it is your responsibility to honor the heart-rejuvenative gift of a young woman, without violating this honor by imposing your sexual desire on her. If sexual desire arises, fine. Circulate it through your body. Learn to conduct the magnification of desire without needing to throw it off in a spasm of release.

28 EACH WOMAN HAS A “TEMPERATURE” THAT CAN HEAL OR IRRITATE YOU

Some women are hotter, some are cooler. In general, blonde, light-skinned, Japanese, and Chinese women are cooler. Dark-skinned, brunette, redheaded, Korean, and Polynesian women are hotter. Even though a man might choose to remain in a committed intimacy with one woman, his needs for different temperatures of feminine energy may change over time. Depending on your health, your lifestyle, your work demands, and your emotional state, you may need different types of energy at different times.

PART FOUR What Women Really Want

29 CHOOSE A WOMAN WHO CHOOSES YOU

If a man wants a woman who doesn’t want him, he cannot win. His neediness will undermine any possible relationship, and his woman will never be able to trust him. A man must determine whether a woman really wants him but is playing hard to get, or whether she really doesn’t want him. If she doesn’t want him, he should immediately cease pursuing her and deal with his pain by himself.

30 WHAT SHE WANTS IS NOT WHAT SHE SAYS

Sometimes a woman will make a request of her man in plain English, not to get him to do something, but to see if he is so weak that he will do it. In other words, she is testing his capacity to do what is right, not what she is asking for. In such cases, if the man does what his woman asks, she will be disappointed and angry. The man will have no idea why she is so angry or what could possibly please her. He must remember that her trust is engendered not by him fulfilling her requests, but by him magnifying love, consciousness, and success in their lives, in spite of her requests.

The divine masculine is consciousness. A superior man practices maintaining full consciousness in all situations. If ejaculation results in a decrease of your fullness, a diminution of your presence, a collapse of your consciousness, then you should not ejaculate. Even if your woman says she wants you to. Especially when your woman says she wants you to.

Always apply your sword of discrimination to your woman’s requests, never taking them at face value, but always checking with your deepest wisdom and following the road of your highest truth, even if it seems to mean disappointing your woman. She won’t be disappointed if she feels you are strong and clear in the true direction of your heart.

31 HER COMPLAINT IS CONTENT-FREE

Women are always wanting divine masculine presence in a man, regardless of their specific complaint or mood. A man should hear his woman’s complaints like warning bells, and then do his best to align his life with his truth and purpose. However, if he believes in the literal content of her complaint, he will immediately go off course, for the content reflects her present mood more than a careful observation of his tendencies over time. Her complaint should be valued as a reminder to “get it together,” and perhaps as an indication as to how. But more often than not, the specifics of her complaint do not describe the real, underlying action or tendency that needs to be changed.

The thing your woman is complaining about is rarely the thing she is complaining about. It is a mistake to believe the content of what she is saying, and then respond to her complaints, point by point. When she complains about financial issues, she is usually feeling a lack in your masculine capacity to direct your life with clarity, purpose, integrity, and wisdom. The money itself is secondary. If you were poor but totally conscious, happy, full of integrity, fearless, humorous, loving, and giving your fullest gift to the world and to your woman, she wouldn’t complain about lack of money.

32 SHE DOESN’T REALLY WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE

A woman sometimes seems to want to be the most important thing in her man’s life. However, if she is the most important thing, then she feels her man has made her the number one priority and is not fully dedicated or directed to divine growth and service. She will feel her man’s dependence on her for his happiness, and this will make her feel smothered by his neediness and clinging. A woman really wants her man to be totally dedicated to his highest purpose —and also to love her fully. Although she would never admit it, she wants to feel that her man would be willing to sacrifice their relationship for the sake of his highest purpose.

If you have discovered the purpose springing from your deepest core, and if your entire life is aligned by this deep purpose, your woman will feel the truth of your choices. Though she may not always like your choices, she will love them, and she will love you for having the courage to live your truth. She can relax and trust you because, even if you are enjoying watching TV, reading magazines, and gambling now and then, she knows that you would never compromise your highest purpose in life—which includes, but is not centered nor dependent on, your relationship with her.

33 YOUR EXCELLENT TRACK RECORD IS MEANINGLESS TO HER

A man’s track record means nothing to the feminine. A man could be perfect for ten years, but if he’s an asshole for thirty seconds his woman acts like he’s always been one. The feminine responds to the moment of energy, forgetting her man’s history of past behavior. A man’s past behavior is irrelevant to his woman’s feelings in the moment. But men base much on another man’s history of behavior, so they think their own track record should count for something. But to a woman, it doesn’t.

Remember, history is irrelevant to the feminine, so your mistake is as easily forgotten as your successes. As soon as you see she’s upset, immediately assume happiness. Shock her with your love. Make her smile and laugh with your humor. Lick her neck, or lift her off the ground and pretend you’re King Kong. Surprise her in some loving way, and the emotional slate will be wiped clean. Your momentary failure will be effectively vanished, as irrelevant as the long line of your successes.

34 SHE WANTS TO RELAX IN THE DEMONSTRATION OF YOUR DIRECTION

A woman must be able to trust you to take charge if she relaxes her own masculine edge. This is true financially, sexually, emotionally, and spiritually. The man doesn’t have to actually do all the work, but he must be able to steer the course if his woman is going to relax into her feminine without fear.

How can you tell if your woman’s self-direction is healthy for her? If she becomes more and more full and happy as she pursues her direction, then it is good for her. If she becomes more and more stressed, taut, and emotionally angular, then she is animating excess masculine direction. She is pushing herself in ways that may signal your irresponsibility.

PART FIVE Your Dark Side

35 YOU ARE ALWAYS SEARCHING FOR FREEDOM

The essential masculine ecstasy is in the moment of release from constraint. This could occur when facing death and living through it, succeeding in (and thus being released from) your purpose, and in competition (which is ritual threat of death). The masculine is always seeking release from constraint into freedom. The feminine often doesn’t understand these masculine ways and needs.

Ego death, absolute surrender to the point of oneness, is the ultimate freedom.

Few men ever release themselves enough to relax in this depth of freedom because they are afraid of absolutely no stress. No stress means no thoughts, no sense of protected self, no mission to accomplish. The end of the masculine game. Yet, this stress-free, unprotected end of the game is exactly what you are always seeking, through orgasm, financial killings, or winning a war. You are willing to experience lesser forms of masculine “death” and ecstasy, but you are unwilling to face the death of your separate self-sense, and finally be the freedom you have only allowed yourself to taste in moments.

The feminine, on the other hand, is not seeking freedom, but love. A woman’s bliss is not in emptiness, but in fullness. Her means is not release, but surrender. This is why a woman is upset when a man begins snoring after orgasm. He has finally achieved, in post-ejaculative emptiness, the blissful freedom from stress he has been seeking all day, one way or another. She, however, is hoping to experience love and fullness through sex, and a snoring man just doesn’t do it for her. The feminine seeks fullness and abhors emptiness. She will fill her empty shelves with knickknacks, seashells, and pebbles collected from special places.

36 OWN YOUR DARKEST DESIRES

If a man disowns his dark masculine desire for freedom, then he kinks the hose of his masculine force. His energy will not flow freely, and his attention will be bound by unfulfilled yearnings. Most importantly, if his hose is kinked in this way, he weakens his masculine capacity to stand fearless in the death that is conscious life. He will not be able to face the unknown, the groundless ground of being, and still function from his heart in love.

The dark feminine desire, to be forced to surrender, is as strong as the dark masculine desire to penetrate through a woman’s resistance. The difference between rape and ravishment is love. Your woman surrendering to receive your strong love, or you lovingly “forcing” your woman to surrender into greater ecstasy, is the basis of ravishment.

37 SHE WANTS THE “KILLER” IN YOU

Among many other qualities, a woman wants the “killer” in her man. She is turned off if her man is afraid and wants her to kill the cockroach or the mouse while he stands on a chair and watches. She is turned off if her man wants her to get out of bed in order to check out the strange sounds in the house to find out if a burglar made the noise. Fearlessness, or the capacity to transcend the fear of death for the sake of love, is a quintessential form of the ultimate masculine gift.

The dark masculine energy of the warrior, the one who could face death and kill when necessary, is an essential part of you. Today’s current fashion is to suppress both the dark masculine and the dark feminine, so we have a large population of wimpy men and polite women. But beneath the nice veneer of most women lies the wrathful goddess who would chop the head off of every mediocre “new age” man. And beneath the patient smile of most men lies the warrior of love who would ravish his woman into bliss rather than listen to her chat in pointless emotional circles.

38 SHE NEEDS YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS TO MATCH HER ENERGY

A man must be able to meet his woman with consciousness equivalent to her energy. The feminine destructress must be met by the masculine destroyer. The goddess of devotion must be met by the god of all-pervading love. Dark or light, a man can’t be stuck in, or avoid, any areas of his masculine capacity or his woman will test him there. These areas of testing are usually first on the dark side. Only after trust is established there, only when the dark feminine lover knows she will be met by the dark masculine lover, will testing proceed toward the light.

For instance, if you are particularly turned off by her anger, she will seem to return, again and again, to the energy of anger. If you are unable to embrace her anger in the ferocity of your loving, transforming her anger into passion, she will continue to test your capacity to do so. Any of her energies that you are unable to transform into love through the force, clarity, and humor of your consciousness will return for you to face, again and again.

In response to your fearless consciousness, she will drench your world in love and light.

PART SIX Feminine Attractiveness

39 THE FEMININE IS ABUNDANT

There is never a shortage of women or feminine energy. If a man feels that there aren’t enough women, or that life isn’t giving him what he wants, he is simply negating his relationship to the feminine. This sense of starvation —“life is not sustaining me” or “there are no good women”—is usually rooted in a man’s early childhood relationship with his mother. Life itself is the feminine. There is never a shortage of feminine energy, only a resistance to receiving, trusting, and embracing it.

You must actually refuse feminine energy in order to feel tired, dry, and hungry for a woman. You are living in an ocean of feminine energy right now. Open your breath and body and fully receive each woman’s unique flavor of feminine energy, so your day becomes a feast of plenty. You need not show the women you meet throughout the day that you are doing anything special at all. Continue to treat them in whatever way is appropriate for the situation. But through it all, relax and enjoy the bountifulness of feminine energy that surrounds you, both in the form of human women and in the form of the moment together.

40 ALLOW OLDER WOMEN THEIR MAGIC

Men should support older women in their wisdom, power, and intuitive and healing capacities. Men should not degrade older women by demanding or desiring them to be like young women. There should be no such comparison. Each age of woman has its own value, and the transition from superficial shine to deep radiance is inevitable.

If you are disconnected from your deep masculine core of purpose and consciousness, then you will also be disconnected from a woman’s depth. You will see only skin deep, and you will be attracted to the superficial display of a woman’s radiance, which often disappears with the passing of youth. You will inadvertently dishonor the true and deep forms of feminine radiance.

As a woman grows older with wisdom, her “psychic weight” increases. She becomes a “bigger” woman, able to influence her surroundings with stronger magic than a less developed woman. She is able to read the signs of nature with great accuracy, as well as sway events with almost shocking reign. A superior man honors and appreciates this kind of magic, and knows that it complements his masculine style of accomplishment.

41 TURN YOUR LUST INTO GIFTS

When a man sees a beautiful woman it is natural for him to feel energy in his body, which he usually interprets as sexual desire. Rather than dispersing this energy in mental fantasy, a man should learn to circulate his heightened energy. He should breathe fully, circulating the energy fully throughout his body. He should treat his heightened energy as a gift which could heal and rejuvenate his body, and, through his service, heal the world. Through these means, his desire is converted into fullness of heart. His lust is converted into service. His desire is not converted by denying sexual attraction, but by enjoying it fully, circulating it through his body (without allowing it to stagnate as mental fantasy), and returning it to the world, from his heart.

42 NEVER ALLOW YOUR DESIRE TO BECOME SUPPRESSED OR DEPOLARIZED

When a man denies his desire for the feminine, either by choice or due to familiarity, it is a sign of his depolarization even toward the world. He may seek a mistress in order to re-invigorate him, but this is usually only a temporary and complicated solution, since it is only a matter of time before his mistress also becomes familiar, and thus tiresome. Any woman toward whom a man becomes depolarized will feel his rejection, disgust, and turning away. In response, she will become angry and destructive. Her “unhusbanded” energy will begin to move chaotically, becoming even self-destructive. A man has no excuse; he must cultivate a polarized relationship to his woman and his world if he is to remain in relationship with them.

43 USE HER ATTRACTIVENESS AS A SLINGSHOT THROUGH APPEARANCE

Just driving in your car, wanting nothing, watching the trees go by, can be an epiphany of perfection. Deep sleep, orgasm, a day of fishing, looking into an infant’s eyes, these occasions can relax you from your search long enough to realize that you already have what you seek, that what appearances promise is a revelation of your own deep and inherently blissful nature. You are that which you seek, but you have left your own deepness and are looking elsewhere.

Your ultimate desire is for the union of consciousness with its own luminosity, wherein all appearance is recognized as your deep, blissful nature, and there is only One. Your desire for union with a woman is a stepped-down version of this ultimate spiritual need.

You can use your desire as a doorway to spiritual oneness. Magnify your desiring to the brink of madness. Sustain it with full breath, relaxed body, and open heart. Embrace your woman, if you have one, and give her what you want from her. Give it all to her. Give it away to her. Give her so much of what you want from her that you can’t tell who is who, the chaser has become the tail, and all motion stops in the intensity of self-release. There is only One.

Feel through her. Do this constantly. Feel through her body when you are having sex with her. Feel through her anger when she is raging at you. Feel through her darkness when she seems ugly. Feel through her beauty when she most attracts you. By feeling through all of her forms, the superior man is not distracted or obsessed. Rather, his attention feels through the mirage of other, and he is released of need in the revelation of oneness. Desire can be a doorway to deep oneness. Sexual union is a fractal, or stepped-down, reflection of the ever-present wedding of consciousness and its inherent luminosity. The superior man embraces his woman as his own form. The revelation of deep oneness is love.

PART SEVEN Body Practices

44 EJACULATION SHOULD BE CONVERTED OR CONSCIOUSLY CHOSEN

There are many physical and spiritual reasons why ejaculation should be converted into non-ejaculatory whole-body, brain, and heart orgasms. But there are also relational reasons. When a man has no control over his ejaculation, he cannot meet his woman sexually or emotionally. She knows she can deplete him, weaken him, empty him of life force. She has won. When a man ejaculates easily, he creates ongoing distrust in his woman. At a subtle level, she feels he cannot be trusted. She, and the world, can deplete and depolarize him easily. This subtle distrust will pervade the relationship. She will not only doubt him, but actually act to undermine his actions in the world. By undermining him she demonstrates and tests his weakness, but she also hopes that through such tests he can learn to remain full.

45 BREATHE DOWN THE FRONT

All men tend to have blocks in the front of their body, along an imaginary line that runs from the top of the head, through the tongue, throat, heart, solar plexus, navel, and genitals, down to the perineum. The principal bodily key to mastering the world and women is maintaining a full and open front of the body at all times. The best method is through full and relaxed breathing, drawing energy down the front, and freeing attention from neurotic self-concern.

When you get nervous, your stomach tightens. When you are saddened, a lump forms in your throat. When you are threatened, your solar plexus feels queasy. When you think hard, your forehead wrinkles. When you consider the unsure future, you tense your jaw.

The front of your body, especially your belly, is the place where your energy meets the energy of the world. When the front of your body is open and relaxed, your power flows freely, and your presence fills the room. You’ve probably been with people who seem to occupy more space in the room than most people. They seem to command attention, even though they are not doing anything obvious to attract it. The front of their body is so open that their energy flows freely through the room, magnifying their presence.

Your breath is a primary expression of your personal energy. Therefore, your breath is one of the primary ways to give your gift to the world. You can use your breath to open other people’s knots of tension, just as you open your own.

46 EJACULATE UP THE SPINE

For most men, ejaculation involves spewing their energy and semen out through their genitals. Afterward, they feel they have released stress. The superior man’s orgasm more often explodes up his spine and into his brain, from there raining down through his body like an ambrosial bliss of rejuvenation. The technique for converting depletive orgasms into rejuvenative orgasms involves contracting the pelvic floor near the genitals and drawing energy upward along the spine, though the use of breath, feeling, and intention.

PART EIGHT Men’s and Women’s Yoga of Intimacy

47 TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE PRIMARY ASYMMETRY

Intimate relationship is never the priority in a masculine man’s life and always the priority in a feminine woman’s life. If a man has a masculine sexual essence, then his priority is his mission, his direction toward greater release, freedom, and consciousness. If a woman has a feminine sexual essence, then her priority is the flow of love in her life, including her relationship with a man whom she can totally trust, in body, emotion, mind, and spirit. Men and women must support each other in their priorities if the relationship is going to serve them both.

48 YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GROWTH IN INTIMACY

There are masculine and feminine gifts in intimacy, and each gift comes with its own responsibility. The direction of growth of a relationship is primarily the man’s responsibility. The energy of an intimacy—pleasure, sexual flow, and vitality—is primarily the woman’s responsibility. A simplified way of saying this is that the man is responsible for the woman’s depth of love, or openness of mood, and the woman is responsible for the man’s “erection” or energy in the body.

If your woman is always stressed out, you need to know what she could do with her life, in very practical terms, so she can relax. Perhaps she needs to exercise more, meditate more, change her career, dance more, or spend more time with her women friends. If your woman feels unfulfilled most of the time, you need to know what she is missing. How often does she open her heart and body in the irrepressible ecstasy of devotional surrender? How often does she abandon herself fully into the divine love which surrounds her? How often do you serve her to do so?

Your main gift in intimacy is to guide her, moment by moment, out of her moods and into the openness of loving. And then, day by day, to guide her life into greater degrees of divine love, even beyond the relationship, so that her life becomes primarily communion, gifting, and celebration.

Because you probably tend to become lost in your thoughts, in your goals, and in your projects, one of the main gifts your woman can offer you is getting you into your body, into the present, into love, which connects you to your source. Through her touch, her loving, and her attractiveness, she can also give you energy, so that your whole body becomes like an erection, full and alive, and ready to penetrate the world into love.

49 INSIST ON PRACTICE AND GROWTH

Direction in life is a masculine priority, even in intimate relationship. Superior man will not settle for less than the fullest incarnation of love of which he and his woman are capable. But rather than wanting his woman to follow his personal direction, a superior man wants her to move in the direction that most serves her growth in love and happiness. He will settle for nothing less.

You will tend to forget the purpose of your existence as you get lost in your daily round of projects, business, and duties. Your woman will tend to forget the love at her core as she gets lost in cycles of mood and emotion. As a gift to both of you, you must cut through your own nose-to-the-grindstone mentality as well as your woman’s ensconcement in sadness, fear, and anger, and reveal the truth.

50 RESTORE YOUR PURPOSE IN SOLITUDE AND WITH OTHER MEN

A man rediscovers and fine-tunes his purpose in solitude, in challenging situations, and in the company of other men who won’t settle for his bullshit. But women strengthen their feminine radiance best in the company of other women in mutual celebration and play. A man must arrange for both forms of restoration: his own solitude and men’s gatherings, and his woman’s time with other women.

If you spend too much time with your woman, you will rub off on each other in the worst way. In order to get along together, she will begin to adopt your masculine patterns of speech, denying her feminine desire to flow in play and pleasure without having to make masculine-style sense or fulfill a purpose. You will begin to adopt her feminine patterns of touch and affection, denying your desire to get down to it, with your mission or your woman. Instead, you will find yourself pecking your woman on the cheek or giving her hugs and pats of lovey-dovey reassurance. In short, the goddess and the warrior will become neutralized householders sharing only the mildest play of sexual polarity.

In order to enliven her feminine core, your woman should spend time every day in absolute abandon and celebration. During these times of dancing, singing, laughter, and sheer delight, her body and mind should be totally released of any obligation to be masculine—directed, controlled, structured, or goal-oriented. These occasions are most rejuvenating when she is with other women, magnifying and rejoicing in each others’ feminine radiance and flow. If your woman lacks this frequent feminine rejuvenation, she will develop symptoms of depressed feminine energy: disease (especially in her more feminine parts), lack of life energy, low sexual desire and enjoyment, and a blue, downhearted, despondent disposition.

For men, the cure for lack of purpose is to be challenged to live at your edge, since you have lost the capacity to live there by yourself. The two ways to bring you right to your masculine edge of power are austerity and challenge. Austerity means to eliminate the comforts and cushions in your life that you have learned to snuggle into and lose wakefulness. Take away anything that dulls your edge. No newspapers or magazines. No TV. No candy, cookies, or sweets. No sex. No cuddling. No reading of anything at all while you eat or sit on the toilet. Reduce working time to a necessary minimum. No movies. No conversation that isn’t about truth, love, or the divine. If you take on these disciplines for a few weeks, as well as any other disciplines that may particularly cut through your unique habits of dullness, then your life will be stripped of routine distraction. All that will be left is the edge you have been avoiding by means of your daily routine. You will have to face the basic discomfort and dissatisfaction that is the hidden texture of your life.

There are obvious consequences for freezing in the face of fear when mountain climbing or playing competitive sports. You must instill consequences throughout the rest of your life, unless you want to cling to the safety net of superficial pleasures.

Just as your woman must regularly spend time with only women, you must regularly spend time with only men. At least once a week, get together with your male friends to serve one another. Cut through the bullshit and talk with each other straight. If you feel your friend is wasting his life, tell him so, because you love him. Welcome such criticism from your friends. Suggest challenges for each other to take on, in order to bring each other through the fears which limit your surrender in gifting. Always agree on consequences for not persisting in the challenge. For instance, if you agree to ravish your wife for three hours every other day for a week, then also agree to mow your friend’s yard if you miss a day of ravishment.

Make sure that you arrange for your woman’s rejuvenative time and your own. Otherwise, you will rot in the cushions of bargained stagnation and sexual neutralization which pad your true edge of living your gift in relationship.

51 PRACTICE DISSOLVING

Like dissolving in the intensity of an orgasm, a man’s greatest desire is to be utterly released. Moment by moment, practice loving through your woman and the world, allowing the force of your surrender to transform every moment into an orgasm of divine dissolution. Embrace every moment of experience as a lover, and trust whatever direction love moves you. Die in the giving of your gift, so you don’t even notice you have stopped holding onto yourself. Fear is your final excuse. Don’t fight it. Love through it.