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by
David Deida
We are designed to outgrow everything—including our desire to experience and improve the realms of money, sex, and intimacy.
He doesn’t need to be right all the time, nor does he need to be always safe, cooperative, and sharing, like an androgynous Mr. Nice Guy.
inner masculine, which, at the level of human character, appears as direction, or clarity of purpose, and vision.
you are a woman, you are probably more independent and assertive than your mother was. If you are a man, you are probably more emotionally expressive and open-minded than your father was.
The “mission” or the search for freedom is the priority of the masculine, whereas the search for love is the priority of the feminine.
your intimate relationship is just not as important to you as the “mission” in your life—but you still want a full and energetic intimate relationship, perhaps quite badly.
Limited money and family obligations have never stopped a man who really wanted to do something, although they provide excuses for a man who is not really up to the creative challenge in the first place. Find out today whether you are willing to do what it takes to give your gift fully. As a first step, spend at least an hour today giving your fullest gift, whatever that is for today, so that when you go to sleep at night you know you couldn’t have lived your day with more courage, creativity, and giving.
The feminine always seems chaotic and complicated from the perspective of the masculine.
Learn to find humor in the unending emotional drama the feminine seems to enjoy so much.
Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women. Feel what you want to give most as a gift, to your woman and to the world, and do what you can to give it today. Every moment waited is a moment wasted, and each wasted moment degrades your clarity of purpose.
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.
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.
Your edge is where you stop short, or where you compromise your fullest gift, and, instead, cater to your fears.
How many hours today was your attention focused in the realm of changes—on events, people, thoughts, and experiences—and how often was your attention relaxed into its source? Where is your attention right now?
Only if you are well grounded in that which is larger than life will you be able to play life with humor, knowing that each task is a mirage of necessity.
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.
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 ready for the unknown as it unfolds, since you are not pulled back or pushed forward from the horizon of the moment. You are hanging right over the edge.
Own your fear, and lean just beyond it. In every aspect of your life. Starting now.
Otherwise, if you sheepishly penetrate them to gratify your own needs, your woman and the world will feel your lack of dedication, depth, and truth. Rather than yielding in love to your loving, they will distract you, suck your energy, and draw you into endless complications, so that your life and relationship become an almost constant search for release from constraint.
About once a week, you should sit down with your closest men friends and discuss what you are doing in your life and what you are afraid of doing. The conversation should be short and simple. You should state where you are at. Then, your friends should give you a behavioral experiment, something you can do that will reveal something to you, or grant more freedom in your life.
Without a conscious life-purpose a man is totally lost, drifting, adapting to events rather than creating events. Without knowing his life-purpose a man lives a weakened, impotent existence, perhaps eventually becoming even sexually impotent, or prone to mechanical and disinterested sex.
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.
When you do your tasks in the right way, they liberate your life energy so that you can attend to what really matters—the investigation, realization, and embodiment of true freedom.
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.
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
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She is challenging you because your success doesn’t mean shit to her, unless you are free and loving. And if you are free and loving, nothing she says can collapse you. She wants to feel you are uncollapsable, so she pokes you in your weak spot.
Praise always magnifies the quality of your woman that you praise. “You’re so beautiful when you smile,” is much more effective than, “You’re so ugly when you frown,” although they both indicate your desire for her smile. When speaking to your woman, it is always better to call the glass half full than half empty.
praise the tiny quality that you want to grow.
Praise works. Information doesn’t. Praise motivates. Challenge doesn’t. Try it. Praise specific things you love about your woman 5 to 10 times a day. Find out what happens.
A superior man sees his woman’s moods not as a curse, but as a challenge and an amusement.
There are many ways to creatively deal with her moods and help her to open. Tickle her. Take off your clothes and dance the watusi. Sing opera for her. Make animal sounds. Shout at her louder than you ever have and then kiss her passionately. Press your belly into her until she melts. Lift her off the ground and spin her around. Occasionally, talking with her helps, but not as often as humor and physically expressed love.
Don’t tolerate her mood. And don’t talk about it with her. Participate in it. Bloom her into fullness. Move her body with your body. Open her heart with your humor. Penetrate her closure with your fearless presence. Open her heart, again and again and again.
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 next time your woman is in a bad mood, try this: Assume she is not feeling loved.
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.
Like a ship cutting through a vast ocean, the masculine decides on a course and navigates the direction: the feminine energy itself is undirected but immense, like the wind and deep currents of the ocean, ever changing, beautiful, destructive, and the source of life.
Soap operas, romance novels, and love stories touch many women deeply because the feminine’s priority is the flow of love in relationship. But the masculine priority is purpose and direction. By analyzing your purpose and re-aligning your direction, you can solve many of your emotional problems. But love is the feminine priority, not purpose and direction.
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. If she still refuses to live more fully in love, after a time, he lets her go.
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.
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.
Feminine energy gets you out of your head and into your body. Music, beer, nature, women, they are all forms of feminine energy.
You have probably seen men and women in couples like this. The man is more radiant and lively than the woman. The woman is more committed to her direction in life than the man. The relationship is more important to the man, whereas the woman likes to be left alone much of the time. These are signs of a relationship where the man has a more feminine essence and the woman’s essence is more masculine.
Uncompromised, youthful, feminine energy turns you on and opens your heart. You actually feel happier around young women. You feel more energetic, alive, and loving. As women get older, they typically take on more and more masculine tasks and responsibilities in our culture, so their radiance begins to decrease.
A major part of mastering sexuality is learning to sustain greater and greater degrees of pleasure and desire in the body, without needing to rid yourself of the force because you can’t handle it.
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.
Your word is a demonstration of your purpose, of your masculine core. When you don’t follow through with what you say you are going to do, she feels that your masculine core is weak.
She usually is speaking in a very tangential, but revelatory, style. She is revealing your unconscious habits that prevent your fullest awakening in consciousness. Your unconsciousness causes her pain. She won’t say it that way, but that’s what she is indicating.
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.
All masculine goals—at work, on the meditation cushion, or on the football field—are directed toward more freedom.
