The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire

by David Deida

If you want real passion, you need a ravisher and a ravishee; otherwise, you just have two buddies who decide to rub genitals in bed.

It doesn’t matter if both partners are men or both are women. It doesn’t matter if, in a heterosexual relationship, the man plays the feminine pole and the woman plays the masculine pole. It doesn’t matter if you change every day who plays the masculine pole and who plays the feminine pole.

You don’t need this difference for love, but you do need it for ongoing sexual passion.

For the masculine, mission, competition, and putting it all on the line (indeed, facing death), are all forms of ecstasy.

Witness the masculine popularity of war stories, dangerous heroism, and sports playoffs.

Whether on soap operas, in love stories, or talking with friends about relationships, the desire for love is what appears ...

chocolate and ice cream—or a good romantic drama—will do.

So, about 90% of people have either a more masculine or a more feminine sexual essence.

Regardless of gender or sexual orientation, if you want to experience deep spiritual and sexual fulfillment, you must know your natural sexual essence—masculine, feminine, or balanced—and live true to it.

This book is a guide to shedding pretense and living true to your core,

of cooperation and energy flow,

Love is openness, through and through.

we have erroneously begun to deny, smooth out, and neutralize our masculine and feminine differences.

if you are, for instance, a heterosexual man with a true masculine sexual essence, then you will be more or less constantly sexually attracted to feminine women you see all day, at the workplace and on the street. To married women as well as teenage girls. As long as they shine the feminine light, you will feel the pull.

your intimate relationship is just not as important to you as the “mission” in your life—but

It’s never going to be over, so stop waiting for the good stuff.

Do what you love to do, what you are waiting to do, what you’ve been born to do, now.

Spend at least one hour a day doing whatever you simply love to do—what

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.

As a first step, spend at least an hour today giving your fullest gift, whatever

sleep at night you know you couldn’t have lived your day with more courage, ...

Assume she’s going to be however she is, forever.

The feminine always seems chaotic and complicated from the perspective of the masculine.

relax and give her love by touching her and telling her that you love her when she is this way (whatever you filled in the blank with).

make no effort to bring an end to that which pisses you off.

Practice love instead of trying to bring an end to the qualit...

Learn to find humor in the unending emotional drama the feminine se...

your effort to fix her and your frustrati...

The world and your woman will always present you with unf...

You are either living fully, giving your gift in the midst of those challenges, even today, or you are waiting for an imag...

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 momen...

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.

These are signs of an unskillful reaction to hurt.

body, softening your chest and belly, wide and free.

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.

To act as a superior man, a samurai of relationship, you must feel the entire situation with your whole body. A closed body is unable to sense subtle cues and signals, and therefore unable to act with mastery in the situation.

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

way, practice being free of his subtle expectations,

Practice being free in this way, once each day for three days,

It is honorable for a man to admit his fears, resistance, and edge of practice.

But it is dishonorable for him to lie to himself or others about his real place.

nor should he stop short of his ...

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.

If you were absolutely fearless, would you be earning a living in exactly the same way as you are now? Your edge is where you stop short, or where you compromise your fullest gift, and, instead, cater to your fears.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Each purpose, each mission, is meant to be fully lived to the point where it becomes empty, boring, and useless. Then it should be discarded. This is a sign of growth, but you may mistake it for a sign of failure.

Consider your own death. Behold an image of the most enlightened being you know. Contemplate the mystery of existence. Relax into the deepest and most profound loving of which you are capable. In your own way, remember the infinite, and then return to the task at hand.