The Third Stage of Intimacy
Deida writes for a specific, newly evolving man: unabashedly masculine — purposeful, confident, directed — and sensitive, spontaneous, spiritually alive. Not the scared bully "posturing like some King Kong," not the "new age wimp, all spineless, smiley, and starry-eyed." Heart and spine, united and then gone beyond. To see why such a man is needed now, the book maps three historical stages of intimacy.
First Stage
Separation
Roles fixed and divided: men earn, women tend home. Men manipulate through physical and financial dominance; women through "emotional and sexual strokes and stabs." The caricatures: the macho jerk and the submissive housewife.
Second Stage
Sameness · 50/50
Men embrace their inner feminine, women their inner masculine, both moving toward "50/50." This won economic and social equality — but also sexual neutrality. The by-products: "ballbusters" and "wimps."
Third Stage
Polarity
Built on top of equality, not against it. Heart and spine united in a single man, then relaxed into "the infinite openness of this present moment." Difference is magnified again — deliberately — in the moments of intimacy.
"It is time to evolve beyond the macho jerk ideal, all spine and no heart. It is also time to evolve beyond the sensitive and caring wimp ideal, all heart and no spine."
Sexual Essence
Your sexual essence is your sexual core — masculine, feminine, or balanced. It is not the same as your gender or your anatomy, and it is independent of sexual orientation: "the gay and lesbian community is acutely aware that sexual polarity is independent of gender." The entire book turns on knowing your essence and living true to it.
Masculine Essence
Driven by mission
"You would, of course, enjoy staying home and playing with the kids, but, deep down, you are driven by a sense of mission." Without discovering and living a deep purpose, life "will feel empty at its core," even amid a loving family.
Feminine Essence
Driven by love
Professional life may be "incredibly successful, but your core won't be fulfilled unless love is flowing fully in your family or intimate life." The search for love touches the core.
Balanced Essence
Polarity optional
Boxing matches and love stories move them equally, or not at all. They want "a civilized friendship full of love and human sharing without the passionate ups and downs." For them, this book "will be irrelevant."
"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."
Polarity & the Two Priorities
Sexual attraction is based on sexual polarity — "the force of passion that arcs between masculine and feminine poles." All natural forces flow between two poles: the earth's magnetism, the current in a battery. Between people, masculine and feminine poles create the flow of sexual feeling. Love does not require this difference — but ongoing sexual passion does.
Beneath polarity lies a deeper asymmetry of priority. "The 'mission' or the search for freedom is the priority of the masculine, whereas the search for love is the priority of the feminine." This is why masculine essences would rather watch a football game — a mission, a breaking-free — than a love story, and feminine essences the reverse.
"You have to animate the masculine and feminine differences if you want to play in the field of sexual passion."
A Man's Way — Purpose & Mission
"The core of your life is your purpose." Without a conscious life purpose "a man is totally lost, drifting, adapting to events rather than creating events." Part One begins with the masculine ground: discover your deepest purpose, align everything to it, and refuse the excuses — family, tasks, "one day" — that keep it buried.
Stop Hoping for a Completion of Anything in Life
"If I can work enough, then one day I could rest." "One day my woman will understand." The myth of "one day when everything will be different" wastes the only life you have. It's never going to be over, "so stop waiting for the good stuff." And the same applies to your woman: assume she's going to be however she is, forever. "Every moment waited is a moment wasted, and each wasted moment degrades your clarity of purpose."
One hour a day, starting today
- Spend at least one hour a day doing whatever you are waiting to do "until the finances are secure" or "the children have grown" — the thing you deeply feel you were born to do.
- Do it in spite of the daily duties that seem to constrain you. "Most postponements are excuses for a lack of creative discipline."
- Be forewarned: you may discover you can't, or won't — "that, in fact, your fantasy of your future life is simply a fantasy." Find out today.
If You Don't Know Your Purpose, Discover It, Now
Everything — "from your diet to your career" — must be aligned with your purpose to act with coherence and integrity. If you don't know your deepest desire, you can't align your life to it; work becomes "just a job," each day "just another in a long string of moments, going nowhere." This empty feeling undermines not only your "erection" in the world, but with your woman too. The superior man is not seeking fulfillment through work and woman, because he is already full.
Be Willing to Change Everything in Your Life
Your deepest purpose sits at the center of your being, "surrounded by layers of concentric circles, each circle being a lesser purpose." The outer purposes are usually inherited from parents and childhood. Life consists of penetrating each circle from the outside toward the center. Each purpose "is meant to be fully lived to the point where it becomes empty, boring, and useless. Then it should be discarded" — a sign of growth you may mistake for failure.
Five signs you have completed a layer of purpose
- You suddenly have no interest whatsoever in a project or mission that, just previously, motivated you highly.
- You feel surprisingly free of any regrets whatsoever, for starting the project or for ending it.
- Even without the slightest idea of what's next, you feel clear, unconfused, and, especially, unburdened.
- You feel an increase in energy at the prospect of ceasing your involvement with the project.
- The project seems almost silly — "like collecting shoelaces or wallpapering your house with gas station receipts."
Your Purpose Must Come Before Your Relationship
Admit that if forced to choose the perfect relationship or your highest purpose, you'd choose the purpose — this self-knowledge alone "relieves much pressure." When you notice yourself "giving in," postponing your mission to spend divided time with her, stop: offer her 30 minutes of "absolute attention and total presence," then return to your mission. "Your woman will be more fulfilled with 30 minutes a day of undivided attention and ravishing love than she will with a few hours of your weak and divided presence."
Don't Use Your Family As an Excuse
Abnegate your purpose and your self-resignation "will communicate itself to your woman and your children." Your woman "will begin to take charge more than she really wants"; your children will test your discipline, feeling your lack of it. Children "learn most from their parents by osmosis" — it is quality, not quantity, of presence that shapes them. Better to timeshare or hire childcare "than to permanently compromise your deepest purpose."
Don't Get Lost in Tasks and Duties
The "do mode" is "one of men's biggest strengths and weaknesses." Great for plowing through obstructions — but "if you forget your larger purpose while pursuing the small and endless tasks of daily life, then you have reduced yourself to a machine of picayune." No amount of duties "adds up to love, freedom, or full consciousness." Interrupt your schedule with refreshers that "cut to your core": consider your death, contemplate the mystery, then return to the task.
"Raise your eyes, see to the horizon, and do your tasks in the spirit of sweeping out your house on a sunny day."
A Man's Way — The Edge, Fear & Truth
If purpose is the masculine direction, the edge is the masculine discipline. A man's growth is optimized when he leans just beyond his fear — honestly, without faking his place. These nine principles govern how he holds his truth: with an open heart, free of his father, unswayed by his woman, sharpened by his friends, and unperturbed by testing.
Know Your Real Edge and Don't Fake It
"All men are afraid, unless they are perfectly free." A man who denies his fear is lying to himself, and "your friends will feel your fear, even if you do not" — and lose trust in you. Where your edge sits matters less than whether you're "actually living your edge in truth, rather than being lazy or deluded." "Live with your lips pressed against your fears, kissing your fears, neither pulling back nor aggressively violating them."
Lean Just Beyond Your Edge
Most men "either settle for the easy path or self-aggrandize themselves by taking the extreme hard path." Both avoid the actual condition of the moment — which is often fear. "Your fear is the sharpest definition of your self." Fear must become your friend: it "shows you that you are at your edge." Lean just slightly beyond it — "constantly, in everything you do."
Describe your edge out loud
Say it plainly to yourself — for example, about your career:
Honor your edge. Honor your choices. "A fearful man who knows he is fearful is far more trustable than a fearful man who isn't aware of his fear."
Live With an Open Heart Even If It Hurts
Closing down in pain — a tense solar plexus, an averted gaze, a contracted chest — is "the picture" of an unskillful reaction. Contracted, "you are trapped in your own self-protective tension, no longer a free man." The practice: open the front of the body — soften chest and belly, breathe down deep, look directly into the eyes of whoever you're with. Only then can "your fullest intelligence manifest spontaneously," like "a samurai of relationship" who feels the whole situation with his whole body.
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." Job, children, wife, money, art — "all superficial and empty, if they are not floating in the deep sea of your conscious being." Feel attention subside into its source, "the constant, silent tone behind and pervading the music of life," then make love, make money, and create from there. Use aids: read what reminds you who you are; "meditate, contemplate, or pray daily so that you steep yourself in the source."
Live As If Your Father Were Dead
Ask honestly: now that he is dead (or imagining it), "is any part of you happy that you need not live up to his expectations or suffer his criticisms?" How would you have lived differently if you had never tried to prove yourself worthy to him? Those expectations "may now reside within your own self-judgment."
Three days, three acts of freedom
- For the next three days, do at least one activity a day that you have avoided or suppressed because of the influence of your father.
- Practice being free of his subtle expectations — "once each day for three days."
- Do it "even if you still feel fearful, limited, unworthy, or burdened by your father's expectations."
Never Change Your Mind Just to Please a Woman
Always listen; then make your own decision. To go along against your deepest intuition says, in effect, "I don't trust my own wisdom" — and "why should she trust your wisdom if you don't?" Self-trust engenders others' trust. Give up your real decision to follow hers, and "you will blame her for being wrong if she is wrong, and you will feel disempowered if she is right." Be open to changing your feeling based on what she reveals — then decide from your core.
Do It for Love
Feel your ultimate desire — "why you are doing anything at all in life." Most men settle for "a little bit of freedom and love while incompletely giving their gifts," leaving "a sense of incompleteness," a fullest gift ungiven. There are two clean ways to meet woman and world: renounce them entirely, or engage them completely — giving your true gifts "despite the constant tussle," holding nothing back. The half-hearted middle is what drains a man; "your woman and the world will feel your lack of dedication" and "distract you, suck your energy, and draw you into endless complications."
Enjoy Your Friends' Criticism
The "father force is the force of loving challenge and guidance." Without it your direction "becomes unchecked," and you "meander in the mush of your own ambiguity." Choose men friends "who themselves are living at their edge." Good friends "should not tolerate mediocrity in one another" — they honor your fears and still "goad you beyond them, without pushing you." If you merely want support without challenge, "it bespeaks an unresolved issue you may have with your father."
The weekly council of men
- About once a week, sit with your closest men friends and state where you are — what you're doing and what you're afraid of doing. Keep it "short and simple."
- Your friends give you a behavioral experiment — "something you can do that will reveal something to you, or grant more freedom in your life."
- They "challenge your mediocrity by suggesting a concrete action" that pops you out of your rut "one way or the other." You offer them the same brutal honesty in return.
Stop Hoping for Your Woman to Get Easier
Her tests come as "complaining, challenging him, changing her mind, doubting him, distracting him." A man should never think the testing will end. "The most erotic moment for a woman is feeling that you are Shiva, the divine masculine: imperturbable, totally loving, fully present, and all-pervading." She cannot move you, scare you, or distract you — so she can trust you utterly and "surrender her testing in celebration of love." Until she wants to feel you as Shiva again. "It is precisely when you are most Shiva-like that she will most test you."
Dealing With Women
Part Two is a field manual for the feminine's emotional weather. The recurring error men make is to treat a woman like a man — believing her literal words, analyzing her moods, demanding she reason her way out. The feminine is "pure energy in motion, like the ocean." You do not fix the ocean. You learn to love it, praise it, and stay present in its storms.
Women Are Not Liars
"Keeping your word" is a masculine trait. 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," it is "more a reflection of a transient feeling-wave than a well considered stance." Listen to her "as you would the ocean, or the wind in the leaves." The basic rule: 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, expect it to change when her feelings change.
Praise Her
Only the masculine side of your woman grows through challenge; the feminine side "thrives on support and praise." "I love the shape of your body" is far greater incentive to exercise than "I hope you don't gain more weight." You must learn "to praise the very qualities you feel are not yet praiseworthy in order for them to become so." Praise works. Information doesn't. Praise motivates. Challenge doesn't.
Praise, five to ten times a day
- Praise specific things you genuinely love about your woman — 5 to 10 times a day.
- Praise the tiny quality you want to grow. To magnify her exercising, praise "how sexy she is when she sweats in her leotards," not why she should exercise.
- "When speaking to your woman, it is always better to call the glass half full than half empty." Try it. Find out what happens.
Don't Analyze Your Woman
Men want to find the cause and eliminate it. But "90% of a woman's emotional problems stem from feeling unloved." Don't stand back "like a doctor diagnosing a patient" — your questioning "is probably making her mood worse." Assume she is "more like a flower that needs watering than an engine that needs a carburetor adjustment."
Don't Suggest She Fix Her Own Emotional Problem
You can grow by analyzing your problems; she cannot "fix" anything by analyzing hers. "Women do not become free by analyzing themselves. They become free by surrendering into love." To force her to reason is "like building walls around a part of the ocean and turning it into a swimming pool" — safer, more predictable, "far less alive."
The next time she is in a bad mood
- Assume she is not feeling loved — even if there "must be some underlying reason." Assume nothing is wrong at all.
- Give love first, through the channels that reach her: look into her eyes with love, touch her how she likes to be touched, speak or sing to her with love.
- Only after "the connection of love has been made" — after her mood has dissolved — talk about anything that still needs talking about.
Tolerating Her Leads to Resenting Her
Tolerating her moods is "a sign of his weakness" — an attitude of wanting to escape rather than serve. The feminine "is either opening in loving surrender or closing in what ends up being an emotional test." Don't tolerate the closure and don't debate it — participate in it. "Tickle her. Take off your clothes and dance the watusi. Sing opera for her. Lift her off the ground and spin her around." If you've tried "every creative, humorous, and powerful way of loving through her mood" and she still refuses, then relax — you've done everything you can, and "perhaps you are with the wrong woman."
Stay With Her Intensity — To a Point
One of the deepest feminine pleasures "is when a man stands full, present, and unreactive in the midst of his woman's emotional storms." Mastery here — "like wrestling a steer or surfing ocean waves" — means blending with her powerful energy without "lapsing in presence for a second." You will get stamped on and swamped; that is how you learn. "Keep your breath full. Keep your body strong. Keep your attention present." The game is "to find each situation workable… and to have no attachments to the outcome."
Don't Force the Feminine to Make Decisions
"Whatever you want to do is fine with me" is "the statement of a friend, not a lover." One of your most valuable masculine gifts is "the ability to see all the options and make a decision." Withhold it and she must "become her own man" — trusting her own masculine over yours, until "she trusts you less and less across the board," refusing to surrender even sexually.
Working With Polarity & Energy
A masculine man is attracted to feminine energy — "not just feminine women, but anything with feminine energy… Music, beer, nature, women." Part Three teaches the wise handling of that inevitable pull: whom you're drawn to, why you need a complementary opposite, and how a woman's "temperature" can heal or irritate you.
Your Attraction to the Feminine Is Inevitable
About 80% of men have a masculine essence, "attracted to all things feminine… anything which is radiant, alive, enlivening, relaxing, and moving." This is "a sign of polarity, the same kind of natural flow… by which electricity flows between the positive and negative poles of a battery. It's nothing to be ashamed of." But attraction is very different from having sex. Intimacy is a chosen commitment; "the zing of attraction is a choiceless natural flow of energy." A radiant woman can inspire you for hours — "the gift of feminine blessing" — without any need to act.
Receive her as a blessing
- The next time a woman "sends a thrill through your body," relax into the thrill — let her feminine energy "move through your body like a deep massage."
- Breathe fully, "without resisting the joy her sighting affords you." Breathe it "all through your body, down to your toes."
- "Don't stare at her, don't even interact with her." Simply let the energy move freely, and "receive her vision as a blessing."
Choose a Woman Who Is Your Complimentary Opposite
The very ways a woman is "least like a man" are what most attract a masculine man — "her feminine shine, the energy that moves her body, her utterly refreshing spontaneity and mystery." You cannot have a woman who is "always logically consistent, reasonable, and on time" and who also fills your heart and flesh with instant ecstatic energy. "It is all one package." The temple dancers of India — trained to let divine force move their bodies — show that for a woman at home in her essence, "there is no disconnection between sex and spirit."
Know What Is Important in Your Woman
Business skills are masculine; friendship is neutral; sexual passion requires clear polarity. Force one relationship to serve all purposes and "these different energies often cancel each other out." You turn "the mystery of sexual enchantment" into "the ritual mechanics of kiss, stroke, lick, pump, spurt, and snore. Domesticity replaces mystery, and talk replaces tumble." Choose a single priority for the relationship and "allow all the other activities to align themselves around" it — otherwise she becomes "your business partner one moment, your friend another, a mother this moment, and your lover the next."
You Will Often Want More Than One Woman
The desire "is not a reflection of any lack in your intimacy" — it's "a reflection of your nature as a masculine sexual being." But desire is not an excuse "any more than your enjoyment of TV is an excuse for becoming an obese couch potato." Before you consider more than one, "prove your capacity with one." If deep communion and rejuvenating passion "are not the main features of your present intimacy… you have not passed the test."
The Key Distinction
Discipline ≠ Suppression
Suppression is when "you resist and fight against your desires, keeping them buried and unexpressed."
Self-discipline is when "your highest desires rule your lesser desires — not through resistance, but through loving action grounded in understanding and compassion."
Young Women Offer You a Special Energy
The energy of a young woman "is actually a whole body transmission of energy, affecting the heart as much as or more than the genitals." Our culture "reduces this youthful energy to a sexual thing"; other cultures honored young women "for their gifts of spiritual rejuvenation." It is a man's responsibility "to honor the heart-rejuvenative gift of a young woman, without violating this honor by imposing your sexual desire on her." If desire arises, "circulate it through your body" rather than throwing it off "in a spasm of release."
Conduct the gift into service
- When enlivened by a young woman, breathe in her fragrance and energy; relax your body and "allow your heart to open in her presence."
- Maintain a respectful formality "so that she is free and empowered to give her gift, without being complicated by your personal agenda."
- Use the energy in service to others — "passing the gifts of heightened aliveness and passionate heart into all of your relationships, so that all beings may benefit."
Each Woman Has a "Temperature" That Can Heal or Irritate You
Beyond simple "taste," energy plays a major role: some women are "cooling" — "a cool drink of ice tea on a hot sunny day" — and some are "hot," fiery and quick of temper. (Deida offers the era's broad archetypes — the "icy blonde," the "fiery redhead" — while noting "not all redheads or Latinas are hot, nor are all blondes cool.") It works like your relationship with food, and your needs change over time with your health, work, and emotional state.
| Temperature | Feels like | Heals the man who is… | Overwhelms the man who is… |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot / Fiery | Passion, quick temper, fast sexual response; spicy Szechwan, Mexican peppers | Easygoing, unmotivated — "her fiery nature can heat up your system and get you moving" | Burnt out, "boiling all day at work," under the gun |
| Cool / Soothing | Calm, slow, refreshing; salads, sweets, milk, "cool blue eyes" | Quick-tempered and hot himself — "a more cooling woman heals you and brings balance" | Already sluggish or dreary — may find it "tiresome" |
What Women Really Want
Part Four decodes the gap between what a woman asks for and what she actually wants. Beneath every request and complaint is one desire: "to feel your full consciousness, your trustable integrity, your unshakable love, and your confidence in your mission." She rarely asks for these directly. Instead she tests — and you must learn to read her "more as an oracle than as an advisor." (See the cycle of testing in Section 05.)
Choose a Woman Who Chooses You
"Once she feels that you need her more than she needs you, she will never trust your masculine core." If she feels the intimacy matters more to you than to her, "she will naturally animate her masculine… and be repulsed by your clinginess." Discriminate between "playing hard to get" and genuine disinterest — ask your friends, even her friends. If the poles have truly reversed — "your feminine desire for love meeting her masculine desire for freedom" — it "is not viable grounds for intimacy." Move on and "work with your hurt."
What She Wants Is Not What She Says
A true story: a man practicing sexual yoga is making wild love with his wife when he realizes he'll ejaculate unless they slow down. "I want you to come inside of me," she begs. He decides to give her what she asked — and afterward finds her upset. "You came," she says. "But you said you wanted me to…" — "Yes, but I said that in order to feel that you were strong enough not to!" The divine feminine "settles for nothing less than the divine masculine," which is consciousness. Apply "your sword of discrimination to your woman's requests, never taking them at face value."
Her Complaint Is Content-Free
She complains about the TV, the unpaid rent, the garage you promised to clean weeks ago and didn't. But "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 unfinished garage isn't about the garage — "you gave her your word, and you didn't follow through. She can't trust what you say. And this hurts her, deeply." Hear her complaints "as warning bells," valuable as "a reminder to get it together" — but never as literal content.
She Doesn't Really Want to Be Number One
Picture a man who must go off to war. "Please don't go," she begs, weeping — "You know that I must," he answers, and walks out to his destiny. If instead he said, "You are more important than my mission, so I'm staying," "a deeper part of her would feel deflated, emptied, let down." If a woman becomes "the point of your life, you are lost." She wants you "totally dedicated to his highest purpose — and also to love her fully." Don't "substitute default responsibilities for true purpose."
Your Excellent Track Record Is Meaningless to Her
"The feminine responds to the moment of energy, forgetting her man's history." One wrong word in an otherwise perfect five-hour lovemaking "could collapse your woman as completely as if you had spent two hours making mistakes." But the flip side is a gift: "your mistake is as easily forgotten as your successes." Don't defend your record — "instantly shift the energy." Assume happiness, "shock her with your love," lift her off the ground — "and the emotional slate will be wiped clean."
She Wants to Relax in the Demonstration of Your Direction
"The man doesn't have to actually do all the work, but he must be able to steer the course." Any ambiguity about your financial or spiritual future, "she'll feel it… in your body, eyes, and the tone of your voice," and she will take charge herself — her radiance diminishing as she does. It "doesn't matter if your woman earns more or less money than you"; what matters is that "she can get on your train and that it's going exactly where she wants to go."
"She won't be disappointed if she feels you are strong and clear in the true direction of your heart. And if she is disappointed by your deepest truth, you shouldn't be with her."
Your Dark Side
The dark masculine is not violence — it is the fearless capacity to face death, to ravish in love, to meet the feminine's wildest energy without flinching. Deida argues that a man who disowns this dark force "kinks the hose" of his masculine energy and loses his spiritual guts. "Beneath the patient smile of most men lies the warrior of love." This part is about reclaiming him.
You Are Always Searching for Freedom
Orgasm — petite mort, the "little death" — is the archetype: a build-up of tension until "the dam finally breaks," followed by "death-like peace." So are sports (breaking through the line to freedom), competition (ritual threat of death), and war. "The other team is your own need for private security… To be free is to die to your need to be a separate self." The feminine, by contrast, "is not seeking freedom, but love… Her means is not release, but surrender." This is why "a woman is upset when a man begins snoring after orgasm" — he has reached his emptiness; she was hoping for fullness.
Own Your Darkest Desires
The desire to ravish "is the desire to break through a woman's resistances to open her heart and body into ecstatic loving." When this desire is severed from the heart, "you will settle for breaking through a woman's resistance without love, through violence or coercion" — settling for rape fantasies, violent pornography, "tragic stories of loss and brutality." "The difference between rape and ravishment is love." The dark feminine desire "to be forced to surrender, is as strong as the dark masculine desire to penetrate." Owning this force in love unkinks the hose — and restores your capacity "to die into love," which is also your capacity for spiritual surrender.
Feel through the boundaries
- The next time you make love, "feel through your own physical and emotional boundaries into her" — so deeply "that you become unaware of yourself and totally aware of her."
- "Love her with more abandon than you've ever allowed yourself before," feeling through both your boundaries and hers, "so that you are both dissolved in the immense force of your loving."
- Let space open "for her energies and desires to take you to places you would never have gone on your own." Relax into love "so completely that only love remains."
She Wants the "Killer" in You
Jump on the couch and scream for her to kill the cockroach — send her downstairs to investigate the burglar — "she is not going to become excited by your masculine valiancy." "Fearlessness, or the capacity to transcend the fear of death for the sake of love, is a quintessential form of the ultimate masculine gift." This capacity "makes you trustable… both as a human warrior but also as a spiritual warrior. The knowledge of death makes you humble and courageous… strips the armor from your heart and allows the knowledge of love."
She Needs Your Consciousness to Match Her Energy
"As a general rule, she will keep returning to the energy that you cannot match." Turned off by her anger and unable to embrace it? "She will continue to test your capacity to do so… again and again." The secret is to "match her energy with consciousness demonstrated through your body" — tone of voice, the look in your eyes, your physical presence "mean a lot more to her than anything you could say." She will not trust your "lighter" masculine capacities "until you have proven your darker" ones. She is not asking to be pleased — "she is offering you a gift," an energy to master, "just as the world will offer it to you as well."
"Her gift, if she is a good woman, is to test you with her darkest moods, over and over, until your consciousness is unperturbed by feminine challenge… In response to your fearless consciousness, she will drench your world in love and light."
Feminine Attractiveness
"Life itself is the feminine." Part Six reframes a man's whole relationship to feminine attraction — from scarcity to abundance, from lust to gift, from depolarized familiarity back to charge, and finally from attraction to women into attraction through them, to the source they only promise.
The Feminine Is Abundant
The sense of starvation — "there are no good women," "life is not sustaining me" — "is usually rooted in a man's early childhood relationship with his mother." "You are living in an ocean of feminine energy right now. Feminine energy is filling your body with life, beating your heart, and breathing your breath." The feeling of lack requires that you "actually refuse feminine energy."
Feel the moment as a woman
- When feeling isolated and weary, "feel the present moment as if it were a woman" — the front of your body pressed against her, "filled with the delight of her feminine softness."
- Feel your surroundings "as her form, the sounds around you as her moans and laughter, and the light around you as her smile." Relax with the moment "as you would relax with your lover… not metaphorically but literally, bodily."
- Do the same with human women — receive "their anger as a jolt of awakening energy," their happiness "as a light shower of refreshment," so your day "becomes a feast of plenty."
Allow Older Women Their Magic
Radiance is not merely youthful skin — it is "the shine of life force itself," revealing "the degree to which she is open, trusting, connected, and loving." There is a difference between "your knee-jerk response to a cute babe and the open-hearted awe… in the company of a woman who moves, breathes, smiles, and shines radiant feminine energy like a goddess." Deep beauty "need not be diminished by age. Actually, it can be magnified." As a woman ages with wisdom "her psychic weight increases" — and "an older woman will also tolerate less of your bullshit," which can make her "an excellent ally for your journey."
Turn Your Lust Into Gifts
Sexual energy "tends to go directly to one of two places" — the head (fantasy) or the genitals (lustful need). "Your head and genitals, however, are just the north and south poles of the whole body." A superior man circulates arousal throughout the body, "taking particular care not to let it stagnate in swollen fantasies or appendages." "The purpose of sexual desire is creation" — and reproduction "is but the biological aspect." Women are a man's "muse and inspiration," moving him "to create and serve humanity."
Circulate desire into inspiration
- When you feel lust for any woman, "breathe deeply and allow the feeling of desire to magnify. And allow it to magnify more."
- Don't let it lodge in head or genitals — "circulate it throughout your body," using breath as "the instrument of circulation," bathing "every cell in the stimulated energy."
- "Inhale it into your heart, and then feel outward from your heart, feeling the world as if it were your lover." On the exhale, "move into the world and penetrate it… opening it into love."
Never Allow Your Desire to Become Suppressed or Depolarized
When a man becomes depolarized toward his woman, "she will feel his rejection, disgust, and turning away," and her "unhusbanded energy will begin to move chaotically, becoming even self-destructive." Two long-familiar lovers become "like two magnets that have demagnetized each other." A mediocre man just moves on to "another and then another hopeful source of polarity." But "another man might find your woman to be quite a turn on even though she seems old-shoe to you." A superior man "always assumes complete responsibility." When she looks "withdrawn, dark, or downright ugly, assume she is a goddess and needs your divine invasion of her heart and body."
Use Her Attractiveness as a Slingshot Through Appearance
"Women can attract you, heal you, and inspire your gifts, but they will never satisfy you absolutely. Never. And you know this." That is why they are "so frustrating." The play of your body wanting hers "is the most obvious hoax of fulfillment." But the momentum of desire, "like a slingshot," can "deliver you to the source that women only promise." Your ultimate desire "is for the union of consciousness with its own luminosity… Your desire for union with a woman is a stepped-down version of this ultimate spiritual need." So don't stop chasing — "Feel through her."
"The very light of your consciousness shines as the world, and it is looking back at you, appearing as woman."
Body Practices
Part Seven is the book's most concrete: three yogic body practices for converting depletive sexual energy into rejuvenative energy. The premise is that a man's capacity for full consciousness during sex mirrors his capacity to give his gift to the world — and both depend on breath, relaxation, and a heart practiced in love. "Love is the governor of energy."
Ejaculation Should Be Converted or Consciously Chosen
As a man lives with more true purpose, he accumulates less daily tension — and then discovers "that ejaculation, for the most part, actually depletes and weakens" him. The price of "the genital sneeze" is "a much higher level of mediocrity in your daily life": it drains "the cutting-through energy" needed "to pierce your own wall of lethargy." At a subtle level, easy ejaculation "creates ongoing distrust in his woman" — "if she can drain you, so can the world." A superior man may choose to ejaculate "occasionally" — but "made freely, before even engaging in sex, not after it is too late."
Breathe Down the Front
Men tend to accumulate blocks "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." Nervousness tightens the stomach; sadness lumps the throat; worry clenches the jaw. "The front of your body, especially your belly, is the place where your energy meets the energy of the world." When it is open, "your power flows freely, and your presence fills the room." The main cause of tension is turning attention "back on yourself in self-concern" — so the cure is to "convert into service the energy that is knotting up the front of your body."
Breathing down the front
- Inhale deeply through your nose, "breathing through whatever tensions you notice." First fill the lower belly, then exhale.
- Next inhale into the lower and upper belly; exhale. Then belly plus solar plexus and lower chest; exhale.
- Finally fill "your belly, solar plexus, and finally your chest, in that order" — all the way down "to your genitals." Then exhale "fully, slowly, and smoothly."
- Throughout the day, "as soon as you feel tension in the front of your body, inhale into that area and open it," like stretching open a balloon.
Ejaculate Up the Spine
Teenage masturbation conditions a habitual sequence — "genital stimulation, mental fantasy, building up tension, and ejaculating." To realize sex's full potential you must recondition body and nervous system. The technique "involves contracting the pelvic floor near the genitals and drawing energy upward along the spine, through the use of breath, feeling, and intention." Premature ejaculation isn't about the clock — it's ejaculation that "signs the end to your session of loving before both you and your woman have fully opened."
Converting the orgasm upward
- Stay present, not in fantasy. Remain "aware of your own body, breath, and mind, and especially attentive to your partner." Break "the masturbatory habit of inward fantasy."
- Keep body and breath relaxed and full — "especially keep the front of your body relaxed, so that your belly is vast and your heart is soft and wide."
- Feel into, and then through, your partner — attention "directed beyond your own sensations and even beyond your partner's," feeling "as if to infinity."
- Breathe the circle all day — inhalation down the front, exhalation up the spine. Chronic thinking or ejaculation addiction "is often a sign that your energy is blocked."
- Contract the pelvic floor and breathe up the spine during sex — especially near orgasm — "to shoot your orgasm up into your brain… rather than down and out your genitals."
The Yoga of Intimacy
The final part gathers everything into a practice. Intimacy itself becomes yoga — "a vehicle for spiritual growth" — governed by an asymmetry, a division of responsibility, and a man's obligation to keep cutting through to the source. It ends where the whole book points: dissolving, moment by moment, in the giving of your gift.
Take into Account the Primary Asymmetry
Her core "is fulfilled when love is flowing"; yours "is released from stress by aligning your life with your mission." When the intimacy is going badly, "you can't wait to leave the house and go to work" where you are in your element; for her, the pain of unlove "will color her disposition" everywhere. It goes further: "for most men, their woman is replaceable. Harsh, but true." Whereas "you are lodged in the heart of your woman… You are not replaceable in her perception." You live "in a world of relational possibility"; she lives "in a world of relational actuality."
You Are Responsible for the Growth in Intimacy
"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." Beyond self-responsibility "lies the responsibility to give your gift." Your masculine gift "is to know where you are, where you want to be, and what you need to do to get there." Her loving intervention wakes you into your body and the present; your loving intervention is "her wake-up call, her heart-opener." "If it takes you more than five minutes to open her into love, you are probably talking too much and acting too little."
Insist on Practice and Growth
A weaker man says "My way or the highway"; a growing man plays "Mr. Nice Guy" and seeks compromise. The superior man wants his woman "to move in the direction that most serves her growth in love and happiness" — and "will settle for nothing less." But first, align your own life: "if you are not absolutely certain that, in this moment, you are living exactly the life you need to, then your woman will feel your lack of clarity, and she will fight any kind of guidance you offer her."
Restore Your Purpose in Solitude and with Other Men
Spend too much time only with your woman and "you will rub off on each other in the worst way" — "the goddess and the warrior will become neutralized householders." She restores her feminine radiance best "in the company of other women"; you restore your masculine edge through solitude and men. For a man merely stuck in rigid masculinity, singing and dancing is good medicine — but "for men who have lost their sense of purpose… the cure is to be challenged to live at your edge."
Path One · to the edge
Austerity
"Eliminate the comforts and cushions… that you have learned to snuggle into and lose wakefulness." No newspapers, TV, sweets, sex, cuddling; no reading on the toilet; "no conversation that isn't about truth, love, or the divine." What's left is "the edge you have been avoiding" — "unadorned suffering is the bedmate of masculine growth."
Path Two · to the edge
Challenge
Superficial forms: mountain climbing, ropes courses, competitive sports, boot camp. Deeper: "directly giving your gift in ways that have been blocked by your fear" — with real consequences. Afraid of public speaking? Speak weekly for three months; miss a week and you owe three talks. "There must be a consequence for freezing in the face of fear."
Restoration — solitude & the company of men
- Daily solitude. "Spend time every day in solitude, with no distractions. Just sit, for ten minutes. No fidgeting, no channel surfing." Stay with your suffering "until you fall through it and intuit the groundless source of your life."
- Vision quest. The most potent realignment combines austerity and challenge: go into the woods alone, fast, forgo sleep, "open yourself and wait… until you fall through the hole of your fear and emerge with a vision of your true mission."
- Weekly men's gathering. "At least once a week, get together with your men friends to serve one another. Cut through the bullshit… If you feel your friend is wasting his life, tell him so, because you love him." Agree on challenges — and on consequences for not persisting.
- Arrange her restoration too. Make sure your woman has "her rejuvenative time" with other women, or "you will rot in the cushions of bargained stagnation and sexual neutralization."
Practice Dissolving
The book's final principle is its shortest, and its whole. "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."
"Feel through your woman and the world, and die in the giving of your gift."
The 51 Principles — Complete Reference
The entire book in one view: every principle, in order, with its essence distilled to a line. This is the fast index — scan it to locate any teaching, then return to its full treatment above.
| # | Principle | The core teaching |
|---|---|---|
| Part One · A Man's Way | ||
| 1 | Stop Hoping for a Completion of Anything in Life | It never ends — stop waiting; do what you love now, one hour a day. |
| 2 | Live With an Open Heart Even If It Hurts | Open the front of the body; a hurting heart, never a closed one. |
| 3 | Live As If Your Father Were Dead | Love him, yet be free of his expectations and criticisms. |
| 4 | Know Your Real Edge and Don't Fake It | All men are afraid; honor your edge, don't pretend past it or short of it. |
| 5 | Always Hold to Your Deepest Realization | Make eternity your home; live and create from the source. |
| 6 | Never Change Your Mind Just to Please a Woman | Listen fully, then decide from your own deepest wisdom. |
| 7 | Your Purpose Must Come Before Your Relationship | Mission first; give her undivided presence, then return to it. |
| 8 | Lean Just Beyond Your Edge | Neither lazy nor overreaching; make fear your friend. |
| 9 | Do It for Love | Penetrate world and woman to magnify love — or renounce them; no middle. |
| 10 | Enjoy Your Friends' Criticism | Receiving men's challenge is receiving masculine energy; the father force. |
| 11 | If You Don't Know Your Purpose, Discover It, Now | Without purpose a man drifts, weakened, even impotent. |
| 12 | Be Willing to Change Everything in Your Life | Penetrate the concentric circles toward your deepest purpose; wait for the vision. |
| 13 | Don't Use Your Family As an Excuse | Be a full participant, but never abnegate your deepest purpose. |
| 14 | Don't Get Lost in Tasks and Duties | No amount of doing adds up to love, freedom, or consciousness. |
| 15 | Stop Hoping for Your Woman to Get Easier | Her testing never ends; be Shiva — imperturbable, present, loving. |
| Part Two · Dealing With Women | ||
| 16 | Women Are Not Liars | Feminine speech expresses feeling in the moment, not fact. |
| 17 | Praise Her | The feminine grows by praise, not challenge; praise 5–10 times a day. |
| 18 | Tolerating Her Leads to Resenting Her | Don't tolerate her moods — serve, open, and love through them. |
| 19 | Don't Analyze Your Woman | Her moods are weather; 90% is feeling unloved. Give love, not diagnosis. |
| 20 | Don't Suggest She Fix Her Own Emotional Problem | She frees herself by surrender into love, not analysis. Let her be the ocean. |
| 21 | Stay With Her Intensity — To a Point | Stand present in her storm; then, if she won't open, let her go. |
| 22 | Don't Force the Feminine to Make Decisions | Give the masculine gift of decisiveness — even about the shoes. |
| Part Three · Working With Polarity and Energy | ||
| 23 | Your Attraction to the Feminine Is Inevitable | Receive attraction as a blessing; attraction is not sex. |
| 24 | Choose a Woman Who Is Your Complimentary Opposite | It's all one package; a masculine man needs a feminine reciprocal. |
| 25 | Know What Is Important in Your Woman | Choose one priority for the relationship, or the charge cancels out. |
| 26 | You Will Often Want More Than One Woman | Variety is natural; discipline ≠ suppression; prove yourself with one first. |
| 27 | Young Women Offer You a Special Energy | A rejuvenative whole-body gift; honor it without imposing desire. |
| 28 | Each Woman Has a "Temperature" | Hot or cool energy heals or irritates; your needs change over time. |
| Part Four · What Women Really Want | ||
| 29 | Choose a Woman Who Chooses You | Neediness undermines; don't pursue one who doesn't want you. |
| 30 | What She Wants Is Not What She Says | She tests your strength to do right; wield the sword of discrimination. |
| 31 | Her Complaint Is Content-Free | Hear her as an oracle, not literal content; she reflects your unconsciousness. |
| 32 | She Doesn't Really Want to Be Number One | She wants your highest purpose to come before her. |
| 33 | Your Excellent Track Record Is Meaningless to Her | The feminine responds to the moment; shift the energy, don't defend history. |
| 34 | She Wants to Relax in the Demonstration of Your Direction | Steer the course — financial and spiritual — so she can relax into radiance. |
| Part Five · Your Dark Side | ||
| 35 | You Are Always Searching for Freedom | Masculine ecstasy is release from constraint; both paths reach the ground of being. |
| 36 | Own Your Darkest Desires | The difference between rape and ravishment is love; don't kink the hose. |
| 37 | She Wants the "Killer" in You | Fearlessness before death is a quintessential masculine gift. |
| 38 | She Needs Your Consciousness to Match Her Energy | Meet her dark energy with conscious body; earn trust on the dark side first. |
| Part Six · Feminine Attractiveness | ||
| 39 | The Feminine Is Abundant | No shortage, only resistance to receiving; life itself is the feminine. |
| 40 | Allow Older Women Their Magic | Radiance is life-force shine, not youth; it deepens and gains psychic weight. |
| 41 | Turn Your Lust Into Gifts | Circulate arousal through the body; convert lust into creation and service. |
| 42 | Never Allow Your Desire to Become Suppressed or Depolarized | Familiarity, not time, kills delight; assume full responsibility. |
| 43 | Use Her Attractiveness as a Slingshot Through Appearance | Feel through women into the source they only promise. |
| Part Seven · Body Practices | ||
| 44 | Ejaculation Should Be Converted or Consciously Chosen | Convert to whole-body orgasm; if chosen, choose freely, before sex. |
| 45 | Breathe Down the Front | Keep the body's front line open; convert tension into service. |
| 46 | Ejaculate Up the Spine | Contract the pelvic floor and draw the orgasm up the spine, into the brain. |
| Part Eight · Men's and Women's Yoga of Intimacy | ||
| 47 | Take into Account the Primary Asymmetry | Intimacy is never his priority, always hers; support each other's cores. |
| 48 | You Are Responsible for the Growth in Intimacy | He gives direction and depth of love; she gives energy and vitality. |
| 49 | Insist on Practice and Growth | "The divine way or the highway"; the law of conservation of energy. |
| 50 | Restore Your Purpose in Solitude and with Other Men | Austerity and challenge return you to the edge; arrange her restoration too. |
| 51 | Practice Dissolving | Die in the giving of your gift; fear is the final excuse — love through it. |
"He simply lives from his deepest core, fearlessly giving his gifts, feeling through the fleeting moment into the openness of existence, totally committed to magnifying love."