The Tao of Sexual Energy

This Before reading this page, be sure that you have covered the basics. While the basics were covered from a more Indian perspective, on this page we'll switch gears a little bit and look at things from a more Chinese point of view; particularly, that of the Tao.

According to Indian Vedantins, health is the maximization of the flow of prana. According to the Taoists, health is the maximization of the flow of chi. Prana and chi are both terms to describe what we can visualize as our "vital energy" - that invisible something that keeps us alive, and if we are wise, vibrant and healthy.

You can think of this vital energy like money in a bank account. We are born with an amount of chi which is a gift from our parents. If your mother took care of you (and herself) when you were in the womb - ate a healthy diet, nurtured you, lived peacefully, etc., you were born with a bunch of it! If she smoked, lived on fast food, drank, did drugs, engaged in a lot of drama, etc., you received much less.

As a small child, your account of chi was largely a function of what your parents did for you - and to you. If you were fed healthy food in a peaceful, loving and nurturing household, you had a bit of a "head start". It is important to know that the diet of thoughts that you were fed is as important as the diet of food, both prenatally and in your childhood. If your home was abusive, filled with arguments and chaos - or worse - it has the same effect as if they put small amounts of arsenic in your fast food, and decreases the amount of chi you have to work with.

At this point, we are talking about energy in general. As a child, your sexual energy is dormant and latent. This explains why childhood sexual abuse is so damaging (besides all of the obvious reasons we know intuitively), because it activates sexual energy before you have the foundation to support it. It's like a big tree with no roots; an "accident waiting to happen". It also explains why puberty is so confusing; because a MAJOR part of our personality and motivation springs to life, seeming out of nowhere.

Thankfully, even from the worst surroundings, we enter adulthood with enough chi to make our own decisions, and also thankfully, no matter how much or how little chi we have in our endowment, we can create more. For our purposes, there is no limit!

As an adult, we can manage our own chi. We make deposits and withdrawals in to our account. As is the case with money, we constantly withdraw. We need chi to cover our "living expenses", so it is important that we invest wisely and make deposits into the account as well. But no matter how well we take care of ourselves, one day, our withdrawals of chi exceed our deposits and credit. This is the point we call death.