“In our schizophrenic sexual culture – whether sex is moralistically repressed as sin or hedonistically expressed as ‘fucking’ – sex tends to be reduced to a mere physical act: Tab A in Slot B, or some variation thereof. This, of course, is only the gross dimension of sex. But could you have sex – or really make love – consciously in all 3 bodies?”
That quote from the Integral Life Practice handbook by Wilber, Patten, Leonard and Morelli introduces an understanding that is destined to become more acknowledged by humanity, that we all each actually have three bodies: A gross physical body, a subtle (energetic) body, and a causal (very subtle) body.
These correspond to your waking, dreaming and formless (or deep sleep) states of Consciousness.
“Without you and your partner’s conscious participation, [gross, physical level sex] would lead fairly quickly to male orgasm and the end of the encounter.” – Integral Life Practice
“At the subtle level (which begins before the gross and continues beyond it), you and your partner could share a deep emotional exchange. … By focusing your attention on the subtle dimension of sex, achieving orgasm might become less important, and the joyful play of energies up and down, in and out, and in every other direction, could become an amazing source of pleasure. Your heart centres could open and mutually resonate perhaps even merge into a singular vortex of profound and passionate loving. … The play of energies and depth of emotion could themselves become free-flowing subtle orgasms.
“At the causal level, you could rest in perfectly still, unobstructed awareness – the silent, conscious, spaceless space that’s holding your gross and subtle bodies, and hearts and minds, throughout the sexual act.
“And finally, in the nondual union of all your bodies, that still and silent witness consciousness might reveal itself as inseparable from boundless radiant love. And that all-pervading love might find itself making art out of the caress of two naked human beings. Pure emptiness could hold the dance of undulating flesh and the frolic of subtle electricity, and release them into an ecstatic luminescence that’s utterly transcendent and yet tenderly intimate – even in the sweetness of your lover’s lips.” – Integral Life Practice
Reading the final chapter of Volume II of Kissing Consciousness will illuminate the terms ‘causal’, ‘witness’, ‘emptiness’ and ‘nondual’ a bit more for you.