I agree, Deez. Everyone has sets of beliefs that in some way limit them, but they also give us the safe containers in which we exist. They help to make our lives more comfortable. Most people don't want to give up limiting beliefs. There's not reason to give up a limiting belief unles it is shown that there is something "better." As I pointed out, my view was neither better nor worse, just different.

The reason I wrote was not to try to convince anyone that poly is better than mono. I just wanted to point out that they were different. I would say that at this point in world evolution most people do not want a poly life. However, the original post seemed to imply--at least it's the way I took it--that mono is inherently more spiritual than poly. I would disagree with that concept and suggest that saying that either poly or mono being "superior" is based only on our limiting beliefs.

Some people may find that mono fits them better while other may find that poly helps them on their spiritual path. There is nothing, IMO, that makes one path inherently better or worse than the other. What I suggest is that people examine themselves and determine which will work the best for them without decrying the paths of others.

Why would I assume that? Because I live in a western european christian dominated culture? Yes, "Do your thing and stop hating on mine" is right. But to assume that all the others were mono by default? It may be very likely that many of them had to lead such non-mono lives in private for fear of scorn and ridicule from the dominant paradigm. And did you really think that it was supposed to be a comprehensive list? At least here I am seeing some proof being offered rather than some sweeping generalization lacking any presented evidence. Who, cares? Why those of us who stand to suffer from such assumptions and misinformation, that's who. I'll make my same recommendation...let's all try a little compassion. For ourselves and others.

(that last post was meant for stephan)

Laura, as I wrote, some leaders often present an image of monogamy when, in fact that was not the way they lived at least part of their lives. Followers than mythologize that image.

Since we don't have external records of the Buddha or Jesus--assuming either were real--it's impossible to say.

I note that you left out one of the foremost creators of modern Christianity, St. Augustine. In his Confessions he talks about how he was having sex all over the place. This seems to be a common format for some Christians. They have sex all over the place resulting in an actual or metaphoric spiritual vision, then abandon it. Even Pat Robertson was getting his before he married his wife. She was pregnant when they married. And since you brought up Christianity by mentioning Jesus, let's just look at some Popes:
Pope Pius II (1458–1464) had at least two illegitimate children
Pope Innocent VIII (1484–1492) had at least two illegitimate children
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534) had one illegitimate son
Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585) had an illegitimate son
Pope Julius II (1503–1513) had at least one illegitimate daughter
Pope Paul III (1534–1549) held off ordination in order to continue his promiscuous lifestyle, fathering four illegitimate children (three sons and one daughter) by his mistress Silvia Ruffini.
Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) had three illegitimate children
Pope Sergius III (904–911) was supposedly the father of the boy who became Pope John XI by Marozia. Bertrand Fauvarque
Pope John XII (955–963) was said to have turned the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano into a brothel and was accused of adultery, fornication, and incest.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, again in 1045 and finally 1047–1048) was said to have conducted a very dissolute life during his papacy.[16]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503) had a notably long affair with Vannozza dei Cattanei before his papacy, by whom he had his famous illegitimate children Cesare and Lucrezia. A later mistress, Giulia Farnese, was the sister of Alessandro Farnese, who later became Pope Paul III. He fathered a total of at least seven, and possibly as many as ten illegitimate children.

The bottom line is that we can see a long trend of spiritual leaders who were far from celibate.

You mention the Dali Lama, so I'll say, "OK," but I'll pick the 6th Dali Lama who was popularly known as a playboy, having relations with many women. However it is quite likely that he was a master of Tantra and was using sex for is spiritual properties. The same is certainly true of St. Theresa of Avila who wrote descriptions of her visions that are so obviously sexual and powerful that they are amazing.

Martin Luther King Jr. allegedly had many liaisons with women. Gandhi regularly slept with several underage girls simultaneously. You mention Alice Bailey but not her important contemporary, Madame Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy, who had numerous lovers. You mention Yogananda, but don't mention that the organization he founded, the Self-Realization Fellowship, has a spiritual basis in Tantric techniques.

You don't mention Amiee Semple McPherson, founder of the Foursquare Church, who "vanished" to have an affair. You don't mention John Humphrey Noyes who founded the Oneida community in what is now Oneida N. Y. Members of his devoted Christian community believed in a "complex marriage." You also don't mention the Barbelo Gnostics, the Celtic Pagans, the Indian Tantrics and so many other groups.

Concerning Joseph Campbell, I quote Carol Wallace Orr, Director of The University of Tennessee Press, who wrote, "In the early 1970s, I worked with Joe Campbell on his Mythic Image at Princeton University Press. It was amazing to me that this man of cosmic vision could harbor such meanspirited and seemingly unexamined biases against much of humankind. In addition to anti-Semitism, I remember in particular his vexation over blacks' being admitted to Sarah Lawrence.

"That Joe Campbell has become a public hero is astonishing. His glibness and his charisma were a mask that concealed a narrow mind."

I don't look to him for spiritual enlightenment.

Laura, there is a famous video made for the visual cognition lab at the University of Illinois. If you want to see the effect of the video (it's only a minute or so long), go to viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flas...5.php and try to count the number of times the people with the white shirts pass the basketball. Do that before reading the next paragraph.

No matter your count, chance are you didn't see the guy in the gorilla suit come walking from right to left, stopping to beat his chest (if you go back now, you'll see it). The point is, if you're looking for one thing that's all you're going to see.

You have come up with a position and now you're bringing up evidence (some of it dubious) to support your position. You are so focused on see things that support your view that you can't see anything else.

I fully acknowledge that there are spiritual leaders who were celibate. However I also acknowledge that others were monogamous, others practiced serial monogamy, and others had multiple relationships simultaneously. Why I can easily find such people and you have such difficulty doing so isn't important.

I have stated that I'm glad you've found a path that suits your needs. That's great! Follow it. But merely because it works for you does not mean it is appropriate for anyone other than you. If you want to shout, "Hey, everyone, look what I've found!" I think that's fantastic. Do it. Share your beliefs of what works for you.

However, you're not saying "This works for me and it's great!" Instead, you're saying what others are doing is horrible, will take them away from the Divine, and basically, will send anyone who disagrees with you to hell.

May the God and Goddess bless you, Laura, but I have to tell you this: No.

Your information is false. Your data is false. Your vision is narrowed to a point of being blind to anything else. You've fallen into the dismal den of dogmatism and fundamentalism, living by the letter of some self-created word but not by the spirit.

If that works for you, fine. But if you're going to spread your misinformation and dogma here, there will be people, including myself, that will stand up and say "No."

I imagine you may wonder what I mean by saying you are "living by the letter of some self-created word but not by the spirit." That's because you mention the names of some people who are celibate (such as the Dali Lama and St. Theresa of Avila) but don't bother to look at the spirit of WHY they are celibate.

I've taken a lot of time with this response, and some people may be wondering why. Laura, you might be thinking that I am doing this simply to attack you. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason I've take the time to write this is that there are lots of narrow-miinded people out there who think that their way is the only way. It's not true, but some people haven't spent any time investigating all sides. This isn't a private email, it's a forum. Hundreds or even thousands of people have heard your monogamy/celibacy meme so much so that they might believe it. I'm posting here to ask people not to believe it.

But don't take my word for any of this either. Check it out yourself. There are many paths that lead to the Divine. No path is ideal for all. No one should be condemned for taking a path that isn't yours as long as neither your path nor their path abuses others or prevents each other from practicing as you will.

The point of the list was simply to point out that there are a lot of people out there who live. or have lived, non-monogamously. Basing a life choice (especially a 'spiritual' one) on other people's sexual choices seems to me to be a rather risky thing to do - since

A) Western culture hasn't always been terribly forgiving of those who chose 'the path less trodden' - so we may actually not know the truth as many people chose not to go public about their sexual choices.

and

B) The spiritual paths that have been 'poly-friendly' were suppressed ruthlessly so it's not really possibly to know the validity of those paths.

As someone who has seen an awful lot of 'enlightened tyoes' (20 years of living at Findhorn - I've seen a lot of them, believe me) I feel comfortable in saying that sexuality is a HUGE blind-spot for many on the spiritual path.

" i didn't actually see anyone on the list that was known above all, for their connection to divinity, and since that's our primary topic here, could you provide some so i could do further research? the list of modern and historical serial monogamists/celibates that have made major contributions to spiritual enlightenment would be exhaustive: buddha, jesus (i actually think he was not celibate but monogamous), mother teresa, teresa of avila, martin luther king jr, gandhi, alice bailey, paramahansa yogananda, the dali lama, chogyam trungpa, joseph campbell, and caroline myss to name the first dozen that come to mind."

Actually, that list could as well be described as historical serial monogamists/celibates/polygamists.

The point being that most of the religious leaders are celibates - nothing remotely serial monogamist about them.

The following are those known as spiritual leaders, and so far as I know, are pure monogamists.
"buddha, jesus, mother teresa, teresa of avila, paramahansa yogananda, the dali lama, chogyam trungpa"
You can add St. Paul, Martin Luther, St. Francis, and any one of a large number of celibate monks, nuns, etc.

" martin luther king jr, gandhi,"
These are monogamists (sort of - Ghandi was a dubious example), and they are principally political movers - to be included with Mandela, etc. As Ghandi became more spiritually inclined, as he aged, he became more celibate.


"alice bailey, joseph campbell, and caroline myss"
I wouldnt call these great spiritual leaders. More philosophers and cult-founders. Intellectual, but not that spiritual. You wont find them in a cave in a hillside.

So we can conclude that mystics tend to avoid sex altogether, political activists and social movement leaders (including cult-movements) tend to be at least monogamous, while

A-types - including many great artists, thinkers, poets, scientists - tend to be more sexually active, and more inclined to break social taboos from homosexuality to polyamory.

So if you want to be spiritual, better quit sex.

An exception you might want to think about, are the vama marga tantrics, who shag anything that moves in the name of mysticism. Often while sitting on corpses.

It seems to me that for many, perhaps some of each is needed. Just as there are times for extroversion and times for introversion. A time to laugh, a time to cry, etc.... In the end, often the people who touch us the most deeply spiritually are not some big "name". They are the ones who were close and in the right place at the right time with the right words or deeds. So a discussion of who the big spiritual folks are, what relationship choices they make, what cereal they eat, etc., is like a pissing contest, in my opinion.

In the end, I do not think that there is benefit to arguing the point without very strict definitions and people taking responsibility for what is their own experience. When some people say polyamory, they really mean swinging. Or temple whoredom. Or multiple deep relationships. Or polygamy. Or something else all together. Without an agreed upon definition of what polyamory is between the discussion participants, it is really a moot argument at that. Even when people say "monogamy" they do not always mean the same thing. For some, monogamy is one person forever. For others, it means having a relationship with many people, just not at the same time (so called serial monogamy).

For the record, I consider myself basically monogamous (of the serial nature). I try something like polyamory from time to time but mostly it is just allowing my partner to do what they like. I prefer to work on a more intimate level. And that is true for ALL of my relationships. I don't really consider myself a group person. But just because I do not necessarily work best that way, does not make it true for all others either. We are a varied group, us humans.

Such silly monkeys!

Coco, I would respectfully disagree.

It seems to me that you're assuming we have a "pie" of love. If we slice the pie into many pieces (poly) and lose one piece, we still have the rest of the pie so it's less of a loss than if we don't slice the pie (mono) and lost the entire thing.

That's like saying if you have five children and one dies, you're not going to feel as bad as if you have only one child and that child dies. I find that a horrifying concept.

IMO love doesn't work that way. For me, the more people you love, the more you love the more love you have. The loss of any real love hurts. Period.

For people who have a lost of a poly love or a mono love, I suggest reading the book _How to Survive the Loss of a Love_. It's short and very helpful.