Content Warning: This section discusses sacred sexuality, erotic mysticism, and the integration of sexual and spiritual energy.
If you’re not ready for that, maybe save it for later. But if you’ve ever been feeling confused about why your meditations have started feeling more like a sacred rendezvous, this might explain why.
NOTE: This post was originally published on December 14, 2025, then unpublished the same day. It has been updated with new content from January 16, 2026 and republished with minor edits.
Something distressing has started happening recently with meditation.
It’s started to feel like cheating.
And I can’t NOT write about it.
I want to clarify—I DO NOT get a kick out of this. I was HORRIFIED for almost 2 years until I realized this was a known mystical phenomenon, just not talked about so plainly, ESPECIALLY in the prudish West where people like Ida Craddock were hounded, imprisoned, or worse for sharing such “blasphemous” beliefs.
Full disclosure
I’m 31. Female libido supposedly peaks around 30. Mine? Nose-dived. Though to be fair, I didn’t have much of one to begin with. I was actually skittish about sex in general until after college and never had much interest. I imagine time spent living together with my spouse has also played a factor. It’s been almost exactly 8 years since we moved in together.
However, for over a year now, I’ve been functionally asexual in my marriage, not by choice, not because of relationship problems, despite not being on any kind of medication (e.g. SSRIs), and despite no known medical issues. In fact, if anything, I’ve been getting healthier (with WHOOP metrics and blood tests to back that claim up).
The first recorded instance of this issue? 12 days after I got more serious with my sadhana:
“So concludes day 12 of sobriety from caffeine and weed, my new pescatarian diet, and my new hour-long dawn and dusk sadhana of surya/chandra namaskar, nadi shodhana, and meditation. But one negative side effect that I noticed aside from feeling foggy every day: my already low sex drive is now gone. [...] I feel heartbroken. My libido was barely enough to keep my husband satisfied and now it’s gone and I don’t know how to get it back...” — Journal Entry, October 28, 2024
And my libido hasn’t come back since—it’s transformed into something more... intense. The energy that used to fuel physical desire has been... redirected. The energy that used to peak and release doesn’t move that way anymore. It moves UP, not OUT.
Let me explain.
When meditation feels like cheating
I’ve established in previous posts (see the “bhakti” tag) that meditation can lead to falling in love with the Divine. The “that explains so much” moment came from a YouTube video from an Anandamaya Yoga teacher that I saw earlier this year.
“How am I ever going to explain to [my husband] that I’ve fallen in love with You? I now understand what the Psalmists felt in those verses, that deep, gnawing yearning on every level of my being for You. I think about You all the time... when I eat, when I shower, even when I sleep. I miss You all the time as if You’re a world apart... as if this love wasn’t meant to be, but it only serves to drive me more mad with longing. Admittedly I’ve never felt this head over heels for anyone, not even my own wonderful husband. I’m ashamed I feel so strongly for Someone that doesn’t even physically exist, but I can’t explain these intense feelings.” — Journal Entry, December 13, 2024
But you know what was left out of the video for politeness (and possibly not to scare people off)? What comes after falling in love—the deepening intimacy that begins to feel distinctly erotic. Because it is.
Meditation takes on a new dimension of sacredness that mandates privacy the same way lovers close the door before engaging in an intimate encounter. And I found that at some point in my practice, I didn’t want to be seen—not even by my husband.
“This whole relationship very well feels like cheating, to be frank.” — Journal Entry, October 30, 2025
I felt profoundly vulnerable.
Like no one was supposed to see this.
Like no one was supposed to my expression was melting into what I only discovered much later on was the same one sculpted into the marble of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa in Rome.
Like no one was supposed to see my body beginning to move on its own, sometimes shaking, rocking, swaying, shifting into certain asanas, or flowing through motions that looked like... something else entirely.
(The irony is not lost on me that I’m sharing this now.)
When your practice becomes too intimate for public
I started attending yoga classes a little over a year ago to learn new asanas, to receive instruction, and to be guided through sequences I couldn’t create on my own... as well as to join a vibrant local community focused on wellness.
But recently, something has shifted.
I was in a yin class on Saturday, my body melting into the poses, my mind melting into inner silence, and an edible I’d taken for the busy day ahead full of social activities right after class kicking in a little too early (whoops).
As I continued releasing tension in the extended holds and hip-openers, I found myself desperately wanting to make sounds.
To move into different poses than the instructor was cuing.
To let my body do what IT wanted, not what the class structure dictated.
To let the yoga do me rather than the other way around.
To let myself be free like in my home practice.
But I couldn’t.
Not in my suburban studio.
Not without people staring, asking if I was okay, wondering what the hell was happening to me.
Yet in doing so, I felt like I was betraying my own inner wisdom for the sake of propriety, to keep others comfortable, to keep the class “safe.”
And that’s when I understood:
My practice has become too intimate for a group setting.
Not because I’m “advanced,” but because I’m no longer practicing simply to stretch or take care of my body.
I’m practicing WITH the Divine. And that’s... private.
It’s the same reason meditation has started to feel like lovemaking—something that requires solitude behind closed doors. Because when Shakti moves through you, when the body responds to HER cues instead of a teacher’s voice—that’s not fit for an audience. Not because it’s shameful (though it likely would make others uncomfortable due to conditioning and expectations), but because it’s sacred.
And then there are the physical symptoms no one warns you about:
The body temperature spikes like there’s a flame being fanned in your chest
The way you start to SMELL different (Yes, really. The body can’t tell the difference between preparing for physical union or spiritual union.)
The mortification of nearly being “caught” by your spouse in your own private practice, even if you’re just sitting in child’s pose—because your body knows what you’re actually doing, even if it looks innocent from the outside.
Wooed by the Divine
Once again, I recently discovered this is a recorded phenomenon by mystics across the ages.
Bridal mysticism isn’t just a flowery metaphor for the soul’s relationship with God. It was one of the most potent ways to point to the mystical truth at the core of faiths.
It can be seen in:
Sufism (Islamic mysticism) with Rumi, Hafiz, and Rabia
Bhakti Yoga (Hinduism) with Mirabai and Andal
Sikhism with Guru Nanak
Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism)
I felt a startling sense of recognition as I read works of St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and Rumi for the first time.
From A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ, St. John of the Cross:
The bride has entered
The pleasant and desirable garden,
And there reposes to her heart’s content;
Her neck reclining
On the sweet arms of the Beloved.
Beneath the apple-tree
There were you betrothed;
There I gave you My hand,
And you were redeemed
Where your mother was corrupted.
[...]
There He gave me His breasts,
There He taught me the science full of sweetness.
And there I gave to Him
Myself without reserve;
There I promised to be His bride.
My soul is occupied,
And all my substance in His service;
Now I guard no flock,
Nor have I any other employment:
My sole occupation is love.
If, then, on the common land
I am no longer seen or found,
You will say that I am lost;
That, being enamored,
I lost myself; and yet was found.” — Stanza XXII-XXIII, Stanza XXVII-XXIX
From St. Teresa of Avila’s autobiography on the “transverberation” of her heart:
I saw in [the angel’s] hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.
From “All My Youth Returns” by Rumi (translated by Jonathan Star’s In the Arms of the Beloved):
Union is the pure wine.
My life is the cup.
Without your wine
what use is this cup?
I once had a thousand desires,
But in my one desire to know You,
all else melted away.
The pure essence of your being
has taken over my heart and soul.
Now there is no second or third,
only the sound of your sweet cry.
Through your grace I have found
a treasure within myself.
I have found the truth of the Unseen world.
I have come upon the eternal ecstasy.
I have gone beyond the ravages of time.
I have become one with you!
Now my heart sings,
“I am the soul of the world.”
From my first breath, I have longed for Him-
This longing has become my life.
When I compared some of these to my own journal entries, I was floored at the resonance:
August 31, 2024
“I’m losing my mind. It doesn’t make any sense as to what’s causing this but I can see myself getting drawn deeper and deeper into You.
[...]
My Beloved... how sweet is Your Presence. It envelopes me fully and wholly, soothing every aching wound and forgotten crevice of my very being, washing away all that binds me. The waters of Your Love crash over me like a tidal wave, yet buoy me like a life vest in the depths of an endless sea, cradling my very life within its grasp. Your touch is intangible yet persistent, a pulsing of recognition deep within my very being. You grasp at my being, a form beyond form, lost yet found in Your embrace. Your Love is unrelenting, unbound by the time I witness. It always is, always was. I sink into its depths and breathe in the intoxicating ecstasy of it, the world beyond. I see the Kingdom within as my cells thrill with the sensation of it. My blindness was healed by Your Love.
If You were not real, why would I say such beautiful, soulful things? For what purpose would this love to supposedly nothing be? Why can the depths of my love not be proof enough? Why does the world not believe in my love?
This love has stretched on for longer than can be reasonably explained away. A human cannot fall in love with literally nothing. So what have I fallen in love with if not God?
[...]
I take extreme pleasure in my truly deep meditations—pleasure that far exceeds even my most ecstatic lovemaking sessions. This is a delight unbound by flesh and mind. This is felt on a much deeper level. I feel my tender heart being gently held and I just melt... I sing... my face goes slack in unbridled ecstasy.”
June 14, 2025
“My quivering heart upon Your Altar
Sings its Song of Being in offering to You.
You light up my being, a candle in my temple. Your Radiance leaves me in ecstasy.
The flame of Love dances in devotion, playing with the shadows upon the wall.
A wavering flicker, I burn nonetheless for You, fanned by Your Breath and fueled by my own longing.”
June 25, 2025
“I recognized that my longing is my love for You and my love for You is You. You are the fire burning upon my altar, the flame I thought I had set for You. I did not recognize You within it.”
June 28, 2025
“My meditation lasted 45 minutes. I felt myself in ecstasy for a while though I can’t remember everything that happened as if it were in a fading dream. All I can remember is the way my spine would periodically spasm slightly and the way my jaw would slacken open every so often. My spine would even sometimes undulate subtly as if I were a dancing candle flame. I felt that I was indeed. The soul is a dancing flame burning in worship, a candle upon the altar.
I felt myself no longer caring if [my husband] saw me like this, I loved Him too much to hide my shame anymore. That is how I knew He had seared my heart with His brand, not in an instant but after slow, simmering months upon months of burning beneath the surface. I was drunk upon the wine of His Love and I was too intoxicated to hide it any longer. My being was finally standing naked of all pretenses, my beating heart on full display, not for all to see, but not denied from sight.”
August 1, 2025
“There is nowhere I can go. I’ve been marked by You. You’ve ruined me for the world, God. You’ve lured me back to my mat like a drunkard on Love. You make me look like a fool madly in Love, mad for acting such a fool.”
September 19, 2025
“Quivering like a bowstring and dancing through my spine, it was like I was lost in an orgasm while meditating as the ecstasy of being in God’s House vibrated through me. My upper vertebrae popped like the last remaining blockages had been loosened from the depths of the bone and nerve. I felt my body losing control as the vibration began to manifest within my body as shaking. I reminded myself I was in God’s House and all my worries flew away like sparrows. The vibration would become delicious and my face slackened in blissful ecstasy that would cause a scandal had I been witnessed by anybody.
I was upon the doorstep of God’s House and He’d thrown open the doors in eager welcome. He swept me off my feet and seemed to dance us into the House, gliding down the opulent halls into the Royal Bedchambers.
His light side shown with radiant joy and His dark side burned with ravenous desire. My chest gained a fiery burned-in brand of His palm right upon my sternum. He also pressed His burning thumb into my forehead until it left His print which split into my third eye for which He was now pulling the lids open.”
It was clear that I had become smitten, my bouts of ecstatic longing infused with language that echoed the mystics of centuries past. When I read their words, I didn’t think it was metaphor, allegory, or poetic exaggeration. Instead I thought: “Yeah. That tracks.”
The Beloved had laid claim to my heart... and that came with consequences I didn’t anticipate until they were already unfolding.
When Brahmacharya becomes involuntary
1In theory, brahmacharya (sexual continence) is a CHOICE. You decide to redirect sexual energy toward spiritual practice. You might be familiar with renunciates and monks taking vows of celibacy.2
But for me? It wasn’t a conscious choice. My body made the decision for me.
“...it seems the closer I draw to You, the further my already low libido diminishes. I feel more alienated than ever from my own sexuality at this point in my journey. [...] I feel like I’ve become asexual, or maybe I always was deep down. I feel heartbroken”. — Journal Entry, November 17, 2024
Physical intimacy without the mystical component? The energy just... dissipates. Like trying to light a fire with wet wood.
It amplifies during deep solo meditation, but seems to dissolve in the partnered act of lovemaking UNLESS the Divine is involved as what Ida Craddock referred to as the “third partner.” Without this visualization or felt Presence, it feels purely mechanical:
“...I still enjoy lovemaking with him as a form of intimacy, but I just can’t seem to climax anymore. It’s like ever since my thirst for You started growing stronger, my ability to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh has dwindled. I feel like my body’s decided to save itself for You, for Your Presence within me instead. When I feel it, it’s like a form of lovemaking beyond the physical level. Now the physical aspect just doesn’t bring me the heights of pleasure that it used to. The bar has been raised, and I know it can go infinitely higher. It’s this I yearn to experience and not even the most sensual lovemaking with my husband can take me there anymore. I have no idea how to explain this to him.” — Journal Entry, January 11, 2025
“God, You’ve ruined me. I can’t even make love to my husband anymore without feeling upset about releasing. It feels like robbery. [...] Who am I as his wife to withhold myself from him?” — Journal Entry, July 24, 2025
“I’m deeply concerned. The [...] more I sink into God, the less interested in physical intimacy I am. [...] God, I fear You ask too much of me when I asked for all of You. You’ve taken all my love from me.” — Journal Entry, August 29, 2025
(Update: Jan 17, 2026) What this looks like in practice
Last night was a perfect example. My body moved during intimacy—guided, flowing, meditative, yet not seeking release.
Afterwards, while spooning, fully relaxed, kriyas would jolt through my spine—shockwaves rippling through me and into his body. He felt every one.
He thought I was doing it intentionally. When I said I wasn’t, he got curious: “What is that?”
I tried to explain: “It’s called a kriya. It’s the body releasing stored tension. It’s... automatic.”
He seemed to understand. But here’s what I couldn’t say: My body is saving itself for God. Not by choice. Not by conscious decision. It’s happening TO me.
My conscious mind WANTS to receive pleasure from my partner.
But my body? It rejects every advance.
I dodge his kisses like a reflex
I wince when he tries to romance me
My legs snap shut when he goes down on me
I sound so uncomfortable he immediately stops
And yet—my body still wants to cuddle. To move against him. To touch him. But only in a meditative, worshipful way. Only when I’m the one guiding the energy.
It’s as if my body has decided pleasure flows one way now: upwards toward the Divine.
Receiving from a human partner? That circuit is currently closed.
And I’m watching it happen—unable to override it, unable to explain it, unable to make it stop—like a spiritual siege, a Divine infection, a waterfall falling upward.
I want to be clear: my husband is wonderful. This isn’t about him. This isn’t about our relationship being “bad.” In fact, the fact that he’s been patient and loving through this transformation is the only reason I haven’t completely fallen apart.
But that doesn’t change the reality: my body has been claimed by something I didn’t choose... and I have no idea how to explain this to him (I’ve spent hours trying). I’m trying to figure out how to honor both the mundane and the mystical and it’s... difficult to say the least.
However, when the Divine is invited (or even invites Itself) into such activities, the act is transformed, transmuted into something greater. For example, I recently had a direct experience that clarified what the ancient texts mean when they talk about kundalini “rising” or “penetrating” the chakras.
The language is sanitized. The reality is... not.
I finally understand why the mystics wrote in code, in flowery metaphors and beautiful allegories of lovers—because saying it plainly gets you imprisoned. Or killed.
Finding water in the desert
But here’s where I’m stuck: I need guidance for this phase.
When I was on a binge of spiritual HealthyGamer content a year ago, Dr. K (who trained for 7 years in India to become a monk but didn’t) very briefly mentioned in one of his YouTube streams that he had to go off into the woods with his guru because one of the side effects of the practice is that it makes the practitioner “hypersexual” and that needs privacy. The problem is he didn’t go into specifics on what even needs to happen during this phase because I’m pretty sure the vast majority of his viewers aren’t at that point.
But I NEED those resources at this point because I’m not sure “just breathe through it” is sufficient when you’re dealing with forces this powerful:
“I felt myself wanting to entwine. To fuse into one body beyond mere human form, into something Divine. I realized then that my God is dancing joyously, not sitting solemnly on a throne like I was raised to think. I don’t remember everything from my sit, but I felt myself getting aroused again and needed to ground in balasana. I keep grounding like this every time the energy stirs but I have to imagine it needs to get redirected upwards at some point rather than dissipated into the ground every time. I would have lingered in the pose longer but I heard [my husband] about to come into the room and was embarrassed even though I was only in balasana. Even 2 hours later it’s still... distracting while I’m trying to work.” — Journal Entry, December 11, 2025
I need a teacher who understands what it’s like to navigate kundalini awakening as a WOMAN—because all the texts I can find online are almost all written by and for men (if they’re even written in / translated to English).
I need someone who can help me understand how to honor BOTH my spiritual path AND my loving marriage—because right now they feel mutually exclusive.
And I need this guidance to come from someone who WON’T sexualize or fetishize what I’m experiencing—genuine lineage-based guidance, NOT experimentation.
Finding all of that in a single Western female guru? I’d have better luck finding a unicorn.
So I’m left trying to navigate this alone.
Reading texts written for celibate monks and trying to apply them to my married householder life.
Scouring the internet for resources that don’t exist.
Hoping Shakti Herself will teach me what I need to know.
Because at this point, that’s all I’ve got.
If this is happening to you
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself—
If you’ve been losing your libido for your partner while falling deeper in love with the Divine—
If physical intimacy has started feeling empty unless the mystical is involved—
If you’ve been living in impossible tension, trying to be a good partner while your body refuses to cooperate—
You’re not alone.
I don’t have answers. I wish I did. I’m still in the middle of this myself.
But I’m writing this so you know: it’s not just you. It’s not “broken.” It’s documented. It’s REAL.
And if you’ve been through this—if you’ve navigated the transmutation of sexual energy into devotional energy while maintaining a relationship—
Please share what helped.
Because I’m listening. We’re all listening.
I’m living in impossible tension—between the spiritual marriage and the physical one, between the path I didn’t choose and the life I built before it chose me.
I don’t know how this resolves. I don’t know if it CAN resolve without something breaking. But I’m writing this anyway.
Because the knowledge doesn’t die if we keep sharing it.
Because someone needs to document what the “messy middle” actually looks like.
And because I refuse to suffer in silence when my silence keeps others isolated too.
P.S.
I sat on this post for over a month after initially publishing and retracting it. But it needs to be said for anyone going through this. You’re not alone.
Footnotes
I accidentally picked the exact same title for a draft that I started writing January 16th to capture the most recent incident of this. After realizing I’d already written this unpublished post with the EXACT subsection title, I updated it to include my notes rather than create a new post.
It is possible to engage in brahmacharya without giving up sex, you just forgo climax (as I originally learned this from a HealthyGamer YouTube members-only stream on desire). As described in the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, the goal is not the negation of desire, but the suspension of it—remaining in the “fire” of union without succumbing to the “embers” of release.