More on 'Queer Spirituality'

Quote"...The immortal soul has no gender and no orientation. The psycho-sexual body is the seat of emotions, desires, propensities, orientations, and also of moral agency... the gods and goddesses in Hindu mythic stories exhibit gender fluidity and queer orientations... many stories emerged wherein gods transition into goddesses and vice versa. There are gods who are third-gendered and some that manifest all three genders. Some deities only cross-dress, without gender transition. Then there are male gods who exhibit female attributes and female gods with male attributes... Apparently, for the ancients, masculinity did not diminish when the feminine was amplified.

All of these descriptions of inherent fluidity and diversity in physical bodies demonstrate the remarkable comfort with the queer found among the Hindu gods and narrated in their mythologies... They must be seen as metaphorical vehicles employed by the ancients to communicate complex ideas of metaphysics, sexuality, diversity, and human nature in narrative and symbolic form... the very idea of 'homosexuality as sin' is absent from the Hindu corpus, as it does not conceptually fit within a metaphysic of karma and infinite rebirth.

Many of [the Hindu] temples openly celebrate erotic imagery and sexuality in their architecture, including many that depicted homosexuality. The temples of Khajuraho and Chapri are striking examples of this... These temples were seen as celebration of life, light, and kama (Eros), from which comes all of creation. A temple devoid of the depictions of sexuality and sensuality was considered inferior and tantamount to the 'lair of death' and darkness. These facts indicate at the very least that sexual diversity and gender-fluidity were recognised as an evident feature of the world and its discussion or depictions were not considered taboo... This view is further validated when placed within the larger metaphysical nature of Hinduism articulated in the Rig Veda: vikiriti evam prakriti, which means that what seems unnatural is also natural, or diversity is nature.

Dharma is to humans what natural behaviour is to a plant or animal. However, since human beings are entities with imagination, agency and intentionality, an individual's dharma (appropriate behaviour) becomes a matter of ethical choice, context, wisdom and purpose... And, since divinity is embedded in everything, wisdom lies in discovering the divinity in the other rather than engaging in judgement and condemnation.

Karma performed with detachment, says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, is karma yoga, the yoga of action. In practice, this means being assertive without being arrogant. It means being firm about oneself, without being offensive to others. It means standing up not only for one's own rights and dignity but also for others like oneself and perhaps others who are struggling to have a voice. Taking part in community events, sharing and caring within the community and a relentless battle against the adharma of discrimination is one way of affirming one's faith. Hinduism advocates active engagement in the fight against negative feelings, which in today's world are forms of adharma.

In this way, 'coming out' would be a way to fight the negativity outside. And rejecting fear and loneliness would be a fight against negativity within oneself."

— Jerry Johnson (I Am Divine So Are You: How Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Hinduism affirm the dignity of queer identities and sexualities, 2017)

More on Queer Spirituality:

Quote"The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire.

For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us closest to that fullness.

There are frequent attempts to equate pornography and eroticism, two diametrically opposed uses of the sexual. Because of these attempts, it has become fashionable to separate the spiritual (psychic and emotional) from the political, to see them as contradictory or antithetical. In the same way, we have attempted to separate the spiritual and the erotic, thereby reducing the spiritual to a world of flattened affect, a world of the ascetic who aspires to feel nothing. But nothing is farther from the truth. For the ascetic position is one of the highest fear, the gravest immobility. The severe abstinence of the ascetic becomes the ruling obsession. And it is one not of self-discipline but of self-abnegation.

The dichotomy between the spiritual and the political is also false, resulting from an incomplete attention to our erotic knowledge. 

The erotic is the nurturer or nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge.

The erotic functions for me in several ways, and the first is in providing the power which comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person. The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.

In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self- effacement, depression, self-denial."

— Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, 1984)

Adding to this thread after a long time.

Excerpts about 'Queer Spirituality'

Quote"How many genders are there? To a modern Anglo-American, nothing might seem more definite than the answer that there are two: men and women. But not all societies around the world agree with Western culture's view that all humans are either women or men. The commonly accepted notion of "the opposite sex," based on anatomy, is itself an artifact of our society's rigid sex roles.

Among many cultures, there have existed different alternatives to "man" or "woman." An alternative role in many American Indian societies is referred to by anthropologists as berdache. Briefly, a berdache can be defined as a morphological male who does not fill a society's standard man's role, who has a nonmasculine character. This type of person is often stereotyped as effeminate, but a more accurate characterization is androgyny. Such a person has a clearly recognized and accepted social status, often based on a secure place in the tribal mythology. Berdaches have special ceremonial roles in many Native American religions, and important economic roles in their families.

Berdaches gain social prestige by their spiritual, intellectual, or craftwork/artistic contributions, and by their reputation for hard work and generosity. They serve a mediating function between women and men, precisely because their character is seen as distinct from either sex. They are not seen as men, yet they are not seen as women either. They occupy an alternative gender role that is a mixture of diverse elements. Berdachism is a way for society to recognize and assimilate some atypical individuals without imposing a change on them or stigmatizing them as deviant. This cultural institution confirms their legitimacy for what they are.

That which is not understood is seen as a threat. But an alternative method of dealing with such things, or people, is to take them out of the realm of threat and to sanctify them. The berdaches' role as mediator is thus not just between women and men, but also between the physical and the spiritual. American Indian cultures have taken what Western culture calls negative, and made it a positive; they have successfully utilized the different skills and insights of a class of people that Western culture has stigmatized and whose spiritual powers have been wasted.

Native American religions offered an explanation for human diversity by their creation stories. In some tribal religions, the Great Spiritual Being is conceived as neither male nor female but as a combination of both... These stories portray that the berdache was created by the deities for a special purpose, and that this creation led to the improvement of society... These stories suggest that the very survival of humanity is dependent on the inventiveness of berdache. The high status accorded to gender variation was passed down from generation to generation. A spiritual explanation guaranteed a special place for a person who was considered different but not deviant... Becoming any kind of sacred person involves taking on various social responsibilities and burdens.

The Europeans were not only aghast, but amazed and dumbfounded as to why berdaches were considered sacred. The holiness of the berdache has to do with Indian views that everything that exists is a reflection of the spiritual. If a person is different from the average individual, this means that the spirits must have taken particular care in creating this person."

— Walter L. Williams (The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture, 1986)

Developed a major fear of Hell so I want to ask those who know - where do people who have committted heinous acts go after death. Are all the Buddhist tales of Hell (Naraka) true?
I had visions of the following:
 - My mum crying over my dead body (grieving)
 - Bird trying to pluck out my eyes
 - In a dark room, Hecate, big black dogs barking at me
 - Men with swords trying to slice me up
 - Sekhmet walking over to me with a basket of human-eating bugs
 - Burn victims
 - Hitler (a phantom apparently) telling me to cut it out now
I refused an offer from Amitabah the Buddha of Infinite Light because I was naive, he just said be vegetarian and not be celibate whatsoever. So did Jesus.

I'm in a miserable state, at home, crisis team still attending me. My Kundalini gave me smells of deoderant and cut sensations on my body, including my genitalia.
I'm afraid I released negative energies into the hospital environment and am going to Hell.

I no longer self-harm nor fast. But when I was fasting I received tempting tastes of food and smells of my grandparents too. Images of children and babies. I had an entity and a dream of the entity abusing children, in sleep paralysis he said  "I've got you now".

This all began after I was sexually violated by a large bird siren thing during sleep paralysis. It forcefully rammed its penis into me.

I should add that Jesus and Amitabha never mentioned celibacy. Amitabha just said be vegetarian.

I feel the responses here were really harsh. Gopi I inhaled a can of deoderant, ran into fields after dry fasting for 4 days. I tied string around my neck and was sectioned. I am going home tomorrow and survived luckily. But please don't say this was a torture fantasy. I'm totally calm now but this energy in my throat won't go and I haven't progressed spiritually. I can barely visualise and have aphantasia whilst before I had good visualisation skills. The Krishna I spoke to said I had to be celibate because I committed statuary rape under UK Law. Whilst I feel this was harsh, because I did try to do the drugs she did, I just failed to snort them properly, she was definitely far more intoxicated than me. We didn't do penetrative sex but did oral sex for about 1 minute. I got her water afterwards and we were on positive terms weeks later and Mystress says she doesn't think about me anymore. I've now developed a very real fear of Hell because in my dreams a bird tried to pluck out my eyes, I had a dream of Belzebub swallowing a mansoon of bugs and then tastes of bugs when I ate chocolates on Christmas, and of burn survivors. When I tried to ask vortex to clear Brazilian elections, I only got back the taste of Brazil Nuts. Now when I ask vortex to clear this energy in my throat nothing happens and it was Krishna and the feminine presidential voice who said it has to do with increasing subtle probability of developing cancer. Multiple peoeple in my family have serious cancer right now. Lord Krishna also appeared with Lord Ram. I'm very worried. He does ask ISKON followers to be celibate at times, and that was what I was associated with for months before and had many dreams of Him and subtle experiences when chanting His mantra, including smells, his spiritual essence, I felt sleepy after not sleeping for 4 days when going to studio 108, a hari krishna restaurant I volunteered at for young people who like Kirtan. My Kundalini always communicates with me with smells and tastes mostly, I had the unique smell of the Buddhas energetic signatures too. I'm about to inherit 40k and was told to commit suicide by entities when I want badly to become a healer, I wanted to learn to cure cancer for this reason. I also saw visions of bees swarming me, and my mum crying over my dead body, of Hitler, and of Sekhmet killing me over and over again with a basket of human-eating bugs. I'm worried because of these visions and my lack of Ascension progress. I am about to do the grounding now. I'll try jerking off to the Earth Core too.

Mystress do you believe that Buddhists are fear-mongering when they discuss the various hell realms?
I developed a fear of Hell. Do even evil people go into the Light? What about serial killers, rapists, school-shooters. My visions from the deities really frightened me, I was shown a type of hell where you just get killed in all sorts of horrible ways over and over again.
I believe in mercy for everyone. I believe in liberal rehabilitative justice and I would love to see hell abolished if it exists, so that even Nazis can go into forms of Service to Humanity, and not be tortured endlessly.

I am about to inherit a very large amount of money. two members of my family have cancer quite serious. I want to find a Shaman who can treat it and do it incognito, because they wont ever accept or take seriously a shaman (theyre not into spirituality in this way). I would love to learn to treat it myself too. Joy I read from Mystress.
I would also like to learn to manifest miracles for my mother, who deserves the world.

Forgot about no complaints - checks in... no more complaining calm = good

Going home from hospital for the first time in a long time. Then discharged next week. Things are calmer but now too calm, nothing spiritual is happening.. I wanted to open my third eye and see cool things with the third eye page but didn't work. Back to grounding but my visualisation skills are god-awful. I am still worried about this energy in my throat chakra and the various dreams I had.