What's the Difference?

Somewhere along the line, It came to me that I like boys. It wasn’t an active realization, I never sat down and thought ‘who will I be attracted to? Who should I be attracted to?’ My first crush was on my parent’s friend, Eric. He looked like Leif Garret (remember him, circa 1975?). What if, instead of Leif, my first crush had been Farrah Fawcett (they both had the same hair, he he he!)?

What if my path had been as a gay woman? Would I be a fundamentally different person? As I have never identified myself, primarily, through my sexual self, my answer is no. Many in the spiritual community would say sexuality is form and not an aspect of our true selves. Many in the religious community would say that homosexuality is a choice to turn away from God, and therefor, the answer would be yes, I would be fundamentally different- I would be damned (which is always a possibility no matter which team you bat for).

One Buddhist ideal of non-duality states that if heterosexuality and homosexuality are opposites, that they each must have the other in order to exist. Each has the qualities of the other and as such ‘inter-are’ . There is no difference (separateness), so here, I would still be the same basic person I am now, and if you didn’t like me, too bad. We are each the other so all of us is at least part gay (would this explain the modern ‘metro sexual’?)

Of course, another Buddhist principal states that my physical and mental being are simply projections of form on my formless being. In a nutshell, I (as a physical entity) don’t really exist, and therefor can not be either gay or straight. I don’t lean on this belief, myself. I am a physical entity for a reason, and at least part of that reason is to have someone who is turned on by the skimpy undergarments I bought last week!

From a personal perspective, I don’t give a fig leaf over who anyone sleeps with. If you aren’t sleeping with me, then I don’t need to know the details. From the perspective of consciousness, it is a great jumping off point from which to practice the principals of universal oneness. Being gay, isn’t like being black or white or Chinese. There is no unifying set of physical features that make up ‘gay’ like there are for being ‘Caucasian’. Gay people look like me. I look at someone and I can see that she is East Indian and now I can instantly, subconsciously identify in just what ways she is different from me. I can not see her sexuality. Here is a difference (if indeed there are differences) that must be experienced. There in lies the rub. It isn’t an easy label to apply and takes some thought to come to , not to mention, up close interaction.

Isn't that the spiritual journey when you get down to it? Can any of us truly follow the path to enlightenment as long as we hold on to the fear of 'the other'. No path can be fully explored unless it bisects the paths of others. Those intersections are where the real learning happens. That is when we 'see' that all of us are the same- all of us fabulous and fierce and free to love.

HAPPY PRIDE DAY! CONGRATS TO THOSE GETTING MARRIED IN CALIFORNIA!!