If you are tapped into social media, you have probably seen this hidden camera video of men checking out the girl in the yoga pants in New York City. It is hilarious, disgraceful, and a great topic to discuss towards being a modern evolved Gentlemen.

But first of all, give these men a break. I mean, come on, the term “red blooded male” exists for a reason.

We men appreciate beautiful things—especially in the form of God’s greatest gift to the planet, women.

But despite being red blooded men, there is a separation between gentlemen and dogs. For starters, let’s take Jerry Seinfeld’s advice to George about looking at woman’s cleavage, “Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun: You don’t stare at it, it’s too risky. You get a sense of it and you look away!”

Joking aside, let’s talk about it.

So what are the guidelines?

The important thing to realize is that you are writing your own book. So let’s talk about the underlying aspect of all of these videos: objectification.

First of all, being a Gentleman is all about integrity. And Integrity is doing the right thing even if no one is watching. Will you be graceful and respectable? Or are you just a dog?

Of course we can appreciate beautiful women. They go through a tremendous amount of effort to look good for us. But there is a fine line. As true gentlemen, we must embrace and empathize with the concept of objectification to truly know what goes on with women.

Objectification defined

Philosophically, objectification means treating a person as an inanimate material object, without regard to their dignity.

This is one of the most poignant topics that is rarely discussed, that modern evolved Gentleman must be aware of.

When watching the viral NYC yoga pants video keep in mind that even the guys that said something polite were still seen as creepers by a lot of women. The root cause is this: If someone is reduced to just what they look like, it leaves only a very small fragment of the whole person to appreciate.

Men that are only attracted to the bottom two chakras of a woman’s body are most likely only operating from those two chakras down themselves. If you’re looking to meet a more highly evolved lady, you’re going to have to operate on a higher plane yourself.

As a man, how would you feel if someone immediately judged you by what shoes you were wearing? Or what your hair looked like that day? Or what YOUR ass looks like?!

Walking a mile in women’s shoes

Despite reading about objectivism, it is very difficult for us men (myself included) to truly internalize what it means. Fashion designer Norma Kamali has an active effort called Stop Objectification that helps women get over the embarrassment and humiliation from being judged by their looks and getting cat calls on the street for their entire lives.

Kamali also has this film short called Hey Baby bringing awareness to the fact that a lot of the gorgeous women you see walking down the street have a lot more going for them than just a hot body.

So Gentlemen, if you want to distinguish yourself, realize this: It is not if you check out a beautiful figure walking down the street or not. It is about what chakras are you connecting to. Skin deep or the whole self? We are all complex, multi-faceted human beings, not to be judged by the cover.

Appreciate EVERY woman, no matter what she looks like (or if she shops at Lululemon or not.) With your kindness and generosity, you will rise up with distinction from the pack of dogs that rule the planet. Women and fellow Gentlemen will thank you alike.

- By Jon Heinrich

Photo by Jon Heinrich,
Model is Darja Schabad (Case-in-point, here is her bio on Wikipedia.)

Friedrich Nietzsche coined the term sexual sublimation, explaining that a sexual impulse could be channeled into a creative spiritual activity instead of being “discharged” in the normal sexual fashion.

Small pellets of dry ice sublimating in air, (Photo Credit: “Dry Ice” by APN MJM)

Napoleon Hill also spoke of this “sexual transmutation” in his famous masterpiece, Think and Grow Rich. “Sex desire is the most powerful of human desires.” Hill explains, “When driven by this desire, men develop keenness of imagination, courage, will power, persistence…which may be used as powerful creative forces in literature, art, or in any other profession or calling, including, of course, the accumulation of riches.”

Centuries before that, the ancient Taoists also believed in emission control as a pillar of a healthy long life. Their belief lies in the science of how much essence and energy a man must expend to replenish emissions and rebalance hormones after a man has a release. When a man releases too frequently, it can lead to chronic fatigue, irritability and energy deficiency and in extreme cases, premature senility, memory loss, confusion and hypersensitivity to sunlight.

Benefits of sexual sublimation

The school of Taoism believes that retention of a man’s vital essence when reabsorbed into the body, provides a rock solid basis for a man’s creative energy pool. This is partially because the most common liquid in the body is cerebrospinal fluid, which is one of the most energetic substances in the body. Reabsorption will increase the amount of this highly energetic, nutritive fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, causing more nutrition and power liquid around the central nervous system, which in turn benefits cognitive abilities.

Perhaps that is why the French call it, la petite mort, or “a little death.”

Secondly, from a sexual standpoint, having a full supply of this vital essence will be reflected as power and longevity during love-making.

Building the discipline and strength of the “mula bandha”, or perineum is part and parcel of the retention technique and worthy of a lifetime study. Not only will this play out in the bedroom for pleasing your goddess, clamping the mula bandha will allow that kundalini energy to move up the spine, bringing energy to your higher chakras.

The practice of “locking the gate” is an exercise involving body, breath and mind—or as the Taoists refer to it, the Three Treasures, essence, energy and spirit—and will be addressed in more detail in a subsequent post.

Finally, very literally the vital essence is a man’s creative power. In its original sense, it is to create a child. But from an artistic sense it also is the power to create literature, art or, as Napoleon Hill described, the accumulation of riches. So the retention of the vital essence will boost the resiliency of the disciplined man and instead of leaving him tired and empty, he will feel strong and powerful to tackle his life pursuits.

After the art of retention is developed, women too will notice. They have a sixth sense that we men can not understand, but once a man starts practicing this retention, he will have much more attention from the ladies than before. Women are much more intuitive than men and can sense the strong from the weak.

And if that interest plays itself out onto the “flowery battlefield”, the most powerful of mystic gentlemen will continue to retain the vital essence even during a “poetry writing session” so that he may please his lady over and over again instead of the alternative of falling asleep after climax.

One great book that goes into much greater detail is The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity: A Modern Practical Guide to the Ancient Way (Fireside Books (Fireside)) by Daniel Reid, which is highly recommended as a manual to assist the evolved male in the ancient bedroom arts, as well as other topics around health and wellness.

We will continue to explore ways of sharpening the sexual sword in other chapters of The Gentleman’s Guide, but for now we will leave you with some guidelines passed on from the Yellow Emperor aforementioned Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity:

Some men are strong, some are weak, some men are old and others are in their prime. Each should live according to his own vitality and not try to force the joys of sex. Forcing joy is harmful. Thus, a robust male of 20 may ejaculate once a day, but an emaciated one should do so no more than once daily.
A 30-year-old male may ejaculate once a day, but only once every two days if he’s an inferior specimen. A flourishing man of 40 may emit semen once every three days, but if he’s weak he may do so only once every four days.
A robust man of 50 may ejaculate once every five days, but only once every ten days if he is weak. A 60-year-old man in good health may emit once every ten days, or once every 20 days if his health is poor.
At 70, a robust man emit once a month, but a weak one should no longer emit semen at all.

And another important guideline from Master Liu Ching from the Han Dynasty described the cycles of nature as an important factor:

In spring, a man may permit himself to ejaculate once every three days, but in summer and autumn he should limit his ejaculations to twice a month. During the cold of winter, a man should preserve his semen and avoid ejaculation altogether. The Way of Heaven is to accumulate Yang essence in winter. A man who follows this guideline will live a long and healthy life. One ejaculation in cold winter is one hundred times more harmful than an ejaculation in the spring.

There is much more detail in this book, The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity: A Modern Practical Guide to the Ancient Way (Fireside Books (Fireside)), highly recommended!

- Article and photography by Jon Heinrich

Bibliography:

Image of dry ice: “Dry Ice” by APN MJM – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Mind your mind

The first step in finding the goddess of your dreams is to “mind your mind,” to be present in your thoughts. This may be difficult at first.

Our survival-based animal minds (first chakra) think about only one thing… Pop culture glorifies raw sexiness as a cardinal virtue. However as you grow into adult life, it is time to rise up to the higher realms of consciousness and respect those of her as well. Long story short, if your brain still processes beautiful women as “chicks”, you have a long way to go. But there is hope for you if you are willing to step up to the plate.

Your job as a gentleman is–even in your head–to use words like “beautiful, gorgeous, healthy, radiant and amazing.” Once you do, women will feel that. Train your mind to not be a dog.

For example, look at this gorgeous photo of Milena Zuchowicz shot by photographer Della Bass. Where does your mind go? Do you see the sophisticated, powerful young goddess, or does the music from Boogie Nights start playing in your head?

Milena Zuchowicz shot by Della Bass photography

Now: Mind your mind! Your challenge is to bring your energy to the higher chakras and appreciate all aspects of beauty, not just those of sexual attraction.

Objectivation

Women in today’s society deal with a tremendous amount of objectification, which is something we men know nothing about. Objectification is “treating a person as a thing, without regard to their dignity”. The more you appreciate this, the more you can stop yourself, and step towards genuine kindness and respect.

Fashion designer Norma Kamali is fighting this battle head on with her site www.stopobjectification.com, to raise awareness and empower women as individuals.

This is an underrated topic that needs to be addressed in today’s culture. Progress is showing up in the form of brands like Aerie not using photoshopped images for their ads, but it has a long way to go. Be an ally of this front and the greater Goddess energy will thank you.

Exercises to learn to Mind your Mind

So now that we’ve talked about some things to be aware of, here are some exercises for you to strengthen your mental muscle:

- Never ever use the word “chick” again–even in your internal monologue. When you do, you will cease to be a boy, and will become a man.

- See the beauty in everyone. Next time you are in public, be aware of who you are paying attention to. Men have radar for women that look sexy. Look at everyone else.

- Try to understand how much pressure society puts on women to be lean, young, beautiful and sexy. Appreciate the women that do not play into that, these are often the people that are the most interesting. They are not lemmings, they are individuals, they don’t let society tell them how they should be.

- As you walk down the street and see a beautiful woman, have discipline and don’t make vulgar comments to yourself. Say “beautiful” instead of those frat boy comments running through your mind when a lady turns your head. (And for God’s sake, don’t stare at her backside!)

Most of all, don’t judge people. “Everyone has a cross to bear,” so if you want kindness and tolerance to come back at you, you’d best exercise kindness and tolerance in your mind towards everyone you see, no matter how they are dressed or how crazy they look. Everyone is beautiful if you allow yourself to see it. That realization alone, can change the world.

- by Jon Heinrich

Credits:
Photographer: Della Bass
Model: Milena at Wilhelmina Models
Stylist: Dianna Lee
Makeup and hair: Deborah Altizio
Model is wearing dress by Dianna Designs NYC

For more information about Della Bass photography, please email us.

A Gentleman’s Guide to the Goddess is a new series on Meniscus Magazine for men, for women. This is not a pick-up manual, but rather an inquiry to higher consciousness achieved by finding your soul mate and the spiritual journey achieved through divine union of two open hearts in love.

First question: why listen to me? Am I James Bond? No. The reason you should read A Gentleman’s Guide is because I don’t know what I’m talking about. I admitted that, and my willingness to let go of my ego and ask questions was my first step of learning. “I don’t know, but I want to.”

The divine union with a goddess is the most enlightening thing this planet has to offer—so it is definitely worth a study.

I was awkward teen, never dated mch in HS, and not a ladies man. I lost my virginity when I was 20, and not long after that, right after college I got into a long term relationship with a girl with a deep Catholic upbringing, so we were a good match…

When we broke up I was 30 and I was starting over. Like a teen, I was confused, randy and looking for love..

I did my research, read books, had experiences, but most of all, I found my soul mate and that has been the most potent learning experience I have had to date.

“The Vedic concept speaks about the womb chakra. If you take Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Shirdi Baba, Buddha, and Jesus Christ, they received amazing light only through women. Without women, any divine soul cannot win the greatest enlightenment in his life. Women are that much more powerful than the men.” -Sri Kaleshwar

First – be complete
The first step in attracting your worthy life partner is to work on yourself—always and forever. The Soka Gaiki Buddhists often refer to the act of “polishing the mirror.” This is a metaphor that extends through many faiths, that our lives reflect what is within ourselves. This is an entire conversation unto itself, but for this conversation, suffice it to say, we attract people like ourselves.

That famous “you complete me” scene in the movie Jerry McGuire is all wrong. Do not look for someone to “complete you”, that will just bring another incomplete individual with holes into your life. So in order to attract someone that does not have debilitating issues, you need to work through your own debilitating issues. As men, that is often hard for us, because we were taught from pop culture that men are strong and to put up an emotional shield to protect our toughness instead of being vulnerable and open so we can work through our junk. Until you really open up to it, you may not even know what your issues are. But we all have them.

So first off, unpack your baggage. Maybe you were abused as a kid. Maybe you were born Catholic like I was. Maybe you are just human and have built-in issues like the Oedipus complex that may be manifesting in any number of ways.

Do the work. Clean out your head. Purify your mind. Detox your psyche. We have all met women with issues (again, who does not have issues!?). You will continue to attract people with issues commensurate to your own.

Ask yourself: what patterns have I been re living over and over? You may blame your partner, but we all attract who reflects our personality. Ask yourself, what was the lesson and did I learn it? How do I move forward and stop this pattern?

“Here’s all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.” ― George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?

Modern men are trained by pop culture to emulate Hans Solo, James Bond, Tom Brady, Tom Cruise and Clint Eastwood. This is all an illusion, these people are in entertainment and not real. So let’s talk about real life.

So for this first installment of The Gentleman’s Guide to the Goddess, your exercise is to look within and to see what issues you have been carrying around with you that you don’t want to have come up when you meet the woman of your dreams. You probably know what they are but have been subconsciously suppressing them for years. Time to dig them up. In future installments I will give you more ways to work through your junk, but for now, your challenge is to dig deep and see what they are.

I will also be covering many other angles about how to be a perfect gentleman to your Goddess, including:
- Girlfriend etiquette
- Integrity
- Sharpening the sexual sword
- Fashion
- Awareness of objectification
- Health
- and meditations to support these pursuits.

It is a long road well worth traveling. Today’s exercise is to remember, we all reflect and attract what is within, so go forth, and polish that mirror!

- By Jon Heinrich

Photography by Jon Heinrich
Model: Marie Wu