Rose Mysticism 2 - Reclaiming Your Sensual Divinity

This second session of the Rose Podclass explores the spiritual meaning of the rose as a catalyst for strength through sensuality. Through rose-inspired practices, you’ll discover how engaging fully with your body, movement, and surroundings can restore vitality, presence, and self-possession. (Excuse the scratchy voice. I made a very sour lemonade and I drank it right before recording this episode. 🥲)

Here’s what this session covers: 

1. How sensuality showed up for me from a very young age
2. The divine feminine's rebellion of divine sensuality
3. How patriarchy, religious norms, and societal conditioning stunt natural sensuality 
4. Six rose-inspired rituals — including journaling, movement, meditation, and everyday practices — to reclaim your vitality and shine

📖 Ritual Accompaniment: https://www.dilshadmehta.com/delicious-dignity-podcast/21

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the Delicious Dignity Podcast. Let's settle in securely and ever so nicely into the brilliance of our own dignity. Hello, lovely people.

SPEAKER_01: 0:21

Here's another episode in the series of Rose Mysticism. And this is about Rose Mysticism. And so what this means is that mysticism, at least the way I define it, is a direct, personal, one-on-one, intimate connection with the divine or ultimate reality or energy or universe or whatever you want to call it. It's your own path, your direct experiential path and engagement with the divine. And so that's why the series has the word mysticism in it, because we're practicing the divine. And in this case, we're doing it with the help of the rose, hence the phrase rose mysticism. In case you're curious, episode 14 was the inaugural episode for Rose Mysticism. So this is the second episode in the series, but don't worry because each episode stands by itself. You don't have to listen to the previous one to do this one. There's short but mighty mystical contemplations. So for this second episode in the series of Rose Mysticism, I want to invite you to just hold the concept, this idea of divinity as sensual. And that goes in the face, right, of everything we've been taught about purity being holier than thou. It's sensual. Divinity is sensual. And let's take the base meaning of the word sensual. You know, it comes from senses. You are sensing things. And right now, it's the fashionable thing to say is that our senses are not trustable. You know, they're not trustable, is that even a word? But they're not trustworthy, that, you know, they can trick us somehow. There's this idea that reality is a virtual, is just a virtual reality game. You know what? I'm not gonna try to argue that. And let's say that the senses are indeed not trustable. I'm using that word again. But let's say that indeed that is true. Fine, maybe so. But they are enjoyable, are they not? Your senses are enjoyable, and that's what we're gonna go with. I'm not gonna argue about senses not being trustworthy or anything like that, but I am gonna tune into the path of enjoyment leading to the path of enlightenment or the path of pleasure, the path of ecstasy leading to the path of insightful discoveries about you, the fabric of the universe, etc. And I know I've already mentioned this quote before in the unfolding sessions, the client sessions that I had, but I feel like I need to say this quote again. It's a quote by Anais Nin, and the quote goes, And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. And I know all of us have had that experience in our life where suddenly we are over our own bullshit. Suddenly we're just over our own nonsense and we just want to get past it, and we want to blossom and we want to shine. This mysticism teaching is how sensuality helps you blossom and shine, and how it's the antidote to the ills that our society faces today. But first, I just want to talk about, I want to give you a story so that you can grasp the concept a little bit more. When I was a kid, I think I woke up sexually pretty early. I was very aware of my body, I was very feeling. I love sensations, I love feelings, but I knew implicitly, even without being explicitly told, that somehow sexuality, sensuality, this feeling I was feeling was not good. It was not done, especially because I was a female child. I wanted to touch and be touched all the time. And I was always given this message to cover up, close my legs, all kinds of things. I think most women can relate to that. But I do feel like I felt this energy of taming, being tamed, like a wild animal just being whipped. And I felt tamed, and my sensuality and my sexuality was stunted, was pushed down, stuffed down as something that was dirty or bad. I remember dancing in my room as a kid, especially at night when I thought my parents were asleep. And I do remember being caught a few times, but I would dance in my room as a kid, and it would be this very sensual dance. It would not be hip-hop or like any kind of sort of jerky dance moment. It would be very sensual, almost like a belly dance or fan dancing where it was like swaying. It would be my favorite time to just be with myself and be with my body and feel that movement. And even that, I felt like I had to do it in secret only at night when my parents were asleep. That was a lot of my experience as a woman. And for men, from my perspective, looking at men from my perspective, there seems to be no awareness of sensuality. It's just an extreme overt sexuality. And I feel like, in so many ways, as a culture, as a society, as humans on the planet, our sensuality has been stuffed down, mostly because it's so similar to sexuality, but it's been stuffed down, it's been tamed. And I'm not saying that's always true, but generally speaking, that seems to be the case. Sexuality becomes a commodity and has become a commodity. And it feels like every day I wake up, there are more and more extremes of it out there. And I feel like that's because sensuality has not been given a place or space to be noticed and appreciated. I want to really push you a little bit and push myself a little bit to say that I almost think that sexuality, especially the sexuality we see today, is patriarchy. It's a function of patriarchy. And sensuality is its antidote because sexuality is about others enjoying you, at least the way sexuality is done today, which is sexuality devoid of sensuality. That sexuality seems to be about others enjoying you or you enjoying another. But sensuality is you enjoying yourself and you enjoying the experience of life as it moves through you. It's about delighting your senses, it's about being so full of yourself, but in the best way. It's about being possessed by yourself, fully inhabiting yourself. And part of the ways we can know ourselves is through our senses. It's not the only way, but our senses are the vehicle that carries this enjoyment of life. And it carries a kind of wisdom to it, if we're able to tune into it. It's about moving through space and enjoying the movement through space. And to feel that movement is a certain kind of pleasure, is a certain kind of sensuality. Our senses from which we derive sensuality, today it just feels like there is a constant assault on our senses, on our eyes, on our ears, on our touch, on smells. There just feels like even just going on social media, how many times do we hear the same songs on each video? And there are times when I've been doom scrolling on Instagram and not being aware of it. When I stop doing it, for hours after that, those typical popular real songs will be playing in my head. And that's an assault on my sense of hearing. And then we scroll through Instagram, and then there's so many visuals that we see all at once in different capacities, and that's an assault on our sight, on our sense of sight. And all of these little assaults on our senses can really drain our energy more than we realize. If you look around, you see a lot of people have lost their edges, their shine, their sheen. They don't have that sparkle to them, and there's kind of like a dullness. Have you noticed that? That sort of vacant look in people's eyes, that dull look, and it envelops them, especially when we get chronically overwhelmed or overstimulated and stressed. We get that way because of the assault on our senses. And then we get dull because we're just constantly having to deal with that assault. And then what do we do? We understandably shut ourselves down to protect our psyche, which is a very good survival instinct, but we can't stay there. So then we have that dullness. So what I have sensed with the rose and what the rose has taught me is that there is the antidote to this dullness in energy and dulling of the senses. The antidote is about sensuality. And the rose opens us back up to that sensuality. The opening becomes a magnet for real life to slip in through the cracks and touch your heart and touch your soul. For those of you who are more symbolically inclined, or if you like the tarot, today's mysticism, it's similar to the energy of the strength card in the tarot, where if you even see the woman as she's sort of holding, petting, or sort of gently guiding the lion, it's very sensual, but it's strong. That is another aspect of sensuality that the rose seems to say to us is that our sensuality can make us very strong, extremely strong, if we just cultivate that, because what we're doing is we're tuning into our senses, and then we're tuning into the pleasure of our senses, and then we're tuning into the awareness of life around us. And that can make you really awake, really tapped in, tuned in, and turned on and full of light, full of energy, full of vitality. And nothing is more strong than vitality. If this particular mysticism teaching had a symbolic representation in your body, it would be your spine, because it literally holds you up, and it's how we hold ourselves upright as we walk through the world. And I'm just giving you that symbolic meaning so that you can help tune into this contemplation a little bit more. Because we have this idea that strength can only come from the school of hard knocks, that trauma is a teacher, coal becomes a diamond under pressure, no pain, no gain. The list goes on, right? But unfortunately, this type of strength, while it's useful in certain situations, it actually drains our reserves and lowers our immunity because of how much cortisol it produces, and it keeps us collapsed and dull. So this rose mysticism teaching offers another kind of strength, the strength of a cosmic kind of lover, a stubborn insistence to be the beauty of life, see the beauty of life, and enjoy life thoroughly. It's the kind of strength that gives you energy and vitality. It gives it to you, it doesn't take from you. And so in this way, the rose helps you, it talks about walking upright and gives you the strength to face the world as it is. So this is where we get the idea of the divine as sensual and the sensual as divine, or at the very least, the pathway to the divine. So, as usual, for every episode we have rituals, and this episode is going to be filled with them because there are so many incredible ways of inviting sensuality into our life that we just don't think about, but is so crucial to our strength, our vitality, our immunity, and everything else. And before I introduce these rituals to you, I want you to watch out for your inner critic saying that you're being extravagant, indulgent, materialistic, or this is just nonsense. I just want you to watch for that. And we're not going to get rid of your inner critic. We're just going to tell it to sit on the side table. And we can bring the inner critic after you've done the exercise. Okay, so just watch for it. It's not true what your critic is saying, what your inner mean girl or mean guy is saying. It's just not true. And it's normal for it to raise its ugly head, especially when we talk about sensuality and divinity and spirituality all in the same sentence. This is going against hundreds of thousands of years of conditioning by patriarchal and religious influences. So it's understandable, but we're not going to listen to it for now, until we experience the exercise first, that is. So sensuality is about the material world. And it's about reducing the shame and guilt that we have and enjoying it. So the first part, the first ritual that I'm going to offer you is just a journaling question. Two questions, really. Question number one: how can you delight your senses? Just it's a simple question. Just brainstorm and write down how can you delight your senses? Delight your senses, okay? Pause if you need to, because I'm gonna go to the next question. If you need more time to write, that is, pause it and I'm gonna go to the next question now. The second question is how can you notice the sensual over the sexual in your everyday life? Brainstorm write some ideas, just come up with five or ten ways that you can notice the sensual over the sexual. Why are we writing about this question? Because awareness can be half the battle sometimes. And if we know where to put our attention and our focus on our day-to-day life, we are likely to train our brain to a new reality. So that's the journaling part. There's another ritual I can offer you for sensuality, which is now we're working with our physical body, and I'm gonna invite you to touch yourself. And by that I just mean you close your eyes and you lightly brush your fingertips on your skin. That's all. Just from the top of your longest finger on your hand all the way up to your elbow, just lightly brush your fingertips on your skin as you close your eyes. That's your meditation. This is the only meditation practice you have. I guarantee you it'll give you more results than you sitting on a meditation couch and chanting some obscure mantras. So again, you close your eyes, lightly brush your fingertips on your skin from the top of your hand to your elbow. And if you want to make it more of a meditative experience, you can chant a mantra or say an affirmation, whatever you like. So, as an example, as I lightly brush the top of my fingertip to my elbow, the affirmation I might say to myself is thank you, Dilshad. I love you, Dilshad. And I'm just saying that over and over again as I brush the top of my fingertip to my elbow. So that's an affirmation. You can do a mantra, you can just breathe, do a breathing exercise as you do this. There's so many ways you can customize this to your liking. But that's a sensual ritual that you can do. Number three, as an idea, oh, this is gonna ruffle some feathers, is that if you have a prayer practice, or if you ever pray, pray naked. You can even imagine a temple where you're wearing absolutely nothing and praying while you're inside the temple. Or you can make a little temple space in your own home that you go to naked and you pray there, or you say your affirmations, or you do your meditations there, but you do it naked. A third way to invite sensuality into your life is sensual movement. So this could be belly dance, even pole dancing, bachata, swaying your hips, twerking in a certain way can be extremely sensual for you. Any kind of hip work where you're involving the hips in the movement will be really nice. I tried my hand at fan dancing one time, it was beautiful. I've mentioned Sufi dancing before, and I whirl every so often I do the Sufi whirl. But yeah, that's another example of sensuality. A fourth example is dressing in your traditional garments. I don't know what it is about involving your ancestry or your ancestral clothing styles that somehow just invite sensuality in a way that I cannot explain. I'm sure if I thought of it, I would figure out why, but I don't know what it is. If you dress in your traditional garments, whatever those garments may be, there's something about it that invites sensuality. Maybe you don't have to wear the full garment if for whatever reason you're not comfortable. Maybe you just wear a piece of jewelry. For example, for me, when I wear a nose chain, which is a chain that hooks to my earlobe and my nose piercing, wearing that immediately brings the sensual experience into my life. So it could be something as simple as that, or it could be a bracelet, it could be a hat, it could be socks, I don't know, whatever your traditional dressing is, something about it just immediately sinks you into that sensual zone and it immediately fills you with vitality. Ritual number five as an option. And remember, you don't have to do all of these, you can do a few here and there. But my job that I've given myself with this podcast is to give you as much as I can as it relates to a certain topic. Because depending upon who you are, your culture, your preferences, your gender, your conditioning, I don't know. You might resonate with just one of these, you might resonate with all of them. So I just always want to give you options so that you feel like there's something in here for you. Okay. I'm not trying to overwhelm you here. Okay. So ritual number five is adding senses. You take your traditional five senses: hearing, sight, touch, smell, taste, and you add a sense that you normally wouldn't have. So for example, in the past few years, I just no longer watch horror movies. I just don't. It's just not something that I want to assault my eyes and my sense of sight with. Actually, sorry, that's more related to the next ritual. But let's say about adding a sense. So there was a gym that I went to here where I live, and just going into that gym and seeing what I was seeing, it just felt like I didn't like the sight of it. And I decided to choose another gym based on my sight because that gym was more to my sense of sight than the other gym was because it was just sleek, clean, more modern, had lighter colors instead of this dark, dingy color that the other gym had. That's a way that I added sight and also removed a sight. I added for touch as an example. I used to have this heavy, scratchy blanket, and I just eliminated that. And instead, I added a touch of this really soft, beautiful blanket that now lays on my couch. You can also, maybe for a smell, I found this new jasmine incense that I'm absolutely in love with, and so I added that incense to my collection. For ritual number five, you're thinking about how you can add one sense, one new sense to every one of your senses. So one new hearing, one new sight, one new touch, one new smell, one new taste. Another example for how I added hearing is I'm usually not a traditional Western classical music person. For some reason, I just don't like it. But instead, there have been some, I would say, Japanese classical music that for some reason I really enjoy. And while I won't listen to it every day, every once in a while I listen to some Japanese traditional classical music, especially the kot, I think it's called the koto. Forgive me if I'm pronouncing it wrong, but I love the way that instrument sounds. I added that sound to my hearing list. Ritual number six is that instead of adding, you instead just eliminate something from your senses. So I already mentioned this before, which is with my eyes, I eliminated horror movies. With my touch, I eliminated that scratchy blanket. There are some tastes I didn't like, I can't remember them now, but I eliminated those. If I'm being honest, it's more beneficial for me to add than it is to subtract because I just naturally subtract things. I don't have to think about it. So that's why I'm trying to come up with examples right now for how I eliminated some senses that I can't think of it. But just the horror movies is the one that comes to mind. Yeah. Those are six different ways that you can invite sensuality into your life. I'm feeling like I need to give you more examples of other things that I added to my senses. So just let me do that because this might be things that you've never considered before. So, for example, for touch, for touch and vision, I combine the two and I do henna or mendi on my hands as a way to invite sensuality into my life. And that speaks to my sense of touch when I'm doing the mendi on my hands. When I'm drawing the henna, it speaks to my eyes and it also speaks to my ancestry, just or like the land that I come from. So that's a way that I added touch sensations and sensuality to my repertoire. Massages are another idea, comfy socks, blankets are another idea. For my sight, roses on my table always puts me into that sensuality presence that I'm looking for. Lighting a candle might also do the same for you. Yeah. And for a taste, a new taste I added was teriyaki. Teriyaki is a flavor that I never thought I'd like as much as I do, but I really do like it. And I finally bought this teriyaki mix that I've been using in my cooking. So that's an example of a taste I added. And also strawberry milkshakes, well, more like strawberry protein shakes, are what I've been making because they remind me of this delicious strawberry shake that I had when I was in this hill station in India. And I found that was a beautiful way for me to introduce protein into my diet is to combine it with this nostalgic taste that I had from my childhood. Do you see what I mean? I hope this list inspires you to create your own and see what ideas you can come up with to work with sensuality as a divine construct. Notice none of them were super materialistic or anything. It's just about enjoying what you have and deliberately choosing our senses, especially with the last two rituals of adding senses or subtracting them. What we're really doing is taking ownership of our lives, ownership of our psyche, ownership of our soul. Sensuality has a direct correlation with sovereignty, with your true independence and your true freedom as a person. It is expanded by how much sensuality you can bring into your life. And I just gave you seven different ways in which you can do that. I love this episode so much. I'm finding it difficult to end the episode, but I hope you enjoyed this. And don't forget to look at the ritual guide if you want a written explanation for everything that I've discussed today, and you just want it in list form. So that will be in the episode description. Okay, my lovelies, until next time, may your sensuality guide you back to the dignity of being wholly at home in yourself, the dignity of being fully alive in your body, to the dignity in every breath, every touch, and every sensation that reminds you that you are here and you are now and you are all there is. Much love to you. Until next time. Bye.