Dare he, for whom circumstances make it possible to realize his true destiny, refuse it simply because he is not prepared to give up everything else? Dag Hammarskjold, MARKINGS
SlaveMaster has made clear his wish that this slave contribute a page to His BORNSLAVES Website. This slave begins with material edited and adapted from an ongoing correspondence with a slave who had written him asking for information about SlaveMaster, this slave and what it's like to be in training with SlaveMaster. (The slave has given his permission to use our correspondence for this purpose.)
Dear slavebrother.
Thank you for your letter. For some time this slave has been aware of your feelings of frustration, sadness and, most of all, longing. he honors you for your courage and honesty in being willing to express yourself so openly.
In answer to Your questions, this slave met SlaveMaster at Leatherfest in April 1997 and has been wearing His collar since last September 1997.
this slave doesn't know you well enough to know how you envision slavery. . Before meeting SlaveMaster this slave never envisioned slavery at all so he was blessed with the absence of any preconceptions. he had jacked-off to a lot of one-hand fiction in Drummer but that was like jacking off to pictures of Tab Hunter or Prince Valiant when he was a teenager. he never actually thought he'd have sex with Tab Hunter or Prince Valiant, a comic strip character- they were just fantasies and that's all the SM fiction was to him- a fantasy he never expected to be real. And it hasn't become real.
Being SlaveMaster's slave isn't like anything he ever read about in John Preston or anywhere else. When he was at Leatherfest this year (1998), people kept referring to Masters and slaves as "roles" and "lifestyles." These descriptions don't ring true for this slave. What happened when he heard SlaveMaster speak is that he felt called to a spiritual path. his soul has found SlaveMaster's call irresistible and it continues to override his ego's protests that this slave is out of his mind. his ego, which kicked and screamed constantly at first, now just has occasional fits.
slavery to SlaveMaster isn't about submission- you've met SlaveMaster's slaves and we aren't exactly submissive types. (Like yourself we are adult men with strong and diverse opinions- those are among the few characteristics that all of SlaveMaster's slaves have in common; we're grown-ups and we're opinionated. we're also pretty fun-loving and open- hearted.) SlaveMaster embraces and encourages all of our common characteristics as well as those that are unique to each of us. What SlaveMaster orders us to do is not to submit to Him but to surrender all of who we are in obedience through him to a Power greater than our egos. SlaveMaster calls this power the Universe, this slave calls it God. Slave Master is the agent through which his slaves are empowered to express our highest good, contribute all of our gifts and embrace our destinies with faith and obedience that overrides fear of disappointment, fear of failure, fear of looking or feeling foolish, fear of what people think. The paradox, of course, is that this is the path to absolute freedom. SlaveMaster calls our path the "path of the obedient heart." The obedient heart only responds to one order- to love freely in all circumstances.
When we were at Leatherfest this year, SlaveMaster and this slave passed by a display of swords. SlaveMaster picked up an especially handsome sword and examined it. this slave asked him jokingly if he was planning to use the sword on his slaves. SlaveMaster smiled and said, "No, I just admire the work that goes into crafting a fine sword. My slaves are My swords." The following morning this slave was meditating and he began to think of the legend of King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone. The sword is the slave spirit; the stone is the ego. The stone both protects and imprisons the spirit. The sword is powerless to mature and free itself from the stone by it's own will. In the legend Arthur pulls the sword out of the stone not for himself but to offer it in service to the knight he serves. At the time he pulls the sword out of the stone he has no awareness of the power of the sword and he is not excising it for his personal use, profit or glory, but rather in service to his lord. Similarly, this slave sees SlaveMaster's task as pulling His slaves' spirits from the stone of their egos, neither for His own agenda or self- aggrandizement, but to liberate them to fulfill their destinies in service.
Before this slave met SlaveMaster and his slaves, he thought he was looking for someone strong enough to catch him if he fell. It turns out he was looking for someone strong enough to catch him so he could let go. he was stubborn enough and strong enough to hold on forever and never fall. SlaveMaster invited him to let go. he is surprised to find he can fly.
Don't be discouraged. You are in Our Heart. Our love and support are available to you. After all, we are under orders. dear slavebrother
love,
SlaveMaster's slave jim
dear slavebrother,
Regarding your question about the changes in slave peter since his birth and renaming as SlaveMaster's slave #4. this slave is tempted to tell you that since birth he's become the constantly horny reincarnation of Mother Teresa with a nose ring and a beautiful big dick; but that's pretty much who slave peter was before his birth as SlaveMaster's #4. seriously there has been an observable experiential change. this slave had dinner with SlaveMaster and #4 the night after his birth and during our conversation #4 described a memory that surfaced at the time of his birth. his description of the memory precisely articulated a feeling that this slave has had as long as he can remember but had never heard spoken nor understood by anyone. the experience was as if #4 had not read this slave's mind but had read his heart and spoken it's deepest longing. It is, as SlaveMaster insists, as if we are one. this slave feels no separation from #4. he is as loving and playful and wise as ever but he seems to have absolutely no self-consciousness left (something this unborn slave still has) and the absence of self-consciousness has made him absolutely available to be intimate with this slave, and everyone else who crosses his path. he is radiant.
love,
dear slavebrother
SlaveMaster's slave jim
dear slavebrother,
So much of what you describe in your last letter sounds like you feel a need to sacrifice in order to be a slave. In this slave's experience, slavery isn't about sacrificing one's self or one's nature but fulfilling it. If you really want to be a slave, where's the sacrifice? It's not about what you have to give up for your Master; it's what you have to offer Him that counts. this slave has a beautiful home which gives him the opportunity to offer hospitality to his SlaveMaster and his slave brothers as well as his friends and family. When this slave serves a meal in the dining room, he uses good dishes and there are often lit candles and flowers on the table. SlaveMaster sits in a chair at the head of the table and His slaves generally sit on the floor around the table unless we have guests and SlaveMaster decides it's more appropriate for us to be seated at the table with our guests. . . . Usually one slave sleeps in the bed with SlaveMaster when we are all together and the others sleep on a futon or in a sleeping bag along side the bed. Occasionally if there are just two slaves with SlaveMaster He will invite both of us to share the bed with Him.
Before you rid yourself of all your furnishings, give serious thought to what you can use to make your home most pleasing, comfortable and inviting for your Master. Your ability to cook a good meal, your knowledge of art and literature and music, your years of experience and contribution as an out gay man and as a leader in the community are all things you have to offer your Master; surrendered to Him in Love and Obedience they are a priceless treasure. An authentic Master will cherish them and you as such.
Shackles are a wonderful special treat but they are not what bind a slave to his Master: love, obedience and fulfillment in being owned are. It's not as if we want to escape from what we've hungered for (consciously or subconsciously) for our whole lives. Love,
SlaveMaster's slave jim
dear slavebrother,
In your letter you asked, "Love and ego, don't they go together like a horse and carriage? In this slave's opinion, not at all. Quite the contrary, the ego is the enemy of love. The ego wants attention and security and control and possession, it wants its fantasies of love fulfilled; it has rules and conditions and strict requirements of anyone it would find worthy of loving it. The ego keeps score. When the ego finds someone it deigns worthy of "loving" or "being loved by" it is vigilant in judging the performance and continued worthiness of the current object of its attention.
The ego experiences "love" as a finite and limited commodity and it tracks its supply, the income and the outgo the way one tracks the balance in one's checking account. The ego remembers slights, stores up wounds and uses them as ammunition and calls itself "Victim! Victim!" whenever it feels it's losing control of the relationship. The culture we live in agrees with the ego's definition of "love." Watch daytime television if you doubt this. This is not to say the ego doesn't want love or think it does. It is desperate for it on its own terms. And terms are the antithesis of love. Love is not negotiated. It is given and received. It cannot be measured in finite terms. It is not given by one in exchange for the receipt of it by another. It is given for its own sake. It does not even come from us, it comes through us when we are willing to surrender and be its vehicle.
This is what the training with SlaveMaster seems, to this slave, to be all about- the surrendering of our egos so that our spirits can be vehicles for the power of love which the world seems so much to need.
The training isn't easy. Sometimes it's playful and fun and almost unbelievably joyous, other times it is infuriating and terrifying and frustrating and boring. this slave occasionally wonders how he got into this and what the hell he's doing here. Then he notices that SlaveMaster and his slavebrothers are there, rock-steady, loving him, challenging and encouraging him, but never judging him, even when he is testing and judging them. The paradox in this is throughout the training the slave experiences himself becoming stronger, more defined as an individual and loved and cherished for what is unique about him. The hard part is learning to trust that experience. In the past his uniqueness was given lip service but was usually punished, conformity was what was rewarded. SlaveMaster has stated repeatedly that each of us has a unique destiny; He's also observed on several occasions that when a potential new slave appears, one indication that he's the real thing is that he has nothing in common with His other slaves except for love and obedience.
One thing this slave has been aware of since his first encounter with SlaveMaster is that SlaveMaster "sees" him, loves and treasures him for who he is rather than for what He wants him or needs him to be. In this the slave feels uniquely loved, but certainly not "more" loved. The ego isn't interested in being unique, it is interested in being special; it demands to be loved "more" than others or it doesn't feel loved at all. (Check out King Lear's reaction to his daughter Cordelia's authentic, unflattering love to see what the ego thinks love is.) Being unique and being loved uniquely isn't the same as being special. Each of us is unique, therefore none of us is special. Sometimes this humbling information hurts.
You are right: SlaveMaster's training is not about finding a man to love but it certainly doesn't preclude it. In fact this slave would argue that the training both prepares and frees you to embrace the experience should it be your destiny to be in a relationship with a Master (such is the case with SlaveMaster's #3 and Master Lonnie) and should such an experience occur it will be the slave's heart that responds rendering the ego's preconceptions and standards impotent and irrelevant.
With regard to your question about the slave's "pride in his possessions" it would be more accurate to say he takes great pleasure in his possessions and joy that having stewardship of them allows him the opportunity to offer hospitality and pleasure to others including yourself if you visit.
You say that sometimes "fear chokes you- the fear that slavery is all in my head and that in my heart i can never let go." Dear slavebrother, this fear, perhaps more than anything else, is what we share in common. Release from this fear, and the liberation of his heart from bondage to that fear, is what, more than anything else including the longing for a lover or a master, motivates this slave to continue on this path. SlaveMaster's had many conversations with this slave (some might call them lectures) about this slave's inability to let go This is what the slave believes is accomplished in the birth moment and he sees evidence of it in #3 and #4, and now, #5..
SlaveMaster does have a big heart (an understatement) because what He devotes Himself to is not about procuring or developing slaves for His own personal pleasure and fulfillment, but in developing the slave for its own highest purpose. And what greater love is there in a Master than that?
Be patient with yourself!!! The hardest cases crack the cleanest. The downside is that they generally have to fall farther and land harder.
Wow, the slave didn't expect to get into all this so much. he really needed to write this letter to you to get in touch with what's gone on for him in the last 36 hours. Perfect timing. There are no accidents.
Thanks for providing the stimulus.
love
SlaveMaster's slave jim.
dear slavebrother,
This morning during meditation it occurred to this slave that there were at least two parts of your letter he hadn't addressed- preconceptions and prayer. this slave has had a lot of experience with both.
he devotes 45 minutes to an hour first thing every morning to prayer and meditation (except when he's with SlaveMaster, which is in fact very much a form of prayer and meditation for him- just not the ordinary one). When he started this practice he was lucky if he could sustain ten minutes. One of the slave's practices is to read from a variety of little meditation books before he begins the contemplative and formal prayer part. he read this in his little book this morning:
"There is a story about a professor who wanted to study with a Zen Master. The mystic invited him to tea, and after filling his cup, continued to pour. 'Stop!' the professor cried, 'No more will go in!' 'Like his cup,' The master replied, 'you are filled with your own ideas and speculations. First empty your cup to learn about Zen."
SlaveMaster says there are no accidents and the slave believes it is no accident that this story turned up in his book today prompting him to reply to your comment about preconceptions.
You say you still don't believe in any God that can be prayed to. In twelve step programs they recommend that you choose a Higher Power- it doesn't have to be the conventional Judeo-Christian God of our culture. It seems to this slave that your postings on gl-subs are a form of prayer asking for guidance and encouragement and that, in a very real sense, you have made the Internet your Higher Power to which you express your pain, fear, desire and longings in very much the same way that others pray to a more traditional God. You say you have only the vaguest idea of what spirit is. May this slave suggest that it is spirit within you that cries out for a Master and that it is ego that places so many qualifications or preconceptions on what that Master must be. As long as the ego is successful at doing this, it remains the "master" and the jailer of your hungry spirit. It knows if you can escape from the prison of qualifications and preconceptions in which it has placed your spirit, it will be out of a job, or at least severely demoted.
Imagine you meet the Master of your dreams and he says, "My dear slave, this is My protocol, the one you must obey to be My slave. Each morning when you arise, I order you to prepare fresh coffee for me and while it is brewing I want you to fall to your knees and pray to God to be released from the fear that 'chokes' you, the fear that slavery is all in your head and that your heart can never let go. Each evening I order you to kneel before my bed for fifteen minutes and repeat that same prayer to God before I bind you to my bed and flog you. As long as you are a slave to that fear, you will never truly be My slave." And if you reply, "But, sir, I don't believe in God," and the Master replies then pray to My God, the One who delivered you to My care." Could you do it?
This slave believes that the entrance of SlaveMaster into his life was the answer to his prayers- it's just that SlaveMaster and slavery are not at all what he expected the answer to his prayers to be like. It's like a Divine practical joke. It is a daily test. And the question on the test is the same every day. "Do you really want what you say you want even if it doesn't look like what you want or how you expect it to look?" Do you know the joke, "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans."
This slave believes that a true Master's protocol is by design- not His but the Universe's- constructed to accomplish what neither the slave or his Master could accomplish alone but only in union. And therefore by its very nature will require each of you to surrender to things you would not or could not surrender to without the partnership of the other. This requires faith in each other and faith in the union.
Forgive this slave if he sounds preachy- it's because he needs to hear this sermon himself.
Anyway, he assumes that if you take the time to write him, you want to hear what he has to say.
love,
SlaveMaster's slave jim
dear slavebrother,
this slave is delighted that you found his response hopeful. he meant it to be because his view of your situation is that it is anything but hopeless. Frustrating, yes; hopeless, no.
As you may know, this slave's background is strongly Christian, more specifically, Catholic, even more specifically Jesuit- 8 years of Jesuit education plus a brief time in their novitiate preparing to be a priest. this slave doesn't make frequent reference to this because he is well aware of the prevailing attitudes toward the Catholic church among his gay brothers and sisters; however, explicitly expressed or not this background is always part of what this slave brings to the table. The most honest and straightforward way he can think to respond to your communication is to make occasional reference to the literature of this tradition. he hopes you will bear with him.
The dilemma you present in your letter regarding your father's training and your abiding hatred of him remind this slave of two things Jesus says in the New Testament. "You must leave your father and mother" and "No man can serve two masters." SlaveMaster says it's His job to turn men into slaves; it's somebody else's job to first turn boys into men. To the extent that any of us has not resolved our issues with our parents and forgiven them, we have not left them and are, therefore, not free to follow our destinies (or, in this slave's opinion, be 100% available for authentic intimacy in any relationship.) In the year that this slave has been with SlaveMaster, he's seen three potential slaves leave or back away from the training. It's this slave's observation that unresolved issues with parents or other adult authority figures projected onto SlaveMaster contributed in each case to the slaves being unwilling or unable to continue. The unresolved hurt, anger, distrust, need for approval etc., were transferred onto SlaveMaster and that transference sabotaged them and their desire to pursue this path. These unresolved feelings were their true masters and they could not serve them and obey SlaveMaster at the same time. The conflict they experienced was visible and painful to watch.
If you are applying your father's training standards of success or failure to your call to the path of slavery you are not free to surrender yourself to the standards of a Master. If you assume that a Master will have the same standards of excellence as your father's, part of you will always resist surrendering to these standards because your experience is that the pain of doing so is intolerable and that accomplishing them is impossible anyway. Your "habit of judging everyone and everything", a habit this slave shares with you by the way, is a tough one. This slave has to constantly remind himself, when he's not being reminded by others, that he has no rights to his judgments, he has surrendered them to SlaveMaster. It doesn't mean the judgments disappear so much as he's had to learn to regard them like mosquitoes and brush them away before they have time to draw blood. A question to ask yourself: Would you rather have your judgments or have a Master? If you continue on this path, at some point you'll be required to choose.
You asked if this slave has any insights about how to get past your issues with your father. Yes. Take the time to make a list of the payoffs, the benefits, what you get out of:
1. holding onto your hatred of you father
2. holding onto the belief that "only special counts"
3. thinking that you have to be the best, perfect, or you're worthless
4. judging everyone and everything as harshly as your father does, especially yourself.
Be rigorous and exhaustive and vigilant. Do the exercise repeatedly over the course of a month. Pull into consciousness any hidden agenda you have in maintaining these behaviors, holding onto these values in spite of the fact they result in pain and frustration. In order to break habits and get past self-defeating behavior you must first identify the perceived payoffs to such habits and behavior.
You asked if it's possible to accomplish this without the hands-on guidance of SlaveMaster or someone like him?
This slave's never met anyone like SlaveMaster. If you're talking about breaking habits and behavior patterns without hands-on guidance, maybe. Personally, he's benefited from counseling, therapy, workshops, etc; he required the 12-step to come to terms with some aspects of his self-destructive and addictive behavior. If you are talking about slavery, he doesn't see how. How can one be a slave without a Master- it doesn't make sense to this slave. You can have the desire and the call but a Master would seem to be essential to the full actualization of your slavery. You ask "Can a Master love a slave for what he is, without illusions?"
A Master MUST love a slave for what he is without illusions, otherwise He perpetuates the slave's self-illusions and the slave continues performing for rewards and to please rather than simply being obedient according to his authentic nature. And the Master/slave relationship is reduced to role-playing and fantasy. In this slave's opinion, a true Master is obligated by the nature of His calling, first to divest Himself of His illusions about Himself and then by steadily and insistently seeing the slave for who he is to divest the slave of his illusions so he can see himself in all of his authentic power and beauty. It is this authentic power and beauty that he then freely surrenders in obedience to his Master. What use would a Master have for anything less. What slave would dare offer less. (If you will allow this slave to play amateur psychologist for a sentence, he suspects that your hatred of your father is rooted in your experience that he has blinded you to and made you distrustful of your own authentic power and beauty.)
You comment that you certainly want to be loved, but don't want to be anyone's "lover"again.. . I want to be loved "as a slave."
This slave believes both are possible simultaneously, though not necessarily with the same person, if the lover relationship is held within the larger context of the Master/slave dynamic. If a Master divests the slave of his illusions about himself, he is not at liberty to reclothe himself in those illusions when he relates to other than his Master. In relationship to a lover, or friend, or parent he remains his Master's slave which requires that he be authentic which eliminates the luxuries of illusion and disillusion but not necessarily candlelight, music, oil massage and passionate lovemaking which are actually more fun when you are under orders to be who you are and not who you imagine your lover wants or needs you to be.
You ask how many more years will you have to wait to realize your desire to be a slave.
When this slave asks SlaveMaster time related questions , He responds that it will happen when the slave has had all the experiences he needs to have in order to be ready to fulfill his unique destiny and to trust himself and be trusted with the freedom and power that his slavery will give him to accomplish this destiny. One of the essential experiences of slave-development is to realize and accept with gratitude that every experience you've had from incarnation to this present moment, including your parenting, your education, the love and the loss of those you love, etc. has been not only a necessary but positive preparation for your slavery and the fulfillment of your destiny and must be embraced as such. In other words, we must surrender irrevocably any claims on being a victim and in so doing fully trust that surrendering to slavery can in no way victimize us because it is what we were born for. This is HUGE. And it's what this slave feels most pushed up against. Trusting the truth of this!
Regarding this slave, you comment, "For you this is all a whirlwind process, but i feel as if i've been slogging up the same damned mountain since i was 10."
Whirlwind. Hardly. This slave has been slogging along his path for nearly forty years- what is new is that the path has revealed its name, "Slavery." The name the path has taken is new (and startling), but the longing, the searching, the bouts of frustration and depression, the temptation to give up, are not. You remark that "a constant theme with SlaveMaster's slaves is that slavery isn't what they imagined.", although it looks pretty conventional to you from the outside.
Let him clarify. This slave has been a spiritual pilgrim for the last 30 years, going where he is led, down many paths, through many experiences, always feeling called, never feeling certain he had actually found what he was being called to. What he never imagined was that what he was being led to spiritually would look like this or that it would manifest itself in San Diego on the bottom level of a Super 8 Motel parking structure at a convention of fetishists where he'd gone looking to get laid.
What is different is not the external form. What is different is that SlaveMaster's slaves experience and embrace spirituality as a primary component of their slavery. And for this slave the spiritual awakening that has accompanied his time with SlaveMaster is what is so compelling and so authenticating about it. You characterize SlaveMaster's training as "stricter." It doesn't feel strict to this slave so much as it feels non-negotiable- it's an all or nothing deal- and that's what many people seem not so much "unwilling" as unprepared to commit to these days. In this slave's experience, practicing the SlaveMaster's strict protocol is an exercise in mindfulness, a "belling of the cat called 'ego'" so it can't tiptoe into the room and do its mischief unnoticed. The protocol is an external container for an interior discipline. Additionally, being visible in the performance of this protocol makes us both observable and available in the world which we may not be of but are called to be present in to serve.
You ask if the purpose of a slave is to give a Master pleasure.
The purpose of a slave, in SlaveMaster's paradigm, is to obey. SlaveMaster has described Himself as "the One who obeys." Obedience is the whole package, the whole paradigm. Obeying and being obeyed may or may not be pleasurable from the ego's perspective, depending on the circumstances. In any case, pleasure is only incidental to the obedience, it is not the inevitable result of it.
You express a "real horror of being 'wasted' as a slave, of being reduced to a household and sexual convenience, with no regard to fulfilling my potential for intellectual work, teaching, writing and so on."
This slave hopes that #4 will find time to address this particular issue, since he's spoken of how SlaveMaster entered his life at a time when he was dealing with this very issue. As for this slave, your fear calls to mind a prayer that he thinks comes from the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross who wrote, "Please God do not abandon me in my contemplation, for I am a squanderer of my soul." This slave is to a great extent a procrastinator and "squanderer of his soul." As such he is grateful that God has sent SlaveMaster into his life to put an end to the squandering.
In this slave's experience, as he's expressed in other letters to you, SlaveMaster believes His slaves are priceless treasures and respects us as such. Because He sees us this way He sees His purpose as disciplining us through obedience to Him to fully actualize our potential so that He and His slaves as a single entity can accomplish our destiny. This requires that ultimately, no part of us, not even a breath, be wasted.
Thanks again for the candor of your questions which give this slave the opportunity to discover more about himself and this path he finds himself on. Please continue to write as you have the time. This slave hopes the correspondence is as valuable to you as it is to him.
Love,
SlaveMaster's slave jim