When I look back over my life, it seems that I have been thrown out of every spiritual group I ever became involved in. Can I be such a horrible person that no one wants me around or that I just have no ability for spiritual pursuits?
When we dig deep into the historic record, women have been deemed spiritually inept from the dawn of time. The teachings of Taoist masters back 5000 years tell students never to allow a woman to become a student. Women are incapable of spiritual practice and so the society of the time deemed women to be inferior human beings.
The Buddha refused to allow women as monks. It wasn’t until his aged Aunt begged to be admitted that the Buddha relented. There was a condition that had to be met for women to be admitted. Nuns must renounce marriage and family or be in a position where they no longer had family responsibilities, which meant that the husband must be dead or willing to release the woman from her householder duties and all their children were grown and settled.
The story of Adam and Eve tells us that within a day of eating the forbidden fruit, they were kicked out of Eden. Cherubim and a revolving flaming sword barred the way. Yet in Genesis 3:22, the Lord states that man is like Him and is able to stretch out his hand and take from the tree of life and live forever. No so for Eve. Hmmmm.
How can the instances of male dominance be so wide spread over such a vast variety of cultures and eras? How is it that women are downgraded to spiritually inept or outright sub-human in so many cultures?
It all comes back to the ego or lack there of.
We know that spirituality was a male dominated enterprise from the beginnings of written literature. The story of Gilgamesh, the first known myth, is a fully-fledged alchemy of the archetypical king. That means that the study of male transformation had been going on looong before writing was available. Lets remember that a king is an animus or ego-based personality. Writing, reading, and philosophical study require the focus of a logical, intellectual, one track style of mind.
This is not the environment of any woman with children. There’s Susie who is pouring too much salt into the stew, Rodger who is sword whacking all the furniture, while little Tony is pooping on the floor. And, that is on a good day. It takes a creative mind to absorb and juggle all the happenings. In each case, bringing forth the best outcome is key; rescue dinner, instill a since of right and wrong use of weapons, teach proper hygiene skills. Who has time to talk and debate about the inner being when all this is going on?
It is the assumption that everyone operated from the ego or strong sense of “I” that brings about the historical idea that women are sub-human.
The animus or ego-based personality is narrowly focused on the “I.”
The anima or egoless-based personality is open and the mind is creatively expansive so that it can intuit what is best for others or the group as a whole.
Animus or ego-based spiritual practices are all about dissolving or killing ego.
Anima or egoless-based spiritual practices are all about self-realization, narrowing the parameters, and finding the “I Am.”
Animus or ego-based groups communicate from a totally different perspective than egoless-based groups. Animus or ego-based groups use “the cattle call” in order to attract people to their cause. An example is when the speaker talks about a conference they are hosting or going to attend.
- Animus or ego-based personalities, since they associate everything with themselves, will ask to join the conference or ask where to sign up.
- An anima or egoless-based personality will wish you well or walk away feeling rejected because they had not been invited. Because they have no since of “I,” and egoless-based personality does not relate the general announcement/subtle invitation to themselves. Thus, they miss the intention of the “cattle call.”
Egoless-based groups actively recruit in order to attract people to their cause. They know no one will step up to a public announcement because those in their group do not relate what is said by others to themselves. Egoless-based types juggle so many other activities or events that they are not looking to add to the pile of responsibilities that they already handle.
- An anima or egoless-based personality needs to be recruited in such a manner that tells them they have an ability that they alone can positively contribute to the group, that they are needed, and that they are wanted. An anima or egoless-based personality needs to be emotionally attached to the group or the benefits that they can provide to others. When the benefit is only to the self, generally they are not interested.
- Practices that use one-on-one requests or recruiting leave an animus or ego-based personality feeling a loss of freedom or personal choice.
- Practices that kill ego, kills both the connection to the group and the hard earned self-confidence within an anima or egoless-based personality.
- This leads to feelings of being thrown out and the insanity of a shattered psyche.
Here is the reason why I felt as if I had been thrown out of every spiritual group I became involved with and I missed every opportunity when it knocked . . .
“I” wasn’t home.
My book, "Jesus' Wedding: A Peek into the Inner World Shrouded behind the Mystical Veil," will detail this universal system that explains all myth and spiritual symbol. It is planned to debut in December 2012. You are welcome to view the excerpts, models, and and photographs that are currently available on my website. http://www.JesusWedding.com
Jesus’ Wedding 
[quote]It is the assumption that everyone operated from the ego or strong sense of “I” that brings about the historical idea that women are sub-human.[/quote] Masculine and feminine energy are completely different. The only reason it is said feminine energy (either male or female) is not able to transcend ego is simply because as you pointed out feminine energy does not have one. Feminine energy is the catalyst for transformation of ego (masculine energy regardless of sex) that is her purpose, both male and female energy exist only conditionally in the Universe, and as such both serve there role perfectly.
I agree totally! Feminine energy becomes focused and organized with the introduction of masculine energy.
Maybe the woman needed someone taller to fetch said fruit down? Not having a chair to place under the branches? “Dear, could you please…?”
— — —
“Then God said, ‘Let us [!] make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them…
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
—-
The above is an English teachers’ nightmare, but makes it pretty clear that “man” isn’t necessarily “just Adam” in your quote. [Even “Adam” isn’t necessarily male in the first few occurrences of the name, according to people familiar with the Hebrew text.] The whole story has of course been stapled together from various sacred stories, leading me to conjecture the following micro-Midrash:
“Then God put Eve into a deep sleep, and from her [“rib”? Both men and women turn out to have the same (even) number ] made a man.” Explains a lot about us, yes?
——–
Male dominance? Not present where force & violence aren’t a priority. But many of the more widespread groups have (coincidentally) taken their territory by war, and prize belligerent traits in their men. Which traits do not lead to nice behavior at home.
Margaret Mead [?]: ~”Every society we’ve studied agrees there are significant psychological differences between men and women. They just can’t agree on what those differences are.”
—-
So far as I’ve known anyone who truly believed that killing their own egos would be a good thing… I’ve generally been able to see why they thought that. Alas, they did not succeed!
The method of killing ego must have worked as least some of the time, because the idea would have been abandoned if it had not. Just because seeing such a person transformed in this way is so rare, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
I’m just bucking for an alternative method for those of us who don’t operate from an egotistical prospective.
My friend (a poet, naturally) was in a class where the teacher asked everyone to imagine what an ego looked like. Catching sight of this ugly little furry thing on his shoulder, he came home and told us he’d decided to exterminate the critter. From that point on he became insufferable; he’d still perch on chair arms with the latest sheet of scribbles, demanding: “Isn’t this hot?! — then reading it, and telling us how much someone else “was blown away” by his poetry — But now he became “humble” at odd moments.
My wife & I (We were all rooming together with the intention of sharing the rent, except we never collected his) were also poets, and weren’t too surprized at noticing we had egos. (“Poets? — Egos? — Naw!”) & sometimes ours were really obstructive underfoot; but it never entered our minds that we could or should try to lose them — Who, then, would be having all the fun? Housebreaking them, teaching them not to bite, sure! But there’s a certain implication of self-hatred involved in such a notion, which we didn’t suffer from to the same extent.
Gabor Mate (re a patient’s diary passage listing things he wanted to accomplish): “Characteristically, what this man did not think to write was ‘I want to learn to accept myself.'” An ego that doesn’t become an open wound — and who but an ego would wish to “kill their ego’? — might just look in the mirror with a live-&-let-live attitude.
— — —
All the various spiritual ‘practices’ — could be thought of as experiments toward developing an ideal God/human interface. Learning “to walk humbly with your God.”
When people try to work out verbally what that should look like, much of the time they construct images of God that either a) need someone to tell them what to do or b) want to annihilate the very personalities God has created them with!
And then they construct practices that fit whatever model they’ve accepted. But neither mode of interaction strikes me as what God really intends for the long run. What does a “natural” interaction look like, between a localized personality and its unlimited core self?
“Like a love poem
to a bear
written in the bear’s room
because there’s nowhere else”
?
Thanks for the insight.
Interesting posts. I am following.
I’m glad you like my work.
At the risk of being instantly unpopular, I’m not a fan of ‘male’ and ‘female’ energies. There is only ‘energy’, with any definition of male or female being predominantly shaped not by any nature but by our culture. There perhaps are ‘biological’ differences between the sexes, but what they are or what they might mean is inseparable from dominant ideologies of gender.
For me I believe that woman has long been subjugated not due to ‘ego differences’ but because man has feared woman. The tale of Eve is an inverted myth. It is woman’s ineffable ability to create life which has fascinated, appalled and scared men. So it is men’s inability to have knowledge of this ‘life-giving’ process – or Eve’s supposed ‘arcane-innate’ knowledge of it, which the ‘apple’ tale points to. That women create life makes men dependent upon them, but men cannot understand them, and so seek to control them through forms of violence.
The ego is only a term for something which does not exist as a discrete entity – ‘ego’ signifies a set of behaviours and dispositions which again are delimited through cultural scripts. While a useful tool for indicating a subject area, it is not a real thing of itself, and should not be mistaken for such. Taxonomies of this kind (ego/id/super-ego) are MALE ways of ‘dissecting’ and classifying the world – and move us away from the essential unity of all things – the ‘one-ness’ of consciousness and reality.
The desire to ‘kill’ the ego is perhaps driven by our innate sense that we are all connected, all of one substance – that the ‘ego’ is actually already dead – it is only our belief in ego which draws it forth. Our desire to kill the ego is perhaps a desire to be free of cultural assumptions of separation and distinction, and to instead embrace unity and inter-connectedness.
Sorry – I only meant to say thanks for following my blog and instead I’ve waffled…I shall stand in the naughty corner!
Thanks for being an intelligent voice in this ever more production-obsessed world.
While a dual energy system is up for debate in the Scientific community and the Christian world, it is not so for other spiritual systems. Zen’s yin and yang are very real. Same with Zorastra’s light vs. dark.
As a woman, the ego/id/super-ego system of the male world doesn’t work for me. “I” always seem to miss the boat.
However, that understanding is a huge revelation for me. Maybe now that I understand the system, I will be able to open the door to opportunity more often.
And
Maybe, just maybe, someone else will benefit from my story. (Yep. I’m sticking to my original makeup and thinking of others first.)
Cool post. I also don’t totally agree with the idea that there are concrete feminine or masculine “energies”, unless you mean that metaphorically, referring to traditional interpretations of those two ideas?
Also, not sure if this adds anything, but in eastern Christianity, they believe there are two analogous spiritual paths to “theosis”, the state where your entire being is in tune with God: marriage/childbearing, or the monastic life (which is fully open to both sexes). They’re both given equal weight, with marriage popularly considered the more difficult path due to the distractions and demands involved.
But then in eastern Christianity, women are (in my observation) not as spiritually “eunuch-ized” as they are in many other varieties of Christianity. An example is the vigorous energy of the eastern Theotokos/”God-Bearer” Mary (vs. the western “Virgin” Mary). I think this has led to female spirituality being wayyyyyy more exalted and beloved in the East.
Actually, as another example, I’ll soon post something about Mary Madgalene, who’s popularly dismissed as a penitent prostitute in the West, but hailed as “Equal-to-the-Apostles” and “Apostle-to-the-Apostles” in the East.
We love dualism and individualism in the West, they appeal to our Enlightenment heritage. So tempting and simple-seeming. It’s a pity; I do think this is being challenged in many quarters though.
The Enlightenment barely touched eastern Christianity, and it shows. This makes it seems incredibly backward in some ways, but then in others, you look at their way of thinking and you realise with shocking clarity that Christianity was once very very Eastern, almost like Buddhism. It changed shape subtly as it moved across the West.
The duality of energies is the deepest part of the mystical belief systems I have witnessed so far. It is in the alchemy of these two energies that the archetypes and personality traits are manifested. We have to remember that philosophers and priests were the psychologists of the ancient world.
I agree that the beliefs of the Christian West are out of line with the original intention of Jesus and his teachings. The biggest indicator of this fact is that the first miracle was at A Wedding. A Wedding is the first initiatory step on the mystical path for an anima-based individual – A Woman. This practice continues today when a nun takes her vows. She is literally married to Christ.
This is why my book’s name is: Jesus’ Wedding.
The Protestant Christians look to the resurrection as the beginning of the spiritual journey. IMO, the empirical Roman influence with its obsession for power is the cause of this distorted understanding in the West.
Just as Jesus brought forth his system as a balance for the Jewish faith, Martin Luther brought forth the reemergence of the death of the ego system to balance the Catholic faith.
We need both systems. Unlike the days of old, we know that a person is much more than the body style they are born in. This is why I use Jung’s anima and animus terminology. It is the western yin and yang. In order for spirituality to bring a positive and elevating experience, each person needs to match their inner personality with an appropriate system. Otherwise most people are broken, or like me disenfranchised by religion and spiritual practice.
I am just posting up lots about various women in the church and have just posted on Mary Magdalene too!
Thanks for following my blog. Will be looking at Shekinah, Thecla, and very likely Goddess based religions down the line too.
Thecla is quite an interesting character! Baptizing herself, what a rebel!!! Yet if we follow Jungian theory, we see that women by their nature always baptize themselves.
Too bad the men of that time did not understand that fact.
Interesting.
I’m glad I found ur post. I’ll be back. I particularly enjoyed the discussion between you and treegestalt. Leanne
I have to agree with thehurtfactory that separating these two energies into male and female energy is unnecessary confusing. Firstly you defined the male vs female wrong. It is not ego vs lack of ego. The ego is the act of identifying with what your perceive.
Secondly the symbol of the dao also tells use that the dichotomy between male and female energy is a false one. It is our mind that tries to put everything into a box. So let us please not put ying only in females and yang only in males.
Your model about passion and grace how ever is a jewel. It really resonates with some repeating insights I had during long meditations. Only in my perspective it is not the relationship between heaven and the underworld. Wouldn’t it be more logical if it was the relationship between the observed and the observer, between earth and heaven (where god is). Where the process of striving towards the earth is called passion. And the process where the god comes to earth is called grace. The intersecting segment could be understood as the holy spirit or the process of perceiving (eye). The divine marriage between heaven and earth gives birth to Jesus. The crystallized form of the holy spirit. God incarnated into earthly form. For this is the true nature of man. Not only material body nor only an immaterial soul.
Where the tree or axis does not separate the oval saggital but connects heaven and earth. The tree/flower which is the process of perceiving that is also the symbol for the Buddha. Nurtured by the nutrients of the earth and the grace of god.
Sometimes I get the idea that Buddhist strive to be in this world, while many Christians only want to go to heaven. Of course this is not what what it means to be a true Cristian (no insult intended). Dietrich Bonhoeffer called striving towards heaving cheap grace. He said that real grace is costly.
“costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ”
(From his book: The Cost of Discipleship)
He also said that man could not speak to god, but that god could only speak to man. The path of grace is about accepting god. But in order to do that one has to accept being alive. This can only be done by also accepting going towards death and suffering.
In Buddhism it is also expected of you to die on the cushion. The death of man does not have to be literal death. Just like passion does not have to be stressed out and hurting. Its about accepting suffering. Accepting original sin. Being this suffering. Accept going towards death. Being ok with it. And by this being born in grace. Free to experience life. Just like Jesus is being crucified with a serene expression on his face.
Jung also was also thinking about these two paths. He also said that man first has to take the path of passion towards this world before taking the path of grace. (I think this is in his book about the individuation process)
Of course passion doesn’t have to be this macho bullshit of going so far as to get yourself into a burn out. Of course a burnout gives you no other choice. But passion can also be serene and relaxed. The way it is meant to be. Just like Dionysus in Nietzsche’s book The birth of tragedy. Not greedy, not driven by constricted desires, just free to experience and enjoy the passing of time. I mean is greed a product of feeling or the way we interpret label and deny this feeling.
At the same time is our intellect not necessarily bad. For it is what grace is when it is connected to are natural passion. It is even possible to use the ego as a tool as long it is not a end in itself.
In the end it is just the interplay of love and wisdom.
In short:
The path of grace is not the real path of grace if it is not rooted in this world.
Also you might be interested in the symbol of the vajra in Tibetan buddhism that symbolizes the pure and impure perception that is joined by our primordial nature. And the Dzogchen perspective that our true self is like a mirror.
The Path of Grace/Light AKA the Divine Masculine and the Path of Passion/Kundalini AKA the Divine Feminine does seem wrong to the modern Christian.
Modern Christianity defines the Christ spirit as masculine and Grace as feminine.
I traced these energies back the roots of the Jewish/Christian belief system, the Sumerian culture and their oldest myth, Gilgamesh.
All the ancient belief systems of the fertile crescent considered the energy that comes down as associated with Father Sky and thus masculine and the energy that comes up as associated with Mother Earth and thus feminine.
The Mystery Cults of the ancient Greek and Romans was based on this system. The Kabbala still teaches this system today.
This system did not change until Constantine organized Christianity. It was at this time Christian Scholars and Popes flipped the genders of the two energies.
This is what makes Christianity so hard to figure out. Jesus followed the ancient Jewish belief system. Many of his sayings are completely incomprehensible until the energies are returned to the ancient system of belief.
When I studied the Eastern belief systems, they too incorporated the dual divine energies.
The core spiritual system of Chan had a saying:
From the One
Comes the Two.
From the Two
Comes the Three.
From the Three
Comes the Ten Thousand (Ten Million or each individual)
From this I could see that there is a universal belief system. A system that incorporates every religion and every myth.
The names have changed over the eons and regions, but the beliefs are all rooted in the same system.
You treat these energies like there is a conflict. Have you ever thought of it that this conflict only exist if we see it as a conflict. That is why I think it is dangerous to separate these energies into male and female.
You could say, passion is overrated. That it leads to egoistical behavior that wants to destroy the world. Well, I think that is a very confused state of passion.
Grace can also have a very confused state, where it denies the existence of the material world. Making people suffer for sake of the a though they confuse with god. Becoming a rather cold hearted person.
While these energies can also take form in less confused configurations. Passion could turn into warmth and caring, the will to be a good person. And grace, can be relaxed, beautiful, true, etc.
Separating them into two sexes makes a false dichotomy that can make us reject one of the two, or that it should be 50/50 it makes is resist the natural state, which is good.
For example, you have posted a few feminist comments on this forum. I am not against woman. I am also not for egoistical and destructive behavior. But this way of thinking makes us think that passions natural state is bad. And that grace is always good.
In truth these energies are not like black and white. They are not completely separated. How can grace contain love without passion and how can passion be nurturing without grace?
Isn’t that why you called it Jesus’ wedding. Because it is like a marriage between the body and the spirit. They both need each other to develop.
Well, I am not here to have an argument with you. So be free to follow you own intuitions.
I totally agree with you that the energies are complimentary. These energies have been part of the sacred duality since before man put down his thoughts in writing. Please check out one of my earlier blogs that fully explains the alchemy of spiritual balance.
If I am understanding your comments, it seems that what is being missed is that we all begin with one or the other of the energies. In order to create a spiritual balance the other energy needs to be infused, enhanced, or worked on. When this happens a being of happiness, generosity, and creativity is created. This would be considered a marriage of the male and female energies – a balanced state that creates spiritually enlightened beings.
When you begin with a compassionate person and enhance the Power of Passion then a vengeful and wrathful being is created. Every human culture throughout the eons has a myth about the virgin or mother goddess who becomes enraged and causes a swath of destruction in their path. Medusa, Pele, Kali, and Sekhmet come to mind. This would be considered a marriage of female and female – an extreme that creates hate-filled and destructive beings.
When you begin with an intellectual person and enhance the Power of Grace then an arrogant and selfish being is created. I call this the Lucifer effect. This would be considerer a marriage of male and male – an extreme that creates cold calculating and uncaring beings.
The only difference I am making is that the ancients judged a person male or female by their physical body, while I am labeling a person by their personality make-up – whether a person is an animus-based personality(male) or an anima-based personality(female). There are lots of creative men and intellectual women in the world.