Following an afternoon of family mayhem and mother's day celebration (which included a lively crew of great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers and their various husbands, children and pets), I felt drawn to write a post honoring the universal energy which animates us all - the Divine Mother - who compassionately conceived the 6 billion souls of our human family.
In the eastern traditions, the masculine and feminine energies are understood somewhat differently than the typical strong/weak or aggressive/nurturing polarities we ascribe to the genders in the west.
The masculine is understood as pure consciousness -- inert, motionless, and formless -- the unity principle. The feminine is the creative force -- energy, movement and form -- manifesting the multiplicity of the entire physical universe. The masculine is static and infinite; the feminine dynamic and multi-faceted. They are inseparable, two sides of the same coin.
Out of pure delight, the sacred feminine or Divine Mother creates all things. She is the ecstatic pulsation emanating from "Being," or sacred masculine. Through her cosmic play the entire universe is brought into existence.
As she creates, she unfurls the distinctions of time, space, and form, the limiting factors that spawn the many from the one. She births the individual soul, animating it with the sounds of consciousness and vital life force. She creates the individual mind that experiences the world through sensory perception. And she creates the body, along with all aspects of the physical world, the creatures of the earth, sky and sea, each evolving along a spiral of consciousness.
In her act of creation, the Divine Mother both conceals and reveals ultimate reality. As she reveals the bounty of our world and the myriad beings and objects that color our experience, she conceals the deeper truth - our fundamental oneness with all that is. The sacred feminine births us into individual expression, but also binds us in the illusion of separateness. Her play is a paradox. It is like a game of hide and seek with the Self. She conceals unity through an explosion of diversity, but simultaneously holds the key to awakening back into the One.
Many people live their entire lives bound within the concealing principle. They are completely consumed by the phenomena of the world, never experiencing anything beyond the stimulus of their five senses. Indeed, they even ridicule others who seek a deeper understanding of consciousness, accusing them of pursuing a fantasy of self-aggrandizement or grasping for the false security of something beyond themselves. But sages, saints, mystics and common people across the ages have discovered that the material world is but a fraction of human potential, the smallest sliver of consciousness. Once the Divine Mother reveals even the briefest glimpse of universal reality, piercing the veil for even a moment, she ignites the inexorable impulse to rediscover Being.
The union of sacred masculine and sacred feminine, being and becoming, consciousness and energy, is the essence of awakening as described by many mystical traditions.
The problem, of course, is that we have denied the sacred feminine widely for centuries. In our attempt to control the physical environment (as perceived through our senses), we have favored qualities of the embodied male - aggression, dominance, exploitation, penetration. We have over-developed these tendencies in direct proportion to the depth of our ignorance of higher reality. We are completely absorbed in the concealing factor. We see only that we are separate individuals in a world of separate forms. We are completely fooled.
These historical tactics for controlling the physical sphere will at best accomplish temporary dominion over temporal forms. At worst, they bring widespread suffering, pain and despair. As long as we buy into the charade of separateness, we will experience conflict rather than peace. We will continue to fight, struggle, and wage war within the illusion, a perpetually fruitless endeavor.
In order to free our consciousness to see beyond the veil, we must embrace and re-balance the feminine. She must be given her rightful authority within every evolving soul, male and female. The divine feminine holds the key to our ultimate liberation. She will happily reveal the higher truth to those who earnestly seek her, as she alone can unlock the mystery for us. She is at once our jailor and our liberator, waiting patiently for her 6 billion children to seek their freedom.
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Posted May 12, 2008 | 07:54 AM (EST)