Feminine Spirituality
In spirituality, too, there are differences between feminine and masculine spiritual world views, whereby both always see themselves as “the true spirituality.”
Feminine spirituality is similar to non-duality, as found for example in Advaita Vedanta. It understands itself as a single consciousness that sees everyone as equal without any hierarchy. It is an indiscriminate and impersonal state that sees itself as connected to the collective we-ness. No distinction is made between a self and an ego, or a right and a wrong ego, as the Vedic Bhakti tradition does. There remains a state of oneness that rejects all separation. The highest virtue of femininity is mercy.
One can almost say that the strong emergence of feminine spirituality in recent years is related to the patriarchy that dominated before it, and here it represents an antithesis to the judgmental God as prevalent in the Abrahamic religions. Justice and with it discernment are its highest virtues, which can also entail guilt and punishment. A divine creator, guilt and punishment characterize masculine spirituality, which is often frowned upon today.
In my opinion, however, the exaggeration of feminine understanding and empathy leads to a new one-sidedness, because we need both the feminine power of empathic understanding and empathy and the masculine power of discernment and the righteous primordial part. In the spiritual scene, dividing and separating is often interpreted as negative and connecting as positive. Here the difference between understanding and comprehension is confused.
To want to understand something means first of all to want to understand an action, but this does not mean to have understanding of it. However, this is often not distinguished and the demand is to have understanding for everything. Understanding is the basic prerequisite to then either show mercy or do justice, this happens out of a guided feeling, it has no ego-vengeance and is not a logical thought process. Parents who truly love their child will not “punish” them in order to torment them, but out of an understanding that they need the “punishment” in order to grow. In this respect, in traditional society, the mother stood for mercy and understanding, the father for justice and discernment. Mother and father needed each other in order not to slip into one or the other one-sidedness. Mercy and justice can only develop into a true strength in the interplay of feminine and masculine power, which today is to be developed as an integrated ability to see within oneself.
In order to reach the state of seeing, the soul has to free itself from the multi-layered individual-psychological as well as collective-historical superimpositions. This is usually a long, sometimes painful and not necessarily easy process, which can also last for several incarnations. As we feel our emotions, they seem to be our true nature and in some processes it can seem as if we are dying. It is a death of the ego, a slow peeling away of our different masks.
Feminine seeing is possible precisely because of the unstructured, non-linear and multi-dimensional approach of feeling. So it is by no means “women’s gossip” as it is portrayed in the general (masculine) perception, although it can become such when it takes place in the ego structure. In seeing there is no wanting, no manipulations and no evaluations.
In the state of seeing, one sees things as they are. However, there may well be judgements, anger or other emotional reactions from people who do not want to accept what they see.
One cannot now conclude that the feminine principle and the realization of seeing would be a positive quality per se. It is about “the right measurement” or “the golden middleway” as already mentioned in the old European Spiritual Traditions from Aristotle and Plato. Like every quality, it has to be brought into the right relationship and cultivated, which requires a purified ego (which requires a purified ego. Seeing can certainly cause harm if the ego parts are not processed, healed and brought into a healthy integration. Otherwise the ability to see can be misused for intrigue and manipulation.
The same applies to today’s highly praised ability of “emotional intelligence,” which is very close to the ability to see, even if it seems to me to be a partial aspect. Emotional intelligence like cognitive intelligence are not positive, they are neutral abilities, which can be used depending on the emotional maturity and integrity towards the positive as well as negative.
The feminine principle therefore needs the discernment of the masculine principle in order to distinguish one’s own ego parts and shadow sides from the seer power. Especially for people in healing professions this is of particular importance, otherwise mental injuries can occur during the healing by the healer himself.
Beyond Matriarchy and Patriarchy: The Vision of a Society Based on the Feminine and Masculine Principle
Although in this article the female principle and its beauty as well as meaning is in focus, this is to be seen as a supplement of the male principle and not to replace one one-sidedness by another. There is nothing wrong with thinking, we have only developed a society in which the head, detached from feelings and emotions, has developed an excessive ego self which does more harm than good to us and to everyone else. The basic principle of our true soul self is feeling, which we are allowed to find our way back to. This can be a painful and difficult path, because we cannot reach this state just by thinking that we are in feeling.
For this we have to resolve and transform our own collective as well as individual traumas, this is mostly only possible by means of feeling the pain, piece by piece, one after the other. In this way we develop a unity of thinking and feeling, a thinking integrated into the feeling. This can be done at the beginning by means of psychological therapies, which touch childhood, can be tried. However, some of our patterns are a result of collective conditioning that have been made our own. They need another form of treatment or sometimes they are external pathological structures that we cannot heal at all. Later, when some issues and problems have not been resolved, we may also have to deal with past lives. Each path is individual and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Here, too, our feelings will guide us. Thinking may then take its role as a servant again, as it can stand by us critically at one point or another.
Women probably have a natural disposition to emotional seeing, but this form of seeing is still strongly overlaid by emotional shadows, so that in traditional society it would need correction by the right hand of the man. The masculine principle also stands for the ability of abstraction, to see oneself from an objective point of view and thus be able to perceive his shadow sides.
Thus, a man who has integrated his feminine as well as masculine parts can certainly also become a seer today.
Since the feminine principle has been strongly buried in the last millennia, this principle needs to be somewhat overemphasized first. For me, however, it is of importance to bring the masculine and feminine principle into a healthy balance within oneself and then in society as well. For this we must learn to think, feel and act with two variables. Through the clearing of our emotional blockages we increasingly come into our soul feeling, which is everywhere and always full of happiness, filled with love, gratitude and peace — bliss. Such a society recognizes the positive valences of both principles. The structure and form-giving power of the male principle, as the life-giving power of the living feeling: Both principles are ultimately inherent in women as well as in men. Unlike in traditional society, women and men today can develop both principles within themselves and combine them into a meaningful unity. The mixed ratio of feminine and masculine principle is an individual soul parameter and not an external social norm. Women and men are then respected as equally different beings with their individual feminine and masculine qualities. In this way, we all ultimately become seers of the Truth and Beauty of life, beyond unconscious shades.
This was the first of a 3 part article-series.
Part I you can find here.
Part II you can find here.
