Kahlil Gibran: "The Mother, the prototype of all existence, is the Eternal Spirit.”
—- In adishakti_sahaja_yoga@yahoogroups.com," Violet"
>
>"The philosopher Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240) saw a young
> girl in Mecca surrounded by light and realised that, for him, she
> was an incarnation of the divine Sophia. He believed that women
> were the most potent icons of the sacred, because they inspired a
> love in men which must ultimately be directed to God, the only
> true object of love.”
>
> Dear Jagbir,
>
> i also remember Shri Mataji saying that it will be mainly the
> women who will bring in this New Age; who will do most of the
> spiritual work. (This saying of SM's has always puzzled me,
> because i know that men do the spiritual work, too!)
>
"And I have to specially make a very important request to the women
that in these modern times they are the ones who are going to save
the world, not the men. They have done their job before.
Now it is for you to save with your understanding, with your
compassion, with your sacrifices, with your wisdom, and innate love
not only your children, your husband, your family, but the whole
world. It is a very great opportunity for all of you to do your
bit....
The whole Cosmos, just in complete respectful attendance, is waiting
for their arrival.”
Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Cambridge, U.K. — June 1988
The Eve Of Destruction
The Guardian
15 February, 2004
Still reeling from last year's virulent dispute about the foiled appointment of its first gay bishop, the Anglican community is now faced with another potentially irreversible split. Forward in Faith, a group opposed to women priests, has proposed the idea of a province separate from but parallel to Canterbury and York, with its own exclusively male hierarchy. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has apparently hinted that he would be prepared to consider this suggestion, designed to prevent a mass exodus from the church when women are consecrated as bishops.
More liberal Anglicans condemn the plan as a form of sexual apartheid, even though Forward in Faith has 4,000 women members. Nevertheless, the new province would represent a male bastion in a world in which women are increasingly entering spheres that were formerly the preserve of men. The fantasy of an all-male enclave is not new in the history of religion. In the ancient world, women often served alongside men as priests. This did not affect their inferior social status, but they were regarded as worthy representatives of the divine. That changed during the axial age, from circa 800BCE to 200BCE, when all the world faiths that have continued to nourish humanity came into being at roughly the same time.
These axial religions hold many values in common, but they all share a fateful flaw. Wherever an axial faith took root, the position of women underwent a downward turn. Most of these religions had an egalitarian ethos, but they were and have remained essentially male spiritualities. Confucius, for example, seemed entirely indifferent to women; Socrates was not a family man. In India, the Jain and Buddhist orders were irenic forms of the ancient Aryan military brotherhoods, and though nuns were permitted to join, in a second- class capacity, many felt that the presence of women was inappropriate. Even the Buddha, who did not usually succumb to this type of prejudice, declared that women would fall upon his order like mildew on a field of rice.
Such misogyny damages the integrity of faiths that insist that male and female are both created in God's image and that all human beings are capable of attaining nirvana, knowledge of Brahman or the Tao. Yeshivas, madrasahs, seminaries, monastic orders and colleges of cardinals are all-male clubs that rigorously exclude women. This chauvinism infects the spirituality of the faithful, male and female alike. Male Jews are supposed to thank God daily for not creating them women; every Christmas, Christians sing"Lo! He abhors not the Virgin's womb", as though Jesus's tolerance of the female body was an act of extraordinary condescension on his part.
Even when there was an initial attempt to introduce greater sexual equality, men hijacked the faith and dragged it back to the old patriarchy. This happened in both Christianity and Islam, latter-day reassertions of axial age monotheism. The Prophet Mohammed, for example, was anxious to emancipate women and they were among his first converts. The Koran teaches that men and women have exactly the same responsibilities and duties, and gives women rights of inheritance and divorce that we would not enjoy in the west until the 19th century. There is nothing in the Koran about the veiling of all women or their confinement in harems. This practice came into Islam some three or four generations after the Prophet, under the influence of the Greek Christians of Byzantium, who had long covered and secluded their women in this way.
Jesus would have been surprised by the confinement of women. Both he and St Paul had women disciples. They did not ordain them as priests, because there was no Christian priesthood until the third century. The early Christians espoused a revolutionary egalitarianism; a priestly hierarchy was too reminiscent of Judaism and paganism, which they were beginning to leave behind. Those who today condemn women's ordination as a break with tradition should be aware that priesthood and episcopacy are themselves innovations that depart from the practice of the primitive church.
The gospels give women a good press: it is the women who stand by Jesus throughout the crucifixion, while his male disciples are skulking in hiding, and it is women who receive the first news of the resurrection and bring it to the men. They were, it is often said," apostles to the apostles.” St Paul proclaimed that in Christ there was neither male nor female. Most of the misogynist passages attributed to Paul are taken from epistles written decades after his death, when Christianity was beginning to retreat from its early radicalism.
Once this had happened, Christianity found issues of sex and gender more difficult than any other faith. Some of the fathers of the church seemed totally unable to deal with women, and attacked them in vicious, immoderate and, indeed, unchristian language. Because they believed that celibacy was the prime Christian vocation, they projected their own frustration on to women, whom they castigated as evil temptresses. Tertullian told women to shroud their bodies in veils and make themselves as unattractive as possible. He blamed them for the sin of Eve: "You are the devil's gateway ... because of you the Son of God had to die!"
Many of the fathers wanted to make the church a male enclave. St Augustine told his priests to shun the company of women, even if they were sick or in trouble. Even mothers were not safe: "It is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in every woman.”The fathers' ideal woman was a virgin, who had renounced her sexuality and thereby become an honorary male. Some women, such as Joan of Arc or Catherine of Siena, exploited this symbolism and used their virginity as an entrée into the male spheres of war and politics, but in general virgins were supposed to retreat from the world and leave it to men. They would eventually be locked away in enclosed convents.
Later St Thomas Aquinas saw women as biologically flawed," defective and misbegotten", and thus inherently inferior to the male sex, to whom it was their duty to submit. Even Luther, who left his monastery to marry, believed that, as a punishment for the sin of Eve, women must be driven from the world of men and confined in the home"As a nail is driven into the wall.” Protestantism made Christianity more male than ever; by abolishing the cults of the Virgin Mary and the women saints, it banished all female imagery from the Christian consciousness.
Forward in Faith's dream of an exclusively male preserve draws its strength from a Christian tradition of denial, frustration and disgust that can by no stretch of the imagination be regarded as spiritually wholesome. In all the world faiths, women are trying to redress the pernicious chauvinism that has tainted their traditions. We are now living in a world that is perilously torn apart by religious extremism. We can no longer afford faith that feeds in any way upon hatred, exclusion and disdain. Before we condemn the bigotry of other traditions, we should try to heal the prejudice that has damaged our own.
The Eve Of Destruction
Karen Armstrong is the author of The Battle for God
>
> However, maybe She was highlighting the Divine Feminine (in women)
> in the sense that the above quote describes women as"The most
> potent icons of the sacred, because they inspire a love in men
> which must ultimately be directed to God, the only true object of
> love.”
>
All that is changeable is but reflected;
The unattainable here is effected;
Human discernment here is passed by;
The Eternal-Feminine draws us on high.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Faust
Woman-Saviour now we muster
To await thy advent sure,
In the cluster of thy lustre,
Come and leave the earth no more?
Then before thy gentle look,
Swords shall quail and warriors fail,
And the spear, a shepherd's crook,
Shall adorn the daisied dale.
Woman-power! Incarnate love!
Human Goddess come and be,
If the Bridegroom's tears can move,
Bride unto Humanity.
Thou alone of all can save us
Let us be what thou would have us!
Goodwyn Barmby, The Woman-power (1842), English radical
The Muse of the New Era, as our grand-grandchildren, or an even later generation will know her, when will she reveal herself? What will she look like, what will she sing? Which strings of the soul will she vibrate? Till which height will she elevate her Era?
Hans Christian Andersen, The New Century's Goddess (1861), Danish writer
Let it be known: today the Eternal Feminine
In an incorruptible body is descending to Earth.
In the unfading light of the new Goddess
Heaven has become one with the depths.
Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900), Russian philosopher
It was generally considered, at the turn of the next century, that the next Divine incarnation was about to come to earth and would be female, the advent of Divine Wisdom, or Theo-Sophia, and that the present age would be the age of making known all that which has been kept secret from the beginning.
Lady Caithness, The Mystery of the Ages (1887), French theosophist
The word which shall come to save the world, shall be uttered by a woman. A woman shall conceive, and shall bring forth the tidings of salvation. For the reign of Adam is at its last hour; and God shall crown all things by the creation of Eve.
Anna Kingsford, Clothed with the sun (1889), English theosophist
There is no line of work or study which woman in the West does not undertake and does not accomplish as well as man. Even in social and political activities, in religion, in spiritual ideas, she excels man. ... I can see as clear as daylight that the hour is coming when woman will lead humanity to a higher evolution.
Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), Indian Sufi in the West
A great era has begun: the spiritual"Awakening", the increasing tendency to regain"lost balance", the inevitable necessity of spiritual plantings, the unfolding of the first blossom. We are standing at the threshold of one of the greatest epochs that mankind has ever experienced, the epoch of great spirituality.
Vassily Kandinsky/ Franz Marc, Blaue Reiter Almanac (1911), abstract artists
The Cycle of the Children. It is impossible to gauge the significance of the present time or to realize what is in store for humanity during the next hundred years, merely from our own experience and from recorded history. For this is no ordinary time. It is not simply the culminating point of the past hundred years, but of thousands of years; the night of centuries has passed, and with the new dawn comes the return of memories and powers and possibilities of an age long past.
Katherine Tingley, The Path of the Mystic (1922), American theosophist
The Father has not saved the world,
The Son has not saved it,
The Mother shall save it;
The Mother is the Holy Spirit.
Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, The Mystery of Three (1925), Russian exile in France
We are entering the cycle of epochs when the feminine soul will become increasingly pure and broad, when more and more women will become deep inspirers, sensible mothers, and wise and visionary leaders. This will be the cycle of epochs when the feminine component of humanity will manifest itself with unprecedented strength, balancing the previous dominance of masculine forces in a perfect harmony.
Daniil Andreev, Roza Mira (completed 1958), Russian dissident
>
> Therefore, could Shri Mataji really have been referring to
> the"Divine Feminine"In women which was 'going to do most of the
> spiritual work' than to literally mean that women are going to do
> most of the spiritual work at this time?
>
> That would make sense to me then, because when the Divine Feminine
> is awakened in men, they become 'spiritually balanced' with a
> balance of both masculine (and feminine) qualities.
>
Dear Violet,
i believe Shri Mataji to be referring to women in general. But those making the greatest contributions will be those blessed with esoteric knowledge, who know about the Divine Feminine and are One with Her within. This takes a long time to manifest because there is much conditioning to be overcome, knowledge acquired to confirm and establish deep faith in the Holy Scriptures, the senses withdrawn, and Silence sustained. As more and more women begin to relate to the Divine Feminine in similar fashion humanity as a whole will benefit. It is indeed a very great opportunity for all women to do their bit, and help trigger the critical mass required for this global awakening. The whole Cosmos, just in complete respectful attendance, is waiting for their arrival.
You are absolutely correct Violet that"When the Divine Feminine is awakened in men, they become 'spiritually balanced' with a balance of both masculine (and feminine) qualities.”It is without question required by men in any spiritual pursuit. As a male i understood women better when my daughter told me that we humans have three mothers - the physical mother who gave birth, the spiritual Mother within who nourishes and guides us, and Mother Earth who sustains all life. Women are the Creative Power of the Divine Feminine.
But to begin the spiritual journey back to the Divine Feminine within knowledge is the key to unlock the spiritual secrets and parables:
"First there was the sea, everything was dark. There was no sun, no moon, nor people, nor animals, nor plants. The sea was The Mother. The Mother was not the people, nor anything. She was the Spirit of what had come and She was Awareness and Memory.”
Belief of Pre-Colombian Kogin Tribe
"O Mother of Imupa, advocate for the whole [feminine] world! What a remarkable Mother I have!
O Mother, a pillar, a refuge! O Mother, to whom all prostrate in greeting
Before one enters Her habitation! I am justly proud of my Mother.
O Mother who arrives, Who arrives majestic and offers water to all!"
Yoruba Prayer (Nigeria)
The Valley Spirit never dies. It is named the Mysterious Female.
And the Doorway of the Mysterious Female is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.
It is there within us all the while; Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.
Tao Te Ching 6
(source: World Scripture, International Religious Foundation,
Paragon House Publishing, 1995 p. 95.)
"The Mother is everything - She is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. The sun is The Mother of the Earth and gives its nourishment of heat; it never leaves the universe at night until it has put the Earth to sleep to the song of the sea and the hymn of the birds and brooks. And this Earth is the mother of the trees and flowers. It produces them, nurses them, and weans them. The trees and flowers become kind mothers of their great fruits and seeds. And The Mother, the prototype of all existence, is the Eternal Spirit, full of beauty and love.”
Kahlil Gibran, Broken Wings, trans. Anthony R. Ferris, Citadel Press, 1962.
"Our exile has not only been from the Goddess, but also from Nature. It is not surprising, considering that most Westerners live apart from their environment, protected by concrete roadways, consuming machine-processed foods and filled with media information to the detriment of the experience of our own senses. The seasons go by unnoticed, we seldom touch the earth, eat fresh food or observe the world personally — media input and journalism provide our informational diet. The sacred is a forgotten dimension in our society which we ignore at our peril.
Earth-honoring is an integral part of the native traditional religions, who have never deviated from a vision of the whole of creation as sacred. As we begin slowly — perhaps too slowly — to assess this primal nurture, we realize that the native traditions have much wisdom to teach us, and this may, in turn, stimulate our own.
Maybe the return of the Goddess among us heralds the marriage of humanity with Nature, the necessary resacralization which must precede any marriage between humanity and the Divine....
The current ecological trend has alarmed many traditionalists who see it as endangering the real business of spirituality — that of saving the soul. Let them be assured: global restatement of the earth's holiness can only enhance the human spiritual vocation. The native spiritualities of the world point the way in which we might approach our earth-honouring and make relations of the whole creation. In 1890, 153 native Americans gathered together to perform a Ghost Dance to gain a vision of a world healed of the evil works of white civilization. Their massacre is remembered by white Westerners as the Battle of Wounded Knee. One hundred years later, a group of white people of assorted spiritual allegiance gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, to re-enact the Lakota ceremony of 'Making of Relatives', in memory of Wounded Knee. At the ceremony's heart was this invocation:
Grandmother Earth, hear us! The two-legged, the four-legged, the winged and all that move upon You and Your children. With all beings and all things we shall be relatives; just as we are related to You, O Mother, so we shall make a peace with one another and shall be related to them. May we walk with love and mercy upon the path which is holy! O Grandmother and Mother, help us in making relatives and a lasting peace here!
This is truly the work of the New Isis — the Sophianic re-assembling of earth-wisdom, scraps of whose garment blow about the world in rags and tatters of glory. We may be privileged to live through this time and see, if not Sophia unveiled, a glimpse of her doxa. The native traditions teach us that without a whole view of the world, we can be both presumptuous and stupid — the complete reverse of wise.”
Caitln Matthews, Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom,
The Aquarian Press, 1992, p. 326-27.
Some say She is Uma, others call Her Laksmi; And others again say that She is Bharati, Girija, Ambika,
Durga, Bhadrakali, Candi, Avidya, Maya, Prakrti and Para. Thus say the great rsis.
Br. Naradiya Purana
O wise one, this is the established doctrine concerning Devi;
She is the Vedas, the sacrifices, the heaven and all this universe;
The universe, immovable as well as movable, is pervaded by the Devi.
She is all that is sacrificed to and worshipped by the Devas;
And She is all that is food and drink;
Manifold in form and name, Devi is everywhere - In trees, in the
Earth, in the air, in the ether, in water, and in fire.
Devi Purana
It is impossible, O Sage, for me to enumerate,
The countless names of Devi in hundred crores of Kalpas.
Skanda Purana
What can I say? Devi has countless names, which have been composed by Brahma and other Devatas
According to Her different qualities and doings.
Devi-bhagavata Purana
If one aspirant thinks in his mind one single name of Hers, in that moment he knows the chakra of The Mother, O beloved one.
Vamakesvara-tantra
O, Mother of the Universe, those who praise you by the words: ambika, jaganmayi and maya, will obtain all.
Kalika Purana
Those who prostrating their bodies praise You by the words: Maya, durga, vedagarbha, amba, bhadra, bhadrakali, ksemya, ksemamkari, in the mornings and evenings, Will obtain all the desired objects by My Grace.
Visnu Purana
They ask thee concerning the Spirit. Say: "The Spirit (cometh) by command of my Lord:
Of knowledge it is only a little that is communicated to you.”
If it were Our Will, We could take away that which We have sent thee by inspiration:
Then wouldst thou find none to plead thy affair in that matter against Us -
surah 17: 85-86 Al Isra, (The Night Journey)
Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur'n, Amana Corporation, 1989.
"Sophia is a living being. She is a being who is the divine Mother of humanity, a being who is now drawing close to humanity at this time of crisis; a being who, through immense love for every human being on this planet, is concerned with finding a way forward out of the impasse into which we have come.”
Robert Powell (Audio excerpt from The Sophia Teachings)
"Indeed, the absence of feminine symbolism for God marks Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in striking contrast to the world's other religious traditions, whether in Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and Rome, or in Africa, India, and North America, which abound in feminine symbolism....
The Greek terminology for the Trinity, which includes the neuter term for spirit (pneuma) virtually requires that the third"Person" of the Trinity be asexual. But the author of the Secret Book has in mind the Hebrew term for spirit, ruah, a feminine word; and so concludes that the feminine"Person"conjoined with the Father and Son must be The Mother. The Secret Book goes on to describe the divine Mother: ... (She is)... the image of the invisible, virginal, perfect spirit ... She became The Mother of everything, for she existed before them all, The Mother-father [matropater] ...16 The Gospel to the Hebrews likewise has Jesus speak of"my Mother, the Spirit.”17 In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus contrasts his Earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, with his divine Father - the Father of Truth - and his divine Mother, the Holy Spirit.”
(16. Apocryphon of John 4.34-5.7, in NHL 101. 17. Gospel to the Hebrews, cited in Origen, COMM. JO. 2.12.)
Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels,
Random House Inc. New York, 1989, p. 48-52.
"The Hebrew word used to denominate God in Genesis is Elohim. This word is plural from the feminine singular ALH (Eloh) by adding IM to it. Since IM is the termination of the masculine plural, added to a feminine noun it makes ELOHIM a female potency united to a male principle, and thus capable of having an offspring. The same intended misconception is given in the Christian idea of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. In the Kabbalah the Deity manifests simultaneously as Mother and Father and thus begets the Son. We are told that the Holy Spirit is essentially masculine, but the Hebrew word used in the Scriptures to denote spirit is Ruach, a feminine noun. the Holy Spirit is really The Mother, and thus the Christian Trinity properly translated should be Father, Son and Mother. (Migene Gonzalez-Wippler, A Kabbalah For The Modern World.)"
The Joy of Sects, Peter Occhiogrosso,
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1996 p. 243.
"As we now move to other ancient scriptures let us not be blinded by"religious"parochialism. A mind overly conditioned by the fatherly connotation of the Judeo-Christian tradition will, at first, have some difficulty at the conception of the Divine in the feminine form of The Mother. And yet, the cult of The Motherhood of God, from time immemorial, has been attested by archaeological evidence from all quarters of the globe. It seems that it is the Indian subcontinent which presents us with the most elaborate expressions of this worship.
According to Advaita Vedanta Ultimate Reality is formless undifferentiated consciousness (Nirguna.) This condition, which is at the same time the Absolute Being and Absolute Nothingness1 cannot be conceived of. Through eons of ages, it goes through alternate phases of potentiality and manifestation. The alternation of this cosmic rhythm has been called: "The respiration of Brahma.”When the ultimate reality rests in its latent phase, the Unmanifested, it is contained in"IT.”In the activating phase of its manifestation, the"IT"becomes"He"And"HeR"; HH Mataji says that the first step of the Creation takes place when God separates itself into Himself as a witness and Herself as His power. One aspect is Sadashiva (The Primordial Existent and Witness, God the Almighty, the Father, the Purusha); the other is His power, the Adi Shakti, (The Primordial Energy of Divine Love, the Divine Mother, the Prakriti.)2 Thus the Mother is the Primordial Energy ... The Creation, spiritual and material, springs from the Divine Mother, the Holy Spirit of the Christian tradition. She creates various strata of existence, among which is this phenomenal universe. As this Primordial Energy is the genitrix of everything we experience, She is worshipped as the Sacred Mother. We read in the first sutras of the Kama-Kalavilasa:
"Victory to Her the Primordial Power, the seed from which sprouts hereafter the entire creation, static and kinetic universes, the eternal, the incomparable, who is of the nature of Her own bliss, and who manifests as a mirror to His (Shiva) self.”
The Samaya Mata recalls that the distinction between He and Her is only an apparent one: "There is no Shiva without Shakti nor is there any Shakti without Shiva. There is no distinction between them just as there is none between the moon and the shining.”The Shakti combines in Her person both the manifestation of the Universal Existence (male form) and the Universal Energy (female form.) She is thus identified with the One. The actualisation of this primordial unity within the disciple is the object of the Shakti worship. She is the central object of worship because She is the manifested dimension of the Ultimate. She is the Great One who bridges the gap between the Infinity and the Finite; only through Her compassionate meditation can the finite human being regain Infinity. And that is indeed the very blessing that She wants to graciously bestow on Her children.
"Thyself, with a view of manifesting Thyself in the form of the Universe, inwardly assumest the form of Consciousness and Bliss.”- Shri Shankaracharya, Saundarya Lahari 35
Let us again remember that the Holy Spirit, as the Primordial Energy, is the Christian mysterious symbol for The Mother. We ought to mention, that in the apocryphal Acts of Saint Thomas, the Holy Spirit is (rightly) invoked as"hidden Mother," "Mother of all life.”These statements should help us to recognize the true wisdom of the early gnostics and Syrian fathers who grasped something of the identity (Holy Spirit = Mother = Energy.) The esoteric perception certainly casts a new light on the intriguing dialogue between Lord Jesus Christ and Nicodemus:
"Truly, Truly, I say to you unless one is born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him," how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?”Jesus answered"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God"- John 3.3
The necessity to return to the Divine Mother in order to become a New Adam, a second born, a Divine Child has been asserted by Lord Jesus. It is time that those western seekers who have engaged themselves in intellectual pursuits use their intellect to discover the Unity of the message of the various mythologies and religions; they had better realize the greatness of the Christian promise and the value of the other world religions. HH Mataji has brilliantly exposed those teachings in a new light which also illuminates the other religious traditions and contemporary science. It is time for us to discover that the true object of Knowledge is integration. All the great religions are one. This is revealed by actualization when our own integration takes place through rebirth.
Although the Great Goddess (Adi Shakti) is"Truly Formless" (see the Devipurana) She has been worshipped through millennia in countless aspects and forms. The three great aspects through which She is channeling Her own power are Mahalaxshmi, Mahasaraswati, Mahakali. She is also known to have taken various incarnated forms (avtaras.) It is thus described in the Scriptures that She is the Primordial Power, the utterly Holy. It is certainly not easy for the western reader to face the very serious hypothesis that She can take human form. To talk about it is even more difficult. This field of reality only underlines the limitations of ideas and words.
1. In Mahayana buddhism"tathata" (suchness) and"sunyata" (emptiness) are interchangeable notions.
2. Purusha and Prakriti represent the apparent opposition between the Father-Spirit and The Mother-Nature.”
Grégoire de Kalbermatten, The Advent, The Life Eternal Trust Publishers, 1979, p. 252-55.
> > i remember also that Shri Mataji taught that within both men and .
> women are both... the masculine qualities (represented by the sun)
> and the feminine qualities (represented by the moon). When a
> person (male or female) has the balance of the feminine and
> masculine qualities then they come into more of a spiritual
> balance also, because the Spirit within is neither masculine or
> feminine ; it is both.
>
"God is pure and undivided consciousness. You may even say He is nothingness. In His purest state of void He is Nirguna Brahman, that is (nir+guna) devoid of any qualities or differentiation. Divisions of time and space and the impurities of ego consciousness created by the gunas do not exist in Him. For inexplicable reasons, as He wakes, He sets in motion Prakriti, the universal energy, that was so far latent in Him, and then enters into it. From this union arise ultimately all this reality that we know as the universe. This is something like the modern theory of the origin of the universe. The Big Bang is actually what sets in motion the latent energy hidden in the cosmic egg (Hiranyagarbha)....
Is Shakti really female? Shakti is pure energy, neither male nor female. This interpretation is purely human, figurative and relative and should not be taken literally. It is also wrong to believe that Self is male and the energy is female. Purusha exists in males as well as females and so does Prakriti exists in males also. They are like the two sides of the same truth. It is also difficult to say who is superior to whom. Without energy Self is practically immovable and without Self energy does not have any field for its movements. The Truth at the highest level: pure energy (PRAKRITI is undivided consciousness (PURUSHA).”
www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/shaktis.asp
>
> Your comments/understanding on these points would be appreciated.
>
> violet
>
Thank you Violet for giving me this opportunity to show that all religions and spiritual sects, like many rivers and streams, have begun to merge in the Ocean of the Divine Feminine. And The Mother, the prototype of all existence, is the Eternal Spirit, full of beauty and love. She exists within all of us as our spiritual Mother who knows us intimately since time immemorial. It is the Aykaa Mayee (One Mother) who have always nourished us - as the physical mother who gave birth, the spiritual Mother within who nourishes and guides us, and Mother Earth who sustains all life - over countless births spanning aeons.
warmest regards,
jagbir
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