The Divine Feminine will sooner or later begin to take its proper place
"We have now reached the limit of this masculine culture with its aggressive, competitive, rational, analytic character. We are moving now into an age where the feminine principle will be valued, the 'yin' in contrast to the 'yang'. In the Chinese understanding 'yang' is the masculine principle, 'yin' is the feminine and as the 'yang' reaches its limit it begins to move back again to the 'yin'. We have now reached the limit of the 'yang', the masculine culture, and we are moving inevitably back to the feminine. The feminine will sooner or later begin to take its proper place with its characteristics of intuition, empathy and co-operation, and with its holistic approach.”- Bede Griffiths
“In this way we can envision the emergence of a new world culture as
It should be added that in Catholicism the feminine aspect is entirely
centred on the Virgin Mary. It is the only way a Catholic, or indeed a
Christian, can find a feminine figure in relation to God. So devotion
to the feminine archetype centres on the Virgin Mary, but we should
recognise that there is a feminine aspect of God himself and that the
Virgin Mother is a manifestation of this. This means, in other words,
that devotion to The Mother has its origin in God.
It is possible that the transition from a mechanistic to an organic
society will come about gradually, without too much conflict. But it
is more likely that there will be a general catastrophe as the
economic, social and political structures of the present civilisation
break down. We must remember, and this is important, that the
conflicts of the present world do not derive merely from human
failings and miscalculations. There has been a reversal of human
values, a spiritual breakdown, which has brought into play forces
beyond the material and the human. The present crisis has been
prepared by the whole system of science and philosophy, affecting
religion and leading to atheism. This is a systematic development
where the previous spiritual values have been broken down and the
materialistic system discussed earlier has prevailed. This has
released forces beyond the material and the human. If a nuclear war
takes place it will not be because anyone desires it but because
people are being driven by forces of the unconscious which they
cannot control. As St Paul says, 'We are not contending with flesh
and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers,
against the world rulers of this present darkness'. [1] When the truth
of the transcendent order of reality is rejected we do not remain
neutral. We become exposed to the hostile forces of the subtle world
of which we have been speaking, forces which work in the unconscious
and bring destruction upon humankind. Western Europe rejected the
perennial philosophy at the Renaissance and has been led step by step
to the materialistic philosophy which rejects fundamental human
values and exposes humankind to the contrary forces at work in
the universe. The only way of recovery is to rediscover the perennial
philosophy, the traditional wisdom, which is found in all ancient
religions and especially in the great religions of the world. But
those religions have in turn become fossilised and have each to be
renewed, not only in themselves but also in relation to one another,
so that a cosmic, universal religion can emerge, in which the
essential values of Christian religion will be preserved in living
relationship with the other religious traditions of the world. This
is a task for the coming centuries as the present world order breaks
down and a new world order emerges from the ashes of the old.”
A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and
Christian Faith)
Bede Griffiths, Templegate Publishers (1990) pp. 294-96
Notes:
[1] Ephesians 6:12
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