Let me speak here of love. You might ask, what does Truth know about the subject. But which word do humans choose to describe love’s purest form?
True
So hear me out.
You have debated for centuries about what true love means. Some say it is when another’s happiness means more to you than your own. Others say it is when you cannot imagine the world without your partner.
For me, true love is easy. It’s the kind where you do not lie to yourself.
Mitch Albom (The Little Liar)
Many years ago, I spent time studying Gnosticism . . . even attending a small, funky, Gnostic church in Palo Alto. The officiant was a woman who commanded the pulpit, having walked onto the center stage after depositing a very calm and very large cat on a chair that resembled a throne. The cat remained sitting and still throughout the entire service.
What drew me to so many readings; what compelled me to drive an hour each way to attend the service was the promise of gnosis. The recognition that we . . . every single one of us . . . has the yearning and the capacity for direct contact with God, with Reality, with Truth, with Love.
Even earlier than my immersion into Gnosticism – as a teenager – I was told that the Kabbalah was off limits to women and to the young.
Very often, for what seems like since the beginning of time; we have been told we need a sanctioned authority who will guide us and tell us how to pray, how to practice, how to live, how to die, how to think and how to believe.
It is in the mystical realm of the major religions (Gnosticism/Christianity; Kabbalah/Judaism and Sufism/Islam) that speak of and encourages our natural direct contact with something bigger than ourselves. It is also where we will find the knowing, the acknowledgement of the Divine Feminine; the profound recognition of receptivity, openness and creation in the fullness of God. In the collective consciousness, the mystical realm of all religions has been shrouded in mystery and kept in the dark, hiding in plain sight where most of us are kept out.
And yet, the lineage has been kept alive.
Gnosis . . . knowing . . . is radical and demanding. Through deep introspection, through practiced contemplation, through direct connection, we are invited into the real. Gnosis is alive and invites us to find what is most real, what is the living, embodied truth; what is transcendent and what is sacred by diving deeply into the inner being of our ordinary humanness.
From the time we are born, all through our lives, we are trained and programmed to look outside ourselves for answers. Family, school teachers, religious leaders, government officials, sport coaches . . . the list goes on. We might rebel, we might go along with; we might stay asleep; but it seems to be a rare case that we are encouraged to think for ourselves, to take our experiences to heart, to listen to that small quiet voice inside that has more wisdom than all the authorities put together.
It seems as if, since the beginning of our recorded history, with the exception of collectives here and there (indigenous tribes) we have been taught that our humanity, our bodies, our emotions and feelings, our pleasure in the flesh are a distraction from everything that is holy.
It seems as if, since the beginning of our recorded history . . . again with exceptions . . . women have been seen as inferior, as property, invisible, too emotional or irrational, intrinsically dependent.
Delving into this any deeper and it is easy to see that the prejudice is even bigger – the bias blankets all that is feminine.
Using Carl Jung’s contribution to this issue, I want to stress his point – every single one of us . . . men and women . . . have the energies of the feminine principal (receptivity, intuitive vulnerability, empathy, relational, beingness, caring, collaborative) as does every single one of us, men and women, have the energy of the masculine principle (action, strength, assertiveness, independence, self-reliance, pride, confidence)
As I see things, we, collectively and individually, have been living out the shadow of an enormously unbalanced masculine principal. To such an extreme that our precious planet is aching and damaged; and power, materialism, winning at any cost has overtaken our consciousness, and our beliefs, distorting the truth of who we really are . . . blinding us from our innate wholeness that knows the rhythm, balance, truth and beauty of interconnectedness . . . interdependence.
And here is what has been forgotten, taught out of us and created immense misunderstanding and trauma. Our humanity, our bodies, our personalities, our messiness are sacred.
We live within an energetic field, within and as the Source of all that has been created. Nothing is outside of this Source; everything is made of the very same essential material. How could it even be possible that we, arising out of Source, are not holy. We are human; why on earth would we deny ourselves the full experience of being in a body?
To be in direct contact with Source (awareness, truth, spirit) as humans, requires us to be (BOTH) receptive and to express interconnectedness through action. Listening and expressing, receiving and giving, being and doing, in breath and out breath, accepting and setting boundaries, human and divine.
Whole.
Wholeness within the field that is One; the One that forms, holds and loves all creation. Wholeness that recognizes ITs face and ITs source. Wholeness that recognizes and accepts our beautiful and complicated humanness.
Without this recognition. . . for what seems forever . . . we have been violent to our bodies and our psyches and we have been violent with each other. We lash out and hurt ourselves and each other. Who amongst us has not experienced being mistreated in one way or another – and when we are radically honest with ourselves, who amongst us has not harmed another., no matter how small the slight might appear. Living in the belief that we are not connected, that what happens to one of us does not, in any way, impact the rest of us leaves us acting out this misconception. We all can see the end result of this powerful delusion.
To recognize wholeness, to hear the quiet still voice coming from a vast depth or dimension of experience; to participate in and express the messages being received, to perceive reality directly, to grow and expand, allowing the body to open and strengthen requires a whole hearted, full intellect acceptance of our sacredness. Otherwise, we stay blinded by our generational programming, which tells us something is wrong with us, which we look for any way out of feeling.
Knowing we are sacred allows us to courageously face anything and everything that is blinding us. Knowing we are sacred propels us towards our longing for the truth and for unconditional love. Allowing this longing also allows us to listen, carefully and seriously, to what we want most of all. Knowing we are sacred allows us to go towards the peace, the harmony, the sweetness that lives within the beautiful balance of our male and female energies.
What kind of attention allows something to reveal itself to me?
Holding the sacred in the body.
the body is not a distraction from the sacred, but the primary vessel through which it is felt and revealed.