 Balance
of the Masculine and the Feminine
by Lency Spezzano,
co founder of Psychology of Vision
This was written for 'Visions' magazine in 2004.
Today Lency works from the place of Oneness which recognises
that there is only one of us here; that the split between
the sexes is an illusion.
In the last year, and in fact, in
my life, has been in the balancing of the masculine
and feminine aspects of my mind. This came as a surprise
to me. I had no idea of the pain I carried inside me
about this injury.
Although I had spent a
couple of years in the early 70's raising my consciousness
about feminism vs. the patriarchy, my good will toward
men won out, and it seemed to not be an issue for me.
Then I spent a few hours in our August seminar in Tokyo
burning through a hidden rage, completely amazed.
Like
anyone my age, I was raised in a time when the feminine
was devalued.
As I grew up, and grew older, I watched that gradually
change. Cultures that for thousands of years had highly
valued most things that were masculine, and distrusted
and disparaged most things that were feminine, begin
to swing like a pendulum back into balance. Not only
have we experienced the women's movement, this year
we have witnessed the "metrosexual" men's
movement -straight urban men who are willing, even
eager, to embrace their feminine side. It is quite
an upheaval!
At psychological and spiritual
levels the balancing of the masculine and feminine
offers us great opportunity for development, expression
and satisfaction. Men and women both are recognizing
that without the development and expression of their
feminine nature they are incomplete and imbalanced.
Interestingly
enough, the Sacred Feminine was perhaps the first
aspect of God to be recognized by humanity.
For the greater part of human history. God was worshipped
as a female. It is only in the past few thousand years
that the majority of cultures have conceived God to
be masculine. The modern masculine religions probably
developed, in part, as a reaction against the powerful
feminine religions that preceded them. I expect that
it was similar to the way current feminist Goddess
worshipers don't put much energy into honouring the
masculine aspect of God.
Why
not honour the divinity of both the Divine Masculine
and the Divine Feminine?
Some religious sects throughout history have been able
to do it. The early Jewish tradition, for example,
involved ritualistic sex in the Temple - the belief
being that the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple housed
not only God but his powerful female equal, Shekinah.
The widespread early
Christian sect, the Gnostics (see the Dead Sea Scrolls
and the Coptic Scrolls discovered in Upper Egypt in
the '40s and '50s) worshipped a Supreme Being who was
both male and female: the Matropater.or Mother/Father
God. Women in Gnostic communities had equality with
men, and could be priests and bishops.The Gnostics
questioned the value of suffering and martyrdom. They
worshipped a succession of masters, who came in the
centuries after Jesus. They practiced meditation, had
a more relaxed view of sex (than, say, St. Paul) and
emphasized Christ's teaching of the "kingdom
of heaven within," versus a power-base in the
outer world. In one of the Gnostic texts, "The
Gospel of Mary," Jesus taught "There is
no sin." He taught the law of cause and effect,
saying, "This is why you become sick and why
you die: it is the result of your actions...." And
he advised, "Be in harmony.... If you are out
of balance, take inspiration from manifestations of
your true nature." I am amazed at how much this
sounds like A Course in Miracles.
But 2000 years ago the
balance of the masculine and feminine just was not
to be. The pendulum was swinging with great momentum
toward the masculine, and nothing could stop it.
In the early Christian
Church, for example, an extremely masculine movement
occurred, something that could be considered history's
largest corporate takeover: the merger between the
Catholic Church and the Roman Empire. In AD 312, the
Emperor Constantine all but dictated the history of
the Western world for the next 1,600 years.
History
tells us the Church converted Constantine.
The reality appears to be that he converted it. Constantine
was a lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed,
possibly because he was too weak to protest. In Constantine's
day, Rome's official religion was sun worship - the
cult of Sol Invictius, or the Invincible Sun - and
Constantine was its head priest.
Unfortunately for him,
a growing religious turmoil was gripping Rome. Three
centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Christ's
followers had multiplied exponentially. Christians
and pagans began warring, and the conflict grew to
such proportions that it threatened to tear Rome in
two.
Constantine
decided something had to be done.
In 325 A.D. he decided to unify Rome under a single
religion, Christianity. He could see that Christianity
was on the rise, and he backed the winning horse. He
converted the sun-worshipping pagans to Christianity
by infusing pagan symbols, dates and rituals into the
growing Christian tradition.
He created a hybrid religion
that was acceptable to both parties. Egyptian sun discs
became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of
Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became
the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin" Mary
with the Baby Jesus. And virtually all of the elements
of the Catholic ritual-the mitre, the altar, the doxology
and communion (the act of God-eating) were taken directly
from earlier pagan mystery religions.
The pre-Christian God
Mithras - called "the Son of God" and "the
Light of the World" was born on December 25, died,
was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in
three days. December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris,
Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was
presented with gold, frankincense and myrrh. Even celebrating
the Sabbath on Sunday, instead of on Saturday, the
Jewish holy day, was shifted to coincide with the pagan's
veneration of the sun.
During this fusion of
religions, Constantine needed to strengthen the new
Christian tradition, and held the ecumenical gathering
known as the Council of Nicaea. In addition to the
approval of the Nicene Creed, many aspects of Christianity
were debated and decided upon by a vote. They decided
upon a standardized date of Easter (the altered observance
of Passover) which was named after the pagan sun goddess.
They defined the role of the bishops, and established
the rules for the administration of sacraments.They
voted to reject the belief in reincarnation (prior
to the Council of Nicaea the idea of reincarnation
was an integral part of the Christian faith), and removed
many references about it from the Gospels and the rest
of the canon. But most importantly, they voted on the
question of the divinity of Jesus.
Establishing Christ's
divinity was critical to the further unification of
the Roman Empire and to the new Vatican power base.
But whether Christ was God (a belief held by those
who followed the teachings of St. Paul) or a human
being who had been given life to serve God's will in
a special, divine way (the belief held by those who
followed the teachings of St. Peter -including the
Gnostics) was highly debated in the early Church. The
delegates were "invited" to sign a document
Constantine had drawn up to formalize this decision.
Those who signed were to stay on in Nicaea as Constantine's
guests at his 20th anniversary celebrations. Those
who refused were to be banished immediately. All but
two signed, but on returning home, several others realized
they had betrayed their consciences, and wrote to the
Emperor accordingly.
It was too late. The
ink had dried. Jesus had become "Very God" for
all time. Mary, a mother of several children who had
never drawn much theological attention, soon became "Ever
Virgin" and "Mother of God," and finally,
in the 20th century, "Queen of Heaven."
By officially endorsing
Jesus as the Son of God, Constantine turned Jesus into
a deity who existed beyond the scope of the human world,
an entity whose power was unchallengeable. Every citizen
of Rome was now a member of the new religion, who could
redeem themselves only via the established sacred channel
- the Roman Catholic Church. Many scholars claim that
the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original
followers in order to expand its own power. Constantine
took advantage of Christ's substantial influence and
importance, and in doing so, shaped Christianity as
we know it today.
Constantine then destroyed
the thousands of documents that chronicled Jesus' life
as a prophet who attained Christhood, and commissioned
and financed a Bible that embellished those gospels
that made Him godlike. Those who chose the forbidden
gospels over his were declared heretics.
The pursuit of heretics
who believed in reincarnation continued for a thousand
years. Likewise, the Gnostic movement recurred from
time to time - most notably in 13th century France.
There the Cathars of the Languedoc region also had
masters (of both sexes) who believed in reincarnation,
recognized the feminine principle in spirituality,
meditated, were mainly vegetarian and were essentially
non-violent. In 1209 the Pope sent an army of 30,000
into the Languedoc. Every Cathar man, woman and child
was put to the sword. Every town and crop was razed,
and virtually every relic of their civilization was
destroyed. The Church took over their fertile lands.
How would the course
of events have been changed if the Gnostic groups been
more organized and unified in the early days of Christianity?
What if the New Testament
Gospels were not Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, but were
instead the Gospel of Philip, the Apocalypse of Peter,
the Book of Thomas the Contender and the Gospel of
Mary? What if Christians had been taught that because
there is no sin, guilt is not real (similar to how A
Course in Miracles teaches there is no sin, only
mistakes, and attack is a call for love)?
What if Christians
in the middle ages had been told that if bad things
happened to them, it was not because their neighbour
was a witch, but it in some way a result of their own
actions? What if Christians were taught that their
inner nature is goodness, and not the evil that came
from a curse handed down from Eve? That the Spirit
of Christ dwells within each of us? That the pursuit
of harmony and balance is the way to live our lives?
How would the Christianity
of today be different? How would the world be a different
place? Would the Crusades, the Inquisition and witch
hunts have occurred? What about the European conquest
of the Americas, slavery in the New World, the Protestant-Catholic
wars, the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, the destruction
of our delicate ecosystem, the recent war in Iraq?
How would the balancing
effect of the feminine have affected every aspect of
our lives? What can we do now, through the healing
of our own minds, to bring about true relationship
and true marriage of the masculine and feminine?
For
an article on Being in Partnership by Pam >
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