Goddess Pandora |
The Yin and Yang
So
how do women connect to the One? The most obvious way is to stop
worshipping male gods and then to worship a female deity as the
creator of our world.
There
are many women who are atheists and point out that scientists believe
that the universe was created in a ‘big-bang’. This is still only
a theory and you still have the problem of what happened before the
‘big-bang’ or how can a universe explode out of nothing? Not all
scientists agree with the big-bang theory anyway. But even if it is
true this may be the way the Great Mother gave birth to the physical
universe.
Though
it is interesting that when science began to make its mark in the
17th century and some people stopped worshipping male gods. Society
since then has changed for the better and has become more equal
allowing women to become more empowered. This suggests that not
worshipping any male god is better for us all. Though worshipping a
female deity will be even better.
When
a woman worships a female deity she is worshipping herself. So the
practice of doing this will of course give her far more confidence
and self-esteem. But a female deity has a big advantage over any
male deity because we know that She will gives us all, her children,
unconditional love.
Jesus
in the New Testament attempted to promote the idea of a loving Father
God but somehow it never really caught on. Many Christians still
prefer the judgmental and punitive god of the Old Testament.
In
Pre-Christian times we use to have Goddesses of love like Aphrodite
and Venus and this makes sense because women are naturally loving and
nurturing people. In much the same way it is natural to have a male
god of war.
The
psychological difference in this is immense. It is terrible when
people believe they were created by a judgemental and punitive male
god. It is no-wonder Christians once called themselves, “god-fearing
people”. Because they were taught that when they die they would
suffer, hell-fire and damnation for an eternity if they weren’t
‘good’. Negative beliefs like this were a great benefit for the
priests, as they could frighten the people into submission, but
dreadful for anyone who believed them.
Aphrodite |
So
clearly it must have been a big relief to many people when they were
told by scientists there is no god. But it would be even better to
know that our creator is female and loves us all unconditionally. The
problem with this, is as atheist we tell us, if we were created by a
loving deity then why are we living in a world of suffering? This is
why they claim that we weren’t created by a god.
So
if we follow this logic through, we either didn’t have a creator
and so we all were created by accident. Or we were created by a very
imperfect god who doesn’t really care about us because he has made
no attempt to solve the problem of suffering.
Yet
the argument whether there is a god or no-god doesn’t solve the
problem for why there is suffering in the world in the first place.
Even if we accept that life and the universe was created by chance.
It doesn’t answer the problem; why do people have to suffer? If we
live in a meaningless and pointless world, as claimed by atheists,
why should anything we do matter? Why should we care if we live or
die? If our lives are the only life we have, then what makes us want
to continue to live in a world of suffering?
So
if there is no supreme creator and that the only intelligent life in
the universe is human beings, what is the point of it all? It would
make some sense if we all were living happy and fulfilled lives. Yet
it seems most of us claim that we don’t live happy lives. So if the
gift of life only makes us miserable then where does that leave us?
Logically, if we don’t live happy lives then the best thing we can
all do is to commit suicide. Because what is the point of living a
life if you are not happy?
Other
people ask the question if there is a loving God why doesn’t he
take out all the bad guys and leave the rest of us in peace. So why
doesn’t God put the world to right and create a perfect world? The
problem with this is that a perfect world might be boring.
A
lot of us would deny this, but we give ourselves away by what we
think is ‘entertainment’ in books or films. If an author wrote a
story about intelligent and sensible people who lived lives of love
and harmony, very few people will want to read it. On the other hand
write a story about a sadistic serial killer and it can become a
best-seller.
As
Shakespeare said, “All the world's a stage, And all the men and
women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances.”
The
world is nothing more than a drama factory. We come to this planet to
experience the drama of life. Unfortunately, we can get so caught up
in it, that we can be locked into a life of fear and suffering.
The
masculine does give us all the drama we want, as it creates conflict
and violence. But left unchecked it also gives us war, genocide and
grinding poverty. Also, with modern technology men are in danger of
destroying our world.
This
is why we need the feminine to dominate and control the masculine.
Yes we want to experience the drama of life and yes even experience
suffering but not unrelenting misery and suffering. The more men
dominate our world the worse it is going to get. We need the contrast
of love and harmony with the drama of masculine conflict.
Men
like to play sports like boxing, rugby, ice-hockey and gridiron where
they can badly injure each other. But when the match is finished, the
players shake hands and go on to live normal lives. So they
experienced real pain and suffering while the match is being played,
but it doesn’t last very long.
This
is what we want, to control the dramas we created so it doesn’t get
so bad we become depressed and want to commit suicide. Women are the
ones who can do this, providing they are the dominant sex. Women of
course have different drama as we see in romantic fiction and the
drama of giving birth and bring up children.
I
believe many people over the ages have asked these same questions and
perhaps from these questions, religions were created. Within all
religions there is a mystic tradition so what does mysticism say
about the problem of suffering? Unlike the religions these mystic
traditions seem to agree on one thing: All is One.
If
all is One, then we can see a big problem with this: Because somehow
this is not what we experience in real life. We all live in
different bodies and are somehow dissimilar from each other
physically, mentally and emotionally. It is these differences that
seem to cause great conflict. The mystics answer this by saying that
our separation from each other is an illusion. We only think we are
separate but in reality we are all one. They go even further than
this; and say that we are God. We are not separate from God as the
whole of life and the universe is one mind, one spirit.
This
creates another problem: How are we able to be separate and yet be
at One at the same time? If we are all one; then why do we have an
illusion that we are separate? This is where mysticism becomes very
difficult for many people.
If
all of life and the universe is One then how does the One know
itself? To put it another way: If you were the only creature living
on a desert island; what would you do with yourself? Even if you had
a well made home and found food easy to find, most people would find
life difficult without a companion of some kind. In modern prisons
one of the hardest punishments they can give prisoner is to send them
into solitary confinement.
This
is true of human beings but is this true for the One? The answer is
that this must be true because why have we come to this world to live
in a world of separation? What we can be sure of is that a person
living on their own, without any interaction with others, will
stagnate. The same may be true of the One. Because even with our
limited understanding it becomes obvious to us that if we had
perfection, like in the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, we would also
stagnation. Because once there is perfection there is no movement
because, how can you go beyond perfection?
So
we have here a paradox: We once lived in a state of oneness and
perfection. Yet we deliberately divided ourselves up to live in a
world of separation, and from this separation has come suffering. If
this is true then we have a stark choice. We can live in oneness and
perfection but we also will live in a world where nothing much is
happening. Or we can live in a world of separation and relationships
but from this comes suffering.
Yet
if God is the sum total of all intelligent life in the universe then
perhaps there is a way around this. This is for us to be One but live
in the illusion of separation. But then we need a way to live
together as individuals without conflict and suffering. This is
probably why we have two sexes, the female sex retains its contact
with the One and the male sex goes off to explore the world of
separation. Unfortunately, this only works while the female is the
dominant sex and so can restrain and control the male.
So
to ensure that women are the dominant sex, men were created with a
desire to worship and obey women. So why is that not happening? The
answer is that men were also given a brain and some smart men found
ways to exploit men’s instinct for obedience, as well as women’s
complacency, for their own ends.
When
women in the past had men totally under their control but they became
careless. Men would always obey them and so they assumed that men
would always do that. This complacency was then utilized by ambitious
men to gain power for themselves.
It
was easy for these men to talk to women about fairness and telling
women they should have equal rights and so they should worship both
male and female deities. Women went along with this because they
didn’t see any danger in doing this.
Ancient
history showed that the Great Mother then had a son whom the people
worshipped. Then the son later became the brother or lover of the
Great Mother. Then later on they got married and male god took over
the supreme position and then finally female deities were suppressed
completely and we now only worship male gods.
The
same thing happened with the priesthood. At first there were only
holy women who promoted the worship of the Great Mother. Then there
came priests and priestesses who worshipped both gods and goddesses.
It seems the early priests dressed up as women and even castrated
themselves to be like women. Then the priests began to take over the
dominant role until finally all priestesses were banned.
The
clever thing these early priests did is that by dressing up women
they were able to make men obey them. Then they exploited this
obedience to indoctrinate men into obeying them and denigrated women
so men lost respect for them.
Once
men were convinced by the male priests to no longer respect or obey
women then women lost their power and the priests took control. This
didn’t happen overnight as women did fight back and tried to return
things to what they once were but the priests encouraged men to use
violence on women, who had no answer to this.
What
is very clear from all this, is that when we worship the feminine and
allow women to rule our world we return to love, harmony, joy but
stagnation. When we worship the masculine and allow men to rule our
world we then experience conflict, suffering and chaos but it gives
us relationships and movement.
So
how can the masculine and feminine work together for the good of us
all? It can only work with women in charge but also allowing men to
be men and not try to turn them into women.
It
is like playing a sporting game. If the idea of the game is to put a
ball into a goal each side of the pitch. But if there were no rules
or referee, the game would just become a brawl and men would injure
and even kill each other. So we had to make rules and have a referee
to enforce the rules then a game can be played without the opposing
teams badly injuring each other.
This
has been the problem with the whole patriarchal age. Men have ruled
our world without a referee or set of rules and the result has been a
shambles where millions of people have been killed or injured and we
have widespread poverty and suffering. Also, with modern technology
we are in danger of destroying ourselves.
The
obvious solution is for women to rule the world. Women are far less
likely to want to want to star wars, commit genocide or create
poverty. Providing that these women act and behave like caring women
and do not learn from men, to be selfish rulers.
No comments:
Post a Comment