QUESTION:
How do you define feminine and masculine? If the Divine is genderless, does it affect rigidity of gender qualities of those on the path? You mentioned that Sri Aurobindo said that the psychic being is on the feminine side – how opening to it affects the aspirant?
ASNWER FROM ALOKDA:
Surely the Divine is beyond gender. He or She or That or It or the Self of self, Sacchidananda, cannot be defined or confined to the human mental categories. Yet this much we can say that there are two sides to the One Divine Reality, the passive Witness who watches over the Creation in a state of utter Transcendence. He is the Eternal and Infinite beyond Time and Space, the Knower who becomes the object of Knowledge. He is the Silence that is behind everything aa well as in everything. He is the Self of self, pure Existence, the One without a second. But there is another aspect of the One. It is the dynamic impulsion, knowledge and power that brings out and weaves creation in a stupendous dance. She conceives the One in innumerable ways giving form and name and qualities for the One to dwell in Space and Time. It is to these two aspects of the One that the terms masculine or Ishwara and feminine or Shakti is given.
In creation it takes the form of apparently static (in a relative sense) such as sky, mountains, stars, space that the masculine gender is used. It is associated with qualities and attributes of wideness, knowledge that holds the Idea within, strength that provides stable basis. Love that is wide and Impersonal, Perfection that is static and preserves the type, the Peace of the Immutable. The feminine is associated with creative conception that throws out a million idea-forces in the manifestation, the Wisdom that governs each element of creation, the Power that builds and destroys through a dynamic ecstatic dance, the Love that binds all things in a stupendous harmony and charm of beauty, the perfection that is ever evolving towards greater and higher possibilities, the bliss that runs as a sap in creation.
So as we see masculine and feminine are not two different set of qualities but two different modes of functioning of each quality. Wisdom watching from above and looking upon creation from the poise of Knowledge is masculine whereas the same Wisdom leaning upon earth in Compassion to heal and save is feminine. Strength self-contained, held back in a supreme quietude is masculine whereas Strength rushing to battle and protect and change the slow trudge of Time into a swift movement is feminine. Love that glows as an Impersonal beatitude is masculine whereas love that leans into the abyss to build the home of beauty in a house of stone is feminine.
However, in the course of evolution, Nature, for the sake of her inferior play builds some forms with a predominantly masculine and other with predominantly feminine tendencies. It creates a natural attraction between the passive and dynamic aspects that are in affinity with each other. In human beings it takes the form of idealised mentality in men and the idealised emotions in women thus completing and supporting and fulfilling each other.
As to the spiritual consciousness when contacted through the psychic door it brings in the feminine aspects of dynamic love and service to the Divine with an urge for progress and help in the Divine Work. When contacted through the idealised mentality it leads to the experience of the Self, the eternal Witness who watches through the luminous Silence of the Spirit.
