The difference between masculine and feminine spirituality

Q. What’s the difference between masculine and feminine spirituality?

A. There is no difference at the level of true nature. When we’re in touch with our true nature it’s sexless and genderless, and so we understand that at the ultimate level of identity, who and what we are is also sexless and genderless.

At the same time, there are certain qualities that we tend to think of as more masculine or more feminine. For example, qualities such as care, concern, love, compassion and so forth are typically considered more feminine, whereas qualities like strength, courage, conviction and ambition are commonly regarded as masculine.

When we’re living from our true nature, such distinctions no longer have as much meaning. We see clearly that they’re all just various qualities that we can experience and express as human beings, or different ways that our true nature expresses and manifests itself through us. So, a fully awakened, well-rounded individual will access all the above qualities and many more, regardless of his or her sex or gender.

This means a fully enlightened woman will access all of the so-called masculine qualities and still very much be a woman, and vice versa. An enlightened man is completely comfortable and able to express all of the qualities that we would normally associate with being a woman and still feel like a man. In fact, a person really stops making the inner distinction between being either a man or a woman altogether after enlightenment. One simply is what one is, whether male or female.

Lastly, in terms of the inner work that’s needed to make progress on the path as it relates to this topic, what is required is examining any cultural conditioning based on gender or sex that we may have received that either limits or prevents us from allowing whatever qualities need to come through us in the moment.

Masculine and feminine spirituality on another level

There is another aspect of this topic that I would like to touch upon. It’s a big part of my teaching, which is that the spiritual path has two primary movements. One is an ascending movement; the other is a descending movement. Both are needed to complete what I call the arc of enlightenment. Here’s a quick breakdown of what I mean:

The first part of the spiritual journey is universally described as an ascent, which typically involves raising one’s consciousness to higher and wider perspectives, until ultimately one’s perspective spirals out so far and wide that it literally merges with the perspective of the Transcendent, which is revealed to be the absolute source of everything in existence. But that’s only a halfway point on the spiritual path. It’s kind of the culmination of what we could call the masculine-oriented goal of the spiritual path, the pursuit of total freedom and liberation from the world of form.

Once we reach this goal there is also a corresponding sense that one is situated above everything, beyond the world and even outside of space and time altogether. Your perspective can even radically shift so that you actually feel like you’re no longer in your body. The body becomes something objectified from this absolute and transcendental perspective. That is why you’ll sometimes hear or read about spiritual realizers (men and women alike) referring to their own body and mind as ‘the body’ and ‘the mind’ as if it’s something that no longer belongs to them anymore. Because their perspective has been so radically expanded, they no longer think in terms of being identified with something so small.

At the same time, if one attains this level of self-realization, which is often considered the ultimate spiritual goal, eventually there comes a time when the self or soul feels inclined to descend and come back down into the body and the world. In terms of the masculine/feminine dyad, we could say that this downward movement or aspect of the arc of enlightenment is the more feminine-oriented goal. To put it in terms of one of the oldest spiritual archetypes, Father Sky comes down to Mother Earth. The higher self reanimates and becomes re-embodied in the body in order to live more fully in the world once again.

What’s ironic is that the culmination of the spiritual path is a return to the body and the world – the two things that our souls struggle to escape from in order to fully rediscover our true nature. In other words, we have to leave our bodies and the world behind in order to become enlightened. But we don’t stay high in the sky, so to speak. We come back down to the earth. The difference is that upon our return we no longer feel disconnected from the transcendental source of existence the way we did prior to the journey of ascent. We bring the boon of enlightenment with us – the knowledge of true nature in the form of a direct connection, a living sense of still being in contact with the eternal and immortal source of existence itself, while simultaneously living in our mortal bodies and this temporal world.

So that’s another way of describing the connection between the masculine and feminine aspects of the spiritual journey.