Love of Truth - Primordial Mother, Call of the Feminine Soul, Women's Spirituality & Matri-centered Relationships in context of Advaita
Ancient, Western & Eastern Monisms (Proto-Advaita) & the Modern Advaita of the Witness– Implications for Causality, Nature & Women's Spirituality & Relationships
“When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictoral symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend ‘the One, the All’. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail.
For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis. He is the play of colours in the cauda pavonis and the division into the four elements. He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning, that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone. He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites.”
C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
CONTENT
Introduction
I. Ancient Western Mythologies
II. Proto-Advaita/Purushavada & Primordial Consciousness
III. The question of Matter: Illusion or Materialism?
IV. Misconstruing Advaita & refining our understanding of Consciousness
V. Mother & Father (purusha/prakriti) aspects of Consciousness – further refinements of our understanding of Consciousness
VI. How Mother came to be less than Father & the rise of Patriarchy, Materialism & Scientism
VII. New Advaita, the Feminine Soul & my Story of returning to the Primordial Feminine
IIX. The post-patriarchal Relationship
IX. Conclusion
Introduction
Advaita Vedanta, at the core is simply Truth or Veda.
We can use the word witnessing, or, we may use the word experiencing – or perceiving, amongst many others, to suggest & point to, that capacity of Consciousness, to perceive, know, watch, feel & experience, the flow of Shakti or Power, manifesting as this world – as the contents of Consciousness – which stands self-revealed as this moment.
In an infinite instant, Presence turns itself into the present moment, the universal limits itself in particulars & the prior undifferentiated & homogenous substance, transforms itself within itself, into differentiated forms & ordered arrangements.
The One becomes the many, diversity, difference & plurality appears, as if conjured out of nothing.
From these descriptions, Advaita or non-duality may mean three things:
Witnessing Consciousness,
Pure or direct perceiving, experiencing etc.
With insights such as – I am not this body
No subject/object separation
No division of a separate world-inside-of me & world-outside-of-me
& a unity of witnessing & appearances
With insights such as – There is no me, no separate person
is transparency, & Truth.
Monism or Absolute Monism
Everything is made of the one substance, or made of Consciousness
With insights such as – All is One (in essence) etc.
Therefore, qualityless’ness’ on the one hand, is veiled with qualities on the other.
This inherent capacity of formless Consciousness, becoming, turning & transforming, within itself, into forms & multiplicity, is in Vedic & Upanishadic text, called Māyā or veiling – personified as a Goddess or Mā –with the magic power of measuring out differentiated forms, to conceal & hide the real & true, in layers of infolding mind (or body-mind layers).
[Refer to links given below for etymology]
To enter this world as a form or a body, is to be born through the womb – & doorway of Māyā (the creative power that is Mā) – which weaves the veils of fate, for this life.
Drawing down of the veils with birth, is the forgetting, or overlooking of essential reality – called Avidyā – we must accept.
Avidyā or the ignorance of our forgetting is in turn suggested to be the primary cause – setting the cause-&-effect wheel in motion – creating the worldly storyline that is your life.
I. Ancient Western Mythologies
In Greek the Calypso/Kalypso are shining beings or nymphs with the power of kalyptō, which means to cover, conceal, to hide, or to deceive.
[Refer to links given below for etymology]
Cal, or Kal is also Kel (via Proto-Indo-European), which is also hell, as a concealed space, hole or cavern, like in Sanskrit C/Sala, which is hut & home, & cell & also means save (or safe).
Cal is embedded in Apocalypse, which means to unveil & reveal the truth, in a revelation or insight – by lifting the concealing veils, to show the real, which is Anacalypsis (the unveiled)*, or Aletheia, as the self-evident & unconcealed opening to the cave of Truth, the opening that is the Now.
[Refer to links given below for etymology]
The bridegroom is Truth or Presence, & the bride is the appearances of the present moment, therefore, Truth or Presence, is hidden within the weave of folds & veils of the bride – inside of the matter/s & things of the world.
Odysseus/Ulysses – is the “much prayed for one” – or the “lamented & bewailed one”, descended from Hermes – he represents the bridegroom, the knower or knowing capacity, becoming entrapped, by the magic Goddess powers in the womb-cave of Circe the witch or on the island of Calypso the nymph – both representing the wile & beguile of the bride – that is body & matter & Nature.
[Refer to links given below for mythology]
Here, concerning Advaita Vedanta, we note that it is foremost a philosophy that can be taught to seekers in steps & is encumbered by a long teaching history.
We must first dissect the meaning of Philosophy, then we may return to Advaita later. Philosophy is of the higher mind – of the realm of Mercury-Hermes-Thoth.
[Refer to link below for intersection of Mercury-Hermes-Thoth]
Philosophy is the love of wisdom & knowledge, of that, which is real & true in things.
Personified as the Goddess Sophia, the bride of Christ, she represents the principle of intellect & intelligence, or the Spirit & Soul alive within human form, rising & emerging in waves, from the primordial ocean of homogeneity (called Depth or the Unconscious) into the light of Consciousness (the Bhud), as vidyā (correct knowledge, light of knowledge or Wisdom).
As Venus, representing, Spirit & Soul (or light or flame or breath or spark) Love rises & steps forward out from the waves of the primordial ocean (the depths of (un)consciousness, the Mer, or Mar-y) onto dry land (the world).
Mary-Sophia-Venus/Aphrodite is the Star of the Sea & Mary is also the womb-ocean out of which the Star/Sun (or Son), or the light or Christ is born, seasonally at midwinter, the Christ-mass.
[Refer to links below for etymology]
Note that the principles of Mercury & Venus, or intellect & love are at times muddled in our stories & interchangeable, via the Mer/Mar root & Mercury is therefore, also an aspect of the Ancient Great Mother.
[Refer to Barbara Walker’s The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Mercury]
We name Venus (who represents love & desire) as the morning star, but it is Mercury, who rises, as the light bringer & awakener in Consciousness.
[Refer to Rudolf Steiner links below]
The meeting of knowing & feeling, is the marriage of intellect & love, the true meaning of philosophy or Sophia.
Mercury & Venus in unison (or in a prior wholeness) is the hermaphrodite, the one in who the intellect & love, the Sun & Moon, masculine & feminine principles of Consciousness are in equal balance.
[Refer to links below]
Venus/Aphrodite (desire), is also sometimes known as Māyā.
[Refer to Barbara Walker’s The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Alchemy]
Maia/Maya is the Mother of Mercury/Hermes & Maia is also mētēr, from the Greek word for mother, Mitéra (in Latin Matr/Mater) & is also related to midwife (metra), & is another word for the womb (hysterium), where the measuring out of the human form has its origin. Maia, is first of the weavers or fates (also of the seven sisters, or Pleiades), birthing form & the month of May, is named after her, renewing Nature after winter with spring. The womb & Maia are associated with desire & life & renewal of life starts with desire.
[Refer to links below]
Philosophy has become a battleground of understandings of the truth, over feeling the truth, & so, the confusions of Mercury & Venus.
Bhakti traditions & old polytheisms (diversity vs. monotheism), express types of enlightenment, of wise-love or crazy-wisdom, expressed through the body, in contrast with Advaita Vedanta.
[Refer to links for further reading]
In Vedic lore, Mercury is Budh, the vehicle of Bhuddhi – representing the intellect & its faculties.
[Refer to links given below]
The Goddess Māyā is also the mother of Bhuddha. Bhud is a magical realm & operates outside of parameters of space/time. But Mercury is also the trickster or illusionist (as aspect of Māyā) because the mind & thought as we experience time & again, in some way, causally impacts this physical world of appearances (the fool tarot card).
Here again, through some *fault* (innocence), mind, overlooks the essential & in its ignorance, puts causal forces into motion that must in time, bare their consequential fruit (fate & destiny) through the worldly journey of individuation.
Ideas & concepts are constructed with thoughts & thoughts are constructed with grammar & grammar operates on high logic (the logos).
Grammar & glamour are old, etymologically cognate words & glamour is the magic by which, the appearances of things are altered (the illusion of change is created).
[Refer to links below for etymology]
Thoughts are made of words, that we spell with the sounds of utterances & words are arranged in sentences – in a particular, & logical order…
Arranging (& rearranging), is that process of high logic, by which order & pattern (& cosmos) is created out of depth, disorder, or chaos (or matrix) & the light of knowledge emerges from the dark.
It is the art (act of creativity) by which particulars rise out of homogeneity.
It is correct to say, as the ancient wise ones do (the Druids/Dru-vids, discussed in other writings), that all of this you see & perceive with the senses, is (in some way) born of the mind & influenced by thought.
This power of world-creating is not only due to the ignorance of the thinking mind, which we know can be the trickster & problem-maker – but from a higher perspective, the higher mind is seen as a magical power, to consciously participate in creating the world we wish to see.
Thoughts, fueled with feeling or desire or intention (sankalpa)– are creatively empowered with impact & influence (dynamism) to shape-shift & transform appearances (illusion of change).
The old definition of Magic, after all, is to cause change to occur (in phenomena), according to Will (conscious intention) & today that force that causes change is called “work” (as energy), so, in another way magic is definable as the movement of power from A to B, or also as the production of order from chaos (homogeneity). The ancient ouroboros is movement from head to tail, from source to sink, from death to renewal & rebirth.
Related to Magic is Alchemy, the science of transformation of substance/matter.
Alongside practicing Alchemy, called ‘the Work’, the substance of the practitioner is purified & transformed into pure essence. In this purified state, the (higher) mind is not a problem or enemy & is how we discriminate the Truth & reality within phenomena & is how we participate in the great act of creation & world-making with our own life-story.
II. Proto-Advaita/Purushavada & Primordial Consciousness
Now we return to Advaita Vedanta philosophy.
We can distinguish, a pre-Shankara Advaita or a more ancient & primal Proto-Advaita, distinct from the traditional, monastic Advaita philosophy of Shankara & its lineages & also distinct from modern neo-Advaita which is mixed with yogic & tantric philosophies brought to the West by the sages that came here in the last century.
Shankara was a scholar-commentator of the Veda’s & Upanishad, a philosopher-poet, gifted in Sanskrit phrasing & versing. Sanskrit itself has evolved though phases of time into the ordered & clean priestly/scholarly-language, that it is today.
[Refer to an analysis of Shankara as poet in The Secret Sankara by Yohanan Grinshpon, link below].
Much terminology, phrasings & wordings, have now, through the Shankara-lineages & tradition & also through neo-Advaita, become available to the mind of the modern Western spiritual seeker, to describe what it knows, deep at the back of the psyche – & of course, in its endeavor to articulate, it also misconstrues.
The mind has also now, forgotten its native language & the ancient Mother Tongue, the language of Spirit & Soul, the language of vibration & flow.
Consciousness, primarily, speaks in the abstract, through flow of forces, energies & sensation. With the senses of mind you apprehend & know the reality directly, as the present moment that is self-revealed.
The ancients represented the flows of forces through Nature, with symbol & myth & personified the great organizing fields & flows as intelligences, Spirits, & deities.
They sculpted figures out of stone to tell stories & traced the multi-dimensional patterns of curves, waves & spirals of proto-languages on walls of stone as art.
This foundational language of feeling is still present in the psyche, as the base language of the Soul.
The oldest stories & figures, tell of a time when the Great Cosmic Mother & the Goddess was prominent & active, within the Consciousness of the people.
[Refer to The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Sjoo & Barbara Mor, see link for details]
III. The question of Matter: Illusion or Materialism?
Is this world that is experienced with the senses of mind, made of only an apparently real substance or an actual substance (of Consciousness or matter)?
[Refer to The Encyclopedia summary by Andrew Nicholson on Vedanta for an overview, link given below].
Does it really matter?
Matter Matters.
If we want to refute this mainstream paradigm of scientism & materialism of dead matter, in the world-outside-of me – it does matter whether the primary substance, out of which all is formed is seen as real (pariṇāmavāda) or only apparently real (vivartavada).
[Refer to links for definitions given below]
The materialism of the patriarchal religion of scientism & the priestly-philosopher paradigm of the world as illusory & deceptive are pernicious belief systems that disenchants the Natural world & denies the faceless living intelligence of Spirit & the vibrational ground of Consciousness – as the interiority (of all of creation) & all “matter”.
This mechanistic mindset leads to deep ecological disconnect, resource extraction & wealth accumulation. It gives rise to the manipulation of the energetic laws & the power circuits & serpentine forces that traverse the land (terra mater) & flow through the body.
[Refer to links for definitions given below]
Spirituality, science, economics, & politics intersect, because – ultimately energy (Natural forces, power), flows in an unbroken circle from source to sink, through the creation, & re-emerges again, like the ouroboros biting its tail & as in the birth-death-&-rebirth cycle or resurrection, in eternal return.
Shakti is the unbroken power circle, the great interlinking energy-circuit flowing through Nature – powering the cyclic transformations of Nature & the world & phenomena (the illusion of change).
[Refer to links for Hugh Urban Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion]
Along the way, humans can tap into Natural power sources, to harness the Natural Laws & the forces, to power the man-made mechanistic machine world.
By understanding the Laws with the mind, man becomes the master of the Natural forces & the desire is born to take control of Nature.
Mankind now moves from primarily feeling Nature to understanding Nature.
Everyone wants to control the great power, that powers the transformation of matter into products & wealth.
Power becomes a matter of owning the resources – & the waging of wars to take resources away from others.
Shakti is the feminine principle of Consciousness & a war has ensued to take, control, subdue & manipulate Shakti, the Ancient Goddess, represented by the land, alive in the bodies of women & indigenous peoples of the lands.
IV. Misconstruing Advaita & refining our understanding of Consciousness
Advaita is sometimes (mis)interpreted to mean world-denial.
Prakriti– means essential Nature & world, & is an essential particle or, substance theory of Nature.
[Refer to links for definitions/Monier Williams].
In Advaita philosophy, the insight arises that, what I am in truth– is not this body or world– & should be qualified as, what I am is not (primarily, or not only) this body & world as an appearance (the image of the divine in form).
Disidentifying with the body-as-external-appearance, does not mean body-&-flesh exclusion, I am simply not only this body, but I certainly am also this body, as its fundamental ground.
It is not the ground of the body we want to disidentify from– as the ground matrix of the body is the vibrational bridge– into the formless (the bridge between Purusha/Prakriti).
We want to disidentify with the incorrect inferences of mind we carry within.
Mind & beliefs coalesce downstream within the tissue matrices of the body & crystalizes as knots & tangles.
The thinking mind is also embodied– as is the Soul & Mother-Spirit, because at the deepest level– mind-&-body is one mechanism, as is consciousness/spirit-&-matter.
In its innocence to comprehend the reality– the mind draws hasty inferences, about Purusha/Prakriti, to now hold on to & defend in debate what it thinks it has discovered.
The mind tries to say & express what it knows with the symbols & words available to it.
The agent of knowledge/knowing is Purusha (the person/interiority) & what is known is made of & consists of knowledge itself & is produced within being as fundamentally infolded as part of being.
The-knower-inside & the-known-outside are identical & when this is self-evident, it is known as Truth.
This world is knowledge/creativity incarnate (the image of the divine in form).
V. Mother & Father (purusha/prakriti) aspects of Consciousness – further refinements of our understanding of Consciousness
Purusha, we may call Father & is the witness, the beyond, the Absolute– the one-directional precision of seeing, beyond any distinction. One-directional (or omnidirectional seeing), cannot know itself – as in deep sleep – it is one with itself & is the Shiva-Shankara with closed eyes absorbed in self-meditation.
Deep sleep, too, is a state of Consciousness– & Consciousness turns within itself, in periods, everyday, & every life-time & in every cycle of itself, as Aham or I, in rise, play & collapse (guna in Sanskrit).
Expressed as the turning of the year around the Sun that is Light & Energy & the great turnings of the Cosmos on galactic scales.
In this state of union, there is no appearance of world, nor body, as active mind is withdrawn into a momentary or timeless, quiescent state of collapse, called death – which always again oscillates with an active state, as the dancing Shiva-Nataraj that opens his eyes, creating time, space, activity, mind & world.
This pattern of one, birthing many, returning to one, is an inherent, cosmic, universal energetic pattern of the Supreme Law of all– of eternal turning & balancing, reflected in the concepts of Rta, Ma’at, The Way, Harmonie etc., that has transformed into our concepts of Natural Law & universal Dharma & duty.
[Refer to previous writings].
As a form of Consciousness with a body, to return to our primordial knowing & to enter a state of Union with the All, we must first know the vibration of being/existence/Consciousness, or Presence, through feeling.
We sit, to place the body in a state of quiescence & to still the mind, bring attention to senses, body & breath to commune with the present through our feeling-awareness.
From there we are taken to the deeper I, or the beyond by grace & it can’t be actively done (by us).
Can a knife cut itself?
It happens by (creative) collapse of the world appearance, which includes the mind-body appearance as an object (creative collapse is realization or emergent insight).
The creative collapse is reached at the ridge of chaos, in far-from-equilibrium states, where systems (like the body-mind), are driven into transitions of wholly new orders of being.
You as mind & thought with body, implodes, into completion as eternal subject.
Only I, remains.
This occurs wholly spontaneously, when the energetics are in a particular measure or ratio to illicit it, like at sleep or death, it is a free fall, a bifurcation, into another state, altogether.
Tangential areas of study offer some support, for the inferences made here.
The disequilibrium that is at play, is the sensory/motor nervous system arousal ratio. When we sit, & place attention wholly on sense perception, body-mind motor activity is slowed & the sensory component increases over motor activity on a continuum, felt as expansion or falling or weightlessness or disappearance etc., until it reaches a maximum, where only interiority & subjectivity remains.
[Refer to Roland Fischer’s psychiatric perception continuum, links given below].
To feel the womb-like vibration of pure potentiality or existence-being, is to know that Consciousness, is subtly objective (subtly something), that can be perceived.
This perceived Consciousness of your own being, is the primordial substance that you are (without cause)– the fine substance of this universe we may call plasma or electromagnetism.
The primordial waters or protoplasm, is the primal mix, the cosmic soup of elements.
[Refer to link for modern suggestions of this ancient substance].
This is the primordial Prakriti, the deeper Mother or womb of creation.
Mother is a word we may use in different ways.
Consciousness as vibrational substance
The Divine Mother we worship as the unseen force/laws in Nature
The physical land as Earth Mother (the Terra Mater).
It is the relevance of prakriti that the various Vedanta’s scrutinize, as substantially real or only apparently real & the debates are exceedingly fine to follow as one can see how various views may be true.
For a moment– let us accept, that the primary substance is actual & that Consciousness-as-subtle-vibration is seen or felt or perceived, subtly as your own ground or being.
The question may then spontaneously arise, but by whom is this seen?
The question itself is the answer.
Here our philosophies, words, practices, & disciplines end & collapse us.
Here the thinking mind stops & finds its death.
If even Consciousness is witnessed from a deeper place, (root: wit, vid, know) then it must be somehow, secondary to a more Primary I, which we may call Father, Absolute, the beyond.
This may be likened to the Fourth state of Consciousness, the transparent Consciousness, within which, sleep, dream & waking, turns.
The inference & misunderstanding, that is then almost instantly made, is that Mother (Consciousness-Beingness) is therefore, secondary & less important, than the witness-I, that is beyond all distinction.
Yet, you cannot know Father Absolute unless you are first born from Mother & given your form.
You , must be woven from Mother’s blood & the womb plasma fabric of flesh so that you have content & therefore interiority/subjectivity. As a human form, interiority of Consciousness-vibration, is the felt-existence of fullness with Consciousness-beingness.
Shankara remarks in commentaries on the necessity for a body/vehicle of sorts for self-recognition to occur.
[Refer to links for article]
Mother is the great emanation that science calls the Big-Bang & the emanation that devotees call Love.
Every form is born from the primary substance, the all-inclusive ground.
She is the Intelligence that flows at one with Nature & she is the Supreme Law of Nature as Rta, Ma’at etc. & she is the Magna Mater, Terra Mater or Pachamama or the Earth Mother (Gaia).
VI. How Mother came to be less than Father & the rise of Patriarchy, Materialism & Scientism
Fine distinctions however, are intolerable for the mind & what the mind instead hears– is that Father, & therefore, male is higher than Mother & female & Nature is secondary to Witness. That Nature, as Eve, is deceptive & that Nature is a trap.
This long Story of Consciousness has been a bit of a role-play, men role-playing the Father-principle & women the Mother-principle in this great creation story.
As it goes with roles & identities, the play has been stretched too far, so that reason, rationality & one-directional precision, is seen as better & more important, than all-inclusive feeling & intuition.
Now- we are deep into this father-dominant patriarchal paradigm, of the rule of the father in the household unit & the nuclear family as the basic unit of society, with ownership of land, women, & children.
This chapter in the Story of Consciousness, rose some 10-000 or so years ago, displacing the Natural matristic & matrilineal model of community & kinship.
[Refer to links to Chris Knight articles].
However, Consciousness, is ancient & timeless & in our play with words as our tools, Consciousness can be used to mean different things in different contexts.
As the primary ancient monistic substance of existence-beingness
As the timeless landscapes of dreaming awareness (& Spirit/s)
As the ever-revolving, turning, chapters/cycles of time
In this last chapter, Law is no longer “Natural”, as representing the laws of Nature, but is the law as interpreted & codified by man & written down in his law-texts.
Not heard Truth (Veda), echoing & vibrating throughout time & space, but handed down to man by the new Father-god from his high mountain abode.
The thundering voice emerged in the mind as the voice of rationality.
You could maybe say it rose as a layer, of the super-ego– as the autocratic voice of might is right, that thunders with rule & judgment from on high.
Today this Father-voice echoes its rule & domination in politics & monotheistic religion.
We fear it & obey it– & the wounds it creates, cutting us off from the Mother, we may call the primary Father-wound & the primary Mother-wound.
It has not all been wrong, for reason & understanding had to have its time to grow, but it has also gone too far in its endeavor to conquer.
This chapter is closing, as all phases must come to an end, while the new rises.
There are other stories to tell of the vilification of matter & substance, the Magna Mater, in the religion of Scientism.
Defining matter as dead substance & dismissing the flesh of the body as the enemy of Spirit & accusing women & Nature, as the downfall of man’s reason–has given rise to disciplines of asceticism, austerity, renunciation & rejection.
It is not hard to see how possession of Nature & Land, women’s bodies & the children, as property has led to a world burning & crying out for mercy, for Mother Love. For the Law of Mother right to restore Natural balance.
The cries of Nature & peoples echo & the grief resounds in our own flesh & bones reverberating through the interwoven web & the fabric, that we essentially are.
Ecological trauma screams at us everywhere.
We can’t go on.
The codifying of laws in writings, occurred during this last chapter, because hearing & feeling the echoes of the primal forces/Natural Law (Veda) became blunted, as the (spinning/zodiacal) wheel of time, turned into this new patriarchal phase.
Rules were laid down for what it means to be a woman & the new qualities for a woman & her duties in the new society of men, were defined in terms of domesticity & the patriarchal household, written down by elite-&-priestly men.
If you sink into the primordial feminine, the deep knowing in the spaces of your bones, it is not so pink & polished, but red & black with fierceness, ferocity & force of Mother Nature might.
Anandamayi Ma, the Mother of Bliss, renounced her societal Stri Dharma, to take her stand in true divine will & agency.
The Mother was disposed to the altered trance states of Bhava Samadhi, which is the experience of bliss with energy (not quiescence)
[Refer to links below for autobiography]
VII. New Advaita, the Feminine Soul & my story of return to the Primordial Feminine
Advaita in simplicity, absolutely means to live the Truth of the Soul– in this world.
Within the ocean-wave that is the individual Soul is nothing other, than the rising dynamism of desire/Sankalpa of the ocean to express itself through the wave (as the fate of the wave).
To live the call of the Soul, is to hear the voice of the ocean.
Philosophical & debatable aspects of Advaita may be at odds & maddeningly contradictory, formulated for different times & contexts & so different streams have developed, which we find ourselves caught in, defending.
Advaita Vedanta as philosophy is not the primordial language of the Soul inside – the Natural language of the mantic Mother Tongue & pure utterances of knowing. Too much philosophical discussion can take one further away, from really hearing the Soul-voice, here & now where your feet are, on the land, in this body & life context.
As a western woman, I have tried to learn the language of Advaita Vedanta as a philosophy, but it has not landed inside of me, in my flesh & bones, as my natural home.
Try as I might, I couldn’t sustain the austerities of Advaitic practice & discipline, while also holding a child up on my back. I cannot ignore this body & its need for rest & put the everyday caring for a child, aside, to attend all those classes, on weeknight evenings to talk about such refined things, while my child screams for me in rebellion.
That life of me trying so hard, to make it, was cracking & falling apart at the seams. It was all removed, in great anguish, as I grasped & held on, to that spiritual person (persona), version of me, hoping & believing that such discipline, would save me.
Eventually I had to let that image go & take everyone’s disbelief, disapproval, disappointment & criticism of what was happening to me & this life.
I had to follow the Soul-path & Spirit, whispering to me inside, of where my work in the world was really needed, at this time, in my home, with my child & my creative writing.
Parts of my spiritual journey has been about men, beginning with the deep Father-wound. That wound that our fathers leave in us, of the unhealthy values of men under patriarchy & how they themselves were affected by it & then treat us in authoritarian & dismissive ways, shaping our views, expectations, needs & dependencies on the men that come our way later in life.
There are works of art out there, of women in history, holding the heads of men on platters– which is a dramatic way to show, the cutting of one’s chains of dependence, on the domination of reason & man-made rule over intuition & feeling.
We heal the Father-wound, by dissenting from patriarchal values, once & for all, & by leaving the men in our lives that reflect it to us & inflict those wounds on us.
There are behaviours that women are taught, are good & right, desirable & pleasing, in the company of men, especially men of position & status.
Intuitively we know our acceptance, validation, provisioning, & future survival very much depend on the opinions of these men around us & about us.
We tiptoe, posture & seek the subtle acknowledgement & approval, of our worth, with our appearance, for the male gaze & our fulfilling of expectations & duties for the patriarchal Father-voice inside, that threatens us with punishment, should we fail.
I took that first step to leave Father’s house, when I left a marriage, that I entered when I was still very much patriarchy’s daughter– the good girl, helpless & compliant. Then I left a job because of a boss, who played games with the women in his life & with me. I gave up the advantages & privileges that comes with siding with such patriarchal men & being in bed with the enemy. It’s taken long to extract myself from these patterns, but now I spot this unholy unconscious dance in proximity to these men immediately.
Patriarchal men emanate a pheromone & because of my past & my path, I am compelled to exit such spaces. It is Soul-death for me to be in the company of men who have a say or opinion about my life or my Spiritual journey.
To really be free, in my bones I need to be at a distance from it, to hear the Soul & the Mother within. I radically, had to come out of the domestic image of women as pleaser, with the attention seeking & approval-needing– of the men in the room to feel secure & valid.
I have had to come into the primordial feminine, which is full with agency, & the fire of divine-driven Will & desire. Including the speaking & the living of my Soul Truth & creative desires, right now here on Earth.
Advaita needs nothing & it would’ve been really nice to live that promise of ease that comes with belonging in a Spiritual group (like a marriage). But I couldn’t keep going, at that pace & meeting those demands, without help & support with practical life with a child & in the end it was choiceless, that it all fell apart & I found myself out on the edges of it all.
Our current spiritual systems are embedded in the socio-economic-cultural belief system circumscribed by the age that started with patriarchy (an astrological/celestial cycle of time).
Consciousness, however, is ancient, timeless & ever-evolving along the great serpentine spiral of all times.
Coming home into the primal feminine is to come out of the qualities of women under patriarchy & hyper-femininity & the projected image of what a man thinks a good wife would be, into a deeper layer of primordial time– when women could move, with the flow of power in the Natural world & in their own bodies & psyches (with birth-life-death-&-rebirth).
They could move with power from point A to point B to cause things happen through work. It is raw & naked, not pretty in dresses. To come out of this identification with the sanitized feminine one must consciously depatriarchalize your body & mind.
It cannot be contrived & is an initiation that comes when called for by the Soul & the primordial Mother who strips you of everything you are not so that you can know her & drink from her essence & partake of her substance & sustenance.
To initiate, is to enter a Mystery layer of Consciousness, often through the portal of grief & loss, but there are other ways.
There are myths for this descent, for example, the Sumerian myth of Innana.
It is both a descent, into the body/ground of being & the Earth & a dissent from Father’s rule.
It echoes in stories of Sita, burning up in flames & entering the Earth Mother.
As we deconstruct into a mush, we burn in the heat of alchemical transformation & metamorphosis of being.
There are initiation myths for men to come to their knees in the presence of the primordial Feminine Mystery & to depatriarchalize & end the old habitual ways of their behaviours towards Nature & women etc.
An initiated man has done this work, has done what it takes to come to lap of the Mother serving the Feminine principle of Consciousness, as it expresses in Nature, land & women.
IIX. The post-patriarchal Relationship
What would relation between man & women look like, freed of the patriarchal models of going out, living together, marriage, & all of that?
During pre-patriarchy, moon & seasonality governed the coming together of man & woman, but we now look towards a new time & call forward the new chapter of the post-patriarchal mature relation.
In the Matriarchal days, men & women grew distrustful of one other, because man had to watch as women gathered in circle in their places of power on land & in the menstrual hut to commune with the Mysteries of Natural Power & forces that caused worldly events to happen.
Naturally, man eventually grew distrustful, of what he could not himself experience & understand & assumed the great Parent favoured the female-form.
At the end of Matriarchy as the patriarchal mind rose, man entered the spaces of Women’s Power & took by force what he thought he deserved.
Now, we call in, the new chapter of bridegroom & bride, in mature holy matrimony. This relation would be natural & attuned to the movement & flow of energy or power from one to the other, like telluric power currents moves through the land it moves through the body & flesh to create intentional fields of love.
Engaged with senses, perception tuned in, to deeper layers of Consciousness & not obstructed, manipulated or forced in any way, it is allowed to move in waves & circles of completion.
The state that is created, can be tapped into, for the benefit of creation.
It is not exciting, or thrilling or very physical, or overt or active, because it is inherently not– it takes place in a different layer of Consciousness.
It is the meaning of the Mysteries & Mysticism.
You must let everything else go to enter the Mystery temple of high Love, you must enter the subtle, liminal & altered states of expansion.
The moment control & doing starts, Love pulls the plug & the doors close.
It is the feminine mysteries most high, to enter the timeless mists of the felt realms & the inner temples of the fields of creation, the plains of the Rose of Sharon & the five-petalled-Venusian star.
The Mysteries of Mary & the Rose, have been banished & replaced by patriarchal priests.
It is the Natural marriage, the ring of union, of energy flowing in a circle of infinite completion & renewal.
It is the one Witness, the mystery of interiority experiencing the rise & swell, of itself as energy, spilling into manifestation from inner worlds to the outer & flowing between its masculine & feminine aspects, the two principles within the one Consciousness, that gives rise to duality & form.
The outer marriage & union symbolizes the inner coming together in harmony.
It is then the double marriage.
First the masculine & feminine principles meet & come into harmony, right order & balance within. Then the masculine & feminine principles meet & come into harmony, right order & balance without. It is all about bringing about Natural harmony between giving & receiving, birthing & dying, past & future, around the central flame of all life, that is the opening of the present. Then the possibility arises, to serve the creation, through intentional manifestation of Will, through desire & love.
Prohibitions & regulations on marriage & women’s bodies & child-birth etc. is the control of access to these inner realms & the possibilities to bring what we truly need into this world.
VIII. Conclusion
Our current Spiritual structures, carry the heavy weight, of these codified laws, for man & woman. Underneath all, however, remains the Truth, as Ma’at or Rta, the Supreme law of balance.
The blazing fire of the real, that in perpetual sacrifice, becomes this world.
Advaita needs nothing & needs no defense from anyone.
But Advaita, may be expressed, in different forms, structures & organizations, as required by times & context. It serves the purpose of the needs of the people & times, as the great cyclar turns on its axis.
These times, require, a view that allows the practical intersection of spirituality with science, economics, social justice, law, ethics, ecology etc.
My work in these times, is to weave diversities together, in a tapestry that reveals a larger story of meaning, of the Feminine principle of Consciousness.
As a woman of these times, service & devotion is action & is also activism.
I must sit with women leaders, Shakti, Mother, & Indigenous teachers, who question & come together to dismantle supremacy & privilege.
I oppose the old model, that assumes, that all people have opportunities, for education, work, health & wealth, proportional to their selfless offering up of labour & service to others, called merit.
That presumes, single mothers, even can have, access to support, & time-&-life-management privileges, that allow participation in spiritual pursuits, outside of the everyday home, requiring resources of both time & money.
That I oppose the model of privilege & grace that is deserved & earned in exchange for duty, labour & service, does not mean I am not deeply tuned in, to the flame of Advaita, the pillar of Supreme Law, around which all, in the end must balance.
This privilege, today, rather has everything to do with this materialist & status conscious culture, that a woman aligned with a patriarchal man, directly benefits from.
They play pretty & mild & keep house, but never really stand supine for anything real at all.