Men and women represent two aspects of One Reality, passive and dynamic, ideative and pragmatic. They are equal in their differences and different in their equality. Indeed all creation is full of endless variety and variation creating a rich diversity on the surfaces. But in the depths there always is unity and oneness. So too man and woman are one in their fundamental depths but they are different in their personality and functionality complementing each other. Thus, generally speaking, men are more analytical and head oriented whereas women are more intuitive and heart oriented. While men may have more brute muscle power and lung power as they say, women have more soft powers and psychic powers. This differentiation serves two purposes in creation.
Firstly, it reproduces symbolically the play of Purusha and Prakriti in real life forms. Secondly, it fulfils nature’s purpose of continuing the race and creating variations through the mutual attraction of apparent opposites that are in fact complimentary to each other.
They are equal in their deep essence and the One Divine Presence is equally accessible to both. This truth, as the Sanatana Dharma recognised is beautifully expressed in the symbol of Ishwara, the eternal masculine and Shakti, the eternal feminine wherein both are necessary for upholding the balance of creation. Religions that do not recognize the feminine element end up repressing women and thereby grow increasingly crude and hard until the feminine element revolts and finds release as we see in the Western culture.
Where the revolt does not take place the religion becomes increasingly male dominated and cruder and harder by the decades. In India too, under the alien spell and due to the predominance of the masculine element stressed in Vedanta, something similar began to happen but because the religion itself carries the correcting element it never took to an extreme and swung back into a balance again.
What is needed for each to arrive at their fullness, not by suppressing the masculine or feminine element but by ennobling and divinising, uplifting each to its highest acme of possibility. This is the first freedom or liberation needed, that a woman discovers herself as Devi, power, by uncovering the Eternal Feminine, the Divine Mother in Her various moods and aspects and personalities. So too for men as well.
Secondly they must discover the hidden truth of the masculine in the woman and feminine in the man so that they experience wholeness and completeness as we see symbolized in ardhnarishwara. Thus liberated from their littleness as well as from the ordinary need of each other for nature’s inferior play they can become true complimentaries in the New Creation.
On the other hand if they simply imitate each other on the surface and try to force change themselves outwardly then they misread Nature’s Intent of a new type and will end up diminoshing each other and create confusion and eventually a weak, impotent and disintegrating society towards which the woke movement is pushing us.
In other words the woman must discover her own highest feminine potential as well as the masculine element within her. The man must discover his own highest masculine potential as well as the feminine element within him. They can do this by the journey of self discovery of the Divine within each one. It is this that will bring freedom and not the way we are being told by the Western model.
Let India the land that has respected both and created the true types of each show and lead the way.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
