seeing clearly

Feminine is form. Biological form. Bios. Form is unity. I see it clearly now! The masculine is the great separator. The force that scatters. When dominant, the feminine binds energy together. So, energy consists of these two powers. One power pulls it together to create biological form and the other separates form to create power. Both polarities need each other to do their thing and keep it all moving. Picture each power on its own. There would be the smother mother and the wild and undisciplined rebel without a cause.

This is the eternal dance of the feminine and masculine powers. The two that become the one and from that template become the many. They need each other. Without their opposite attractor they are inactive and ineffective, existing as just potential. When connected, the universe is birthed and comes alive. I have previously written about conceptions of life that were prevalent in Greek thought that we have lost in our Western vernacular and notions of life. I’m referring to biological life, known as bios, and how us westerns view life, in contrast to the Greeks' image of the eternal and indestructible life they called zoë. Further examining these concepts is revealed that bios is form; it is cyclical and therefore subject to the decay of life and death. The power of separation eventually wins out over the attractor of form. Form is the container that allows us to come forth in this universe as a conscious entity. On the other hand, zoë is what enlivens form and gives it the impetus to have the ability to propagate new forms; however, this arrangement will eventually disintegrate the form. It is the feminine that creates the forms from the energy provided by the masculine zoë and in turn the zoë can experience consciousness from the feminine's gift of birth. The feminine serpent creates the world, and the masculine jaguar roams this world. So, you can see without form, the zoë is but potential that is inactive and without the spirit of zoë, the form is inanimate. They need one another to make each other effective. The give and take between the two creates the dance of life and ultimately the universe.

The masculine force is represented by light. Ever think about light? It is just madly flying around the universe as energy until it strikes form. When it hits form, the reaction causes the light to manifest. Think about it. It’s pretty amazing. Light from stars, billions of light years away, eventually reaches us and the light they give off strikes our retinas and we cause it to change its state from potentiality to actually coming into existence. In other words, this is a grand teaching of the ineffectual nature of the masculine force without the feminine force of form to activate it. Our human bodies encapsulate this idea with our biological forms being powered by free floating cosmic energy. The higher evolved among us, the plants, can directly subsist on light. We have to ingest other biological forms and inefficiently extract nutrients in order to survive. I guess our growth was stunted at some point on the evolutionary ride.

The body is the animal. It has needs in order to function which must be met. It is the life force that has desires, and these desires are what lights it up to become effective and attracted to form. The desires are teased out of the masculine by the feminine nature of form and thus connecting with and fulfilling these desires allows the force to materialize. Energy is desire. It’s easy to get addicted to the resultant attraction because of the rush of power, pleasure, and fulfillment provided. The master teaches not to get attached to these powers. He does not teach avoidance but instead mastery. Access them when they come and let them go. The zoë is ineffectual without the feminine and so the hit of desire is the key to power. It’s nitrous oxide for the spirit! The journey is thus realized in that feminine form transforms energy into light. If we could see ourselves in a quantum mirror, we would see a big ball of energetic light.

Desire lights up the world. The pulsing attraction between the inherent duality in all is what keeps the game going. It’s not going anywhere. The answer my friend is to just let it flow. To want and possess goes against the divine and harmonic flow as stated so elegantly by the Tao Te Ching. Freedom is the natural way. We flow with the eternal current and to fight against it is trying to control what just is and will be.

Desire is why we do it. Why we seek power is to fulfill our desires. Desires light us up. My teacher is teaching me liberation which is to free yourself from the attachment to desires. I’ve realized I can’t transcend them, but I have to let them flow. They come, we act on them, and then let them go. What about the desire cycle and its relationship to freedom? In order to break the spell that desires as addiction have over you is a requirement to master the self. Once accomplished, everything falls by the wayside; you can stand back from the situation and see desires come and go. Eventually, you learn that just like needs such as hunger, the wants can be activated, fulfilled, or bypassed and then you move on. A good example that will allow you to realize this predicament is hunger pangs that we experience every day. It’s part of the desire system; however, a necessity for life so we don’t categorize eating as an addiction. It can easily become pathological and there are many non-stop eaters who were never able to integrate this need. Anyway, I eat two meals a day - usually at midday and the other in the evening. My body has become used to this behaviour and when the time is drawing near, I’ll start to feel hunger in my stomach or jittery in my body, especially if I drank a third cup of coffee. I know it’s time to eat or I’ll get a dry mouth, tiredness, and possibly a headache. If I’m at work, I’ll search out food and at home I’ll make a meal. I successfully stave off starvation and satisfy my cravings. I then let it go! I don’t dwell on my apparent addiction to food. This was a very instructive lesson from my teacher. The key to all of this is to not get stuck. Let it flow like the natural flow of energy in the universe. Becoming free doesn’t mean you become an ascetic or renunciate free of desire. Instead, desire appears and having free will and choice, you can do what you wish with desire. If you become addicted to the hit of desire, then you lose your freedom and an external influence controls your actions. See how it works?

The master teacher is relentless and if necessary, he will allow chasing these desires to destroy and kill if you are weak and get addicted to them. Imagine my surprise when I learned my teacher has never transcended desire and that his nature is one who continually seeks out fulfillment of all desire through the liberation process with the catch being none of them stick. Talk about leading by example! He’s really quite the cool guy though he has dragged me through the mud in order to teach me all these lessons. Everything keeps evolving. At one point I thought if I master the self then I can eschew all desires. He let me struggle with that for a while, so I’d learn that you never vanquish them but instead through self-mastery do not let them control you. Express them, do what you have to do, and move on. Don’t get caught. Don’t get hung up with anxiety, depression, shame, obsession, and the like. There are many hooks on the wings of desire to entrap you into its clutches.

Stay free.