The Divine Feminine

Within the spiritual community, I often see the narrative that passion, anger and other strong emotions are considered to be low in vibration. As if by being passionate you make yourself spiritually weak and too attached to matter. There lingers this implied idea that people who achieve liberation within themselves are supposed to be calm no matter what happens in their external environment. To justify such an idea, those within the spiritual community often refer to Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths. According to Buddha, to be enlightened necessitates losing your earthly desires and most people interpret that as also losing your passions, although I am convinced that it is the masculinization of the idea of spiritual enlightenment rather than a full picture of what it means to be enlightened. After visiting ‘Feminine Power: the divine to the demonic’ exhibition at the British Museum, I wanted to challenge such a narrative of spiritual advancement and bring a little bit of nuance delving into the divide between the masculine and feminine energies.

Although there are thousands of books on Buddhism, Buddha himself never wrote any of them. Thus, to only bring out the very basics of Buddhism, I’m going to refer to the Four Noble Truths which were passed down from Buddha to his followers orally and recorded in the most preserved texts such as The Book of the Dead, Tripitaka and the Mahayana Sutras. Similarly to how the most essential teachings of Christianity are within the Ten Commandments, in Buddhism, they are in the Four Noble Truths.

Buddhism teaches that there are Four Noble Truths:

1. The truth of suffering (Dukkha) - all human beings suffer.
2. The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya) - the cause of suffering is craving and desire.
3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha) - to extinguish individual suffering one needs to stop all clinging and attachment.
4. The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga) - Noble Eightfold Path, eight practices described by Buddha which lead to the cessation of suffering and attainment of enlightenment.

Numerous times I have tried to imagine what such a human being would look like once they have gotten rid of all cravings, clingings and attachments. Would they still fight for a cause, or would no cause seem to be worth the inner turmoil it could potentially bring? Would they get angry, emotional, or passionate? This type of inner serenity seems to bring apathy, lifelessness and indifference, at least in my mind’s eye. Many people who go into a spiritual journey of cutting themselves open and working through past traumas or issues that cause them concern in their personal lives, detach themselves from reality in order to “make themselves better”. Whether that means completely retreating into themselves, breaking out of their current relationships, avoiding interaction with others or even more radically - stopping participation in their social roles, there is a period of time that everyone takes in hopes of transforming for a better version of themselves. However, once that period of time has ripened and the person has been on a spiritual path for a while, there comes a point where they need to make a decision about taking action and this is where the spiritual community seems to be at crossroads.

Some spiritually enlightened beings, in the tradition of Pratyekabuddha (the solitary Buddha), continue living a life of detachment from the rest of society, seemingly not being bothered by what happens around them or which direction society goes towards. Others, being a little more grounded in the physical world, participate in daily activities but decide to disengage with all that is unsettling such as politics, reading the news, voting or protesting. They might consider such acts to be of little interest or value to them or society in general. All political activities are highly emotional, they can stir the inside of you and bring out the densest emotions such as anger, rage and fear. So these enlightened beings see their main objective to heal individual people from within, rather than healing society from the outside, in Buddhist tradition they would be called the Bodhisattvas. And only a few who reach liberation continue acting out political agendas, going to protest for a fairer future or enacting changes through legislation.

The historical Buddha was a Bodhisattva, someone who reached enlightenment and came back to teach others how to do the same. Most of the time he is depicted as having a very tranquil expression on his face, either smiling slightly or belly laughing. There are virtually no accounts of Buddha being angry. Thus, Buddha’s followers often gather this idea that an expression of anger is something to be steered away from, avoided or even more unhealthily - suppressed.

Perhaps that’s why I was intrigued to learn about ancient Goddesses who seemed to display emotions just like we humans do. Instead of rejecting their emotional side, it was what gave them power. For instance, the Hawaiian Goddess Pele is destructive in order to create and regenerate the planet. She is the Goddess of volcanoes and fire, burning land with lava, but in doing so she is thought to be creating new landscapes and preparing the land for a new rebirth, where it comes alive with more vibrant colours than before. Her main characteristics are passion, jealousy and unpredictability. Yet instead of blaming her for their ills or being fearful of her, Hawaiian people respect her will with great trust that her actions will bring good to the people

After reading about her, I realised that the divide between masculine and feminine energies continues, even when the question at hand is about attaining spiritual liberation. The concept of Yin and Yang within Chinese philosophy explains the interconnectedness of masculine and feminine energies, the same way there could be no life without death, or no light without darkness, no creation happens without destruction. However, when it comes to achieving enlightenment, it seems that the masculine idea of how it should look like, overpowers the feminine and we get a picture of a human being, who is very onesided in their approach to conflict resolution, expression of emotions and way of life, with primary examples such as Buddha, Christ, Laozi (in Taoism) or Mahavira (in Jainism). Their taught values, which have been taken as the ideals for humanity are self-control, strong will, asceticism, self-discipline, devotion and compassion. And whilst there is nothing wrong with these ideals, alone they paint a very tame picture of livelihood.

In one of my Buddhist meditation discussions, we were talking about the concept of non-reaction. I felt infuriated by an example provided by an ordained Buddhist teacher when he asserted that the right attitude to someone cutting you in line on the road is to not react. I asked him, what happens if because of somebody’s misbehaviour on the road, you almost get killed and crash into them. He continued with his response, that a truly enlightened being would not be phased by such an incident. They would contain their calm and tranquil demeanour, without any expression of anger or frustration, especially verbally (we were talking about cursing) or physically.

Although I understand why in certain situations a true expression of anger can be foolish and cause more harm than good. If (continuing this imaginary scenario) someone almost crashed into your car, and you not only cursed them or flicked them off but also were to step out of your car and continue to verbally or even physically abuse the other driver, then yes your actions would be foolish and of incredibly low vibration, bringing only unnecessary suffering for both of you. However, if you are conscious and somebody almost crashed into you, in my opinion, it would be normal to curse, maybe beep your car horn at that moment, but once you realised that you’re alive and not hurt from the incident, you would continue to shine light from within. When you stepped out of the car, there would be not the slightest amount of evidence of anger in your voice and your body. Meaning that your attitude towards the irresponsible driver would not be impacted by the incident at hand, the only possible emotion (if you’re enlightened) you would feel towards them is unconditional love.

Thus, I think that such teachings from the interpretations of Buddhism on non-reaction simply lead to the suppression of emotions. Perhaps it’s true that once enlightenment has been reached, a person lives in such a state of continuous bliss and gratitude that they would not, even for a second, come out of that blissful state into the dense, earthly emotions. However, I think that the difference between somebody who is unconscious (has not reached enlightenment) reacting or even cursing on the road, and one who is doing the same and is enlightened, would be that the person who doesn’t have any spiritual practices would carry such an incident in their hearts for days, weeks even months after the event has passed, thinking about it, talking about it to their friends and family, complaining about it and continuously reliving the experience. In contrast with somebody who is light in their heart, they could enact the same action - such as cursing in the moment of road rage, yet the event wouldn’t stick to them, they would completely forget about it once they stepped out of their car. It would go away like water from the goose (it’s a Lithuanian expression, bear with me).

Another example of the enlightened feminine divine whose teachings have been overpowered by the masculine idea of enlightenment would be that of the Hindu goddess Kali. Historically she has been the symbol of the destructive power of time. She represents the transformative power of death, reminding us of the impermanence of all things. Kali is said to have a fierce, uncontrollable energy that enables her to vanquish even the most formidable foes. Kali is also closely associated with the practice of tantra, which emphasizes the transformation of ordinary experience into spiritual realization. In the tantric tradition, Kali is seen as a powerful force that can help practitioners overcome their fears, doubts, and limitations, and attain a state of pure awareness and liberation.

Thus, when it comes to the divine and the demonic, it is all one. We have to accept and trust that the terrible things that happen in the material world are there for the greater good. We have to trust the universe, that the demonic is just another side of the divine, creating the total like the Yin and Yang. And only by fully acknowledging the totality of our reality, we can progress ourselves and transcend humanity into its greater powers.