Spiritual Growth: Total Liberation - No Place for Gender  

By Andrew Cohen  

Spiritual Growth: Total Liberation - No Place for Gender  

We face many challenges on the path to liberation. We also have an ego to deal with. I am often asked: "Are these challengers different for men and for women? Or is the path fundamentally the same for both sexes? Shouldn't there be different paths?"

Assuming that the goal is enlightenment, there is only one path. Of course, there are fundamental differences between men and women and, if we want to be free, these traits need to be acknowledged and deeply understood.

But once again, if the goal is our own perfect liberation here and now, what is important is not the fact that these differences exist, but our unconditional willingness to face them totally and in such a way that they could never be an obstacle to that goal.

However, if the spiritual path we're pursuing is not about total liberation, which means the transcendence of all differences, but rather is about embracing our differences in the form of gender consciousness in a deeper and more authentic way, then of course the path will be different for men and women - as will be its goal. And in this case, it will be the very notion of difference and the spiritual significance of that difference, that will define what the path is all about.

On a superficial level, individuals have different obstacles to overcome. But when we're speaking about transcending the ego and leaping beyond the known, all human beings have to pay the same price.

Any spiritual path that puts too much emphasis on notions of difference is bound to inadvertently strengthen the ego or separate sense of self.

Of course, it may be tempting to become fascinated with these relative differences but, in doing so, we quickly lose sight of the goal, which is freedom from any fixed notion of self.

Our true self is free from any notion of gender, from any sense of difference whatsoever. And in order to discover that self, which is our "natural state" or already liberated condition, the intense attachment to and identification with being a separate personality, inclu- ding its maleness or femaleness, has to be transcended.

The fact is that there are men and women; gender differences do exist. But wanting to be free does not mean we have to deny these differences.

If we want to be free, we have to surrender our emotional and psychological investment in being male or female, not the reality of the fact that our body is male or female. Because if we deny anything that's real or true, we'll never be free.

The goal is to discover the natural state, free from ego - free from the emotional and psycholo-gical investment that creates self-consciousness.

It would be unself-conscious - which means free from our usual not-so-subtle narcissistic identifi-cation with our gender. We want to discover in every moment what the egoless, which means unself-conscious, expression of gender actually looks like.

What indeed would it look like? It would look innocent. That means that our gender consciousness would be free from the ego's unsavoury motives - free from the need to dominate, control and seduce.

What do you think this world would be like if we never used our gender differences to affirm the separate ego? What would our relationships be like, as men and women, if we ceased to use our gender differences to wield power over each other? If you think about it, you'll begin to see that the implications of what I'm pointing to are revolutionary.

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More from same author see: Andrew Cohen  

See also: Spiritual Growth, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)