False Polarities that Define Gender

Apr 30, 2022

image by National Geographic Society

Does the rainbow have a boundary, a line where colors on one side are bad or dark, and the other side are good or wrong? Does the wavelength have a cutoff, beyond which things are right or bright? These boundary words have no real basis in the universe of energy, light, and sound and make no sense when discussing the real universe of physical reality.

Ancient wisdom texts never had terms for such polarities that do not align with soul - they talked about that which connected harmony on the inside and harmony of the outside as part of a continuous ecosystem.

The abrahamic religions (christianity, islam, judaism) spend a lot of time on polarities of good-bad, right-wrong, happy-sad. and evil-angel. They are interpretations designed to structure the minds of followers. These terms are constructs that rose about 1500 years ago. People suffering with fear created by death from plague and pestilence were mentally and systematically imprisoned in Europe and north Asia. Good and bad was used to invoke control and power over the weakened and traumatized. Religion was loaded with instructions that controlled minds, rather than freeing them.

Today, the influence of those religions that propagate bad-good and right-wrong use teachings from a very early age to convince people that they are damned if they engage in certain thoughts, activities, or abstentions. People are pressured by society to buy certain items or not, to smoke or not smoke, to drink alcohol or not drink, to attend church or declare agnosticism, to engage in sex or to use drugs. They are not encouraged to go inside to their feelings, to evaluate what feels right or wrong, what will be good or bad for them in their environment. They are not encourage to explore the consequences of their actions. Thus, they do not get the teachings to develop maturity, instinct, or connection with the non-material energies that determine the future.

Those that continue to live without guidance on how to explore the mind-body connection are doomed to live in the physical, material world. They never learn how to use the breath to control the axis between the conscious mind and the unconscious body in the autonomic nervous system. Pranayama and yoga are thus beloved by those who find them. They use the light of knowing self to unravel the questions that arise around ethics and morality.

When situations arise in their environment, they have a moral compass that is attached to their soul, not to an external text or holy book. They use the multiple variables in each situation to determine what action will be aligned and harmonious for them, not right or wrong, good or bad according to others' value systems.

They learn critical thinking, problem solving, and how to develop relationships with people to whom they are truly aligned so that they can develop trust, intimacy, and deep friendship. These produce the happiness that people in the west chase after, taking courses in universities to learn the science of being happy, and how to resolve the deep emptiness and lack of connection to their work or their spouse.

The high expectations they learned in schools designed to propagate capitalism, or religion, or material success create that emptiness because parameters of true connection with self are not part of the valuation equation.

Today, so many young adults are confused about their gender, condoned to explore everywhere but inside. They are pressured to be gender-neutral, or to more fully understand and align with the concepts of LGBTQA, to explore whether the mainstream prevents them from truly feeling their ambiguity.

In Ayurveda, polarities are discussed abundantly, male-female, sun-moon, light-dark, but always as components of energy. The energy of the sun is drying and depleting, and the energy of the moon is balmy and moistening like the dew. Each of us, in order to live in Nature, also has this polarity of energies. It is inherent to human nature.

Every woman who appears as a woman on the outside has a masculine nature inside. Every man who exists as a woman on the inside has a masculine nature outside. Some are intensely polarized, with deeply masculine features externally. They have deeply feminine natures internally. Some are less polarized, and do not appear stereotypically muscular and hairy and big, and these men are also less polarized on the inside, with both masculine and feminine qualities. Who decides what is masculine, and what is feminine?

Those of us who follow the endless cycles known to sanatana dharma know that the good-bad teachings are a trap. They bring sorrow of good enough, not good enough, based on an external value system.

People are not an innocent souls trapped into wrong bodies. They are humans, gifted to this earth with life, to share the bounty of their Being with others, to teach and to learn, to give and to receive, to love and to serve.

Pretending a gender is giving in to the bizarre modern hangup on gender. India has always had multiple genders, at least 5, and is not particularly concerned or punitive when people operate from a balance within. When we find spiritually-oriented people who allow us to journey as a human, without needing to define us, we have found the purpose of our gender, whatever it is. Being true to our emotions and our connections with our inner self requires being like a stew simmering in a pot, keeping the lid closed and spending more time cooking inside. Our gender is our gift, for learning about our special purpose and abilities for this lifetime.

When a balanced person is intimate with their loved ones, they do not focus on their sexual organs. They spend most of the day with an intimate loved one in talking, walking, cooking, eating, hiking, housecleaning, reading and other activities in which we share our intimate self without ever thinking of the organs. Be like a whole person and enjoy intimate time. If your sexual organs are disturbing you, figure out why you are spending so much time focused on them.

Everyday Ayurveda

Discussion about this post