Liberation Beyond Gender

1 5 liberation beyond gender Q You’ve Just been speaking about the ego and the chal¬ lenges we face on the path to liberation. What do you think about the idea that these challenges are different for men and for women? Is the path fundamentally the same for both sexes or should there he different paths? A 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 away 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 liberation beyond gender 89 significance of that difference, that will define what the path is all about. But even if the goal is the same, as men and women, don’t we have different obstacles to overcome? On asuperficial level, yes, 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. So in relationship to gender, what does it mean to be free from any “fixed” notion of self? It means that our True Self is free from any notion of gender, free from any sense of difference whatsoever. And in order to discover that Self, which is our “natural state” or already lib¬ erated condition, the intense attachment to and identification with being aseparate personality, including its maleness or femaleness, has to be transcended. But what about the reality of the body? What about the fact that we are men and women and these gender differences actually do exist? Does wanting to be free mean that we have to deny these differences? 90 living enlightenment No, not at all. 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, as Iwas saying, is to discover the natural state. In this case, the natural state means free from ego. Free from ego means free from the emotional and psychological investment that creates self-consciousness. So in relationship to the whole notion of gender, what do you think the liberated or natural expression of our maleness or f e m a l e n e s s w o u l d l o o k l i k e ? Idon’t know. But 1imagine it would look pretty good. It would be unself-conscious—which means free from our usual not-so-subtle narcissistic identification with our gender. And without self-consciousness, what would the differences look l i k e ? Well, if we want to be free, that’s exactly what we want to find out for ourselves. We want to discover in every moment what the egoless, which means unself-conscious, expression of gender actually looks like. But canyon tell me what you think it would look like? It would look innocent. That means that our gender con¬ sciousness would be free from the ego’s unsavory motives— liberation beyond gender 91 free from the need to dominate, control, and seduce. What do you think this world would be like if we never used our gen¬ der 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. Ican’t even imagine aworld like that. 92 living enlightenment