THE PRINCIPLE OF GENDER Part 1
The Ancient Egyptian God Geb and Goddess Nut
We continue today our current studies of our current series, called the Seven Principles of the Kybalion. In brief, The Kybalion is a collection of seven teachings, Hermetic teachings and as you know, the Hermetic teachings come from the god Hermes, which is the Greek name for the ancient Egyptian god, Djehuty. So these are an expression of the Ancient Egyptian teachings as they came down through history to the Hermetic period when it had spread to Greece and the Greeks had conquered Egypt but the Ancient Egyptian temples were still in operation.
So these teachings are teachings, that were received by the Greeks, from their Kamitan teachers, which is admitted by the ancient Greek writers. This text we are studying is one of those records of those teachings that were received at those times, by people such as Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Thales, Plutarch, and others who recorded these teachings. They became known as the Hermetic teachings.
We are finally coming to the end of our brief study of the seven principles. We are currently discussing the seventh Principle, which is called the Principle of Gender. The principle of Gender gives many implications. In an ordinary sense, when we think of gender, we think of male and female, men and women, boy and girl. But in this particular lecture, based on the teaching of the Kybalion, we are going to expand that concept well beyond this gross form of understanding about the Gender principle. Let us begin with the teaching itself, contained in the Kybalion.
Gender is everything, everything has its masculine and feminine principles. Gender manifests on all planes. And mostly people think of gender as sexuality, men and women having sex, or animals having sex and producing offspring. But there are three main planes that are spoken of in the Kybalion and in the rest of the Kamitan teaching, the Shetaut Neter. And one of them is the Ta, or the Physical plane, the Pet or the heavenly plane and the Duat, the Netherworld, the Transcendental world.
These correspond to the physical plane, the astral plane, and the causal plane. They correspond to the Divinities; Ptah, Ra and Amun, as well as Khepri, Ra and Tem, or Asar, Aset and Heru, the father, mother and child. This is the great Trinity of consciousness, the seer, seen and sight or object, subject and interaction between the two.
All of these are related to the same conception. Where does this triad of human experience come from? The triad really is a duality in other words as we are going to see. The trinity came out of the duality and the duality came from the one and where did the one come from? When we look at the process in reverse, we see where it all comes from.
We are to understand that before existence came into being there was only The Self, unbounded and formless and nameless Spirit, for lack of better terms. Then from that Self emanated something that we may refer to as not the original Self but something other than Self and this comes into being through the Gender principle, through sex. So God had sex with himself, his shadow, and brought forth generations of things, objects that are apparently different from God, at least to the uninitiated mind. Of course, the original Self and its emanations are nothing but itself, therefore nothing has been created that is really, essentially different. In the beginning all was one and after Creation came into being everything is still one, though appearing to be different, a multiplicity of apparently different objects, because of the magic of the trinity effect of refracted consciousness, meaning when each individual spirit within you looks at the world through the prism of the trinity. If that prism were to be transcended through understanding the philosophy and turning away from the illusions of ordinary human life, then the underlying transcendental oneness would be revealed. And the teachings say that gender operates on all planes. So therefore, there must be gender or sex in the astral plane, gender or sex in the causal plane, as well and what is the nature of that gender.
The Kybalion explains that if this principle is known and understood, it would lead a human being to spiritual enlightenment. Sex is the universal principle of creation and it works on the physical plane, where human beings who create other human beings, as well as it works on the mental plane, in the creation of ideas. On the causal plane, it also operates in the creation of ego, as we are going to see. But first lets explore another issue about this concept of duality and discover its manifestations a little bit further.
First of all we know the male and female, men and women. But when we examine a man and a woman, we quickly realize that a woman has male elements in her and men have female elements in them. Half of your chromosomes are male, if you are a woman and the other half is female. And ones’ (aryu) tendency makes you appear as if you are a woman. Another slight tendency makes you appear as a man. As we explained before, you have all the same organs, they are just developed in a different way. So what does that mean? It means that you are different only in appearance and tendency. The female architecture, or the way that the nervous system and the organs, hormonal secretions are set up in a woman makes her tend to be more of an emotional personality, as well as makes her tend to be more receptive.
The architecture, nervous, hormonal system of a man, makes him tend to be more emissive, more emotive, putting out, ejecting. This is why a male ejaculates and a woman receives the ejaculation. But this operates on the other planes as well, not just on the physical plane. Women tend to be more listeners, men tend to be more speakers. And these are just tendencies.
However, in the spiritual teaching, the Kybalion and the Shetaut Neter, these tendencies don’t actually mean anything for higher initiates, be they male or female. If you are a male, you develop your receptiveness; if you’re female you develop your “emissiveness” and in such a way you balance out your personality. And you neutralize the male and femaleness within you. And if your maleness and femaleness is neutralized, then you transcend gender.
The highest manifestation of gender, is spirit and matter. Spirit, the underlying cause behind all creation and creation is the effect, all creation. That is why in the Bible it says, that God created man in his own image, presumably, the Bible meant man and woman; but the Shetaut Neter says that, and goes further, teaching that the entire creation itself is created in Gods’ image. So Creation is the emanation but as we said earlier, the emanation is no different from the origin and in fact there is no separation between them intrinsically but only apparently, as it appears to the uninitiated senses; for, the emanation is in effect an appearance of the origin or another way to understandi it is that Creation is God incarnate, appearing as his/her Creation, what we call matter, animals, plants, planets, human bodies and human souls.
As previously discussed, in the Cause and Effect Principle, everything in creation is, as above, so below, meaning Creation is a reflection of spirit, in time and space, where all the principles of the Kybalion, gender, rhythm, polarity, etc. have their effect. Every human being, every particle of matter, all the animals, vegetation and so on and so forth, are all manifestations of Spirit. Spirit in this context therefore is the male aspect and creation is the female aspect. Unformed matter, Nun, receives the vibration, the will energy of Spirit and therein takes the seed of will energy and transforms itself into the desired forms of Creation, engendered into it by Spirit. And that is why the universe and the world is the way it is. It appears the way it is, because it has been willed so by the design. And you can examine all aspects of nature and you will find the same the same principle of gender operating.
Spirit resides in living beings, as well as in inanimate objects. And science of course, is beginning to support this concept, of an underlying indwelling intelligence which has been in the ancient teachings here for thousands of years but is only now being recognized by others. Even when you go down to the molecular level, you will realize that there is a trinity of existence, there are three basic components of the so-called atom.
You have your protons and electrons, and these are the basic male and female aspects of creations. Protons being the male, positively charged; the electrons being the female, negatively charged. Here positive negative does not mean good or bad, good or evil or strong or weak. This is a concept of gender. In this context, protons don’t do any creation, any creative activity. The electrons do that by their movement, by their separation from a particular atom, by their linking themselves to a different atom and thereby making different connections, composing themselves into molecules, compounds, etc. The neutrons are the neutral particle, it is there like an observer, like a witness. And right here you have your Amun, Ra and your Ptah. In this context the Amun, Ra and your Ptah constitute Creation and Om or Neberdjer is what they all dissolve back into at the end of time and space, the end of Creation.
Here you have your witnessing consciousness; you have your Ra force or energetic force that wills. Then you have your Ptah aspect that does the work of creation; That turns itself into the elements of being. And since everything is composed of these particles, then it follows that everything is composed of this Gender principle; everything in creation. This is why you have in the Anunian theology the understanding of the creation as arising from sets of male and female gods and goddesses.
In the Anunian Creation teaching Geb is the male principle, who is the earth, who is static, who does nothing; he just lies there on his back. And then you have Nut, who is the heavens, who is the sky, who is bouncing around, who is flying around, who sits on top of him, having sex with him and then she gets up and she gives birth to the rest of the gods and goddesses of Creation. Geb just stays there, static, like the earth, his tekenu, his penis, the obelisk stays there, erect, journeying out of the earth into creation, into the heavens, into space (Nut). And the goddess is there moving around the tekenu, with all her stars, with all her clouds, all her planets, moving around constantly. This is just like the atoms, where you have the protons and the neutrons in the center and the electrons swirling around in all kind of different ways.
This concept was well understood in ancient times, so the concept of Geb and Nut, the concept of Asar and Aset, and the other male and female principles in the teaching is a reflection of this principle of gender, from a spiritual point of view. But this principle has nothing to do with sex yoga, with the way some people like to call it or tantric sex and all these kinds of modern day falsifications of the tantric teachings.
The principle of Gender is the underlying innermost concept of Tantrism and if this concept of tantrism were to be understood correctly, you would realize that, since you have the male and female aspect within you, if you were to discover those and to balance and rejoin those as we discussed, you would have no need for the company of people of the opposite gender; and you would discover the underlying oneness of your innermost self, which is beyond gender. You would be self-satisfied and why is that? Because you would be impregnating yourself and giving birth to yourself. The Kybalion explains that there are two principles in every human being. There is an I and a me. The I is your identity, it’s like the I am, the I is the spirit, the being and the ‘am’ or the ‘me’ is the conditioning of that Being, that Supreme Being.
If you just say “I”, then we are fine, then we are okay, but then you start saying ‘I am’; If you do that then you are saying that this “I” is in a particular way, or in a particular form and that conditioning limits that “I”. The “I” should be alone and complete. otherwise we have the situation which most people find themselves in; the “I”, the spirit has assumed the identity of the “me” the ego and your soul thinks it is the individual, the mortal, the imperfect, needy personality, searching for love and acceptance and understanding and doomed to ultimate failure, for no one has ever discovered that fulfillment in time and space because it is not possible to find that there. It can only be found in discovering the true identity of self and that is androgynous, or beyond gender qualities and of course also beyond time and space. All these things that “me” does, that “me” desires, that “me” thinks, that “me” wants are tainted by the aryu that that “me” uses to see the world through, the prism of egoism. Therefore, that flawed vision of life will always lead to error, confusion, frustration and failure to discover abiding peace and happiness in time and space. What we are getting at is that, this “I” is your innermost Self and the “me” is the ignorant concept of Self, your ego. This is what the Kybalion, and the wider Ancient Egyptian teaching explains.
How do we change this ignorant perspective to one of wisdom? That ego is susceptible to suggestion, because it is the unenlightened female principle. In this context Spirit is pure untainted consciousness that projects itself into mind so mind is the female principle opposite to spirit or consciousness. Mind is the principle of presided over by the god Djehuty, or Hermes and it is actually the female aspect in this sense, the female aspect of the Supreme being Ra. So Ra, the spirit, has a mind, Djehuty (Hermes) and likewise, every human being has a soul (spark of Ra) and a Ka or mind, and that mind is their female counterpart to their soul (individual spirit) mind and that female mind if it is beset by ignorance, that “me” then, it is susceptible to impressions (aryu) from the unconsciousness.
Now if those impressions are enlightened impressions, from a purified intellect that is allowing a message from the innermost “I” to come through, into the field of mind, then that mind will be lucid, leading to enlightenment. Specifically speaking, if the thoughts are coming from the Akh (individual spirit) to the Ka (mind), then that human being is called an enlightened being. That human being is not Akh, enlightened, if that “me” is beset by ignorance, if the “I” in that person is drowned out by ignorant thoughts, ignorant desires, ignorant feelings and so on and so forth, then that person, specifically, that persons’ “me” is going to be susceptible to impressions of ignorance. Karmic (Aryu) impressions of ignorance emerge in a person’s mind from it’s own past experiences, actions, feelings, worldview, etc., that are embedded in the unconsciousness mind, as well as they are going to be susceptible to new impressions caused by their experiences in the present day reality in their world.
So that female me, that female mind within you is going to be susceptible to impressions from the world, impressions from ignorant past actions; As opposed to impressions from the Higher Self. That Self is drowned out in all the noise of the mind. That me is the creative matrix that every human being has. This is why it is important that that me should be purified. And that occurs when you live a life based on the Principles of Maat. So here we come again, to virtue, and the importance of virtue in purifying the heart. Allowing you to develop purity of heart, allows you to develop a concept of self separated from other; meaning it allows you to have a concept of yourself separate from desires, your ignorant feelings. If you act by righteousness, by the laws of Maat, you will necessarily curtail the willfulness of the ego.
You will realize that you can exist and you are alright even when your desires are not fulfilled. You realized that there is something within you that is simply a witness to your activities. You come to realize that, there is something within you that transcends your ignorant concept of self and this is when you actually be able to control your personality, otherwise you cannot control your personality. If you are the kind of person who thinks that your “me” is your body, your “me” is the clothes that you where, your me is the things that you like to do. You will first of all lead a very miserable life, because you’re the kind of person whose happiness comes from the things that happen to you, the good things, the activities, you’re gone to a movie, to a party and that is where you draw your happiness from. You may have children, you become rich, whatever it is and if you are caught in that illusion all of those impressions are constantly coming into your mind and they are embedding themselves in your consciousness and they are going to sprout into new aryu of ignorance and delusion. Then they are going to become the male aspect that sprouts in your conscious female mind and impels you to new desires, new actions, new feelings based on ignorance and this is how most people live their lives in a seemingly endless cycle of egoistic living, dying and being reborn again.
Most people are caught up in this cycle; most people have no awareness whatsoever that there is an underlying “I” or transcendental “self”, that is waiting to direct their lives towards greatness, towards spiritual enlightenment, towards glory and they think they have it all figured out; this is the way life is, with ups and downs and that is all there is…
A thought comes into my mind, “I want to go and buy a sports car” or “I want to marry this person” or “I want to go here” or “I want to go there” and they accept those thoughts as their thoughts, their reality that belongs to them and as if they are abiding and real and fulfill-able desires, thoughts and feelings. Those un-fulfill-able desires, thoughts and feelings are coming from the unconscious seeds, the aryu of the past, the impressions of the unconscious mind, that were left there from previous actions, thoughts and feelings through varied experiences of the past and previous interactions with other people and the world. Those who live a life like this, become very weak willed, because their will is constantly being pushed around by the their ignorant pursuit of fulfilling unfulfillable desires in the world of time and space by seeking objects, fame, fortune, romance, power, etc. in the world. So they are very susceptible to suggestion and susceptible to being emotionally, intellectually and egoistically hurt, disappointed and frustrated.
They are caught in a cycle developed by themselves. Cause when you fill your mind with enough impressions, a point comes where it develops like a volcano and you cannot stop the eruption. You must act in accordance with those impressions, otherwise you will die. Your mental impressions store up thoughts and energy, if that energy is not channelized properly, it will kill you. You will lead yourself to a drinking binge and go and crash your car into a lamppost. You will commit suicide, you will steal something that will land you in jail. You will mess up your life in some way, shape or form.
This is why it is important for you to carry on good association, so that the impressions of your mind may become purified. So that those things that influence you and that you allow yourself to be influenced by, will lead you to a righteous end. This is why in the Shetaut Ntr, the student, the disciple is know as sebat and the teacher is known as seba. The teacher is the male principle, who speaks with words that are like sperm.
The sperm goes into your ear, into the hole, just like the penis goes into the vagina. The wise words of the teacher, if allowed, go into the ears of the student and then impregnate the purified mind; There it gives birth to aspiration, will and understanding (Heru) which is an aspirants emerging enlightened soul. If you do follow the law of Maat which says, “do not close your ear to the voice of truth” then you are opening yourself up to Tantric spiritual sex with the teaching which is essential spirit in word. This is why a neophyte aspirant is asked to practice Maat before being initiated into the higher mysteries, because Maat comes first and then the listening comes later, the purity of heart (ethical conscience) comes first and then purity of mind (lucidity) develops and the understanding of the teaching comes occurs. This process occurs when you allow yourself to become female, as an aspirant, regardless of if you are in a male or female body. When you allow yourself to be open, when you allow the teaching to come in and to impregnate your field of mind, you allow that spiritual impression to be lodged and thus you develop spiritual aryu which displaces and dissipates the worldly aryu of the past. Your unconsciousness mind is like the fertile uterus wherein the word takes root and it will eventually impel and then compel you to righteousness and truth, until you yourself are fully purified and then you can take that same righteous word, that is coming from the teacher, and you can also realize it coming from your innermost self directly.