If the internal male/female marriage is disrupted, harmony and balance disappear, the heart closes, and the mind turns into a chatterbox of nondescript ideas and opinions that clutter one’s vision of reality. The love offered to another falls short of nurturing the beloved if the lover is incapable of liking and loving themselves. There’s a Pandora’s box of tension beneath a veneer of false well-being. The ego-filled macho man or woman’s lib image of strong versus weak, of power over humility, of me versus you, devours the thought of love. It turns life on earth into a sexist battleground full of anger, revenge, and charismatic personas that transform loved ones into slaves who obediently follow the will of their so-called mate.
The androgynous nature of early South Indian sculpture captures the male/female, Siva/Shakti inner workings of a human being. It’s often difficult to tell if the gods depicted are men or women. Sexual union speaks to a divine image of elevated humanity, a merging of sexes that creates harmony and balance. There’s no judgment, no opinion of male or female rightness, just the ability to convert sexual identity into an internalized marriage of male/female that activates kundalini and opens a path to spiritual enlightenment. The two sexes bow to each other, embrace one another and don’t allow the mind’s tyrannical rule to create conflict.
Sexual union speaks to a divine image of elevated humanity, a merging of sexes that creates harmony and balance.
The path to unconditional love starts with the love of oneself, not with an imposition of ego-centric behavior that demands full attention in a room. It begins with self-worth, openness, kindness, and compassion, a state of surrender that allows humility to be in the forefront of one’s life. An androgynous inner life unifies opposites in a dialectic that transforms male/female into higher consciousness. They are no longer in opposition to each other. Their union transforms the human into the Divine, awakens kundalini, and opens a doorway that leads to spiritual enlightenment.
As Shakti moves from the Hara through the sex to the base of the spine, a male/female (Yin/Yang) union takes place and transforms one’s humanity into a spiritual force that activates kundalini. The male/female union is a healing energy that removes mental and emotional obstructions which cause tension in the heart and mind. It enables a person to live with inner peace. It not only gives birth to kundalini and offers a pathway to spiritual enlightenment, but the internal union of masculine and feminine in the sex chakra helps to free one from karma. It’s a healing agent, a force that reduces tension. It clears internal obstruction, i.e., fear, insecurity, victimhood, anxiety, neurosis, etc., a marriage of opposites that helps a meditation practitioner develop their humanity and transcend resistance to a spiritual life.
The sacred Hindu temple in Kathmandu, Nepal called Pashupatinath has many statues that depict the marriage of Siva/Shakti. These works of art are well over a thousand years old. The three aspects of them are a cow (or bull), a lingam and yoni and an uncoiled cobra. Each symbolizes a chakra that enables rebirth to occur in a human being. The cow or bull is the chakra below the navel, a symbol of power, balance, foundation and strength. The lingam and yoni symbolize the marriage of Siva and Shakti, a union of male female energy that gives birth to kundalini, and the uncoiled cobra is the force of kundalini as it rises from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. These statues are metaphors of enlightenment and are worshipped by Saivite devotees in temples throughout India and Nepal. They represent an awakened and strengthened chakra system that connects a human being with God or Higher Energy in the Universe. It sounds esoteric, mysterious, and metaphysical, but it’s simply a practical part of meditation and inner work. If a practitioner draws Shakti through the sex chakra, they will experience the union of male and female. Kundalini will rise and nurture the crown chakra (thousand-petal lotus) that will open, allowing the soul of a human being to continue its journey towards enlightenment. This experience borders on the impossible unless the entire chakra system develops in a meditation practitioner, unless the human transforms itself into the Divine, and one gains freedom from their karmic stay on earth. It’s a process that slowly unfolds within us, that requires patience and endurance and a proper use of mind and breath to create internal harmony and balance…
(To be continued…)
Shiva Lingam at Pashupatinath, Kathmandu, Nepal
