Returning to the One

Chapter four

So how do women connect to the One? The most obvious way is to stop worshiping male gods. What is needed to worship a female deity as the creator of our world.

There are many women who are atheists and point out that scientists believe that the universe was created in a ‘big-bang’. This is still only a theory and you still have the problem of what happened before the ‘big-bang’ or how can a universe explode out of nothing? Not all scientists agree with the big-bang theory anyway. But even if it is true this may be the way the Great Mother gave birth to the physical universe.

Though it is interesting that when science began to make its mark in the 17th century and some people stopped worshiping male gods. Society since then has changed for the better and has become more equal. Then later women have slowly become more empowered. This suggests that not worshiping any male god is better for us all. Though worshiping a female deity will be even better.

When a woman worships a female deity she is worshiping herself. So the practice of doing this will of course give her far more confidence in herself. But a female deity has a big advantage over any male deity because we know that She will gives us all, her children, unconditional love.

Jesus in the New Testament attempted to promote the idea of a loving Father God but somehow it never really caught on. Many Christians still prefer the judgmental and punitive god of the Old Testament.

In Pre-Christian times we use to have Goddesses of love like Aphrodite and Venus and this makes sense because women are naturally loving and nurturing people. In much the same way it is natural to have a male god of war.

The psychological difference in this is immense. It is terrible when people believe they were created by a judgemental and punitive male god. It is no-wonder Christians once called themselves, “god-fearing people”. Because they were taught that when they die they would suffer, hell-fire and damnation for an eternity if they weren’t ‘good’. Beliefs like this were a great benefit for the priests, as they could frighten the people into submission but dreadful for anyone who believed them.

So clearly it must have been a big relief to many people when they were told by scientists there is no-god. But it would be even better to know that our creator is female and loves us all unconditionally.

The problem with this, is as atheist we tell us, if we were created by a loving deity then why are we living in a world of suffering? This is why they claim that we weren’t created by a god.

So if we follow this logic through.  We have a situation of there must be no god and we were all created by accident.  Or we were created by a very imperfect god who doesn’t really care about us because he has made no attempt to solve the problem of suffering.

Yet the argument whether there is a god or no-god doesn’t solve the problem for why there is suffering in the world in the first place.  Even if we accept that life and the universe was created by chance. It doesn’t answer the problem; why do people have to suffer? If we live in a meaningless and pointless world, as claimed by atheists, why should anything we do matter? Why should we care if we live or die? If our lives are the only life we have, then what makes us want to continue to live in a world of suffering?

So if there is no supreme creator and that the only intelligent life in the universe is human beings, what is the point of it all?  It would make some sense if we all were living happy and fulfilled lives. Yet it seems most of us claim that we don’t live happy lives. So if the gift of life is only makes us miserable then where does that leave us?  Logically, if we don’t live happy lives then the best thing we can all do is to commit suicide.  Because what is the point of living a life of suffering?

Some people ask the question if there is a loving God why doesn’t he take out all the bad guys and leave the rest of us in peace. So why does God allow suffering in our world? I think the answer is; that is what we want.

A lot of us would deny this, but we give ourselves away by what we think is ‘entertainment’ in books or films. If an author wrote a story about intelligent and sensible people who lived lives of love and harmony, very few people will want to read it. On the other hand write a story about a sadistic serial killer and it can become a best-seller.

As Shakespeare said, “All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances.”

The world is nothing more than a drama factory. We come to this planet to experience the drama of this world. Unfortunately, we can get so caught up in it, that we can be locked into a life of fear and suffering.

The masculine does give us all the drama we want, as it creates conflict and violence. But left unchecked it also gives us war, genocide and grinding poverty. Also, with modern technology men are in danger of destroying our world.

This is why we need the feminine to dominate and control the masculine. Yes we want to experience the drama of life and yes even experience suffering but not unrelenting suffering.

The more men dominate our world the worse it is going to get. We need the contrast of love and harmony with the drama of masculine conflict.

Men play sports like boxing, rugby, ice-hockey and gridiron where they can badly injure each other. But when the match is finished the players shake hands and go on to live normal lives. So they experienced real pain and suffering while the match is being played, but it doesn’t last very long.

This is what we want, to control the dramas we created so it doesn’t get so bad we want to commit suicide. Women are the ones who can do this, providing they are the dominant sex.

Women of course have different drama as we see in romantic fiction and most have the drama of giving birth and bring up children.

I believe many people over the ages have asked these same questions and perhaps from these questions religions were created. Within all religions there is a mystic tradition so what does mysticism say about the problem of suffering?  Unlike the religions these mystic traditions seem to agree on one thing: All is One.

If all is One, then we can see a big problem with this: Because somehow this is not what we experience in real life.  We all live in different bodies and are somehow dissimilar from each other physically, mentally and emotionally. It is these differences seem to cause great conflict.  The mystics answer this by saying that our separation from each other is an illusion.  We only think we are separate but in reality we are all one.  They go even further than this; and say that we are God.  We are not separate from God as the whole of life and the universe is one mind, one spirit.

This creates another problem:  How are we able to be separate and yet be at One at the same time?  If we are all one; then why do we have an illusion that we are separate?  This is where mysticism becomes very difficult for many people.

If all of life and the universe is One then how does the One know itself? To put it another way: If you were the only creature living on a desert island; what would you do with yourself? Even if you had a well made home and found food easy to gather most people would find life difficult without a companion of some kind.  In modern prisons one of the hardest punishments they can give prisoner is to send them into solitary confinement.

This is true of human beings but is this true for the One?  The answer is that this must be true because why have we come to this world to live in a world of separation? What we can be sure of is that a person living on their own, without any interaction with others, will stagnate.  The same may be true of the One.  Because even with our limited understanding it becomes obvious to us that if we had perfection, like in the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, we would also stagnation.  Because once there is perfection there is no movement because, how can you go beyond perfection?

So we have here a paradox: We once lived in a state of oneness and perfection. Yet we deliberately divided ourselves up to live in a world of separation, and from this separation has come suffering. If this is true then we have a stark choice. We can live in oneness and perfection but we also will live in a world where nothing much is happening.  Or we can live in a world of separation and relationships but from this comes suffering.

Yet if God is the sum total of all intelligent life in the universe then perhaps there is a way around this. This is for us to be One but live in the illusion of separation. But then we need a way to live together as individuals without conflict and suffering. This is probably why we have two sexes, the female sex retains its contact with the One and the male sex goes off to explore the world of separation. Unfortunately, this only works while the female is the dominant sex and so can restrain and control the male.

So to ensure that women are the dominant sex men were created with a desire to worship and obey women. So why is that not happening? The answer is that men were also given a brain and some smart men found ways to exploit men’s instinct for obedience, as well as women’s complacency, for their own ends.

When women in the past had men totally under their control they became careless. Men would always obey them and so they assumed that men would always do that. This complacency was then utilized by ambitious men to gain power for themselves.

It was easy for these men to talk to women about fairness and telling women they should have equal rights and so they should worship both male and female deities. Women went along with this because they didn’t see any danger in doing this.

Ancient history showed that the Great Mother then had a son whom the people worshipped. Then the son later became the brother or lover of the Great Mother. Then later on they got married and male god took over the supreme position and then finally female deities were suppressed completely and we now only worship male gods.

The same thing happened with the priesthood. At first there were only holy women who promoted the worship of the Great Mother. Then there came priests and priestesses who worshipped both gods and goddesses. It seems the early priests dressed up as women and even castrated themselves to be like women. Then the priests began to take over the dominant role until finally all priestesses were banned.

The clever thing these early priests did is that by dressing up women they were able to make men obey them. Then they exploited this obedience to indoctrinate men into obeying them and denigrated women so men lost respect for them.

Once men were convinced by the male priests to no longer respect or obey women then women lost their power and the priests took control. This didn’t happen overnight as women did fight back and tried to return things to what they once were but the priests encouraged men to use violence on women, who had no answer to this.

What is very clear from all this, is that when we worship the feminine and allow women to rule our world we return to love, harmony, joy but stagnation. When we worship the masculine and allow men to rule our world we then experience conflict, suffering and chaos but it gives us relationships and movement.

So how can the masculine and feminine work together for the good of us all? It can only work with women in charge but also allowing men to be men and not try to turn them into women.

It is like playing a sporting game. If the idea of the game is to put a ball into a goal each side of the pitch but there were no rules or referee. The game would just become a brawl and men would injure and even kill each other. But if we make rules and have a referee to enforce the rules then a game can be played without the opposing teams badly injuring each other. 

This has been the problem with the whole patriarchal age. Men have ruled our world without a referee or set of rules and the result has been a shambles where millions of people have been killed or injured. Also, with modern technology we are in danger of destroying ourselves.

The obvious solution is for women to rule the world. Women are far less likely to want to want to star wars, commit genocide or create poverty. Providing that these women act and behave like women and do not learn from men, how to rule the world.