The multi-layered being

and the awakening to the long lost feminine side of ourselves

"Man is a being composed of body, soul, and spirit. The soul is not simply interposed between body and spirit, but it manifests itself through both. Thus we may distinguish three parts of the human being: the physical body, the soul-body or etheric body, and the spirit-body or astral body. Each of these has its own laws and life."
— Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy

All appearances are the one Being, which means any kind of doing has a paradoxical nature, simply because it is an expression of Being too. From this perspective, nothing ever happens. All happening simply is an illusory play, the reason it exists remaining endlessly mysterious. Which is why not-knowing becomes dominant in this perspective. There is no self that does, no other that reacts, no world that changes.

All happening arises spontaneously out of the one Being, like a movie projected from a single beam of light. That light, a subtler and less materially bound aspect of Being, unfolds as the many characters and events on the screen. But from the perspective of the light, all of it is just light. From the perspective of the viewer, the characters and images have no true substance. They’re merely images appearing on a screen.

Now imagine: one of the actors forgets they are acting. To them, the play becomes real. This is how the illusion of separation arises. Being identifies with its own appearance, forgetting all of the other appearances are itself too.

And yet, even with no separate doer, the dance of doing continues.
This is because the play knows but one rule: change.

This bring us to the soul, a timeless and unique expression of the one Being, with its own specific life, form and destiny. From the perspective of Being, the soul does not truly exist as separate from itself. It is simply itself taking on a different form.

Yet, even when this perspective is realized, the individual form remains engaged with its particular path, duties and unique preferences. The soul continues to express itself in the world, but now realizing it isn’t on the driver seat and not separate from the play itself in any way. And the paradox is that it can only perceive this truth through its individual eyes, as the intimate first-person experience of “I am”. This highlights the importance of caring for the soul. Of acknowledging that Being or Spirit is indeed the source of it, but that it has its individual life to fulfill. Each soul who has recognized itself as Being is on a mission to make earthly life a little bit better for the sake of all sentient beings. But how each of them do so is highly unique.

The body does matter

Whereas older forms of Buddhism, Gnosticism and Hinduism were primarily focused on escaping material reality and the individual soul level, the Zeitgeist now seems to ask of humanity to redeem the material world and spiritualize it. An observation of interest is the slow shift from a patriarchy-based society in which these traditions were rooted, to a more balanced society in which the feminine matters as much as the masculine.

Archetypically, the masculine is related to the heavenly realms (Father Heaven), ascension, Spirit, the source of ideas, the rational and logical, the sun, the formless and unknowable. The feminine, on the other hand, is related to the earthy realm (Mother Earth), embodiment, nurturing, the irrational, the feeling-life, the creator of form, the moon and the Soul. Ideas are given to us from the world of spirit, which is high up, formless, transcending the physical all-together, to then be birthed into form through the feminine creative aspect.

The feminine side of reality has long been supressed.
Now however, the archetypal Great Mother Goddess is awakening from her long suppression. It is the Gnostic notion of Sophia, feminine partner of the Nous (Being) itself and mother of the false creator Yaldabaoth, whom has been lying dormant in the collective consciousness for a long time, waiting to once again be recognized as the feminine counterpart of Being that she has always been. It is therefore no wonder that there has been a radical revolution of the feminine on our planet. And that groups of women all over the world have been connecting to awaken the divine and earthly feminine. Following this collective thread, the rise of the collective Shaman and usage of psychedelics also makes sense, as it are the indigenous tribes that are still primarily matriarchal in nature. Unlike the Buddhists or Gnostics they have not been longing for transcendence, but are deeply grounded in Mother Earth.

It is as if Sophia herself speaks through us:

I was there in the beginning
and I will be there in the end
the trees sprout from the tiniest of seeds
to become mighty and steadfast,
finally giving their life back to me

All comes from me,
All returns to me
for I am the womb of existence,
slowly and carefully bringing life,
patiently waiting to be born myself

what am I to do?
none see me, none know of me,
and simultaneously,
it is I who keeps everything churning

the karmic wheel, turning and turning,
in my womb of cosmic proportions

So, instead of wanting us to become detached from the feminine side of existence and leave the material world and bodily form altogether, Being seems to desire to be incarnated in the human body itself. A highly controversial theme that has been speculated by Jung in his book Answer to Job, in which Jung views the story of Job as being more moral than Being itself as an invitation for Being to know how it is to become man.

From that viewpoint, the body does matter. All the layers of being human matter. Even the ones made of matter.

Allegory of Divine Wisdom - Luca Giordano (early 1680’s)

Caring for all layers

As I’ve often shared before, a quite radical awakening many years ago shocked my body to its core. Ever since, I’ve been integrating it slowly, steadily, ever appreciating the many different techniques that help my energetic and physical body to integrate and transform all the input it is receiving. The widely known spiritual teacher Adyashanti is another example who unfortunately has had great trouble in embodying his awakening that occurred in early life. One can ironically rest in the formless Ground of Being, as Adyashanti calls it, and still suffer tremendous pains in the physical and energetic body caused by the realization of that ground.

I’ve learned that to truly honour Being is to take care of all aspects of myself. For if Being wants to know what it is to become human, the body becomes the very chalice into which divine consciousness is poured. And the chalice needs both maintenance and knowledge of its own workings.

That’s why I, for now at least, prefer the teachings of masters that are more inclusive over masters that only mention the primordial source of awareness that is always inherently present. For example the endlessly extensive wisdom of Rudolf Steiner, who has given humanity insights that are still widely used in health care, schooling and other modalities today.

He realized, just like I do now, that we should care for each different layer of our being. For these layers are not mere metaphors, they are living aspects of a greater wholeness. They each speak in a different language, require different forms of nourishment, and evolve according to their own rhythms.

This is perhaps the new spiritual invitation of our time: not transcendence instead of embodiment, but transcendence through embodiment.

This is why the world needs spirituality that no longer splits body and soul, feminine and masculine, heaven and earth. But one that dares to marry them.

A Sophia-centered path, where wisdom is not abstract but grounded, sensuous, relational. A Christic path, where the Logos takes flesh not only once in time, but in every human soul that chooses love over escape, and courage over indifference.

So let the mystics rest in the formless,
and let the wise learn to build temples here.
As bridges between worlds,
between the spiritual and the material

For this world matters.
This body matters.
Every tear, every breath, every touch of wind against the skin.
All of it is Being, in form, experiencing itself.

And when we listen deeply, the soul whispers in our ear:
the task is not to leave this world behind,
but to love it awake.

“Here is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.”

Hagia Sophia, by Thomas Merton (1962)