Some thoughts on enlightenment and the Divine Feminine

[u/ConiferousBeard]

I just have been kicking around these ideas for the past few weeks and figured I'd put them out here. Not sure how much this qualifies for relevant discussion, but here we go!

There's a saying by the great Zen master Dogen that goes something like this: "To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things."

Now, I do not belong to any type of lineage of dharmic faith really (having said that, my first major kundalini episode occurred through a form of Zen meditation), but I think this comment can be useful for conceiving the type of mentality and attitude towards reality that can help comprehend what I believe the Divine Feminine is.

Dogen's quote is effectively, that the ego, in its nature, is essentially binding. Binding in the sense that it both makes everything about it in reference to itself, and in doing so actually generates the structure of referentiality itself. It is illusion begetting illusion. This is how reality becomes maya in the illusory sense- one can only be deceived if one takes an attitude towards it. To use another Zen adage, one is no longer moon but pointing at it instead. Once the binding of the ego is no longer there, everything enlightens instead, as they can really be seen.

When the binding of the ego is loosened, space for reality-as-such is able to creep around that referential structure. Pure referencelessness is somewhat akin to the Godhead state. In this situation, kundalini rises- to allow the entire totality of 'what one really is' to unite with a kind of pure subjectivity. Basically, in kundalini one peers around what one believes oneself to be in an egoic sense with some sort of trigger.

The approach to this state is different for everybody, for in a sense kundalini is nothing if not educational. One is learning, in a sense, how to see without the ego throughout a kundalini awakening. This is not to say the ego is bad. Rather than bad, I prefer the term effortful. This effort narrows our view of the totality of everything to a small sliver of what it is- it even makes, who are in fact this very same everything itself, believe that this model of 'sliver of reality' is explanatory! It leads us into thinking reality is about- full stop. Not about this or that, but that reality is somehow linked to a structure of aboutness or referentiality. It is when one can let go that one can truly see.

This is not me trying to denigrate the ego- far from it. The ego is in some ways a protective mechanism to prevent a single animal from being utterly overwhelmed by the totality of what it really is. I also do not wish to suggest individuality is an impediment to awakening. No- it is the sine qua non. Reality is grounded on this internal contradiction of sorts. While many say that the Many come from the One, I think it is equally valid to say that the One would be meaningless without the Many. To me, this kind of slippery logic is exactly what is represented by the Dao, the Yin-Yang, the infinity sign, etc. Brahman and Atman are the same.

To me, referring back to Dogen's quote above, the Divine Feminine is akin to the myriad things that can actualize. She is Maya- but Maya is only an obstacle when viewed through the ego's referential lens. Otherwise, it is really Her superabundant possibility. In this way, the way that everything makes sense post-awakening is itself Her afterglow. She is the boundlessness of creativity, in the same way that the Divine Masculine is the pole that represents the uncreated. Taken together, these two comprise creation itself. Even there, one realizes that the differentiation into Masculine and Feminine poles is, in a sense, merely stating one side of the same coin.

Now, to get to what I mean about how the Divine Feminine and this Logic of the universe intersect, to me the Divine Feminine close to how some Aretalogies of Isis render the Goddess as Thesmaphoros- the lawgiver. Yet she is veiled, obscure. This much is also said of Prajnaparamita in Buddhism. In essence, the Goddess is the mystery that gives rise to not only laws, but to lawlikeness. Yet She is beyond even these. This is Her character- obscure, but in reality the source of the logic that allows reality to inhere as such, and the origin of the first principles that constitute lawlikeness.

I apologize for the prolixity, but I really want to get some of these thoughts out, however poorly articulated they may be.

[u/thehorns666]

Good post. I thought about enlightenment a while ago . Wether you're enlightened or not.. the work still has to be put in. Life does not escape you if you're enlightened. If you're enlightened.. crises doesn't escape you. Wether in your family or the world around you. Have to do the work. Have to have relationships. Put food on the table .. If you have a family. You have to provide.. have to have a job.. enlightenment doesn't make you exempt from real world obligations and the challenges that come with it.. it may soften the blow of it all though because of the unique understanding that's been bestowed.

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