The Meaning of Gender
The primal group is present. The leader, Anam, says, "It was an all male group... eleven men. I have a question about what it is to be a man. I don′t even know what the question is, but it′s something like: what does it mean to be male?"
It means many things, but fundamentally it means outgoing energy, aggressive energy - energy that takes
initiative. Feminine means in-going energy, receptive energy that waits, never takes the initiative. So it is a play of out-going and
in-going energy. They fit together because the out-going needs an in-going energy to fit and the in-going energy needs an out-going energy
to fit. They fit together; they become a complete whole. That is the symbol of yin and yang: one moving into another. The woman is the dark
and the man is the white.
The white has clear-cut form. The dark is more infinite, without boundary. A woman is formless, a man is with form. That′s why a man
has a very clearly defined ego. Woman does not have a clearly defined ego. In fact without a man a woman is simply at a loss to know who she
is. Only with the man, with the male energy, does she become defined; then she knows who she is. The man not only defines himself - he
defines the woman he loves. And the woman is indefinable. Not only is she indefinable - when somebody falls in love with her, he too also
becomes a little indefinable.
The woman is like the dark night - nothing is clear. You cannot sort things out, you cannot see what is what. There is quiet and there is
calm. All things grow in darkness. The seed has to go into the darkness of the earth, and the child grows in the womb of the woman, in the
darkness of the womb. No light penetrates... no sound penetrates.
Man is like the day - clear-cut. You can sort him out but he is shallow. Form has to be shallow. If you want definition you have to be
shallow. So man feels as if he is half; he feels shallow without the woman - that′s why there is so much hankering for love. With a
woman, he has found the roots in the earth again. Alone he seems uprooted. Woman seems completely vague without a man. Once there is a man
who loves her, she gathers definition. She becomes more definite, determinate. Both need each other. It is a game, and the game is universal.
It may be positive-negative electricity, it may be day-night, it may be life-death. It is the same game - male and female energy.
Man is more like life and woman is more like death - hence the fear. Man loves the woman and is always afraid of the woman... is ready to
worship her and is ready to km her... always enchanted, attracted, and always apprehensive and escaping. This is the whole charm, because
the woman is like death. So howsoever powerful a man is - maybe he is a Napoleon or an Alexander - it makes no difference. He may fall in
love with a small girl, but that girl will become powerful and overwhelm the man. Napoleon was so powerful - but nothing when he would come
to Josephine; then he was nobody. That whisp of a woman would become tremendously powerful, because she is death, she is vast, she can
surround you, engulf you. You simply disappear in her. But that is her beauty too. So when you come tired, you can rest in her. When you are
too worried, she can just overwhelm you, and you can become drunk in her warmth and be completely lost. She is like a sleep, a rest, a home.
Man is aggressive, so even when he loves there is some aggression and violence in it. The woman wants the aggressive man, the man of
initiative. But that is the problem too. She would like to have the most aggressive man in the world, but then she would like him not to be
aggressive because she is afraid of his aggression. She will love - these are the contradictions, and these contradictions make life
beautiful and rich - she would like to love the most aggressive man, and yet she would like to turn him into being just a shadow to her. Now
these are contradictions, difficult paradoxes. Very difficult to manage - but somehow life manages.
Man and woman are not only biological; biology is just one expression. Man and woman are not confined to the body; the body is just one
expression. The whole existence is divided into man and woman. That′s why Hindus have always laughed about Christians and Jews, because
their god seems to be almost homosexual: God the father, and Holy Ghost, and Jesus - and all male. It looks half, it looks incomplete - the
woman is missing.
The Hindus have always laughed at the whole idea. They cannot even believe how for centuries millions of people have believed in a god who
has no feminine energy, who is simply male energy - monotonous, ugly. And that′s why the Jewish god is a little too cruel - always
ready to kill and destroy and throw you into hell fire. It seems there is no compassion - maybe just, but not compassionate. There seems to
be no mercy; he seems to be merciless. The Hindu concept of God is very different: Ardhanarishwar - half-man, half-woman. It seems to be
truer, more scientific, closer to reality.
So the whole universe is divided into male and female energy, and they go on converging into each other. And that′s how the Leela, the
play, continues. So there are many dimensions, but in everything you will find the same phenomenon. So meditate over it. Good.