Male and Female Paths

ED: Andrew, a number of thinkers and practitioners have spoken about a gender difference in spiritual pathways. These pathways seem to relate to men's and women's different experiences of embodiment. Women, they say, best pursue a path of immanence, deeply connecting to their embodiment and the cycles of nature and finding the sacred inherent in daily life; and men, on the other hand, seek transcendence, which often involves a mastery of or sometimes control over mind and body in order to reach the mystery beyond mind. Based on your experience as a spiritual teacher, do you feel that the path and the goal are fundamentally the same for all people?

AC: I have no doubt that they're fundamentally the same for all people, assuming that the goal is enlightenment. But if the goal is anything less than that, then the path is going to be different, because then the whole notion of gender and difference, and the exploration of and fascination with what those differences are, is going to be a very big part of one's spiritual path.

ED: What about at the level of practice? Are there different practices that seem to be more effective with women or men?

AC: Not when we're speaking about enlightenment. If we're thinking about any other kind of human development, then I think obviously the answer is yes. But when we're speaking about seeing beyond the known, all human beings have to walk the same path and pay the same price.

ED: I've really been curious about some of the female mystics who seem to have had enlightenment or ultimate liberation as their goal, but the kinds of things that they were drawn to in order to get there often seem to be very different from what men are drawn toward.

AC: Well, I'm not familiar with whoever it is you're referring to, but I'm suspicious of any man or woman who approaches their own liberation with any kind of gender bias.

ED: I don't know if that's where they're coming from. I think it's more that they're questioning, where are my shackles, what is it that's holding me? And I think for women, because of our greater identification with our bodies, there's something particular that needs to be untied. And is it untied in the same way?

AC: Is it untied through more identification with one's body? (Laughs) I don't think so.

ED: Or fasting or certain things that allow a woman to see through her identification with her body?

AC: It is true that women tend to be more identified with their bodies because in this crazy world, too often, both men and women measure women's value as human beings in relationship to their physical appearance. But in spite of that painful fact, a path to spiritual liberation that puts too much emphasis on any notion of difference as a starting point is bound to only strengthen the ego or the false and separate sense of self.

ED: I'm also thinking about, in addition to the women's and men's movements, the gay and lesbian liberation movements, and that there's often an identification with sexual preference or the experience of sexuality as the basis of the spiritual path. What do you think about this approach?

AC: Well, I see profound disadvantages in this approach, because we're making far too big a deal out of our sexual preferences, and in that we're giving far too much attention to difference. It's just another form of narcissism, and I think it can be a big problem and a tremendous obstacle. There is a danger in becoming too fascinated with any of these differences, because as I've already said, the degree to which we're going to do that is the degree to which we're never going to get near any kind of liberation. You can see there's a tremendous temptation to become very fascinated with what these differences may be and lose touch with something that is far more important.

ED: This is something that is very subtle and very tricky. It seems like an incredibly fine line to walk down.

AC: Yes, because even in this conversation, when you asked this question about different paths for men and women, I could see that there was an excitement in that for you—you were saying, "I have a special path that's unique for me." And you see, in all of that is the problem. That should be a sign that it's the wrong road. Because what you're getting excited about is not no face, but a feminine face. It's having a special road for the feminine vehicle that addresses her needs. And as long as that's going to excite you as a woman, or as long as I'm going to get excited about a particular path that's going to be unique to me as a man, then we're still in the world of samsara [cyclic existence]. We're still in the world of differences, and that's what we're going to get. What we're going to get then is women's liberation and men's liberation.

ED: Right. And there's no human liberation in that.

AC: Well, there's no liberation without a face. So whatever examples that we may hear about of men and women who appeared to have achieved a state of liberation but who seemed to have had different paths are, I feel, ultimately irrelevant to the point I'm really trying to make. Because when a human being becomes very still—very, very still—so still that they begin to lose awareness and consciousness of their particular gender, and they are simply looking into that abyss where there is no notion of self whatsoever, the world disappears, and so does everything along with it. And that's really the only place to go, and it's the only place to remain. The excitement that you were feeling about a special, unique path for yourself as a woman is all part of your identification with and attachment to being female. And that's ultimately all ego. So we have to be careful about that.

You see, what I'm speaking about is something that is not really from this world. It's something that transcends it. And if you find that place, and then you look at this particular topic from that place, you'll see that any fascination with difference is just more samsara, it's just more ignorance.


Difference, Wholeness and Emptiness

ED: I wanted to ask you about the idea in many religious and spiritual traditions in which there are strictly differentiated roles for women and men, and where men and women strive to fulfill the ideals of these separate roles and then come together in some kind of wholeness. The idea is that men and women, individually, don't express the unity of God's vision for humanity, that it's only through men and women coming together that this wholeness can be experienced and manifest. Do you see any strengths in this view?

AC: Well, the strength of that kind of perspective is that it presents a very holistic view of human life in the cosmos that's very pleasing, very satisfying. It's like opposites coming together, and in coming together they both experience wholeness. When you come together with your other half, you immediately experience a sense of wholeness and completeness.

But in my teaching, I don't speak about two halves coming together in this way; there's nothing tantric about my particular view on life. In the teaching of liberation without a face, the necessity of men and women coming together in order to become an expression of wholeness is a secondary priority. This is secondary because I feel that for men and women to be able to come together at all, men and women as individuals have to first become liberated from the need to have to come together with anyone, with any other. This experience of wholeness or completeness is something that, in my teaching, each man and each woman has to experience independently of any sense of relationship or relatedness to any other—especially to anyone of the opposite sex. I think that completeness first has to be found in our own Self. We have to consciously experience with utter doubtlessness that everything is already within us, that the whole universe is already within our own Self. And when we begin to experience some confidence in that, then we're not going to be afraid of the other and also we're not going to be burdened by the conviction that we need their presence or their embrace in order to experience any sense of fullness. And that's what creates a forum for a kind of coming together and being together that is free from fundamental need and that's quite revolutionary.

ED: You have beings who are whole coming together, not individuals who are desperately needing from each other.

AC: Yes, exactly. That's the whole point. That means as a liberated man, as a liberated woman, I am already inherently full and complete as I am. Man doesn't need woman and woman doesn't need man in order to experience his or her inherent fullness. And it's only when a man and a woman have experienced their own fullness of being, independent of any other, that it would be at all possible for them to come together in any kind of equality. Without that as a prerequisite, real equality, which means real partnership, is not even conceivable.

ED: What do you think about the view that there are important distinctions between male and female energies?

AC: Well, distinctions or differences between the male energy and vibration and the female energy and vibration obviously exist. The male energy and the female energy are an inherent part of being either male or female. And obviously there's a certain polarity, and those polarities attract each other. This is part of the way the universe works. But the liberated perspective sees beyond all polarities and rests in a state of nondifference. So we can recognize these differences on a gross or subtle level, and see that in and of themselves, they don't necessarily mean that much. We're not denying those differences in ourselves or in the other, but that's not where our attention is primarily directed if we want to be free.

ED: It's just that the differences are there? They exist, they're real.

AC: There's a male form and a female form; and there's a red rose and a pink rose, etc.

ED: What do you think about the view that both male and female energies exist within each man and woman, and that in order to become whole, men and women have to balance these male and female energies or qualities within themselves?

AC: Well, first of all, I'm not convinced that what are traditionally considered to be "male" energies or qualities or "female" energies or qualities really have as much to do with gender as many people think they do. In my experience, men are not necessarily less sensitive or compassionate than women are, and women are not necessarily any less aggressive or competitive than men are—as a matter of fact, often they are more so! (Laughs) I mean, one of the most extraordinary things about being a spiritual teacher is the rare privilege of being able to look deeply into the very souls of many human beings at the same time. It gives one a unique perspective on the human condition, some of which is breathtakingly glorious, and some of which is frighteningly destructive. These different energies or qualities that seem so distinct, while being very real, are more superficial than I think many people are aware of. The only thing is, not that many of us get beyond the superficial layers of our own being, and that's why these differences appear to be so significant.

As for the need to "balance" male and female energies within ourselves in order to achieve wholeness . . . from the point of view of liberation without a face, the very notion of trying to "balance" any particular sense of self with another with the mind is the very self-consciousness that is the antithesis of the kind of brave leap into bold innocence that I have been speaking about. You see, we want to find out what it would be like to be a whole and fully integrated man or woman without being attached to the idea of being a man or woman—whatever that means. We don't want to create this "balance" with our minds. We want to find out what it would look like without being attached to any preconceptions.

ED: It seems like trying to balance these different qualities can be an incredible trap for the mind.

AC: That's right. And again, I think that making too much of a big deal out of these differences—as interesting and fascinating and compelling and relatively true as they may be—if one wants to really find out what it means to be a liberated human being, will tend to be just a big distraction.

You see, there are certain facts about maleness and femaleness that men and women are both very attached to. And to some degree these real differences are going to continue to exist—because men are still going to be men and women are still going to be women, no matter how liberated they become. But the individual male or female is no longer going to be identified with or attached to these differences. We are aware of these differences, but the ultimately empty nature of their significance is something that's seen very directly. And that's the whole point: When their ultimately empty nature is directly seen, the apparent significance falls away. At the same time, it's not denied. I personally believe very strongly that unless one really sees through this with a lot of depth, it's going to be almost impossible to get off the wheel of becoming. And I think that very few people actually do, because this is one of the hardest things to see through. A lot of people in spiritual life use the awareness of difference, and the spiritual glorification of difference, as a justification to indulge in that which is ultimately unreal.

As I've been saying, in the liberated vision, the liberated view, one sees beyond any and all notions of difference to an inherent fullness that is beyond all pairs of opposites, including male and female. That's the liberated mind, that's the liberated state, that's the liberated perspective. And in liberation without a face, that's the state of consciousness and the perspective that one strives to realize and experience directly for oneself—and, once realized, that one endeavors to live wholeheartedly in a world that recognizes only differences.


Elizabeth Debold received her doctorate in human development and psychology from Harvard University in 1996 and is author, with Marie Wilson and Idelisse Malave, of the best-selling Mother Daughter Revolution: From Good Girls to Great Women. She is a founding member of the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girl's Development (directed by Carol Gilligan), former Vice President of the National Organization for Women in New York City, and a consultant to the Ms. Foundation. She is currently working on a book entitled Beyond Gender: Psychology, Culture and the Possibility of Transformation.