There is an imbalance in society which is reflected in all of us as individuals. It’s an energetic imbalance that keeps us in chaos and conflict – with ourselves, and with others. An imbalance that has cut us off from connecting with our true divine nature and has turned us into mechanical beings of little depth.
Every person is made up of two energies: feminine and masculine, and the ratio between these two energies is unique to each person. Generally, women will have more feminine energy than masculine, and men will have more masculine energy than feminine. But all of us have both, because they are inseparably intertwined; they are two aspects of one whole, and neither can exist without the other.
“Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all planes.
The great Seventh Hermetic Principle – the Principle of Gender – embodies the truth that there is Gender manifested in everything – that the Masculine and Feminine principles are ever present and active in all phases of phenomena, on each and every plane of life.” – The Kybalion
Consequently, if we are all made up of these two aspects and we don’t honour one of them, or even try to supress it, it creates a great imbalance in every layer of our existence. It affects our creative power on all planes, because the creation of anything can only happen when there is harmony between the masculine and the feminine aspect.
The masculine principle is the principle of yang – it’s the energy of force, the energy that conquers and builds, and it’s also the principle of individuality. It represents the rational mind, as well as structure and form. People who embody the highest form of masculine energy use their power and strength to serve, to protect, and to build a better world for everyone around them.
You can’t cultivate divine masculine energy within yourself if you neglect the feminine principle within, because the two are interdependent. These two energies balance and inform each other. They are two sides of the same coin. When you disown your feminine aspect, the masculine starts operating in its shadow form, and vice versa.
People who embody the shadow side of masculine energy use their power to destroy and to subjugate others. They are ruthless, cold, and exist solely in the superficial realm of materialism and rigid rationality. They never go within and are not in touch with their deeper nature and their spiritual intelligence, because the feminine aspect is not there to inform the masculine about the possibility of another layer of reality.
The feminine principle is the principle of yin – it’s an energy of stillness, receptivity, unity, flow, and creation. It’s the immaterial aspect of the Universe. It’s also unconditional love, and it’s represented in the heart. People who embody the divine feminine principle are nurturing, compassionate, caring, and in touch with the higher realms. They know true love and have high emotional intelligence. They are the ones who always advocate for what’s right – fiercely, if needed. The feminine principle is expressed through the Divine Mother archetype – she is Isis, Mary, Shakti, Rhea, and Mother Nature herself.
People who neglect their masculine energy embody the shadow side of feminine energy. They are overwhelmed by the world and live in emotional chaos. They manipulate because they feel powerless and they use others to survive. They have no discipline or structure in life and are ungrounded, because the masculine energy isn’t there to inform the feminine about the practical, rational aspect of life.
The masculine and the feminine principles need to be in balance for us to reach self-realisation and to get in touch with our potential as Creators. This means that suppressing and rejecting one side will automatically bring an imbalance to our inner world, which will then ripple out into our external reality. And this points us to the crux of the matter – that collectively, we have disowned our feminine aspect.
Growing up, I was a highly sensitive child – I was moody and emotional, and it seemed to me that everyone perceived this as a flaw. I grew up in a family where nobody talked much about how they felt. All the grown-ups pretended they were fine and numbed their emotions out with various destructive habits. Nobody knew how to deal with their emotions, and so I didn’t learn either. Naturally, I started trying to suppress them.
By the time I reached puberty, I had started viewing my sensitivity as a weakness. I thought it was childish to show emotion and an inconvenience to others, and so I suppressed it and adopted the persona of a cool, detached, and rebellious teenager who didn’t care about anything. Deep down, of course, I cared a lot, and I had so many feelings that I didn’t know how to manage – feelings of angst, hurt, fear and hopelessness. My teenage years were filled with unspoken emotional upheavals.
By disowning my own emotions and trying to stifle my heart, I was rejecting the feminine energy within myself. This showed up even in the way I dressed – I hated stereotypically feminine clothes and colours. I hated the idea of being viewed as a girly girl, and I rebelled against the expectations society had of me. I wanted to appear more masculine, stronger, and more stoic. In my subconscious mind, being feminine meant being weak.
This isn’t an experience unique to me. Most people go through this conflict to a certain degree. That’s because society as a whole has disowned the feminine principle. We have disowned our heart. We have deemed sensitivity, compassion, forgiveness, unity, and unconditional love as worthless, as a liability, and we have exalted callousness, egotistical power, and the transactional, materialistic world view. With the feminine aspect exiled, the masculine starts operating in its lowest form – it’s lost, clueless about the reality that exists beyond the rigid confines that it has created for itself.
It’s well known that throughout the centuries, women have been suppressed and deleted from history. Think of Mary Magdalene, who, according to the Gnostic Christian teachings, was the divine counterpart of Jesus. Just like him, she was an initiate in the mysteries, and a teacher. A highly enlightened being, she was the key to the self-realisation of Jesus, as he was the key to her self-realisation. They were divine masculine and divine feminine energy working together in perfect balance to create a higher state of consciousness for themselves and for the rest of humanity. Religion, which is a creation of the shadow masculine, diminished the role of Mary Magdalene as an equal to Jesus, and desecrated her name, deeming her a prostitute.
The way her importance was debased is symbolic of the way society has treated the feminine for centuries. And to this day, despite all the freedom that women have, the feminine aspect remains in exile. Women, even in the West, are disempowered, even though they have all the same rights as men on the surface. Why? Because we have rejected our feminine side. When you grow up in a society like ours as a woman, you’re programmed to reject yourself.
A lot of women today go through life competing with men in the material world – they get a successful career and lots of money, maybe even fame. Unfortunately, the price they pay is that in most cases, they go against their nature to achieve those things – they force themselves to operate in the way men do, disregarding the vast difference in our energetic and biological makeup; the difference between our hormonal cycle and the hormonal cycle of men. A lot of women are not even aware of it, because it has been ignored throughout history.
Nowadays, we know that men’s hormone cycle is 24 hours, which makes them operate consistently in the same way every day. Women’s cycle, on the other hand, is far more complex and its duration is 28 days. This is natural because women are the ones who create and grow life within their bodies. It doesn’t mean that one cycle is superior or inferior to the other; it just means they have different purposes.
Because of these fundamental differences, when you ask a woman to operate in the same way a man does, it will drain all of her energy and leave her disconnected from her own femininity. And yet, women who are dying to be successful in the eyes of society will punish themselves relentlessly to be seen as equal to men, not realising that certain aspects of society were never built with women in mind in the first place.
Trying to compete with men in a game they created for themselves is extremely disempowering for women. We are not here to compete; we are here to work with each other and create together. We have forgotten our true nature. We have become masculine and callous because we were taught that being sensitive, caring, and soft is a weakness. We saw the world praising material success, and we forgot that our true power lies beyond the material realm.
Our true power is within. Men are strong on the outside, but women have spiritual power; we have power in our internal world. We are the ones who create society behind the scenes. That’s why women have historically always been homemakers and focused on community. We influence the world through our energy and the environment we create for ourselves and others, not through force, as men do.
This isn’t to say that women can’t be successful in the same way men can, but it’s important for women to look at what we consider to be real success. Is it worth it to be successful if you don’t have happiness and peace, if you’re sacrificing your true self?
The esoteric truth behind women’s role in society is that we are meant to be the spiritual leaders. We are the ones who teach through love, compassion, and forgiveness. We are the ones who advocate for what’s right, and the ones who take care of the helpless. Men’s role is to build and serve in the material world, but without women breathing life into it, the material world would be cold and devoid of meaning. Unless women realise that this is our true power, we will forever be in disservice to ourselves and to society by chasing things that don’t align with our inner purpose.
Men and women must work together to create a balanced world, not see one another as the enemy. As women, we have the power to initiate all the changes that we wish to see in society. Because all creation starts with the feminine principle. Before anything manifests in the material, tangible world, it must be born as an idea in the immaterial, invisible world first. And women have the power in this realm. The woman points the way, and the man leads – that’s how we are meant to work together. She has the vision; he is the one who makes it happen. This is not about traditional roles or societal expectations; it’s about cosmic principles.
“…in the common and current society, the woman gives herself to the man. And man does with woman everything that we see today, he uses her as a sexual object, for publicity, for everything that we already know. But in esotericism, it is the other way around: the man gives himself to the woman, so that she can help him, so that she can educate him, so that she can lift him up. To help him get up. She does not lift him up, he gets up, but he cannot do it if the woman does not help him. The man gives himself to the woman.”
– L.O., The Female Path
As women, when we honour our heart, we nourish our relationship with the divine, and we gain the spiritual power we need in order to shift society into a better state. We learn to embody true femininity, and by doing this, we also give the opportunity to men to rise up to their divine duty as true providers and protectors, so we can all come into balance on an individual and collective level.
Women must remember their own power and stop trying to take the role of men. It’s pivotal for us to reclaim our own femininity by reconnecting to our heart. Once women start doing that, men will follow, because we are the leaders in this aspect of reality. We can’t expect men to suddenly start behaving in a less selfish, more compassionate way if we do not lead the way for them through example first. This is because love and kindness are the expertise of the feminine, not the masculine. In turn, we can learn from the masculine about the practical aspects of life; about taking action when we need to, and creating structure in our lives.
The only way that the world will reclaim the feminine principle and come to a more balanced state is if women wake up to it first. We are the ones strong enough to choose unconditional love in a transactional world. We are the ones who give life and nurture it, and we naturally have more spiritual strength. Our duty is divine and infinitely important, and it’s time to rise up to it, so the world can follow.