11 Men and women

In our original form, as we were first created, male and female were all rolled up into one. And when all us fallen beings are finished with this fabulous mystery tour, men and women will be one once again. In the meantime, as a byproduct of the Fall, we are separated and split.

In general, the lower we are in our development, the more we are split into a greater number of parts. By the time we arrive here on planet Earth as human beings, our split is twofold. And so it is that we look around and find ourselves among two sexes: men and women.

The goal of spiritual development is to make our way back to the original unity—the Oneness. So the pairing up of the sexes—the union of men and women—has much deeper meaning than mere baby-making. It’s in the relationship between men and women that we can overcome so much. We can learn so much; our development can proceed better than from any other way. Love, when kindled by eros and the sexual impulse, can flower more readily than it can in any other relationships. And love—well, that’s always the ultimate aim.

And yet isn’t it true that relationships between men and women offer more hurdles and more friction that just about anything else? This is because our personal emotions are more involved. As a result, we lack objectivity and detachment. This is why marriage is, at once, the most difficult of all relationships and the most fruitful, the most important, and the most bliss-filled.

Ever since humans arrived on the scene, certain misconceptions and mass images—collective wrong beliefs—have cropped up. For example, superficially, we seem to think there are so many differences between men and women. In reality, it’s not nearly as much as we think. Because every man carries inside his soul the female component of his nature, and women carry the male side of theirs. It’s like we each contain an imprint of our other half which is wandering around somewhere in the universe.

This imprint isn’t just a picture or a reproduction; it’s a real, living part of the nature of our personality. It’s the other side of the coin, but it’s not completely hiding. So it’s more like a disc that tilts more to one side occasionally, then to the other.

Listen and learn more.

The Pull, Chapter 11: Man and Woman

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #62 Man and Woman