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Post by Tamrin on Sept 21, 2008 19:21:27 GMT 10
Eastern philosophy has much to offer the West. However, not all its concepts are beneficial. One which I suggest has become too popular, is that of Yin and Yang (albeit, there are similar Western concepts). According to simplistic versions of the concept, the universe is essentially dualistic and all manifestations and qualities belong to either Column A or Column B, with only a tempering of the other. All Yang things are associated with masculinity, activity, light, heat, etc. and all Yin things are associated with femininity, passivity, darkness, cold, etc. My objection regarding the concept is, ironically, twofold. Firstly, not all phenomena are binary and many of those that are may be better understood in a dialectic sense. Secondly, there is often a non sequitur involved when associating one binary set with another. For instance, would we want to associate good and evil with Yin or Yang, as has been done? While I know this is too much to hope for, I would be very glad if I never again saw references to active males and passive females used as if such associations were somehow natural and inevitable.
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Post by maximus on Sept 22, 2008 6:35:08 GMT 10
While I know this is too much to hope for, I would be very glad if I never again saw references to active males and passive females used as if such associations were somehow natural and inevitable. Keep in mind that the "roles" are reversed on the Inner Planes.
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Post by Tamrin on Sept 22, 2008 7:09:33 GMT 10
I suggest inner perceptions of "masculine" and "feminine" are largely filtered through our conditioned expectations (believing is seeing), sometimes as part of our "shadow," unexpressed or repressed selves. Whatever they are, on the "inner planes," they are aspects of the One.
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Post by maximus on Sept 22, 2008 14:06:39 GMT 10
I suggest inner perceptions of "masculine" and "feminine" are largely filtered through our conditioned expectations (believing is seeing), sometimes as part of our "shadow," unexpressed or repressed selves. Yes. That is how we are conditioned to "see" things, so that is how we will percieve them in symbolic fashion. "All Gods are one God, all Goddesses are one Goddess, and there is one Initiator." - Dion Fortune.
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Post by Tamrin on Sept 22, 2008 21:50:35 GMT 10
I suggest inner perceptions of "masculine" and "feminine" are largely filtered through our conditioned expectations (believing is seeing), sometimes as part of our "shadow," unexpressed or repressed selves. Yes. That is how we are conditioned to "see" things, so that is how we will percieve them in symbolic fashion. "All Gods are one God, all Goddesses are one Goddess, and there is one Initiator." - Dion Fortune. Agreed
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 5, 2008 20:39:52 GMT 10
Commonly spoken of are “male energies” and “female energies”. Are these terms meaningful and, if so, what do they mean? If they cannot be described without tautology, absurdity or redundancy, then I am led to suspect they derive from and are laden with an especially pernicious world view. Moreover, that they are likely to relate to the personae commonly adopted by men and women respectively, under a system where men were "properly" dominant and women were "properly" subordinate. The dynamic appears to correspond with the master and servant relationship enshrined in common law, or worse, that of a master and slave. Such a relationship was once, but no longer, analogous to the position of most women to their male “guardians.” Many may object to this view, arguing that women are revered by men. However, as Erica Jong wrote, “ Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.”With this possibility in mind, perhaps when people speak of “feminine” we might suspect that oft times they mean something akin to “slavish” and we, as Freemasons are told, “ …that the minds of slaves are more vitiated and less enlightened than those of the freeborn.” At this point, I suggest that the freedom of every person is in some objective sense restrained and relative and that which we, as Freemasons, require of our candidates is a subjective sense of freedom and responsibility (an inner locus of control). So, are women inherently more likely to be “slavish” than are men? I suggest both men and women may become “slavish” when regarded or treated as “slaves” and, moreover, that some individual men and some individual women have managed to rise above that treatment. For instance, consider the following instances recorded by Charles Darwin in Brazil during 1832: 8 April (p.46) This spot is notorious for having been, for a long time, the residence of some runaway slaves, who, by cultivating a little ground near the top, contrived to eke out a subsistence. At length they were discovered, and a party of soldiers being sent, the whole were seized, with the exception of one old woman, who, sooner than again be led into slavery, dashed herself to pieces from the summit of the mountain. In a Roman matron this would have been called the noble love of freedom: in a poor negress it is mere brutal obstinacy. 14 April (p.48) I may mention one very trifling anecdote, which at the time struck me more forcibly than any story of cruelty. I was crossing a ferry with a negro, who was uncommonly stupid. In endeavouring to make him understand, I talked loud, and made signs, in doing which I passed my hand near his face. He, I suppose, thought I was in a passion, and was going to strike him; for instantly, with a frightened look and half-shut eyes, he dropped his hands. I shall never forget my feelings of surprise, disgust, and shame, at seeing a great powerful man afraid even to ward off a blow, directed, as he thought, at his face. The man had been trained to a degradation lower than the slavery of the most helpless animal…
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 23, 2008 18:56:55 GMT 10
Of possible relevance is that both Pythagoras (c.580 - c.500 BCE) and Taoism's Lao-Tse (c.600 - c.530 BCE) were contemporaries, at a time known in China as the Era of the Thousand Philosophers, with such figures around the world as Confucius (c.550 - c.480 BCE); Siddhârtha Gautama, a.k.a. the first Buddha, (c.560 BCE to c.480 BCE); Zoroaster; and Zerubbabel. There may have been some "patriarchal" commonalities in the philosophies being promulgated at that time.
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