Women and self-realization.

It is much easier for women to attain spiritual liberation than it is for men to do so.

A woman’s subtle physical body accepts light in this world much more readily than does a man’s.

It seems a curious fact then, that throughout the short-lived history of spirituality in this world there have been very few self-realized, enlightened women.

There are a number of reasons for this, and whether you are a man or a woman, it is essential that you understand these reasons, and accept them.

And utilize them.

As a man you can further the realization of all women when you understand these basic principles.

As a woman you can, of course, advance yourself and all other women when you understand these basic principles.

I’d really like to divide this discussion into two sections.

The first section will be, I suppose, more historical in the sense that we’ll be considering why women have not attained enlightenment. And then in the second section, we will perhaps look at some things that women can do to foster and attain enlightenment.

Also there will be some consideration as to what men can do to foster the enlightenment of women.

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To begin with, let us establish that there is no difference between men and women — on the deepest levels.

Each one of us has a soul, a jiva, a self.

That is to say, beyond the surface there is a particle of being which is larger than eternity. Which is our existent and extant reality.

It is neither masculine nor feminine; it’s both.

Yet in a particular lifetime, in a particular incarnation or series of incarnations, we will manifest as male or female. And just as the physical body of the male and female are somewhat different, so the subtle physical body of the male and female are different.

But on the deepest levels there is no difference; we are all one.

However, in self-realization it’s necessary to integrate, to some extent, the physical, and the subtle physical, with the absolute.

We have to work through these terms.

If we live in a highly developed country, we have a certain frame of reference through which we view our experience. If we live in an underdeveloped country, we have another frame of reference.

We have to deal with the physical. It affects us.

So in self-realization, the physical and the subtle physical affect us.

The subtle physical body of a woman is very different than that of a man.

While both are composed of luminous fibers of light, the subtle physical body of a woman conducts light, or vibrates with light, at a different rate than that of a man.

The subtle physical bodies of men are much denser. They’re much more tightly packed.

The subtle physical body of a woman is much more pliant.

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So, in my estimation, it’s much easier for a woman to absorb and retain light and to change.

In other words, the subtle physical body of a man is more fixed, a woman’s is more pliant and that’s the most important thing in self-realization, in enlightenment — is that ability to make tremendous and rapid transcendences, to constantly change and reshuffle ourselves again and again in the white light of eternity.

Women are essentially much more powerful than men are. The kundalini flows through them much more readily.

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The problems are really very few.

The primary reason why more women don’t attain enlightenment is that they have a misunderstanding of their purpose as women.

Women think of themselves as being women, and they’re not.

Women have a preconceived notion of what it means to be a woman,

This notion has been given to them by our society, history, men, and other women.

Everything is reversed in this age.

Men appear to be more powerful than women, while the opposite is really true.

For a woman to attain liberation she has to realize that she has everything she needs within herself.

Women have become dependent upon men in our society.

They feel that they have to draw power from a man. They build their identities around men or around their children, and in doing so they do themselves and all women, and men, a great injustice.

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In order for a woman to attain enlightenment, she must realize that her true aspect …

If she thinks of herself as being feminine — in the sense of the term that “feminine” means weak, gentle, constantly self-effacing, always cleaning up the house for others — then she’s misunderstanding her power and her purpose. This is an image that has nothing to do with what really exists.

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The time span for a woman to attain enlightenment is a little bit different than that of a man.

There are certain times in the life of a man or woman when it’s easier to make tremendous transcendences.

For most women the best time is from, I would say, around the age of 18 to 35. If a woman hasn’t really started on the path to enlightenment before that time it’s more difficult.

Again, women also develop a great deal of power later in life, but the intermediate stage for most women, from 35 to let’s say around 55, is a more difficult time.

In other words, if the right wheels haven’t been set in motion, it’s a much more difficult transit to pick up.

For men it’s a little bit different. For men, realization occurs very readily from about 18 to 22. In other words, that’s a very good time for a man to start on the path. If a man doesn’t start during that period of time, it’s more difficult.

However, for men a very powerful time is from about 35 to around 55, 60.

So for women, in other words, the stronger years would run about 17 to 35, 38. Then they’d go through a slack time from about 35 to around 50 or 55, and then from that time forward it would be strong again.

Whereas for men, … just for a few years, 18 to say, 21 or 22, then their slack time — if they don’t pick up the threads of realization — would be, let’s say, from about 22 to around 35. Or 34. Maybe even up to 40, and then again a strong time will come for them.

Now there are all kinds of exceptions to this, and certainly if you hear me say this and you think,

No, not at all.

These are general guidelines.

Anyone can attain liberation at any age. But there are times when it will be easier. There are sequences in our life.

When it’s easier to do something.

Now, when I say “begin” …, I mean that for both men and women at around the age of 18, 19, 21, 22, there’s an opening, a door opens.

A person gains a sense of their spirituality. There’s a kind of past life return that occurs when we just remember a little bit of who and what we are.

And if you start meditating and seeking at this time and continue forward, that’s ideal.

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The subtle physical body of a man and woman is in perfect shape at that age. And then if you start to meditate at that time, you will preserve that subtle physical and constantly increase its strength. So as you get older, you won’t get older.

If you haven’t done that, then the subtle physical body will begin to wear.

With a man, …

Men, if they don’t begin the spiritual process fairly early, tend to fall into the world of ego very quickly.

There’s this need to fight your way to the top.

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It’s better for women to be obsessed with power.

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And so they tend to fall away. Later at about 40, in their 40s — sometimes — the interest will come forward again and they’ll become interested in meditation, and that’s a very strong time for men — 40s, 50s and 60s.

But most men, if they don’t catch it by around that age, then they’ll just kind of dive into the maya and from around 22 to around 40 not much will happen. There are exceptions, of course.

With women, their subtle physical bodies fade much faster in this world.

While the strength of a woman is the fact that her subtle physical body is pliant and conducts energy, it’s also the thing that is problematic for her, particularly in this age. In this age, in this time cycle of this universe, the destructive vibrations are very powerful.

And, … if the energy is very good, a woman will — a spiritually oriented woman— will progress very fast.

In other words, men are not quite as affected by the vibratory forces of this world as women are.

So if a woman places herself in an environment of light and she’s around an enlightened spiritual teacher, has spiritual friends and all that sort of thing, her growth will be tremendously fast.

If she’s in the opposite environment, her descent will be very, very quick.

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The damage that occurs to the subtle physical body of a woman occurs in several ways.

Most women lose their power in sexual relationships.

Or simply by being exposed to the lower sexual energies of men.

Sexuality is neither good nor bad, it depends how you approach it,

but

In the act of sex itself, while making love, men become very angry, very hateful; they very often hate the women they’re making love to.

There’s this need to conquer, to assert your identity.

And it’s because

They sense this tremendous power,

They’re afraid of their own impotence.

And the unrefined masculine energy enters easily into a woman.

Particularly during sex or when there’s a sexual relationship,

So when a woman falls in love she will think of the man she’s in love with constantly.

And when she does —

And if there are a number of very destructive — or let’s say high velocity — forces in the man’s consciousness,

which a man’s subtle physical body perhaps can deal with.

But when she draws those forces into herself by

attaching herself to a man

then they come into her being, and

You can look at a woman and quickly ascertain how many relationships she’s had and what they’ve been like by simply looking at her subtle physical body.

As a spiritual teacher, I do this constantly.

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Now, you must understand, there’s no good or bad — men are not better, women are not better.

We’re all children of God and we’re all following the path to light.

But we have to understand the operative conditions of the universe.

It’s this unstable energy, and it’s because men are afraid — to be — women.

They’re afraid of their feminine side. If they would accept their feminine side — their female side, their femaleness — then there’d be a balance.

There’s a lot to sex. Freud wasn’t so wrong … in certain ways … from a spiritual perspective.

So as a woman, if you’re interested in enlightenment, then it is necessary to detach yourself from men

’Til you become much stronger.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to give up relationships and that you can’t be married. You can, it’s just tricky.

Let me give you the average scenario for a woman so you’ll understand what I’m describing.

A woman’s power is at her height around, let’s say, 17, 18, 19, 21 or 22.

She literally glows with energy.

At this time she’s very attractive to men because men sense that there’s a radiant power and light and they want to merge with it, they want to be part of it. The man and the woman go out or whatever, and as they become emotionally and sexually involved with each other, the man, instead of accessing that light or helping that light in some way, becomes afraid of that light. It’s a threat to his masculinity because he doesn’t understand yet what masculinity is. He tries to cover it over or destroy it. Now, needless to say, this is not conscious, but this is what’s happening in almost every human relationship. He seeks to cover it over and destroy it, the very thing that could help him in his liberation.

The woman, of course, is in such a state of power at that age that she’s intoxicated with it, that without realizing it she allows it to happen. In other words, she doesn’t realize that she will only have a few years with this level of energy. While she’s at that age she thinks, ‘Oh gosh, I’ll always feel like this.’ There’s never the possible thought that this power may go away. Now, the power wouldn’t go away if she were very careful, if she kept her emotional relationships to a minimum. If she has relationships and if she has sexual contact, to make very darn sure it’s with someone who’s nice and who’s not abusive, and most importantly to not allow herself to become emotionally wrapped up in a man or in men, then she can retain the integrity of her subtle physical body and through meditation, that power will grow stronger every year. But if she goes and just spreads herself too thin, she’ll absorb all this very destructive energy and her subtle physical body will be very, very damaged, and she’ll have her power drained, you might say.

Now, there are other factors that contribute to the demise of women in enlightenment. Women themselves allow this to happen. They foster an image of being weaker, or they want to be taken care of, to a certain extent. They want a daddy; they want someone to make decisions for them; they don’t want to claim their own power, their own intensity. They choose attachments to the family instead of attachment to liberation.

Women don’t support other women. They’re jealous and they’re vindictive, again, simply because they don’t realize that they have enough power within themselves to enjoy other women and appreciate them. It’s not necessary to compete over a male. What an absurd idea. Women should be sisters, unite, and pool their energy.

What can women do to attain liberation? First of all, in most cases, it’s very healthy to break up patterns regardless of what your age is. We begin with meditation. As you meditate you become stronger and purer and clearer. There are two types of yoga that work best for women. The first is karma yoga, the second is mysticism. In karma yoga, through selfless giving, coupled of course with lots of meditation, a woman accesses her power. Then, as that power increases, the path of mysticism opens itself to her.

For men it’s a little bit different. For men, bhakti yoga, devotional yoga, the love-oriented yoga, is the best. It stabilizes their energy and it’s just more natural for their earlier years, as is karma yoga for the early years of a woman. Then, jnana yoga works very well for men. Now, men and women can all learn all four yogas, but what I’m suggesting is that there are certain pathways that will be easier.

Women have to be very careful of their relationships with men. It’s easier to have someone make the decisions for you, but it’s not, because then you’re enslaved and you don’t draw your own power and you become weak. Women seem to have this idea that they always have to be nice and allow people to walk all over them, and this is absurd. You don’t help men by allowing them to do that. All you do is fixate them in a bad state of consciousness. Whenever you allow someone to abuse you, you don’t help them, you’re not a friend, because they’re incurring bad karma. If you truly love someone, occasionally you’ll be a little mean to them, if it’s necessary. It may seem mean, but it’s not because we love them.

You have to learn to be more unattached. There’s this idea that women are emotional and men are not, and that’s how women act, but actually it’s quite the opposite. Men are much more emotional. They love much more quickly than women do. What I’m suggesting is that the way we see men and women outwardly and the way they act in our world and society is not the way they really are inwardly—it’s backwards. That’s why not too many people in this world attain enlightenment.

As a man you face a number of problems and difficulties, some of which I have already alluded to, as you reach for liberation. If you’re a man, the best way to balance your energy is through love. Women need to work on power and claiming their power and bringing that power up—the power of the kundalini from the root chakra—and bringing it right up to the top of the head, and realizing their independence and asserting themselves more and more and not letting others run their lives or ruin their lives.

For men it’s a little bit different. Men have to soften their nature. It’s necessary to practice the yoga of love and to lose interest in power and conquest. In relationships with women, it’s necessary to be gentle and to foster the power of women, to realize that a great deal of wrong has been done, not strictly because of the fault of men. There’s no fault in this—both women and men have allowed this to happen. I don’t see that men are more to blame than are women for the fact that not too many women attain enlightenment. It’s equal. It takes two to tango.

As a man who’s working towards liberation, you can aid women, mainly by leaving them alone and by not projecting sexual energy towards them. This lowers the vibration of the man and the woman. When a woman has energy thrown at her, sexual energy, it hurts her subtle body. If she’s walking down the street and you look at her and you throw a lot of sexual energy at her, if you desire her, then what you’re doing is just throwing all this energy at her, and it hurts her. This doesn’t mean that you won’t feel sexually attracted to people. That’s fine, but there’s a way to use it and not abuse it. It’s not necessary to look at a person sexually, as a sexual object, because when you do, it fixates you in a particular level of consciousness. You’re really not like that; it’s just an image that you walked into. The macho image is absurd. What you need to do is learn about surrender and self-giving and humility and self-effacement—if you seek eternity.

It’s important to work on the refinement of your nature and to meditate. The thing that will help you as a man the most, is meditation. But even when you meditate, you have to be very careful. You can’t let it become an ego fixation. It’s not an experience where you’re going to conquer the world of meditation. There’s no conquest. What you need to do is, you need to learn to be a woman. You need to surrender. You need to take eternity as your lover and just open yourself up to it and let eternity do with you as it will. You need to become stronger, more patient, and when these tremendous surges of energy come over you, you have to just let them come and go without becoming fixated in them.

As a man, you will find self-realization in this age quite easy. This is still the age of men, in a sense, although the age of women is around the corner. It’s necessary as a man, more than any other thing—if I could recommend one thing to you—it’s to develop a consistency in spiritual offering. The primary problem or difficulty that men have in self-realization is a kind of a low masculine energy that lacks sincerity, the locker room mentality, in the negative sense of the term. It is a lack of caring, being obsessed with oneself and one’s own destiny as opposed to a group destiny, the idea of being the maverick: “I’m the fellow who drifts into town and has an adventure and then drifts out.” This kind of I’m-just-in-it-for-myself mentality will not lead one to realization. Rather, it’s best to meditate on love and on the heart and to just learn to love more and more. This will be a painful process for you because men have, by and large, turned off their emotional selves because they’ve been told that being a man means you should turn off your emotional self, and if you don’t you’re a bit of a sissy.

Now, I don’t mean you should become maudlin and wrapped up in emotion. What I’m suggesting is, women need to gain control of their emotions, to be more detached and to see life and relationships from a higher level where we love but we don’t fixate, whereas men need to open their hearts up and learn to love and practice kindness and allow those emotional whirlpools to open up within themselves. I’m suggesting a tone, a feeling, hopefully through my voice and through the vibratory energy that speaks forth at this time, regarding the self-realization of men and women. There are no special techniques. It’s just that everything is backwards—women are powerless and men are powerful. Both are powerful.

The strength of a man’s character is expressed through gentleness and through love and ultimately through discrimination. You meditate on love, you live in love, love purifies your nature. It removes the stain of selfishness, slowly but surely. Practice meditation and self-giving and work on humility. It’s the most important. For women it’s self-confidence. Then, after many years of meditating and love, and when your love has become so large that it embraces all of eternity, then you’ll practice discrimination. You’ll go beyond love as we know it. We’ll never leave it, but we’ll experience other things, let’s say. Then you’ll practice discrimination. You’ll dissolve the personal self, which experiences a certain type of love.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t have relationships. You have to be yourself. If you need love relationships, have them. Most spiritual teachers don’t recommend that people have love relationships because people get wrapped up in their emotions. They identify very heavily with the physical body; it unleashes the passions and the attachments. But you have to be yourself. You can find light in everything.

My suggestion is not that you don’t have relationships or you don’t get married or do whatever you want to, but that you bring light into everything that you do and that you realize, very simply, that as a man you have to learn to do it in a new way. The way you’re doing it is not working. You have to be less concerned with yourself and your progress. You know, the old scenario, the guy and lady get married and then she works to support him in school, and he succeeds and drains her power and then leaves her and marries a younger woman and drains her power, and so on and so forth. That’s really not so good for the guy either because you can never become what you’re capable of being as long as you’re going around hurting others.

The limited power that you draw from another human being is nothing compared to the limitless power of the force of eternity. You don’t need to draw power from anyone, unless it happens to be an enlightened person. In that case, it’s no longer a person. It’s someone who’s merged their consciousness with eternity so that they are now eternity—so you’re not really drawing the power from a person, although there may be a body there, but just from eternity directly. They’re just an access point, a jetty sticking out in the ocean.

For a man to attain liberation, gentleness is the requisite, and love, for many, many years; and to be very gentle with all beings; to be strong but to have a delicacy in your strength; to just practice meditating with love and to become less wrapped up in others; to not abuse women and to not be what you’ve been.

For women it’s a little bit different. For women, what’s necessary is to realize that power is your aspect, to be more supportive of other women in their quest for liberation and perhaps for a short time to step back from men in relationships—not to give them up, necessarily, but perhaps to step back for a while, just so you can become complete and whole. All your life you’ve gained your identity from the men in your life. Now, perhaps, it would be good, just for a time, to step back and discover who you are and what you’re all about, because if men only see you in a certain way they’ll fixate you. That is to say, it’s like looking in a mirror and you believe what you see. In the mirror, you think that’s what you look like, but suppose the mirror was projecting an image that wasn’t really you?

For most women when they look in the eyes of both men and most women, the image that’s projected back—that a woman is psychically told to conform to—is not really what she is. It’s necessary to step back and be, for a while, around women who are more supportive or men who are very supportive or an enlightened person or persons, and discover what it means to be a woman.

It’s not easy, it’s a difficult search because you have to assume responsibility, you have to become commanding and to assume your power. You need to, in this world, avoid dressing in ways that attract a lot of lower sexual energy from men. It would be wonderful if we lived in a world in which the conditions were all perfectly balanced, where you didn’t have to be concerned about this, where you could just be yourself and that would be enough. But that’s not the way the world is. We have to deal with objective reality, so it’s good to be inaccessible.

You don’t have to hide yourself, but one should not display oneself either. If you walk down the street wearing a lot of valuable jewelry, you’ll probably get robbed. If you wear it in places with people who won’t be that way, then it’s fine, or by yourself and you enjoy it and eternity enjoys it. In the same sense, if you push your body forth, there will be people who will throw energies at you that are extremely destructive. You have to decide yourself.

Now, for both men and women, children can be a tremendous obstacle to enlightenment. If you already have children then that’s wonderful. You can use those children that you have to help you attain enlightenment by helping them, but it’s necessary to not make them your world, to do your very best for them that you can — but not to make them your world. If you don’t have children, I would not recommend it. If you have them then we do the best that we can with them, but if you don’t have children, and you really are interested in liberation, I certainly wouldn’t have them. If you do, don’t feel you’re doing anything wrong. You must be yourself.

You see, I’m speaking on different levels of consciousness simultaneously. That’s why these things I say sometimes appear to contradict. They don’t. I’m just giving you openings on different levels of understanding. Something will be true on one level and not on another. You have to accept what is useful for you on the level that you’re on. It may change tomorrow. If you’ve just gotten married and if you heard this tape and you’re all excited and you want to have children and you feel, “Oh, well Rama’s saying I shouldn’t have children. If I do, I won’t attain enlightenment.” No, I’m not saying that, but it will be much more difficult. I’m not saying that if you have children that you won’t be able to attain enlightenment. Not at all.

You have to accept that God does everything perfectly and that you’re in exactly the situation you should be in. If you now have children, that’s wonderful. Use them as objects of power. By giving to them and being kind to them and nurturing them, you’ll help yourself grow and develop. But don’t have any more children, unless you really need to—that’s what I’m suggesting. It’s just more difficult. During the first years of a child’s life, and all the years of a child’s life, there’s a tremendous fixation on the child, which is right, there should be. You have to take care of the child. Your consciousness is tuning to this child, which is fine, but lots and lots of people have had children and not attained enlightenment. Just by tuning your consciousness to the child, enlightenment doesn’t occur.

You need to see that your child is eternity, all of existence. If you have children, do the best you can with them. If you have to have them, have them and do the best you can with them. But if you can, open yourself to the possibility that fulfillment can come without having children or any more children, that it’s really not necessary, that you can sit and meditate and go into the higher consciousness states and experience completion that way, that the world will have all the children it needs. There are plenty of people who want to have them. It’s easier for you that way.

It’s the same with sexuality. For women, if you can avoid relationships for a time, just until your own energy is straightened out, that’s fine. But if you’re in a relationship and it’s working, if you’re in a marriage and you enjoy it, that’s fine. Don’t feel the need to pull back from these things—try to improve them. You have to be yourself, but if you find a natural inclination in yourself, for a while, to pull back from relationships, sexual relationships, and just for a while to tune out another person from your life and find out who you are, that might be a very healthy thing to do for a while. Then perhaps later you’ll go back into the world of relationships with different motivations. You won’t get trapped in them. You’ll be able to enjoy them. The same is true for men, but even more so for women because women have been and are more affected by relationships than men are, by and large, because of the structure of their subtle physical bodies.

Don’t be afraid to change. Change is necessary and the most basic change that we make has to do with our sexual identity. Sex does not matter. It’s not important, unless you make it important. People have placed much too great a charge on sexuality. It’s not necessary to be celibate to attain enlightenment. It’s necessary to be yourself and if you’re yourself, who could ask for more? There will come a time though when you will probably be celibate for a while, on the way to enlightenment, in one incarnation or another. That will be a very fun, lovely time, but it won’t be forced. There won’t be the need to say, “Oh, gosh, I want to have relationships and I can’t because I’m not supposed to.” That’s nonsense, you have to be yourself.

Then you’ll return to relationships, your sexuality, perhaps, if that’s what you want to do, when you have sufficient detachment so that it won’t be sex anymore. When you’re with someone it will be a giving, a pure self-effacement, a transfer of energy. There won’t be any desire. You won’t even notice it. There’ll be no concerns of the personal self or physical satisfaction or fulfillment or anything like that. That will all just go away. Then it can’t be harmful. In other words, your emotions won’t get wrapped up. You’ll preserve complete detachment and every action will be service and self-giving. When you have that attitude nothing can hurt you—if it’s not just an idea in your mind but it’s something that you can actually do in any circumstance. It’s a wonderful thought. People try it, but it’s difficult.

You must meditate and ground yourself in the eternal light and begin to think of yourself in a new way. As a man you must think, ‘I am not what they taught me. They told me that this is what being a man means and it’s not necessarily the case.’ Being a man is a very noble thing, a very powerful thing, a very gentle thing. You need to develop your artistic abilities more, to express your feminine side more. It’s not a feminine side—it’s another part of yourself, but these are categorizations that people who are not too balanced have developed.

As a woman, you have to work on power, independence, self-confidence, supporting other women and not always running to a man for justification, for condolence, for support, and not always looking for the nod of the father figure saying, “Yes this is right,” or someone to just pat you on the shoulder. Rather, you have to realize that you have tremendous power in your being and you can bring that power into eternity.

As either a man or a woman or as neither or both you need to harmonize yourself with eternity. Whether you’re heterosexual or gay or whatever it really doesn’t matter a bit. What matters as a man and woman is that you see that you’re not a man or a woman, that you’re both, and that you create a balance of both sides of your being. It’s necessary to do a little work on the side that you’ve been neglecting. As you do that, you will become stronger and stronger and stronger.

Regardless of your age, once you enter into the timeless there is no time and there is no age. The age factor will make a difference, but if you can go to an enlightened person and work with them then it won’t. In other words, when you’re with someone who is enlightened you enter into a timeless realm where the age factor disappears. You can also do the same thing by yourself if you can enter into samadhi. If you can enter into the superconscious completely then there is no age.

If you’re not capable of doing that yet, which most people who meditate aren’t, then you need to be around someone who does that, and then by being there it’s sort of the same thing, you get a free ride. Then while you’re with them in that timeless period the age factor doesn’t matter as much. Otherwise it does. It’s much harder the older you get. When I speak of, for women in their late 50’s or 60’s [entering] a very powerful time, that’s true, but that will be a much harder approach than it would have been at 18 or 19 or 20 by yourself.

The same is true of men if you miss that beginning at that age. True, the 40’s and 50’s and 60’s are a strong time for men, but if you miss that early training, it’s going to be difficult on your own. You can do it, but best to find a liberated being you have faith in and go to them, and when you’re with them, you step into the timeless realm when you meditate with them and work with them and then you’re 18 again, you see? By being with them, if you learn from them, if you access that light that courses through them, you’re 18 again, always. It doesn’t matter what the age of the body is.

You can do the same thing by yourself if you can enter into samadhi. If you can be absorbed in perfect light with no self, no mind, no body, no world, time falls away, there’s nothing but eternal reality, complete perfect light. If you can do that every day, on your own, in meditation, to the point that there is no difference between you and God and then even you and God fall away into nirvana, then it’s not necessary. Otherwise, it’s easier for you that way [to work with a liberated being]. These are just a few thoughts, suggestions, and feelings about obtaining liberation as a woman or as a man. There are no ironclad rules. You have to be creative as you go along. What I’m suggesting is a tone, a feeling.

As a woman, you need to feel powerful, to feel strong, to bring the kundalini up from the root chakra, to have it surge up your spine to the crown center, to assert yourself, yet to be inaccessible in a world that doesn’t like women and to realize that most men hate women because they’re afraid of them. They’re afraid of the power of women because they realize that women are much more powerful than men, and there’s something in men, in their unenlightened side, that fears that power. It doesn’t understand that if it would open itself to that power, that power would enter them and help them in their liberation. They fear that power and they seek to put it down. And there’s something in the unenlightened side of women that allows that to take place, that doesn’t want responsibility, that wants someone to make the decisions, but ultimately that’s not satisfactory because then a woman will be drained, tired and discouraged and just pass from birth to death, from birth to death, with little or nothing to show for it.

As a man it is necessary to become loving and gentle and kind, to be strong as you can be and to be fearless, a fearless warrior, but at the same time to be delicate and to work on your capacity to love purely. To not throw sexual vibrations at someone because of the way they look, not to feel bad because you have desires, but just don’t let them be uncontrolled—push them aside. If you’re with someone you love, to be as you are, but simply not to project those energies at everyone just because of the way they look because it’s quite harmful to them, and it’s quite harmful to you because then you put yourself into a very low plane of consciousness. Desire is neither good nor bad. It’s like a river. If you get in the river, you have to go where that river takes you. If you get out of the river, then you can walk someplace else, on dry land.

Never feel bad because you have desires, but because you have them doesn’t mean that you should give in to them all the time. You have to ask yourself what is right, and when you know what is right, if your desire agrees with what is right, then fulfill your desire. That’s detachment. Detachment is the ability not to avoid our desires and not fulfill them, but to just ask ourselves, “Is this right? Is this feeling I have now right? Is it one with the dharma?” If you feel that it is true and it is right, then you can fulfill your desire and it won’t be harmful.

But if you’re so wrapped up in your desires that you don’t care and you just fulfill them—if it isn’t with the basic flow of eternal life, with what we call the dharma—then we will suffer, this is our destruction. That’s discrimination. Discrimination means we can stand back when the heat of desire is pushing us and say, “Now, is this really right? Is this what God really wants? Is this what eternity wants?” Just to sit in silence and feel what is right and then do what is right. Then sometimes your desires will be correct, and you’ll fulfill them and that is fine. It’s no big deal one way or the other, but if you fulfill your desires when it isn’t the dharma, when it isn’t correct, that’s when you create bad karma and you have all kinds of problems. That’s when you’ll suffer like anything. Take the time to meditate, to reach within yourself and ask yourself, “What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? It’s not what I thought.” Ask eternity to show you and to teach you what it means. Don’t be afraid to change. Be open to being something that you haven’t been again and again and again—you’ll change, until finally you become everything and nothing.