Spirituality/General: Roots and Wings: The Inner Man and Woman by Swami Dhyan Giten

Our friend Giten is back with some great thoughts on the anima and animus. Did you know that a person's love interest will often resemble their inner "other sex?"

What are the inner man and woman? How do the inner man and woman relate to therapeutic work? How do the inner man and woman relate to creativity? Our being consists of two contradictory tendencies and poles: the male and female aspect.

Article Continues After Illustration

The writer in blissful communion without barrier with Toshen, a beloved friend through many lives.

Life develops through apparently contradictory poles and tendencies, for example yes and no, darkness and light, negative and positive, day and night and life and death. Just as electricity needs both a minus and plus charge for a spark to arise, man has also two poles. These two poles are the male and female side.

The inner man and woman are our two wings of love and freedom. Through awareness, acceptance and understanding, we can allow our two wings to develop in a natural and deep harmony.

Exploring our inner man and woman means to become aware about the two energies, the two opposite tendencies and poles, of our being. The inner man and woman are the two shores of our inner being.

This article is about developing an understanding both for the male and female side and how they relate to therapeutic work and healing. It is also about understanding how the inner man and woman represent themselves in outer form as relationships. It is also about learning to make an intuitive examination of a person's male and female side.

Relationships are a development and a dance between our inner male and female sides. It is a balance and a dance between love and freedom, between aloneness and relating, between strength and receptivity, between intellect and intuition, between rest and activity and between meeting and separation.

We all have both a male and female side, which is represented respectively by the right and left side of the body. Our inner male and females sides manifests on the outside as relationships. Often our longer and deeper relationships with an outer man or woman are a mirror of our own inner man or woman.

In every meeting with an outer man or woman, a conscious or unconscious comparison with our own inner man or woman is made. If there is a comparison with our own inner man or woman, we become interested.

Falling in love is like a joy of recognition, a thirst and longing after inner wholeness between our inner man and woman. It is an inner longing after the outer relationship that can help us to reclaim our own male and female sides - and make us whole. In this way our outer relationships become a possibility to develop and integrate our inner man and woman in the relationship with an outer man or woman. In this way the outer relationship also creates the possibility to learn to love both our outer partner, and our own inner male and female side. It is when we develop both our inner man and woman that we find a new harmony and wholeness within ourselves.

I think that I have always been in contact with my female side, which has given me an understanding for women. A beloved and beautiful friend of mine since many lives, which I had a relationship for many years, once said that she thought that I was an awesome man to be with. This is the kind of comment from a woman that is so strangely reassuring for a man. Now I also feel that have developed a good balance between my inner man and woman in my life. During the time when I was writing this article, I meet a woman who commented that she thought that I had a good balance between my inner man and woman. She said that she thought that this balance between male and female in a man is very attractive. She also said that women do not really want a macho man.

I have always been quite confident with being a man, but I also remember a woman that hurt me by saying that meeting me was like meeting her own inner woman. I think that she was looking for a more traditional relationship in her own growth, where the two partners of the relationship are carrying the male- and female role of the relationship in a more one-sided and separate way.

On the outer plane, the meeting between a man and a woman creates a meeting which is not a conflict, but which complements each other. On the inner plane, the outer meeting between a man and a woman also creates integration between our own inner male and female sides. It is when our inner male and female sides meet that a new spark of love, joy and inner wholeness ignites within ourselves.

Healing ourselves means to develop and integrate both our inner man and woman, so that love can flow between them. To restore the love within ourselves often requires that we embrace both the male and the female sides within ourselves. It is when both these sides are developed and are integrated within ourselves that a new spark of love arises within ourselves.

A female colleague in the psychology program at the university said once that I was one of the few men in the class that had respect for women. I viewed her statement like she was mirroring my own inner woman, that she confirmed my love, respect and appreciation for my own inner woman.

Relationships mirror ourselves

Outer relationships with a man or a woman are a possibility to learn to know our own inner man or woman. Outer relationships with a man or a woman are a mirror of the inner relationship between our own inner man or woman.

Relationships are a mirror of ourselves. Relationships are a challenge to grow. Through understanding the inner man and woman, we understand that our outer relationships are simply a mirror of the relationship between our inner man and woman. This understanding gives us the possibility to take conscious responsibility for our choices and for the next steps in our spiritual growth. It is to allow our relationships to become an invitation to growth, an invitation to live our love and truth - and not a crutch.

Outer relationships mirror the relationship and the communication between our inner male and females sides. Often we are identified with either the inner man or the inner woman, while the other side is either hidden or undeveloped. Sometimes one side is dominant and the other side is submissive. Sometimes one side is developed and the other side is undeveloped. Sometimes one side takes responsibility for the other side. Both the inner man woman needs to find its own independence and integrity. When both the inner man and woman take responsibility for themselves and live their own truth, love, joy and creativity flows naturally between them.

To become conscious of the inner man and woman means to understand the inner drama that is going on between our own male and female aspects. When we have developed an understanding and a trust to both our inner man and woman, so they can support, communicate and cooperate with each other, then a new love begin to flow between them.

Through understanding how the inner man and woman communicates and relates with each other, it leads to a new creativity and satisfaction in the three life areas that the inner man and woman influence: our inner growth, our relationships and our creativity and work.

Embracing our inner man and woman is to discover our inner roots and wings. To become aware about our inner man and woman means to discover the roots of both the masculine and feminine side and their creative expressions. It is about allowing both the inner man and woman to find their own creativity and creative expression.

To become aware about the inner man and woman also means to understand that they have different vision in life. They have different perspectives and views on life.

It is about learning to love both our inner man and woman; it is about learning to respect both our inner man and woman. It is about learning to live the truth of both our inner man and woman.

One of my female course participants said that she felt like she had "lost" her inner woman, without being aware about it. She says: "The awareness about the inner man and woman create a balance in life. Through this awareness you become aware about the role that the inner man and woman play in your life. I had simply lost my inner woman, which I was not aware about before. I remember very well when I got the insight that I had lost my inner woman, which was a very liberating insight. My image of my inner woman was that she had no face. It was just a grey lump, while my inner man on the other hand was happy, strong and beautiful."

In society today, manliness seems to lead to destructivity. A one-sided development of the male side leads to ego and separation from life. A one-sided development of the female side lead to passivity and dependence.

A male meditator describes it like a constant battle is going on between man and woman both on the outside and on the inside. To become aware about the inner man and woman means to become aware about this constant battle. It means to let go of the struggle, which create healing and inner wholeness.

Normally a man begins his psychological development process by developing his inner man, and a woman normally begins her development process by developing her inner woman, but this is not an obvious development process. A man can also begin his psychological development process by developing his inner woman, and then he develops his inner man. A woman can also begin by developing her inner man, and then develop her inner woman.

A female meditator comments about the male and female sides: "There are of course a large difference between the sexes, and I can see that I have both a male and a female side. The male side demands centering and respect, and that is also necessary for the female side to be able to live her quality of love, caring and need for beauty. It is not really possible to separate these two sides."

Another female meditator says that a lot of ideas about male and female roles being a certain way have disappeared through her own development. She says: "Of course, there is a difference between being male and female, but we are also a whole individual. If you look at a man only as a man, and a woman as only a woman, then they are no longer individuals, but only sexes. It is the basic understanding that we are all souls that is important, without denying the difference between the sexes, but to the embrace the whole. Love is beyond male and female, truth is beyond male and female - and sex leads also leads beyond male and female. That is a resurrection."

She continues to say: "To be able to respect myself, I have to accept that I have both male and female sides. The man that I live with has also both male and female sides. To be able to live together, we can not label each other "man" and "woman," and put each other in two separate small boxes. Earlier, I expected a lot of things from the men in my life, for example, that they should be macho, they should drive the car and they should know what they wanted. I expected a form of oppression, but it is not like that anymore. Now I can see that the man that I live with also have many soft and caring sides.

"To be able to live from my own truth, I need to have access to both the male and female aspects of myself. To relate with a man is to discover my own male side. It is an opposite and opposites need each other to develop. The fun in life is the excitement of going back and forth between these opposites."

Awareness - harmony between opposite tendencies

Awareness is an inner harmony between contradictory tendencies. Awareness is absence of choice. Awareness is the capacity to embrace, include and encompass both joy and sorrow, love and aloneness, light and darkness, male and female qualities and life and death. Through saying "yes" and accepting both tendencies, including whatever aspect that happens in the moment, we meet our limitless and boundless inner being.

The more we learn to know the inner man and woman within ourselves, and the more we accept their different ways of being and looking at life, the more a meeting happens between them which make us happy and satisfied. Through embracing both these sides within ourselves, we realize that that we do not lack anything, but that we are already love. It is like course participants in one of my courses described her experience: "The course taught me that everything that I need to live a rich and satisfying life is already within me."

When we embrace the opposite tendencies and contradictions within ourselves, and understand that the inherent harmony arises when both sides are ripe, then we discover again the love, joy and freedom that is hidden in every moment.

It is through the female side that we find the depth within ourselves independent if we are a man or a woman. It is through the female side that we find the inner source of love, truth and wholeness. It is through the female side that we light the light of our consciousness.

When both the male and female side are capable of living in trust, a love begins to flow between them. It is a love that was always possible, but which was not experienced before.

The chakra system and the inner man and woman

How does the chakra system relate to the inner man and woman? The heart is the door to the inner woman; the heart is the door to the inner world. The power chakra relates to the inner man; the power chakra relates to the outer world.

Independent if we are a man or a woman, the inner woman is the center of our consciousness, while the inner man is the periphey of our consciousness. It is also the inner man that takes care of and protects the inner woman, for example through putting up creative boundaries.

The inner woman is the meditative quality within ourselves. The inner woman is the inner source of love and truth. The inner woman is the inner capacity to surrender to life. It is through the inner woman that we are in intimate contact with life. It is the inner woman that is the door to be one with the Whole.