A masculine spirituality

Does such a thing even exist? Of course. Yes! But that’s a concession, not a boast. A masculine spirituality has a decidedly yang quality to it, an imbedded bias for action. Thus, some women are more yang than some men just as some men are more yin than some women. Wherever we find it, a bias for action needs to be examined and undone. We are human beings, after all, not human doings. “Know the male,” advises the Tao, “but keep to the female.” Most of what yang-men do is unnecessary. That was Gurdjieff’s definition of sin—whatever is unnecessary.  

Sin and virtue

If you sin, sin boldly, openly. If you are virtuous, keep it quiet.

Ready, set, accumulate (2)

Gurdjieff: “Sin? Sin is what is unnecessary.” Nisargadatta: “Only the necessary is good. There is peace only in the essential.”

What we possess, we are possessed by.

Sacrifice

The whole notion of sacrifice is rooted in the idea that I am bad or deficient and I must pay a price for that. Millennia ago, the Holy Temple of Jerusalem was basically a ‘divine’ slaughterhouse where bulls, rams and a variety of other livestock had their throats cut as an expiation for the sins of humans. Today sin-excited Christians flagellate themselves on Good Friday while the less theatrical cleanse themselves via weekly acts of murmured penance.

Keeping secrets

Luther’s theological ejaculation “Sin boldly” confronts the problem of secretiveness. Hiddenness is an obscurity, a fearfulness, vastly worse in our imagination than what is hidden. We cannot love what we do not see.