Research
 
"Cut Off From Spirituality: the role of the body and
  sexuality in Spiritual Awakening"  
 
Miri Hunter Haruach, Ph.D
 Derived from papers and other research over the past few years……

INTRODUCTION
Using the criteria of genitalia to choose and develop partnerships leads to a psychological, spiritual, psychic split that is based on culture, politics, religion and/or societal pressures and not on human need want or desire.  Through circumcision the male looses his femininity which is located physically in the prepuce.  Through excision or genital mutilation the female looses her masculinity which is located in the clitoris.  Through social, and religious conditioning, human beings are  denied permission to experience or to experiment with the complete range of sexual identity.   We are socialized to become the sex to which we appear best fitted. Our natural bisexuality or whole sexuality is excised in order to conform to a heterosexual norm.  This conformity may also limits us in our spiritual development or spiritual awakening.            

According to Jung, we are all male and female.  The woman in her spiritual journey searches for her male side or animus, while the male searches for his anima or femaleness.  The result of this search, if it is successful is the sacred marriage.        

In Alice Walker's novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy, we find this passage:
    Man's [sic] life was not capable of supporting both beings:  each person would have to merge himself in         the sex for which he appeared best fitted.  So,...the man is circumcised to rid him of his femininity;  the  woman isexcised to rid her of her masculinity.[1]
                      
Does the removal of our inherent bisexuality cause us to make an external search for our other self, which culminates in the legalized and socially sanctioned institution of heterosexuality?  In this paper I will discuss the issues of Banishment as presented in the Book of Genesis, physical cutting in the form of circumcision and excision,   Spiritual longing in the Abrahamic religions,  and sacred whole sexuality.

BANISHMENT
Examining the text of Genesis is the beginning of this exploration.  The Hebrew Bible offers us the exact plan for our lives based on our physical identities.  When Adam and Eve are thrown out of the Garden, God, dictates their roles by saying that Adam would till the soil and Eve would give birth. Genesis states:

    And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man,
made he a woman and brought her unto the man.  And the man said, "This is now bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman because she was taken
out of Man."[1]
 [1]
Genesis, Chapter 2, verse 23
Examination of this text will prove that Adam contained both sexes within himself.  His female part was named Woman, and she was removed from his body.

By saying that Woman was taken out of man two things are acknowledged.  First, that the female was contained within Adam  and secondly that the female is now outside of Adam.  This leads to the conclusion that the Woman, Eve, was without her male self.   When Adam was created he contained both sexes, with the expulsion of his first wife, the mythical Lilith,  he is subsequently unhappy.  In response to his loneliness  or longing for a mate,  God removed Adam’s dual sexuality by giving his feminine an outside physicality.

Adam and Eve are both single sexed:  Adam all male, Eve all female.  We are told that they live in Paradise with no restrictions, save the rule against eating the fruit of one tree.  However, Eve is beguiled by the serpent and eats the fruit and then she beguiles Adam who eats of the fruit.  Eve and possibly Adam were both experiencing a longing for something else.  God’s idea to rid the Garden of Adam and Eve before they “become as one of us,” means that man and woman now have the knowledge that they are living incompletely in other words…… naked. 

With more time in the Garden they may also gain the wisdom to understand what it means to be incomplete.  In short, that to be whole, whole meaning embracing male and female within oneself, is to be Godlike. 

CUTTING
Lilith, too, was banished from the Garden reportedly because she would not make love with Adam in a non-dominant position.  In other words, she would not submit to Adam.  This story is similar to the African story that Alice Walker relates in her novel Possessing the Secret of Joy.

The tribal myth states that one day the God Amma took a lump a clay and tossed it.  The clay landed on its back with its head facing north and it feet facing south.  Because Amma was lonely, he desired union with this clay.  As he approached, part of the clay rose up to meet him.  The part that rose up to meet Amma was as strong and as masculine as the God, so intercourse was not possible.  Amma, being God and all-powerful cut down the rising member of the clay and proceeded to have intercourse with the clay.[3]

Woman, Lilith, was originally created as an equal to Adam, but her masculinity (her willingness to say no) did not permit her subjugation (i.e. intercourse on her back).  In order for her to submit her clitoris would have to be removed or as the case was with Lilith, she would be sent into exile.

This story is re-enacted in another Jewish text, the Book of Esther.  In this text, Queen Vashti is banished from her home or her throne because she would not dance for the King and his guests.  She was replaced by another woman Queen Esther.

Lilith was banished from the Garden, however some interpretations of her story cast her as the serpent in the story of Adam and Eve’s Fall. 

Lilith seduces Eve and Eve in turn seduces Adam into eating the fruit.  The serpent in some traditions is seen as a representation of the phallus.  However, in other traditions it is seen as a symbol of women’s wisdom and power.   The serpent, representing both the male phallus and women’s wisdom  is whole in its sexuality.  This wholeness is what attracted Eve to the serpent.  Eve’s search for wholeness or her curiosity led her to embrace the serpent and then to transfer her experience to Adam. 

When God "discovered" the disobedience, God sentenced the serpent to crawl on its belly, the woman to bring forth children in pain and man to toil in the fields. In Chapter 3, verse 22 God says,
    Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil;[4]

In the conclusion of Chapter 3 of Genesis God drives man [sic] out of the garden and places an angel to guard the tree of life.   Study of this chapter of the myth suggests important inferences:

First, God sentences the snake to crawl on its belly; this connects to the placement of the coiled serpent in the Eastern practice of Kundalini Yoga. In Kundalini, often referred to as the Mother power, the snake is representative of dormant wisdom that can be awakened through spiritual practices. Unawakened the coiled serpent stays coiled in the first chakra or energy center of survival and self-preservation.

Second, If this is the case, then this story could be analyzed  as the story of two lovers, Adam and Eve, or Shiva and Shakti, who, through  sexual practices awaken the sleeping serpent (kundalini).  The serpent power rises in each of them.  They learn through their spiritual awakening the difference between good and evil (they become like god).  With this knowledge they leave their garden (self-preservation and survival) in order to serve humanity with their wisdom.  The purpose of awakening kundalini is for spiritual evolution. 

Genital mutilation, whether it is circumcision or excision, effectively cuts off the physical placement of the lower chakras, thereby inhibiting the connection to the Divine that occurs within the body.

The knowledge that Adam and Eve received from their disobedience was that they were not complete.  They were unfinished or naked.  This knowledge is what led to their expulsion.  They could no longer be controlled by the Elohim.  They were becoming aware.   With their new awareness  came the realization that they would never be as the serpent: whole unto themselves.  They would always be longing for connection or completion: a way to clothe their nakedness. This concept of longing is a theme that runs through all three of the Abrahamic religions. 

LONGING
In Judaism,  the Song of Songs is said to speak of the longing of the people of Israel for HaShem.
    Will you disrobe me with your stares?
The eyes of many morning suns
Have pierced my skin, and now I shine
Black as the light before the dawn.
And I have faced the angry glare
Of others, even my mother’s sons
Who sent me out to watch their vines
While I neglected my own
 
Falk, Poem 2
In this translation of the Song of Songs by Marcia Falk, we hear the voice of someone who speaks to a lover.  The voice says I have been waiting for you, I have waited in the sun, I have angered my family, I am waiting for you to complete me: to marry me. 

Also in Judaic tradition is the idea of the Sabbath Bride who instills in every Jew an additional soul for the 25 hour period of Shabbat.  After the Sabbath Bride leaves the Jewish soul is alone again.

Catherine of Sienna and Mechthild of Magdeburg from the Christian tradition, followed their spiritual paths in a search for the Beloved.  Their search was actually frowned upon by the Church.  Mechthild says of her own writings that

I have been put on my guard about this book
And this is what I have been told
That unless I had it burned
It would become prey to fire![6]

In the above quote, she is speaking to God.  She refers to him as "my Beloved, you who ordered me to write this book."[7]

The sufis from the Islamic tradition speak of the longing for the Beloved.  The sufi speaks of the intoxication of wine as being synonymous with the sense of longing that accompanies the search for the Beloved:

I’m drunk on the spirit, set free in my soul
Drunk on the spirit, set free and made whole
Drowning in creation set free of worldly pain
Drowning in creation set free to live again
Let the wine flow, let the spirit wash all over me[8]

In all three scenarios sexuality, desire and longing are placed on a divinity that is not human and this is outside of the body.  Sexual energy or the sense of longing in these traditions is seen as safe and tolerable when channeled to praise or search for God.  This places the awareness of God/Divinity outside of our physical bodies.  While out there, it is allowed to exist as  holy.

Further supporting my theory, what if that focussed energy of longing was channeled through the human body to create art and beauty and a just and sustainable world.  What if we remembered that we are whole like Lilith and ceased to wage war on our opposites or “political other?”  What if we were to heal the pain of our loss, our loss being the loss of half of our identity?  What if we were able to heal the pain of our lost opposite from either circumcision or excision.  How has this unacknowledged grief manifest itself in our current world situation?

DEFININGS AS WHOLE SEXUAL
When God and Abraham created a covenant together, it was sealed by the circumcision of Abraham and his followers.    This covenant was a sign to show others that these were the chosen ones.

Man's [sic] life was not capable of supporting both beings:  each person would have to merge himself in the sex for which he appeared best fitted.  So,...the man is circumcised to rid him of his femininity; the woman is excised to rid her of her masculinity.
            (Walker 1992, 171)

The removal of our inherent bisexuality has caused us to make an external search for our other self, which usually culminates in the legalized and socially sanctioned institution of heterosexual marriage.  The viewing of ourselves as only one sex has also perpetuated the fear of anything that would threaten or challenge this system:  same sex relationships or remaining single.

A whole sexual is a woman or man choosing to live in a world as a complete being,  choosing to experience all of life and not just the parts that are deemed socially, politically, or culturally correct.  Whole sexuality is a return to being in the world as complete beings. Whole sexuals  follow  in the footsteps of Lilith and Adam before  the creation of Eve.

The  whole sexual  chooses his or her partner with little or no regard to gender differences or sameness.  The whole sexual might also chose to incorporate traits of both genders into their appearance and/or behavior.   In actuality whole sexuality is the praxis of living in the world on ones own terms, with knowledge that the choice of either/or is not a choice that needs to be made, but a political and social construct used for control.  With the freedom to make the choice that is spiritually and psychologically empowering correct rather than socially acceptable, the whole sexual is able connect with the actual source of creativity, sexuality and wholeness: the in dwelling God/Goddess/Divine, etc.  

CONCLUSION
Being human and living as whole sexuals  is synonymous.  If we as a culture and society and a planet continue live un-wholly lives we will constantly be looking for ways to fill in what is missing with what is outside of ourselves. The energy needs to move towards a complete understanding of our humanness and divinity. 

We were originally created as whole beings.  In the creation myth that many of us know and live by, we became less than whole.  Adam, and his new wife Eve realized this, and saw their nakedness/or felt loss, and grief.  Not only did we lose our Godliness, our humanity, we have been stuck in an evolutionary warp that continues to replay itself.  Unless we remember our original state of grace, our original state of wholeness, and work towards becoming whole once again, we will not only have lost the Garden, but also the map to the Garden and finally, the memory of the Garden.

It is not only physical restraints that hinder the transformation or awakening, but also mental conditioning and societal pressures. The awakening makes a personal link between oneself and Divinity.  This individual relationship is threatening to societal structures and organized religions.  The destruction of the personal connection to the Divine has been fundamental to those in power, who  thrive on our need to for survival and self-preservation.  

ENDNOTES
[1] Walker 1992, Possessing the Secret of Joy, 171
[2] Genesis, Chapter 2, verse 23, Herz
[3] Walker 1992, ibid, 169
[4] Genesis, Chapter 3, verse 22, ibid
[5] Falk, The Song of SongsPoem 2
[6] Brunn 1987, 54
[7] Brunn 1987, 54
[8] Hunter Haruach, Harvest of the Heart, Track 10, 1999

Other Research, coming soon!

...Kundalini Rising: Queen of Sheba Wisdom, the Tree of Life and Multidimensionality