Liberation without a Face

Lerennial knowledge has always told us that ego is the one and only obstacle to Liberation. What is ego? Ego is the sense of ones self as being separate. Ego is the part of our- selves that sees itself as separate from the other, separate from the world and separate from the whole universe. The ego will use any opportunity to position itself in order to be able to see itself as being separate from the other. And one of the most significant ways that we see ourselves as being sep- arate is in relationship to gender and sexual orientation. Dur experience oi being either male or female is almost always pregnant with countless unexamined ideas—ideas about how we should be, how we want to be, how others believe we should be and how we imagine others want us to be. And more often than not, most of our ideas about what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman are based on conformity to fixed and rigid beliefs or are the defiant expression of rebellion against them—no matter what our sexual orientation. We almost always experience a great deal Liberation without a Face of insecurity in relationship to the profoundly confusing question of gender identity and sexual orientation, and know- ingly or unknowingly most of us struggle for our entire lives to live up to these beliefs. But because we rarely question for ourselves what it could mean to he free in relationship to the whole issue of gender and sexual orientation, we usually remain lost in a hall of mirrors, our attention helplessly riveted to images that keep us bound to a painfully separate sense of self. So, what is the relationship between Enlightenment and gender? What is the relationship between spiritual freedom and sexual orientation? In the revelation of Enlightenment, who and what we are is discovered to be beyond any concept of difference, includ- ing male or female. But most significant of all, we come upon a liberating perspective that powerfully transcends the move- ment toward conformity or rebellion. And in the end, it is only through discovering that perspective directly for ourselves that the path of true freedom can be found. If we want to be free, it is imperative to recognize that the ego—which is the separate sense of self—will use any and every opportunity to create the experience of a personal identity that appears to be unique and distinct. The words "I am a ." usually refer to a picture of ourselves as being unique and distinct whatever that picture is. And as long as we don't want to be free more than anything else, the words that follow "I am a ." will signify EGO. That includes all Embracing Heaven & Earth of the ideas we have about being male or female and what- ever beliefs we attach to our sexual orientation. So therefore, if we do want to be free more than anything else, we have to ask ourselves: What is the relationship between the revelation of a Self that transcends any and all notions of difference and the actuality of being a human being in a male body or a female body? In order to discover the answer, we first have to under- stand that the enlightened state is often referred to as the "natural" state and the unenlightened state is considered to be unnatural in comparison. Natural means /ree from existen- txal tension. From an energetic point of view, this existential tension is what the ego is. And when the separate sense of self unravels, dissipates and eventually disappears, the con- stant selj-conscious tension that is experienced in the body falls away. Enlightenment, then, is a condition that is fundamen- tally free from that existential tension that is t^o. So regarding the intriguing question of freedom in rela- tionship to gender and sexual orientation, what we want to know is: What exactly is the enlightened or natural and unselfconscious expression of manhood or womanhood? What is the natural and unselfconscious expression of sexual orientation? If the enlightened perspective is based upon the revelation of a self that is free from any sense of difference, including all concepts, ideas and beliefs about gender and Liberation without a Face sexual orientation, then what would it be like to be a man who was free from fixed ideas about what it means to be a man? What would it be like to be a woman who was free from fixed ideas about what it means to be a woman? What would it be like to be a man or a woman who was not attached to fixed ideas of being a man or woman, yet at the same time was not in any way avoidin^ or denying the fact of their gender or sexual orientation? It would be free from ego, which means free from every trace of self-consciousness that would support a sense of oneself as being unique, special or separate in any way If it is true that at the very inner core of our being there is absolutely no notion of a separate self that can be imagined with the human mind, and yet at the same time outwardly there is a projection that is the human body, which inherently does express difference, if we want to be free , we must find a way to express that difference without it in any way carrying the weight of ego. That would mean that in order for the expression of differences between male and female and of different sexual orientations to be utterly free from the distorting influence of ego, we must reach that point in our own spiritual evolution where we are always more interested in being free than we are in being male or female or being identified with any particular sexual orientation. The impli- cations in this are overwhelming because they force the true seeker to heroically question his or her attachment to and Embracing Heaven & Earth identification with any notion of self that can be imagined by the mind. The enlightened self casts no reflection in the mind of the enUghtened one. That's why the universal character of enlightened consciousness is innocence. And true innocence will be unselfconsciously expressed when we are attached only to that part of ourselves that we cannot see, taste, smell or touch. Then and only then will the expression of our maleness, of our femaleness, of our sexual orientation be free from ego and undistorted by the need to see ourselves as being unique, special or separate in any way. Liberation without a Face