Comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell was able to distill down the seeds of all of the great world religions and mythologies, which speak to the deeper layers of archetypal reality and spiritual science. He wrote eloquently about the human experience being one of swinging back and forth between the great pairs of opposites of dark and light, inward and outward, expansion and contraction, Yin and Yang, Shiva and Shakti, the seer and the seen, the masculine and the feminine. This profound experience of sacred polarity is a dualistic experience, and it is the experience of our manifest world.
Beyond the field of Maya, beyond the pairs of opposites, we understand that these forces are a unified whole, expressed so beautifully by the Yin-Yang symbol. Within the symbol we see the circle that unites the dark and the light, that these halves are part of a greater entity, each containing the seed of the other. This is symbolized through the Yin seed contained within the Yang form, and the Yang seed contained within the Yin form. We can also see this symbolism expressed clearly through the mystery of the Cross - which depicts in geometric form the coming together of heaven and earth, of matter and spirit, through the crossing of this sacred polarity.
From the mystery wisdom perspective, the very dance of awakening itself is a movement into harmony and balance of these great and divine pairs of opposites.
Within the Yogic cosmology, the system which I am most familiar with, we understand that this polarity exists within each and every human being, and is expressed in infinite ways: right and left, inhale and exhale, root and crown, container and contained, Ida and Pingala, seer and seen, Shiva and Shakti.
Ida and Pingala are the spiraling primary energetic channels or Nadis that travel through the spine. These channels reflect the divine feminine and masculine energies within the self. Ida is the left nadi, which is cooling, lunar, feminine, and corresponds to the right hemisphere of the brain. Pingala is the right nadi, which is heating, solar, and masculine, and corresponds to the left hemisphere of the brain.
The crossing of these channels, of Ida and Pingala, of the masculine and feminine aspects of the self, is said to correspond directly with the Chakra system, or the main energetic centers of the human electromagnetic field. These chakras, like petals of the most beautiful flower formed of a sacred geometry, open through the process of our spiritual awakening. This sacred geometry reflects the delicate intertwinement of masculine and feminine forces within the self. The experience of awakening happens through the activation of the coiled energy at the root of the spine of each human being, which then spirals upward, awakening the Chakra centers of consciousness as it moves. Each of the seven great Chakras corresponds to an ever more expansive experience of unity consciousness, where seer meets the seen, where lover meets the beloved, where Jiva meets Shiva, and their sacred union expresses itself through a divine petaled geometry.
This is a somatic and bodily experience, where we begin to set in motion the divine instrument which is our sacred anatomy, and are able to harness and channel greater light and cosmic energy through the whole being. This awakening happens through all systems of the body, but primary it occurs through the endocrine and nervous systems, which correspond directly to our subtle body and energy systems.
Sri Aurobindo also speaks of a great descent of cosmic energy occurring through the crown center, which actives the pituitary and pineal glands in the center of the skull. This corresponds to our visionary and intuitive wisdom potential though the sixth Chakra. It is through this incredible process that heaven meets earth in the center of the spine. The divine polarity is harmonized through a unified field and the seer and the seen become one.
This dormant sacred technology, from the Yogic perspective, is the inborn capability of every single human being, and is the natural unfolding of our evolutionary process. The is the anatomy of the subtle bodies, and the alchemical union of matter and spirit.
The movement to erase this sacred polarity, that there is no seer and seen, no Shiva and Jiva, no Shiva and Shakti, no masculine and feminine, no matter and spirit, is a grave misunderstanding and a dangerous error, in my feeling. When we exile the experience of sacred polarity, of the divine masculine and feminine aspects of the self - and within the manifest world - we shut down the very technology that is meant to liberate us. As above, so below, as within, so without. This sacred polarity exists as an aspect within every mystery tradition, and within all earth wisdom teachings. In extracting ourselves from this divine code, this sacred geometry, this blueprint of awakening, we cut off our own ability to become the co-creators of our deepest dreams, to experience heaven and earth in the cells of the body, and within this blessed reality.
For even in the illusion of separation there is divinity - and that is the great spiritual work - to know, to see, and to feel the hand of the divine in our world in the here and in the now.