This book has been sitting patiently on my shelf for two years now. I finally started reading Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee’s book Fragments of a Love Story last night. It has been a while since I read anything on Sufism. Just two pages into reading and one of his quote’s flashed before my eyes:
God, the great Beloved, is neither masculine nor feminine (pg.2).
I have always known this as truth. I grew up with this truth. To me, God has no form, no shape, no gender, no image, and yes, this god of mine sounds more like the definition of consciousness as defined by consciousness studies scholars, philosophers, and mystics alike.
Things get a bit confusing when we keep hearing things like the divine feminine is rising… it sort of instills this idea of a gendered deity. Whether male or female, masculine or feminine. Do we really want to replace the idea of a divine masculine god in the sky with a divine feminine that rises from the dead?
God is genderless. In Surat Al Ikhlas, Allah or God is refered to as male : huwaهُوَ , this is because the pronoun it does not exist in the Arabic language.
| رَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيم | bi-smi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm | In the name of Allah , the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful. | |
| 112.1. | قُلْ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ | qul huwa llāhu ʾaḥad | Say, “He is Allah , [who is] One, |
|---|---|---|---|
| 112.2. | ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ | allāhu ṣ-ṣamad | Allah , the Eternal Refuge. |
| 112.3. | لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ | lam yalid wa-lam yūlad | He neither begets nor is born, |
| 112.4. | وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُۥ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌۢ |
*table from wikipedia
The Sura I just quoted actually describes God or Allah as non-local, non- dual, non-human, and eternal.
One of my favorite metaphysical books of all time, that I reference over and over is The Kybalion.
The Kybalion speaks of the seven laws of the universe, or the way in which the universe operates. This is the physical, manifest world we are in, not the hidden worlds behind form. One of these laws is that gender exists in everything. Gender is in everything, in the mind, in nature, in energy, and in our physicality.
Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles Gender. manifests on all planes.
If we take a non-dual stance, and adopt the idea that we are all one interconnected being (God, Allah, Great Spirit, consciousness…etc….) on the subtle levels, this being is manifesting in this physical world as individuals. Then everything in the physical world must apply to this universal law and yet that which is not manifest, that which is beyond the veil, where the eye cannot see, the law of gender does not apply. All souls are genderless. All light beings are genderless.
Everything is made of both feminine and masculine energies, vibrations or frequencies. The ratios may differ but where there is feminine there needs to be masculine and where there is masculine there needs to be feminine, except on the subtle level this no longer holds true. Consciousness is genderless.
I am just going on a hunch here, and a humble attempt at an interpretation…
This remains one of the greater mysteries of our entire existence really.
Let’s have a conversation, if you have some insights and thoughts please do share.