Music distinguishes essences as such and does not, like poetry, distinguish their degrees of manifestation. Music can express the quality of ’fire’ without being able to specify - since it is not objective - whether it is question of visible fire, of passion, of fervour or the flame of mystic love, or of the universal fire - of angelic essence - from which all these expressions are derived. Music expresses all this at one and the same time when it gives voice to the spirit of fire, and it is for this reason that some hear the voice of passion and others the corresponding spiritual function angelic or Divine. Music is capable of presenting countless combinations and modes of these essences by means of secondary differentiations and characteristics of melody and rhythm. It should be added that rhythm is more essential than melody, since it represents the principial or masculine determination of musical language, whereas melody is its expansive and feminine substance. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

When the arts are enumerated the art of dress is too often forgotten though it none the less has an importance as great, or almost as great, as architecture. Doubtless no civilization has ever produced summits in every field. Thus the Arab genius, made up of virility and resignation, has produced a masculine dress of unsurpassed nobility and sobriety, whereas it has neglected feminine dress, which is destined in Islam, not to express the ’eternal feminine’ as does Hindu dress, but to hide woman’s seductive charms. The Hindu genius, which in a certain sense divinizes the ’wife-mother’, has on the other hand created a feminine dress unsurpassable in its beauty, its dignity and its femininity. One of the most expressive and one of the least-known forms of dress is that of the Red Indians, with its rippling fringes and its ornaments of a wholly primordial symbolism; here man appears in all the solar glory of the hero, and woman in the proud modesty of her impersonal function. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

There are two aspects to every symbol: the first of these adequately reflects the Divine function and so constitutes the sufficient reason for the symbolism; the other consists simply of the reflection as such and is therefore contingent. The first of these aspects is the content, while the second is the mode of its manifestation. When we say ’femininity’, we have no need to consider the possible modes of expression of the feminine principle; it is not the species, race or individual that matters, only the feminine quality. It is the same with every symbolism: thus the sun on the one hand presents a content, which is its luminosity, its caloricity, its central position and its immutability in relation to the planets; and on the other hand it presents a mode of manifestation, namely its matter, its density and its spatial limitation. It is clearly the qualities of the sun and not its limitations which manifest something of God. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

Being absolute, the supreme Principle is ipso facto infinite; the masculine body accentuates the first aspect, and the feminine body, the second. On the basis of these two hypostatic aspects, the divine Principle is the source of all possible perfection, this is to say that, being the Absolute and the Infinite, It is necessarily also Perfection or the Good. Now each of the two bodies, the masculine and the feminine , manifests modes of perfection by definition evoked by their respective sex; all cosmic qualities are divided in fact into two complementary groups: the rigorous and the gentle, the active and the passive, the contractive and the expansive. The human body, as we have said, is an image of Deliverance: now the liberating Way may be either "virile" or "feminine," although it is not possible to have a strict line of demarcation between the two modes for man (homo, anthropos) is always man; the non-material being that was the primordial androgyne, survives in each of us. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

With all deference to certain ancient moralists who had difficulty reconciling femininity with deiformity, it is nonetheless quite clear that the latter essentially implies the former, and this for simply logical as well as metaphysical reasons. Even without knowing that femininity derives from an "Eternal Feminine" of transcendent order, one is obliged to take note of the fact that woman, being situated like the male in the human state, is deiform because this state is deiform. Thus it is not astonishing that a tradition as "misogynist" as Buddhism finally consented - within the Mahayâna at least - to make use of the symbolism of the feminine body, which would be meaningless and even harmful if this body, or if femininity in itself, did not comprise a spiritual message of the first order; the Buddhas (and Bodhisattvas) do not save solely through doctrine, but also through their suprahuman beauty, according to the Tradition; now who says beauty, says implicitly femininity; the beauty of the Buddha is necessarily that of Mâyâ or of Tara. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

There is yet another reason for the antifeminine ostracism of certain traditional perspectives, apart from the question of qualification for a given yoga deemed unique, namely the idea that the male alone is the whole man. There are two ways in fact of situating the sexes, either in a horizontal or in a vertical sense: according to the first perspective, man would be to the right and woman to the left; according to the second, man would be above and woman below. On the one hand, man reflects Atmâ according to Absoluteness, and woman reflects it according to Infinitude; on the other hand, man alone is Atmâ and woman is Mâyâ; [NA: In the various Scriptures there are passages which would allow one to believe that this is so, but which have to be understood in the light of other passages which remove their exclusive quality. As is known, sacred Books proceed, not by nuanced formulations, but by antinomic affirmations; as it is impossible to accuse them of contradiction, it is necess ary to draw the consequences that their antinomianism imposes.] but the second conception is relatively true only on condition that one also accepts the first; now the first conception takes precedence over the second, for the fact that woman is human clearly takes precedence over the fact that she is not a male. [NA: The Shâstras teach that women who serve their husbands seeing in them their God, attain a masculine rebirth and then attain Deliverance, which evidently relates to the maximal mode of the minimal possibility for woman.] The observation that specifically virile spiritual methods are scarcely suited to the feminine psychism becomes dogmatic in virtue of the second perspective which we have just mentioned; and one could perhaps also make the point that social conventions, in the traditional surroundings in question here, tend to create - at least on the surface - the feminine type that fits them ideologically and practically; humanity is so made that a social anthropology is never a perfect good, that it is on the contrary always a "lesser evil," or in any case an approximation. [NA: As for Hinduism, it is appropriate to take into account the fact that, in this ambience, the concern for purity and the protection of things sacred is extreme, sacerdotal pedantism accomplishing the rest and this in respect of woman as well as human categories deemed impure. However, and this proves the prodigious "pluralism" of the Hindu spirit: "A mother is more venerable than a thousand fathers" (Mânava Dharma Shâstra, II, 145); and similarly, in Tantrism: "Whosoever sees the sole of a woman’s foot, let him consider it as that of the spiritual master" (guru) (Kubjika-Tantra).] sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

It is one of the paradoxes of Buddhism that even the Amidist way, although founded on Mercy and the "power of the Other" - not upon metaphysical meditation and the "power of oneself"- accepted, through pure conventionalism and without insisting thereon, this idea of woman having to be reborn as man; this is all the more contradictory in that the Mahayâna - in Lamaism above all - has peopled its pantheon with feminine Divinities. The same paradox exists in Hinduism, mutatis mutandis, wherein one of the greatest personalities of Shivaism is a woman, Laila Yògishwari; it is unthinkable that a "masculine body" would add anything whatever to her from the point of view of spiritual wholeness. [NA: Let us also mention Maitreyi, wife of the rishi Yajnavalkya, who, according to the Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad  , "knew how to speak of Brahma," whereas the second wi fe of the sage " had scarcely more than the spirit of a woman"; and similarly the feminine rishis Apalâ and Visvavâra, both of whom revealed Vedic hymns; or the queen Chudala, wife and guru of the king Shikhidhwaja, who according to the Yoga-Vasishtha had " realized Atmâ."] sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

What we have just said results moreover from the bodily form: first of all, the feminine body is far too perfect and spiritually too eloquent to be no more than a kind of transitory accident; and then, due to the fact that it is human, it communicates in its own way the same message as the masculine body, namely, we repeat, the absolutely Real and thereby the victory over the "round of births and deaths;" thus the possibility of leaving the world of illusion and suffering. The animal, which can manifest perfections but not the Absolute, is like a closed door, as it were enclosed in its own perfection; whereas man is like an open door allowing him to escape his limits, which are those of the world rather than his own. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

There is not only the beauty of the adult, there is also that of the child as our mention of the Child Jesus suggests. First of all, it must be said that the child, being human, participates in the same symbolism and in the same aesthetic expressivity as do his parents - we are speaking always of man as such and not of particular individuals - and then, that childhood is nevertheless a provisional state and does not in general have the definitive and representative value of maturity. [NA: But it can when the individual value of the child visibly over rides his state of immaturity; notwithstanding the fact that childhood is in itself an incomplete state which points towards its own completion.] In metaphysical symbolism, this provisional character expresses relativity: the child is what "comes after" his parents, he is the reflection of Atmâ in Mâyâ, to some degree and according to the ontological or cosmological level in view; or it is even Mâyâ itself if the adult is Atmâ. [NA: Polarized into "Necessary Being" and "All-Possibility."] But from an altogether different point of view, and according to inverse analogy, the key to which is given by the seal of Solomon, [NA: When a tree is mirrored in a lake, its top is at the bottom, but the image is always that of a tree; the analogy is inverse in the first relationship and parallel in the second. Analogies between the divine order and the cosmic order always comprise one or the other of these relationships.] the child represents on the contrary what "was before," namely what is simple, pure, innocent, primordial and close to the Essence, and this is what its beauty expresses; [NA: We do not say that every human individual is beautiful when he is a child, but we start from the idea that man, child or not, is beautiful to the extent that he is physically what he ought to be.] this beauty has all the charm of promise, of hope and of blossoming, at the same time as that of a Paradise not yet lost; it combines the proximity of the Origin with the tension towards the Goal. And it is for that reason that childhood constitutes a necessary aspect of the integral man, therefore in conformity with the divine Intention: the man who is fully mature always keeps, in equilibrium with wisdom, the qualities of simplicity and freshness, of gratitude and trust, that he possessed in the springtime of his life. [NA: "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." (Matthew 18:3)] Since we have just mentioned the principle of inverse analogy, we may here connect it with its application to femininity: even though a priori femininity is subordinate to virility, it also comprises an aspect which makes it superior to a given aspect of the masculine pole; for the divine Principle has an aspect of unlimitedness, virginal mystery and maternal mercy which takes precedence over a certain more relative aspect of determination, logical precision and implacable justice. [NA: According to Tacitus, the Germans discerned something sacred and visionary in women. The fact that in German the sun (die Sonne) is feminine whereas the moon (der Mond) is masculine, bears witness to the same perspective.] Seen thus, feminine beauty appears as an initiatic wine in the face of the rationality represented in certain respects by the masculine body. [NA: Mahâyanic art represents Prajnâpâramitâ, the "Perfection of Gnosis," in feminine form; likewise, Prajnâ, liberating Knowledge, appears as a woman in the face of Upâya, the doctrinal system or the art of convincing, which is represented as masculine. The Buddhists readily point out that the Bodhisattvas, in themselves asexual, have the power to take a feminine form as they do any other form; now one would like to know for what reason they do so, for if the feminine form can produce such a great good, it is because it is intrinsically good; otherwise there would be no reason for a Bodhisattva to assume it.] sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

A priori, virility refers to the Principle, and femininity to Manifestation; but in an altogether different respect, that of complementarity in divinis, the masculine body expresses Transcendence, and the feminine body, Immanence; the latter being near to Love, and the former to Knowledge. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

Much could be said concerning the abstract and concrete symbolism of the different regions or parts of the body. A symbolism is abstract inasmuch as it signifies a principial reality; it is concrete inasmuch as it communicates the nature of this reality, that is, makes it present to our experience. One of the most salient characteristics of the human body is the breast, which is a solar symbol, with an accentuation differing according to sex: noble and glorious radiation in both cases, but manifesting power in the first case and generosity in the second; the power and generosity of pure Being. [NA: The ritual dance of the dervishes - setting aside the variety of its forms - is often designat ed by the term dhikr assadr " remembrance (of God) by the breast," which evokes this verse of the Koran  : "Have We (God) not expanded thy breast?" (Sura Alam Nashrah, 1) Koranic language moreover establishes a relationship between the acceptance of Islam - as " resignation" or " abandon" (islam) to the divine Will - and dilation of the breast; calm and deep respiration expressing truth, peace, happiness.] The heart is the center of man, and the breast is so to speak the face of the heart: and since the heart-intellect comprises both Knowledge and Love, it is plausible that in the human body this polarization manifests itself by the complementarity of the masculine and feminine breasts. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

Let us return now to the question of traditional misogynist viewpoints: Buddhism, as we have noted, is es sentially a masculine, abstract, negative, ascetic and heroic spirituality, at least a priori and in its broad outlines; the feminine body must appear to it as the very embodiment of seduction and thereby of samsâra, of the round of births and deaths. But here we are in the presence of that inverse analogy to which we referred above: what pulls downward is in this case what, in reality, lies above; and femininity, inasmuch as it seduces and binds, has this aspect precisely because it offers, in itself and in the intention of the Creator, an image of liberating Bliss; now a reflection is always "something" of what it reflects, which amounts to saying that it "is" this reality in an indirect mode and on the plane of contingency. This is what the Buddhists grasped in the framework of Mahayanic esoterism - the Tibetans and the Mongols above all - and it is this which permitted them to introduce into their sanctuaries nude Târâs and Dakinis in gilded bronze; the corporeal theophany of feminine type being intended to actualize in the faithful the remembrance of the merciful and beatific dimension of Bodhi and of Nirvana. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

What is true for a certain Buddhism is true a priori for Hinduism, the sacred art of which exposes and accentuates the message of both human bodies, the masculine and the feminine: message of ascending and unitive verticality in both cases, certainly, but in rigorous, transcendent, objective, abstract, rational and mathematical mode in the first case, and in gentle, immanent, concrete, emotional and mus ical mode in the second. On the one hand, a path centered on the metaphysical Idea and Rigor, and on the other hand, a way centered on the sacramental Symbol and Gentleness; not to mention diverse combinations of the two perspectives, temperaments or methods, for the absolute male cannot exist any more than can the absolute female, given that there is but one sole anthropos. Thus, there are spiritualities, and even religions, which could be qualified as "feminine," without this character signifying that their adepts lose anything whatever of their virility; [NA: In Krishnaism, the masculine adepts consider themselves as gopis, lovers   of Krishna, which is all the more plausible in that in relation to the Divinity every creature has something feminine about it.] and the converse is equally true, for there have been women in paths which are the least representative of their mentality; both possibilities seem sufficiently evident so as to dispense us from entering into the meanders of this paradox. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

Christian theology, by concerning itself with sin and seeing a seductress in Eve in particular and in woman in general, has been led to evaluate the feminine sex with a maximum of pessimism. According to some, it is man alone and not woman who was made in the image of God, whereas the Bible affirms, not only that God created man in His image, but also that "male and female created He them", which has been misinterpreted with much ingenuity.... A first proof — if proof be needed — that woman is divine image like man, is that in fact she is a human being like him; she is not vir or anër, but like him she is homo or anthropos; her form is human and consequently divine. Another proof — but a glance ought to suffice — resides in the fact that, in relation to man and on the erotic plane, woman assumes an almost divine function — similar to the one which man assumes in relation to woman — which would be impossible if she did not incarnate, not the quality of absoluteness, to be sure, but the complementary quality of infinitude; the Infinite being in a certain fashion the shakti of the Absolute.[Esoterism as Principle and as Way, p.135-136]. sophiaperennis: Femininity

[In Hindu shaktism] ... femininity is what surpasses the formal, the finite, the outward; it is synonymous with indetermination, illimitation, mystery, and thus evokes the "Spirit which giveth life" in relation to the "letter which killeth." That is to say that femininity in the superior sense comprises a liquefying, interiorizing, liberating power: it liberates from sterile hardnesses, from the dispersing outwardness of limiting and compressing forms. On the one hand, one can oppose feminine sentimentality to masculine rationality — on the whole and without forgetting the relativity of things — but on the other hand, one also opposes to the reasoning of men the intuition of women; now it is this gift of intuition, in superior women above all, that explains and justifies in large part the mystical promotion of the feminine element; it is consequently in this sense that Haqiqah, esoteric Knowledge, may appear as feminine. [Roots of the Human Condition, p. 40-41] sophiaperennis: Femininity

Every religion necessarily integrates the feminine element — the "eternal feminine"(das Ewig Weibliche) if one will — into its system, either directly or indirectly; Christianity in practice deifies the Mother of Christ, despite exoteric reservations, namely the distinction between latria and hyperdulia. Islam for its part, and beginning with the Prophet, has consecrated femininity, on the basis of a metaphysics of deiformity; the secrecy surrounding woman, symbolized in the veil, basically signifies an intention of consecration. In Moslem eyes, woman, beyond her purely biological and social role, incarnate two poles, unitive "extinction" and "generosity", and these constitute from the spiritual point of view two means of overcoming the profane mentality, made as it is of outwardness, dispersion, egoism, hardness and boredom. The nobleness of soul that is or can be gained by this interpretation or utilization of the feminine element, far from being an abstract ideal, is perfectly recognizable in representative Moslems, those still rooted in authentic Islam. [NA: It is always this we have in view, and not so-called "revivals" which monstrously combine a Moslem formalism with modernist ideologies and tendencies.] [In the Face of the Absolute, p. 227-228]. sophiaperennis: Femininity

In Islam, woman is not regarded under her malefic aspect, since she is not involved in the fall of Adam; it is Iblis alone who causes the fall of the first couple and their exile from the earthly Paradise. In the conception of Jannah, "Garden" or Paradise, woman is spiritualized, not by virtue of an exceptional function analogous to that of "Co-Redemptress", but simply as the instrument of love, in the form of the Huris, "the gazelle-eyed"; besides, traditional Christian iconography nearly always represents angels with feminine features. It would be easy to give other and quite varied examples of the beatific symbolism of woman, for instance: Sita and Radha; the goddess Kali in the bhakti of Shri Ramakrishna; the wives of David  , Solomon, Muhammad  ; the knights’ ladies, such as Beatrice in the life and work of Dante  . [The Eye of the Heart, p. 95, note 1.] sophiaperennis: Femininity

The profound explanation of the myths of the "sinful" woman, "prisoner" of chthonic powers, "ravished" by a demon, "swallowed" by the earth, or even become infernal — Eve, Eurydice, Sita, Izanami, according to case — this explanation doubtless is to be fond in the scission between the male demiurge and the female demiurge, or between the center and the periphery of the cosmos; this periphery being envisaged then, not as the cosmic substance as such, which remains virgin in relation to its production, but as the totality of these productions; for it is the accidents, and not the substance, which comprise "evil" in all its forms. But, aside from the fact that the substance remains virgin even while being mother, it is redeemed at the very level of its exteriorization through its positive contents, which are in principle sacramental and saving; symbolically speaking, if "woman" was lost through choosing "matter" or the "world", she was redeemed — and is redeemed — through giving birth to the Avatara. And besides, "everything is Atma"; and "it is not for the love of the husband (or of the wife or the son) that the husband (or the wife or the son) is dear, but for the love of Atma which in him". That is, the feminine element — the Substance — is by definition a mirror of the Essence, despite its exteriorizing and alienating function; moreover, a mirror is necessarily separated from what it reflects, and therein lies its ambiguity. [Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, p.53-54]. sophiaperennis: Femininity

... one can make as much use as one likes of the fact that Eve’s sin was to call Adam to the adventure of outwardness, but one cannot forget that the function of Mary was the opposite and that this function also enters into the possibility of the feminine spirit. Nethertheless the spiritual mission of woman will never be linked with a revolt against man... [Esoterism as Principle and as Way, p.142]. sophiaperennis: Femininity

... Rûmi considers, with finesse and profundity and not without humor, that the sage is conquered by woman whereas the fool conquers her: for the latter is brutalized by his passion, and does not know the barakah of love and delicate sentiments, whereas the sage sees in the lovable woman a ray from God, and in the feminine body an image of creative Power. [Sufism, Veil and Quintessence, p. 69, note 19]. sophiaperennis: Femininity

... the feminine body is far too perfect and spiritually too eloquent to be no more than a kind of transitory accident. [From the Divine to the Human, p. 91] sophiaperennis: Femininity

... the message of both human bodies, the masculine and the feminine: message of ascending and unitive verticality in both cases, certainly, but in rigorous, transcendent, objective, abstract, rational and mathematical mode in the first case, and in gentle, immanent, concrete, emotional and musical mode in the second. From the Divine to the Human, p.100. sophiaperennis: Femininity

One of the most salient characteristics of the human body is the breast, which is a solar symbol, with an accentuation differing according to sex: noble and glorious radiation in both cases, but manifesting power in the first case and generosity in the second; the power and generosity of pure Being. The heart is the center of man, and the breast is so to speak the face of the heart: and since the heart-intellect comprises both Knowledge and Love, it is plausible that in the human body this polarization manifests itself by the complementarity of the masculine and feminine breasts. [From the Divine to the Human, p. 94-95] sophiaperennis: Femininity

The human being is compounded of geometry and music, of spirit and soul, of virility and femininity: by geometry, he brings the chaos of existence back to order, that is, he brings blind substance back to its ontological meaning and thus constitutes a reference point between Earth and Heaven, a "sign-post" pointing towards God; by music he brings the segmentation of form back to unitive life, reducing form, which is death, to Essence — at least symbolically and virtually — so that it vibrates with a joy which is at the same time a nostalgia for the Infinite. As symbols, the masculine body indicates a victory of the Spirit over chaos, and the feminine body, a deliverance of form by Essence; the first is like a magic sign which would subjugate the blind forces of the Universe, and the second like celestial music which would give back to fallen matter its paradisiac transparency, or which, to use the language of Taoism, would make trees flower beneath the snow. [Stations of Wisdom, p. 80]. sophiaperennis: Femininity

Too often it is thought that woman is capable of objectivity and thus of disinterested logic only at the expense of her femininity, [NA: The feminists themselves — of both sexes — are convinced of this, at least implicitly and in practice, otherwise they would not aspire to the virilization of woman.] which is radically false; woman has to realize, not specifically masculine traits of course, but the normatively and primordially human qualities, which are obligatory for every human being; and this is independent of feminine psychology as such [NA: Legitimate feminine psychology results from the principal prototype of woman — from the universal Substance — as well as from the biological, moral and social functions which she personifies; and this implies the right to limitations, to weaknesses, if ones wishes, but not to faults. The human being is one thing, and the male is another; and it is a great pity that the two things have often been confused even in languages which — like Greek, Latin and German — make this distinction...]. [To Have a Center, page 7]. sophiaperennis: Femininity