Part V
THE NEED FOR MALE AND FEMALE
INCARNATIONS
THOUGH the facilities afforded by each sex vary according to the age and place in which the incarnation occurs, nevertheless each sex affords special facilities for the development of experience along specific lines. Facilities of male and female forms The lessons readily learned in male incarnations may not be easily attainable through female incarnations, and the lessons readily learned in female incarnations may not be easily attainable in male incarnations. As a rule, men excel in qualities of the head and will. They are capable of sound judgment and steadfast purpose. As a rule, women excel in qualities of the heart. They are capable of intense love which makes them welcome any sacrifice for the loved one. It is due to this capacity of women for love that, in devotional references, the name of the female has invariable precedence, as when the Bhaktas sing of Radha-Krishna or Sita-Ram. In qualities of the heart women are usually superior to men, and in qualities of the head and will men are usually superior to women. The interesting point is that the same soul excels in the qualities
of the heart, or in the qualities of the head and will, according to whether it takes an incarnation in a female or male form. The alternate development of specific spiritual qualities goes on through the alternation between the male and female forms, until the development is all-sided.
Since male and female incarnations are equally necessary for self-knowledge, it is not right to look upon one as being more important than the other. Male and female incarnations equally necessary Though there are differences between the nature of the respective facilities afforded by them, they are both indispensable. The soul must go through male incarnations as well as female incarnations if it is to have that richness of experience which is a condition of attaining the realisation that the soul, in itself, is beyond all forms of duality, including the accentuated duality based on sex.
Male and female incarnations supplement each other Before the soul is set free from all
sanskaras it assumes numerous male forms and numerous female forms. If the soul were to incarnate only in the male forms or only in the female forms its experience would remain one-sided and incomplete. The duality of experience can be overcome only through understanding, and the understanding of experience is only partial as long as it moves within the limits of only one of the two opposites.
Unity of the subject and object of experience is unattainable as long as there is in the object any aspect or element which is not fully covered by one’s own experience, and this applies particularly to sex-duality.
Division of psyche The psyche of the soul retains the gathered experience of male and female incarnations. Since the soul identifies itself with the body, the psychological tendencies which harmonise with
