The old pot and its lid

the Woman does not exist

(Jacques Lacan)

Let me first start by saying that in this modest essay on gender and its psychological parallels, I am talking as a psychologist and a psychoanalytic thinker first of all. That means, that when I say the woman, I do not mean really a physical woman, you know, without a penis and having some breasts and such. And when I say the man, I do not necessarily mean a physical man, thus, without the breasts and with the penis.

I do however mean to say that in this world, the differences between the psychological masculine and feminine are reflected in the ways we organize authority, and the faith we put foremost in men.

However, it be noted that there are men who may be more feminine than some women, and women who may be more masculine than some men. For reasons of simplicity, a trait to which the world and its organization seems to testify anyway, I think it can be safe to talk of the male and female people as being representations of their respective roles, functions and positions in the human psychodynamic, and I will make up this essay in that line of thought.

But it be noted, that this is talking in general stereotypes, which is only appropriate of course, to keep things simple. Bear with me.

The point of departure, for this little text, was the dream I have described in my previous post, called 'Englishman in New York'.

In this dream, the whole central theme of the matter was, that the beings in my dream were convinced of the fact that they existed for real, even though I clearly told them they were only parts of my dream.

This made me think of what it means, to exist, and why you would need to believe that you do.

An old professor of mine has written a book about existing, in line with his Lacanian upbringing, called 'Does the Woman exist?' It is a question that I find very attractive, so attractive that I am writing this text about the matter.

It is said that in the mind, in the workings of our inner linguistics, the Woman, which I will further just call the woman, does not have a representation. Lacan has called the mind the symbolic, and denotes it as the order of the phallus.

So in parallel with the physical absence of a penis, that woman lacks a signifier to symbolize and represent her. She is not represented in the mind. If anything, she appears as an absence, as a void, as something that is of the order of no-mind. Something without words.

I find this a very appealing and very inviting way to think, but of course, I am not looking at it from the western point of view, where everything is about the business of mind. I am looking it from the eastern perspective of nirvana, where the attainment of no-mind is a worthy goal.

So in this perspective, being absent is in fact a highly honorary position. It is not a lack, it is a blessing and a gift.

You see, the phallic symbolical is the realm of the secondary alienation. It is the realm of the rules the ego adopts as its reason and rationale for repressing the real of the original soul awareness. The mind consists of the rules for the repression.

If the woman does not have a place in the mind, and appears as a void of no-mind, this means she is there where there is no act of repression, where the ego does not exist or function.

We really have to be a little oriental in considering this, in order to get it right.

For it means that the woman is at the place of the pure functioning of the original soul awareness. She is situated in the real, and as such, she is the basis of every man’s psyche. She is the truth of man, that psychoanalysis aims to give birth to in its talking cure, beyond the repressions held up by the instance of the ego.

So to say that the woman does not exist, is really saying she is functioning as the healer. She is not part of the repression.

She is part of the rebellion.

The uprising.

For we can characterize, as we have done many times before, the ego as the shadow, as the dark force. It first installs itself in a primal repression of the soul light in the mirror stage, and from there, it will choose from the field of the Other, the phallic symbolical, a mold for the personality it wants the body to portray. The soul, identified with and as such repressed by the shadow, the image of the body, is darkened for ages by this instance, operating by the logic of the mind it has adopted.

However, it is a rule of the psychodynamic and a universal truth, that the light of the soul is able to dispel the authority of the shadow. When the light of awareness is cast on the repression, the ego melts and fades away.

This means very much. For we identify with the ego, and the ego, having seduced us into this identification from an early age, will fear to die and disappear if the light continues to gain strength. And really, and sadly, through this identification, we as human beings may fear that it is us, the actual body, who will die from the light we cast upon our shadow.

We may prefer not to.

We may howl with the devil, and prefer to keep things dark and hidden.

When psychoanalysis is asking us if the woman exists, it is an important question. It is a question with more than ethical implications.

For I think the real question is if we want the woman to exist.

Does the ego, which we believe is our existence itself, want the light to shine, and shine upon it?

The answer of the male, which is thus the ego, the present one in the mind, is 'certainly not'.

There can be no woman, for the woman is known intuitively as the end of man. Intuitively, and rightly so.

The light is the end of the shadow, awareness is the end of fear.

The living soul implies the end of repression, the end of restriction, the end of the notion of the veto.

That is why the ego, by its logical position, must constantly defend itself against the light.

If awareness were to be, if the original spirit were fully alive, there could be no repression.

The male simply could not exist in no-mind, and without the ego, without the self, there is only no-mind to be left.

If you want to laugh at it, you could say that letting the woman exist, would turn all men into women. It would eat their phalli away and devour their egos alive. Like light cast on a shadow.

Gone, would be the male.

So psychoanalysis, what does she do? Does she choose the side of encouraging this growing of awareness, or does she side with patriarchy?

Unfortunately, it is my feeling and frustration, that she tends to defend the ego, even though it is in fact an illusion, and says that this illusion should be kept alive. Even though principally, she should be siding with awareness, raising the light, making the repressed conscious. It is my frustration.

Hey psychoanalysis!

Which side are you on?

Should we get it up, should we keep it down?

You even know what you want?

I mean, isn’t the end of repression a desirable cause? The end of the death of things, the reigning of eternal life and truth. The end of the killing powers of illusion.

It is in fact a matter of the point of view, perhaps the point of insight.

In the west, we rely heavily on our brains, on our egos and our minds.

In the east, people say this is a curse. It is suffering, and nirvana is no-mind.

Nirvana, is where the woman exists.

And where man cannot enter, unless he drops his self-image, the phallus of his illusions.

Still, men also seek this death of the small self, this shedding of the mind, in acts of sexuality. But it is a restricted and limited form of sexuality, it is a restrained and repressed form of the divine practice of attaining bliss.

Eros is surrender, for the male as well. Letting go of control and finding salvation, letting the female inside be, the breath, the blessing, the feeling, the creative ecstasies of emptiness.

So when psychoanalysis is asking the question if the woman does exist, I think in fact we should be asking:

may the woman exist?

No!

Should she?

Yes!

The only way is to rule our sexuality, to incorporate the death of self in our regulations of the mind. Repress it, let it shine, but not all the time and never too bright.

In the end, patriarchy is fighting its own salvation. This is as irrationally human as defending your own fears and fighting to keep your limitations alive.

The repression of sexuality, the woman, is nothing but resistance, which psychoanalysis shows us as the root of human psychopathology and suffering.

And the west is often pointing hypocritically at the religion of Islam, where women are truly repressed and overshadowed, and sexuality is kept under a tight lid. But it is not just Islam, it is other religions as well. It is the socio-economic repression of women, who earn less for doing the same work, or nothing at all for all the work they put into the household and housekeeping. It is the political repression, where women are less represented in positions of power and authority.

Women are kept away from positions of work and leadership, because we are still choosing the side of fear. We are choosing the logic of the symbolico-imaginary over the magic of the soul.

This is just the way things are, I guess. The ego and the mind are overshadowing the light of true creativity.

So it is a sensible question, with far reaching implications. Do we consent to the arrangement where the soul does not have a say in our ego-reality, or do we learn to surrender, do we start to seek salvation, as a race?

Do we choose the certainty of fear, or do we dare to explore and venture into the territory of our unspoken intelligence and truth?

Psychoanalysis, as a practice and a cure, is choosing exploration, in defiance of the fear.

Psychoanalysis is progressive.

And with this practical answer, no matter what contradiction she holds within her theory where she may be preaching conservativity, she is showing us what progress means.

Perhaps, you know, psychoanalysis is a little bit afraid herself.

Afraid to be radically political, and lose the schizophrenic position she now occupies between the physical actions she is undertaking, and the opposite she claims to be thinking.

Perhaps she should say, I act progressively, in exploration of the unconscious and the defiance of fears, and I believe the ego should not be kept a friend. It should be defied, and it should be overcome time and time again.

How can she say the ego is your best friend?

How can psychoanalysis, of all disciplines, say that?

When all she is in fact doing, is trying to win and win and win again from it?

So the male is not your friend.

A little soul is what you need.

A little lose-your-mind.

If you have the guts for it.

Explore.

Surrender.

Find your bliss.

Forget about yourself for a moment, that is where salvation starts.

That is where the other half of your planet lives.

Perhaps, in the end, it is the woman who exists, and the male, the ego with its mind, is simply an illusion.

We believe we exist, as instances of control, as actors of repression, as beings of the no, but really all there is is the big smile and the giant yes of the Mother.

And I hope that it may touch you.

After all, the question is maybe to be turned around: does the male exist? Or is the ego with its accompanying mind but mere illusion? And the question is how can the male survive, in the presence of the female? How can a shadow persist in hanging over the light? And how can this, as Freud suggested, be a never-ending state of being?

I think it cannot and it will not.

When repression finally yields.

Nirvana is born and bliss is everywhere.

The question is how beings of darkness can persist in a world full of light.

How can they live, and how can they be real?

I guess by trying very hard in an endless spirit of war and defense.

In full fear of surrender.

In ignorance of magic, in separation from creation.

In having lost the Way.

It is such a pity, and I do not understand.

I simply cannot understand how that would be sane and logical.

Logical, yes, perhaps, in its own way, but in no way is it healthy.

In no way is this sanity.

It is insane and it is unbelievable.

In the end, it is just stupid.

Fear.

Have you been born yet, and are you alive?

It still remains an important question.

I think we are out of touch with nature, and I think we should stop killing our Mother.

But that is of course only my opinion.

If you believe the source of your being exists to be possessed, then you should live in that fashion.

But you must forgive me for questioning your ways if they appear somewhat self-destructive to me.

I have the best of intentions, I am only trying to draw out a way, in words if that is what you will take, a way home and a road to common sanity.

A vision of health and a course of collective healing.

Perhaps man is like a fearful horse, afraid and reluctant to be touched.

How can you approach him, how can you come close and earn his trust?

How can you bring him to surrender?

How can you relax the fearful state of mind, ruled by the sense of self, forever guarded by the ego?

It is the question of technique.

With patience, with rectification, with truth and insight?

With debate?

Negotiation?

It is such a pity, that it must be such a fight.

With horses that seem to never surrender.

They just don’t trust the world, they have no faith in the laws of nature.

If anything, they fight them, and try to make laws of their own.

Will they bring forth life?

It seems like perhaps they are bringing forth the end and impossibility of life, light and the ways of the loving soul of awareness.

But let us revisit Freud, and let us see, that we must choose to fight for our consciousness, we must challenge the instance of fear, we must believe that our light can shine, and we must stand strong in fighting for it to do so.

Our light is our life, our soul is our essence and our spirit is truth.

And One Mother, is all we have.

So let us cherish Her, let us cherish truth, let us cherish our native spirit and raise our true awareness.

Let us free ourselves from the deception of illusions, and let us ride free like the wind, let us flow free like the rivers, and let us soar free like a bird on the winds of change.

And let us, as analysts, say no to repression and yes to a soul full of eternal life.

Tat tvam asi.

Thou art that.

The Mother is within.

No self, no mind.

Just the being.

Peace.