A friend of mine recently posted this video on Facebook, and it gave me the chills. It's such a timely message for women (and men) of all ages. This video demonstrates one of the primary ideals that we, as women, continue to buy into, allowing for our own suppression. The false sense of worth through beauty is a pattern we women must free ourselves of if we are to reclaim our true feminine power. (I recommend the book The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf).
But what does all of this have to do with yoga?
The Sanskrit work "yog" means "to join." The ultimate aim of yoga is to create unity, beginning with oneself and then bringing that unity into the world. Earth-based religions, such as Tantra (which Yoga stems from), create unity and open-heartedness through the worship of the Goddess: the Divine Mother and source of all creation.
Matriarchal societies, where the lineage is passed down through the mother, are inherently peaceful and suppression of either gender is unnecessary. However, in patriarchal societies (such as ours), women and her creative capacities are feared...and therefore must be suppressed, possessed, controlled, and contained in order to ensure the blood line. Consider the old Indian saying: "When a father says this is my son, that is faith; when a mother says it, that's knowledge."
Honoring the Goddess within all women has the capacity to unify and transform society as we know it. The Dalai Lama, who calls himself a feminist, stated that "the world will be saved by the western woman." If this to happen, we women need to stop distracting ourselves with this "pretty" nonsense and begin loving and owning our natural, intrinsic beauty.
And for the men reading this: check out Arjuna Ardagh's Why it is Wise to Worship a Woman--written by a man ;)
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