Inner Male, Inner Female Experiments

The other day I was e-mailing with the genius behind this online magazine, Punya, and she expressed her curiosity about a subject which has long been a part of my therapy work, the inner male and female. Punya had taken part in one of my workshops in Miasto shortly after Osho left his body (quite a while ago), and she remembered that one side of her was the one who works, gets the money together, gets stressed out, and the other part was the artistic, more lazy, and relaxed part. She asked me, “I would love to know if this is still the same—how is it possible find out?”

Easy to find out

Easy. Write down on paper these six qualities of yours as a list, one underneath the other, e.g. “I’m working,” and underneath that, “I get the money together,” and so forth.

Cover one eye with your palm or a handkerchief (I use a blindfold) and let the other eye remain open. Let’s start with the right eye open and left eye closed. Your right eye is connected to the whole right side of the body, which is your male part, and when you make a statement this eye will know whether the statement is true. You’ll even see movements of the head or feel expressions on the face which indicate “Yes, true,” or “No, not true,” or “I don’t know.”

You read the first item on the list out loud: “I’m working.” Don’t be surprised if he (the male side) then says, “Actually I’m not working, if you mean at Osho News. I do some other things.” If he stops talking, just keep the conversation going—“Like what?” “Oh, I take care of the car, also driving; I skype with friends, I keep things functional in the flat…” Slowly you will get to know this guy, as you make your way through the six descriptive labels of yourself like “stressed out,” “relaxed,” “artistic,” etc.

When you finish, add this question: “What are your top three priorities in life?” Some characters, be they male or female, are putting their energy toward things they really care about, and some characters have no idea what their priorities are. Blank.

Now you try the same thing with the other eye open (right eye covered). The left eye belongs to the female, and it is connected to the whole left side of the body. “I’m working. …Oh, yes, that’s true, I’m really working, too much even.” Keep the conversation going. “Too much? If there was plenty of money, which of your activities would you go on with and which would drop away?” Whenever the female doesn’t want to continue with one subject, move to the next until all six are considered. At the end, ask her to give her priorities in life in order of importance 1, 2, and 3.

What to do with this information?

It’s really very easy to bring this kind of information out in the open, but it needs more skill to make an interpretation. If it turns out to be the case that one of Punya’s two sides is inactive, so-called lazy, I would conclude as an experienced listener, that the other side is dominant. This is because no-one ever calls themselves “lazy,” they call the other “lazy”—it’s a judgmental term coming from someone in a power position who wants the other different. Nobody is actually lazy. They may be inactive, but this is only because they haven’t yet discovered what ignites their passion. For various reasons they had no opportunity to come forward, hence they find themselves in an ineffectual, weak, or submissive position.

The dominant figure of the two fills up all the space and time with their own activities, and they even expect the other one to help them achieve their priorities. The submissive character sometimes complies but this only makes things worse. The submissive side eventually needs all of its energy for its own goals, not for the goals of the other.

Why? Because life is like riding a bicycle. There’s a certain rhythm in which each side has to put energy toward its own tasks. When the dominant side asks the weaker side for help, it’s like asking both legs to step down on one bike pedal at the same moment. Nobody remains to man the opposite pedal, and the bike falls down in a heap.

A submissive character that has given all its energy away to the dominant character—to help them push their pedal—will not have any priorities in life. He (if it’s a he) will never even have thought about the question. Instead, a dominant figure will have many things they want to achieve in life (let’s assume it’s a she), and you can listen to whether these priorities will lead to a life of love or a life of fear.

Let me give you a couple more lists

fear priorities
comfort
security
money
reputation
recognition
power

love priorities
knowing oneself
meditation
creativity
compassion
beauty
laughter, fun

Fear priorities decrease when you relax. Noticing that they decrease, you stop relaxing and start making efforts to keep them up to the level you want. This of course makes you tense, another word for “stressed out.” And you are constantly plagued by the fear that if you don’t keep the efforts up, you will lose what you are aiming towards.

Love priorities increase when you relax. Noticing that they increase, you relax even more. Effortlessly you are achieving what you hope to achieve.

When the dominant figure is living for love priorities, it can continue being the leader of both. Because it is loving, it wants the other side to grow, to expand, and supports in every way the other’s self-expression.

When the dominant figure is living for fear priorities, it doesn’t want the second side to grow stronger, to have its own things to do, and therefore to experience increased self-respect. In that case, this figure should not continue being the leader within the system. The weaker side, even though it is so small, can be shown how to find its inner source of love and to assume leadership, even if for the moment that leadership is only of itself. [Ed. note: Next month we will publish Sagarpriya’s other article The Survival Fear which gives an example of transferring authority to the weaker one.]

Interpretation and how to get more clarity

If it turns out again that one of Punya’s sides works, gets the money together, and is stressed out, while the other one is artistic, inactive (not lazy), and relaxed, she needs to find out more clearly what her submissive part actually wants to do in life. ‘Artistic’ and ‘relaxed’ would indicate that some love is there, but inactivity shows that it has been prevented from stepping on its own path.

The super-active part will need to reduce the space that it occupies in life. In the end it should be not more than 50%. This would give the other side a chance to experiment, to make mistakes, and get better at its new activity, whatever that might be. I don’t expect that Osho News would collapse. There are a lot of people who want it to go on, and a new authenticity and new sense of authority on the weaker side would attract them to come closer and perhaps even get involved.

As Punya knows already the techniques of Voice Dialogue and Gestalt, she could easily find out what’s happening between the two characters by herself. She could let each character speak in turn, let them express themselves, either to her or to the other polarity. Whatever they say might clarify what each part is longing for. Once this is evident, there is no need for anyone to be the loser; Punya would certainly figure out a good way to give space to the more neglected part.

In a personal Star Sapphire session

At the beginning of a Star Sapphire session about the inner male and female, I often make a kind of educated guess about what is going on. That is, I have a supposition or a hypothesis, based on my past experience with people, and then—like a detective, in a way—I watch the session unfold to see if I am right.

Usually it takes just a few seconds to formulate my initial guess, but this time it took us much longer because I had to explain things. In a real session, after listening to the client and having a “hunch,” I would go directly to the body, checking the energy by touching the two feet and then passing my hand over the seven charkas. This gives me information about where there is a loving presence in the body and also (usually) pictures of the male and female figures.

Then I interview the two eyes, using the blindfold to speak to one eye at a time. It is exactly the same process that you just went through, if you tried the proposed experiment, but in my case I know the best questions to ask because of information coming from the energy check. Rather than needing to know something new, I am more listening for whether the female and male parts are in touch with the truth that is deeper in the body.

And then, if it is appropriate, I arrange two chairs opposite each other, one for each character—male and female. Eventually these two people are going to talk to each other. But first I help my client to get an accurate (or relatively accurate) description of each one, which takes about ten minutes. Then I use an adaptation of Gestalt that encourages them to communicate.

I must admit that my interest is not in communication, although it helps. My interest is in presence, whether each character is connected to the meditative source, and I use their dialogue to give me ideas for how to get them connected to the source, if they aren’t already. When both are connected, their relation goes well because there is nourishment—being to being. From the minute both are connected inside, it’s just a matter of time until the weaker one takes its rightful space and uses it playfully, joyously, and the stronger one pulls out of the spotlight to give the other the stage.

I don’t expect Punya to ask for a session because she has all the tools she needs. Maybe next time we meet, I can find out if she’s been able to give her neglected side more space, if so-called laziness has been replaced by creativity, if the stressed-out feeling is gone, and if the two sides are experiencing each other as invaluable partners.

Sagarpriya began leading meditation/therapy groups in 1970 at the Esalen Institute in California. This work she has been doing in the Osho communes since 1977, starting with Poona 1. Subsequently her life took her to Rajneeshpuram (Oregon), southern France, Milan, and now Imola (Bologna), Italy. She is the inventor of two therapeutic methods: Psychic Massage, which uncovers hidden psychological restrictions in the body, and Star Sapphire Energywork, which harmonizes the male and female polarities. She is the author of two books about Psychic Massage and one about Star Sapphire; she also offers professional trainings in both methods. www.consciousliving.it

Illustration by Punya