Dr Sir John Whitman Ray Anniversary Message
2015
Hello everyone.
Every year I honour the work of Dr Sir John Whitman Ray, founder of Body Electronics in the form of a note on the anniversary of his death on April 21, 2001. As always, my object is to bring attention to the principles he taught, not merely the man, as a personality.
This year I consider one of the most controversial topics in his teaching, the relationship of men and women in terms of the equality and roles of the sexes. As they say, if I had a penny for every time issues around gender came up in Body Electronics classes, particularly with John around, I think I would have a pretty decent sack of pennies.
A large part of the controversy derives from the great deal of emotional charge associated with perceived and real injustices, many layers of societal, religious and cultural programming that distort the truth, and stereotyping that pervades mass media channels, art, employment policy and practice, and many other areas.
However, the topic is poorly understood from a position of correct principle and furthermore is an impediment to many people, in terms of the experiences they have had or continue to have, their attitudes toward others, or in reaching a position of understanding one's own identity and beingness on a gender and sexual level, including their ability to reach a position of non-resistance. So although the territory may be charged, the need is great.
There are some clear principles that can be elaborated, allowing the reader to sift through any biases and reach their own conclusions. In particular, the specific aspects I wish to address are: the inherent nature of each sex and the extent of their equality, the societal roles that have formed around these natures, what happens when these natures are resisted, and the balance between natural proclivities and desired roles that can be struck.
To reiterate, this is not a political or social argument, but an exploration of fundamental principles, designed to show a path towards clarity and understanding of higher principles. As Dr Ray would say, this is heavy duty stuff.
Finally, I ask you to read this in its entirety, and to bring your questions to me if something is not sitting right with you.
Equality of the Sexes?
Now, at the risk of being blunt, the two sexes are not equal. Indeed, no two people are equal, at least not on an earthly level. One person will be an academic genius, while another may be gifted physically; one has the gift of speech, while another has the gift of listening; one is born with visible and obvious physical handicaps, while another is handicapped emotionally and frequently less visibly; one will be a powerful negotiator or counsellor, while another is a powerful fighter, etc. We are all endowed with a unique host of strengths and weaknesses and in varying degrees. However, two people being unequal does not inherently make one lesser than the other, it merely reflects uniqueness.
The idea of equality is a notion, often born of a desire for fairness, or to avoid discrimination, both of which are associated with resistance to the multitude perceived unfairnesses that abound in all walks and kingdoms of life. For example, how many of us have seen a hunter catch its prey and felt bad for the victim, even though we intellectually appreciate that the survival of one animal has depended upon the death of another?
How one should be treated is not dependent on one's equality or status in life. From a position of principle, the Law of Harmlessness and the Golden Rule (doing unto others as you would have them do unto you) supersede all considerations of how one “should” be treated. If we could all just stop trying to impose our values (which are not universal, but rather, programmed) on others we might just all be a little happier, aside from those who enjoy discrimination on the basis of inequality.
Nonetheless, there is an extent to which one is suited to a certain role or place, based on their unique talents. The problems arise only when these roles are forced upon one.
Are We Created Equal?
Perhaps all people are created equal before God, that is to say, with a purpose to fulfil as part of the Divine Plan, reflecting our ultimate unity and co-creative existence. Whether all people are equal in opportunity for worldly things or whether equalities necessarily play out within a single lifetime is perhaps more aspirational than factual. Our preference for a thing or our resistance to its alternative does not make it so and, moreover, frequently prevents it.
There is an infiniteness of life that plays out in many different forms across many different lifetimes. At times we enter into a co-creative relationship, wherein one person will adopt, for a time, a selfless or sacrificial role in some way, in order that the other may benefit, often to play out a karmic debt or service. Just as the hunter depends on its prey, so must every winner require a loser, in order to experience winning.
Winning and losing are, of course, dualistic concepts, wherein one end of the duality exists as a necessary counterpart to its other end being brought into being. Winners cannot exist, if they are to exist, without someone playing the losing role. Fundamentally, it takes two to play out these expressions of creation; winning and losing are not necessarily reflective of inequalities or measures of superiority and inferiority. Our opportunities are to come to a mastery of our willingness to be at either end of any transaction or experience – impartiality or equanimity.
Superiority and inferiority form another dualistic concept, wherein each label is assigned based on selective facets of a thing that one has chosen to focus on, while choosing to ignore others. For example, though one may be superior in physical strength they may not necessarily be so emotionally.
If there is a divine justice, fairness or equality, it is that all of us have been created to be perfect. Having said this, not all of us (read that as, “most of us”) have taken the commandment, “Be ye Perfect,” fully to heart and thus we have created imperfection through denial of God and God-given laws or principles. We then perpetuated imperfection through continued and persistent resistance to the experiences that necessarily followed taking an anti-God position. I’m not talking about punishment or retribution, but an expansion of darkness caused by turning away from the Light.
If I can be more gentle, and perhaps I should, Perfection and Unity with God are birthrights, since this is how we have originated, although the kind of birthright that we do something to gain and maintain. Our end of the bargain is to be godly to the best of our ability.
However, to varying extents, we have all been remiss in our responsibilities and thus have accrued various kinds of karma, all of which is intended to help us find our way back to Unity with God, rather than as punishment.
Having observed one aspect of this physical universe, which is founded on duality, that of wining and losing, we may also observe that there are some aspects of duality that are more fundamental than others. For example, the male and female energy or intelligence, is interwoven in all aspects of duality, in that all dualities specifically have a Yang, creative aspect and a Yin, receptive aspect. It is not a matter of bias or preference that each gender is primarily associated with or defined by one aspect; all one can do is observe the fundamental laws of the universe in action and either work with them or reject them.
Imposed Gender Roles in Society
There are clear periods of history in various cultures where males have collectively repressed females, often enshrining this behaviour in societal values, etiquettes and moral codes that their members generally collectively identify with and accept.
In other cultures, females collectively repressed males, such as in Amazonian times, although this is perhaps less common, due to the inherent typical greater physical strength of males. This said, there are many non-physical ways of repressing a person, which can be applied by either gender, be they emotional, political, or religious, etc.
Within a society, then, there is generally some overall collective acceptance of its rules and modes of operation, including “acceptable” gender roles. When this acceptance is eventually questioned as social conscience evolves (or devolves), civil revolution may result, but for the most part there is stability in any given society, wherein the order of things is well accepted for a time. This often reflects how that society came to be a cohesive societal group in the first place, through a shared belief about how things should be, often regardless of the structure, judgements or opinions of other societies. In fact, many societies develop specifically as a schism, in disagreement with the existing order. Subsequent conflict is sometimes inevitable.
A more relevant question regarding societal differences is our ability or willingness to accommodate two differing paradigms. Thus we may be challenged with letting go of our personal ideas of rightness or wrongness and our ideas of absoluteness in this regard, as the affairs of a culture are their own business, while not interfering with other cultures.
In one culture then, women will occupy the role of wisdom keeper, while in another it will be men – the proverbial witchdoctor or medicine man. In one culture, political power will rest with men, in another with women. In one culture, the religion’s figurehead will be male, in another, female. In some cultures, such things are mixed and have no particular established order, particularly in these times of political correctness, even if roles were historically more prescribed, one way or the other. Many parallels could be observed regarding racial, caste, or religious differences.
Again, we should avoid the temptation to regard any particular societal structure as inherently right or wrong; it just is, and, when rooted in hundreds and often thousands of years of tradition, is an essential part of the glue of the society that held disorder, degradation, and anarchy at bay, while the culture otherwise flourished.
Aside from “busy body” outsiders, the question as to whether the order is correct, just, or fair only generally arises internally when a degree of disorder already exists within the society, which may in some cases become the eventual trigger for revolution, followed by the establishment of a new order or equilibrium reflecting the consciousness of its people. Whether their consciousness has raised or degraded in the process is another question and, again, their concern rather than ours.
Without getting into the nitty gritty of collective consciousness and how it is expressed in a society as one moves upscale, which we may deal with another time, suffice it to say that “enlightenment” is a very relative term and the evolution of consciousness is frequently experienced as the reversal of a prior degeneration, which we can think of as a group Healing Crisis.
Enough of social history.
Examples of Gender Inequality
Now, regarding more fundamental issues concerning gender roles, there are certain universal biological differences between males and females that accompany, and to some extent are dictated by, specific emotional and psychological differences.
Biologically, women are the receptive vessel for conception and gestation to take place and provide for the nurturing and sustenance of the developing foetus, essentially through an act of biological self sacrifice. Following birth, the female body continues to provide for survival and growth in the form of mother's milk. The woman’s strength is largely emotional and social and her fundamental need is to be nurtured, just as she nurtures. John has referred to women as the receptor and reflector of love and light, arising from her Yin, inflowing nature. Her area of risk is desiring to originate love and light of her own, while being unwilling to reflect that which she receives from outside herself, thus she cannot receive or reach the very point she desires.
Biologically, men provide the creative impetus for conception in the form of sperm, which is a somewhat scattergun approach in comparison to the precision of the female’s single egg. The only way for the male to provide meaningful sustenance and survival is through externalised physical acts of providence – food, shelter, protection (and in these days, money), which historically heavily depended on his physical strength. His fundamental need relates more to survival and winning and, in John's view, is responsible for the radiation of love and light, reflecting his Yang, outflowing nature. His area of risk is his desire to be received, leading to conditionality in his willingness to radiate and thus internal conflict.
The equality of males and females at a biological level is to the extent that each possesses half of the genetic information required for a new life. Neither males nor females are physically endowed with the biological necessities to take opposite roles. Thus, we have a form of equality accompanied by role uniqueness that follows a natural biological and cosmic order.
Wired for Individuality - An Insight Into Meter Work
On a less obvious level, there is another fundamental gender difference, relating to how we are “wired”, emotionally and neurologically. This has been repeatedly observed in Body Electronics and in other modalities, although the greatest tangible evidence of this lies in Dr Ray's meter work, a technique used in his advanced work of Visualisation and Consciousness.
Although he was beginning to make meter work more widely available at the time of his death, few people had at that time experienced more than the comparative “entry-level” of Body Electronics pointholding, which nonetheless is considered by many as miraculous and which John was better known for.
The basic premise of meter work is that changes in mental or emotional attitude towards an experience produce a near instantaneous change in the galvanic skin resistance of a person, which can be measured and repeated as one “homes in” on a particular pattern of resistance. In most cases, when there is a reduction of emotional resistance towards a given experience, there is also a reduction in skin resistance, so changes in skin resistance can be used as a barometer or navigator of emotional resistance. Very handy.
As subjects reach a position of emotional non-resistance, an intriguing phenomenon is observed – males have a characteristic skin resistance of 12,500 ohms (an ohm being a unit of measure of electrical resistance to the flow of electricity), while females have a characteristic skin resistance of 5,000 ohms.
Although easier to think of this as a skin resistance phenomenon, this difference is more accurately determined by the characteristic neurological pathways within male and female, which facilitate or hinder the flow of electricity or information through the body. In other words, peel back all the layers of emotional resistance, then you have a fundamental and characteristic biological and neurological uniqueness between men and women – we are literally wired differently.
On an even more fundamental and profound level, as alluded to earlier, universal creation is founded on the separation of single fully encapsulated truths into dualities, each half of that duality being a polar opposite of its counterpart. The idea that the two parts of the duality can ever be fully separated is the illusion or Maya that entangles us all to varying extents, the truth being the perception of the inseparability of these two counterparts and moreover the simultaneous encompassment of them, which can only happen with a prior non-resistance. So much for “Body Electronics Theory 101”.
True Natures
Each of the two polar opposites has an inherent nature, which by definition is mutually exclusive of the inherent nature of its counterpart. One end we call Yang, the creative, causal, or outflowing aspect, while the other is called Yin, the receptive, effect, or inflowing aspect.
Any guesses as to which aspect correlates with the male and female natures? Looking at the biological gender aspects, the creative, outflowing aspect characterises males in their non-resistant state, while the receptive, inflowing aspect characterises females in their non-resistant state.
Here I must emphasise the words “non-resistant”, for this sums up the crux of the matter, for when resistance enters the picture, all bets are off as to what one's skin resistance may be and what one's expression of the qualities of Yin and Yang may be.
Nonetheless, on a very fundamental level, there is a specific nature to which each sex is suited, by biological, neurological, and universal design. Nature, in turn, suggests a natural order of activity, not a rule, but a native set of advantages and disadvantages towards various activities or states. There is a natural proclivity of each sex, in the absence of resistance, towards one nature and beneficial form of being, more so than the other.
This is not to say, for example, that men must be dominating, bread winning providers, wreaking their will upon the world, leaving destruction in their wake if they meet opposition, while women stay at home, be passive and have babies, which is a rather extreme interpretation, but that each is not being true to one's fundamental nature when engaged in excesses relating more typically to their polar opposite. Of course, even excesses that do relate to one’s fundamental nature can also be problematic.
“Is there free choice to be who I want?” Sure there is, but one is wise to work with one’s nature, not against it.
What this means is that while creative (and destructive) behaviour comes naturally to males and is part and parcel of their true nature, it is not suited to females and does nothing to nurture their germane nature. It may be gratifying on many levels, particularly where resistances or attachments exist (such as where a female has been forcibly prevented from expressing these aspects), but it is not conducive to supporting them as bearers of the female essence.
Conversely, a male who chooses a life of passivity is not being true to his nature and is not nurturing it. Remember, for him to express all the excesses of his true nature do him no favours either.
“Hang on. I know all sorts of counterexamples to this. This cannot be true,” you may say. This is where we must now consider the highly complex interplays of resistance upon our fundamental natures.
In meter work, we know that a non-resistant male has 12,500 ohms resistance, while a female has 5,000 ohms, but what about resistant males and females?
“Oh, everyone, you mean?” Well, yes.
12,500 ohms in a male and 5,000 ohms in a female is not non-existent, but it’s certainly not the norm or consistently true. This is true when the individual is completely carefree and unbothered by short-term or long-term worries though.
“Oh, you mean never, right?”
No, just that it is pretty typical these days to be anxiously concerned about something, whether it be phone bills, some relationship, a health problem, world peace, reputation, personal safety and security, identity, etc and to varying degrees, depending on what's happening today, tomorrow or yesterday, the day of the week, how much sleep we got last night, blood sugar levels, something somebody said to us (or didn't say), etc, etc.
Atypical, but certainly not difficult to achieve, given the right mental preparation, space, and coaching.
Males and females alike can range from just a few hundred ohms to many hundreds of thousands of ohms. It all depends on their physical, emotional and mental state.
However, there are four very special and profound characteristic states that are not at all uncommon and clearly provide a basis for understanding most other milder states of resistance when it comes to human relationships.
Valences - Resistance to People
These states relate to profound resistances to people (as distinct from resistances to things or experiences) and the way in which these resistances cause personality traits to persist. In particular, resistances of a:
- male towards a female,
- female towards a male,
- male towards a male, and
- female towards a female.
These special cases are called valences and impose a pattern of behaviour arising as a direct result of one person's intense resistance to another, such that this resistance locks in the energy or consciousness one has resisted. In this way, a person may become alike to the person they have resisted. “What (and who) you resist persists.”
So, for example, where a male has formed an intense level of resistance to a domineering woman (often, but not only, their mother) he takes on a layer of energetic similarity to her, held in place by the resistance, which we call a female valence. Thus, not only will he take on some of the personality and behavioural traits of that woman, such as mannerisms, he will also adopt a 5,000 ohms skin resistance (neurological behaviour) and can also take on other physical traits such as feminisation and the physical appearance of her, or a reversal in sexual preference.
Often, such resistances are set in place at a childhood age but can occur at any time in life.
Conversely, where a woman has formed an intense resistance to a man, as often occurs in intense control situations, she takes on varying degrees of similarity to him, energetically, physically, emotionally, neurologically, hormonally, and behaviourally, whether she likes them or not, which we call a male valence. Thus you may thereafter observe compulsive male traits such as the drive for success or survival, creation and destruction, power, and a 12,500 ohms skin resistance. We can also think of a male valence as being a "male mode of operation".
Such a man or woman will be confused (or at least misdirected) about their roles or activities in life, or more precisely, will assume certain roles according to which force dominates within, their native gender programming, or their resisted gender programming (valence). There may be a complete absence of any sense of confusion, but the fact of a reactively superimposed identity upon their own is nonetheless true.
To confuse matters, these valences may also be inherited and are all the more complex where a male, for example, resists another male, or a female has resisted a female. These types of valences may not change the gender nature of the person, but they nonetheless obfuscate basic issues of identity. Fortunately, although valances are quite common and explain a great deal about human behaviour, they are also highly visible in meter work and can be dealt with.
Making a Change
Now, consider the state of a society, with a history of intense female suppression and domination coupled with varying degrees of traditional, “willing” female role acceptance and ask the question again, “Which roles best suit men and women?”
Answering this question, free of resistance, is not an easy task and it somewhat depends on just how much acceptance of being on the receiving end (or attachment to being on the giving end) there has been. One thing is certain: one inappropriate swing of the pendulum is not made up for by another. Therefore, “I haven't been allowed to have this, so now I want it,” is not a good basis for making constructive choices.
So, for example, if a man seeks power and exercises unrighteousness dominion over a woman, which she accepts on some level (perhaps because she assumes this to be culturally “right” behaviour), she may be somewhat able to preserve her identity. However, if she intensely resists, then she may ironically acquire a male valence and become compulsively alike to that man and begin to seek the same things, to her eventual detriment. This desire does not come directly from her, but from a reactive pattern of emulation arising from suppressed emotionality - she wants or has "learned" to behave the way he has behaved to her, having somewhat adopted his male persona through resistance to it. This is not to justify anything, merely to observe an effect.
She may even be better at it than he ever was and may achieve much through it, but the question is, "Is it good for her? Does it support or contradict her true fundamental nature?"
Before condemning a man or woman who has exercised unrighteous dominion over another, it is often instructive to consider who may have previously done it to them and whether they themselves were merely acting out a compulsive pattern. This is not about blame; we are just trying to understand the dynamics that perpetuate behavioural patterns that obscure otherwise innate gender and social roles.
So, should a mother stay at home with her children and be mum or go out and work in the competitive business world and is that competitive business world a man’s domain? It's a matter of individual choice of course, but it is well to understand one's own motivations before making such a choice and consider what is really for one's highest and best good.
Doing a thing because you dislike the opposite is always problematic in the long run, as the effort of avoiding one thing draws it to you anyway because that is where your creative energy has been focussed. This is the Law of Attraction at its undiscriminating best. Resist a thing and you but draw it in.
Free choice is another matter, but many of our choices are recipes for problems because we've begun with a problem in mind. It will be a big step ahead, the day we choose to do a thing because we want to do it rather than because we don't want to do the opposite.
It will be another step ahead when we recognise whom it is who really wants a thing - us or some reactive pattern we may have acquired. I don't mean to externalise our reactivity: to some extent it can be imposed upon us, but there is always an element of acceptance and often an element of drawing in that very pattern in the first place, albeit in unanticipated ways.
Desire for Change
Women may have had a raw deal over the last few hundred years in western society, however, resisting or resenting that past, not letting go of it, is an impediment to moving forward because decisions about roles or activities in life are sometimes being based on desires to have formerly forbidden fruit. Some of this desire is amplified by male valences that formed because of resistance to perceived perpetrators of repression. Ironically, but as in all areas of suppressed emotionality, the desire for that which one does not have perpetuates not having it.
Again, the amoral Law of Attraction seizes upon one's self-affirmation of lack and draws in further lack (our apparent reason for wanting more). If the reason we want a change is that we cannot bear the present or past state of affairs, then that state is perpetuated or at least drawn back in. There is only one basis for producing lasting change through self effort and that is to have no attachment to it. Want to choose something else in life? Then do it, but make your first priority the release of any resistance to your current situation. That is constructive manifestation.
This of course applies equally to men and their "appropriate" roles in life, except to say that as the more likely historical repressors, generally speaking, their degree of resistance to past events may not be as strong, or is at least of a different nature.
To look at this another way, women possibly experience male repression as being bitterly unjust, a gross misuse of power, and inexplicably evil (because of seeing it through the eyes of their inherently receptive true natures), whereas men may not experience repression at the hands of another man in the same way.
In fact, this kind of alpha male behaviour (bearing in mind the outflowing male nature to routinely create, dominate and destroy) is almost par for the course - philosophically, there was always going to be a victor and a victim, "Better luck for me next time, I'll be back!" There is a male tendency towards fighting fire with fire, wherein challenges will be taken when cast down, whereas for women such challenges can appear childish, unless they operate under a male valence (mode of operation), in which case they may become sucked into the male game.
For a man repressed by a woman, more likely the case of an overbearing mother, the response may be more in the nature of guilt, shame, or failure, reflecting a perceived inability to be in control, once vanquished. There is no knowing exactly how any given individual will respond to significant challenges to their individuality or identity, but there are nonetheless characteristic responses arising from their gender programming.
In the Final Analysis
I've said it several times, of course everyone has a choice of what they want to be involved in and the role they desire in life, and these free choices should be honoured while not harming others, but it is evident that we don't always know or do what's best for ourselves, typically being more dominated by our desires. Coming to an understanding of those desires and learning the discipline of desirelessness (non-attachment) are key. Desires are not really satisfiable - the more we try to satisfy them, the stronger they get because we continue to try and manifest them from a position of wanting more, which by definition is a state of lack, which we reinforce and perpetuate, hence the growth of further desire...
I may sound like a broken record, but here is where our List comes in again, the place where we record all our desires and where we weigh them in the balance to determine whether they are for our highest and best good or not and then set about constructive action towards their fulfilment. In the course of this action, and often by simply placing an item on our List, certain experiences will be drawn in by the Law of Attraction, which begin to add clarity to our decision to pursue a particular desire.
Some desires we will eventually discard as we realise they are not for our highest and best good, some we will continue to pursue, regardless, then having the joy of the opportunity for self-correction, through karma, should we prove to be acting according to our reactive programming, rather than correct principle. Frequently, we will find ourselves in the latter category.
A little humour here goes a long way; it's not all doom and gloom, and, in point of fact, nothing can be fully resolved without enthusiasm and non-resistance, especially when it comes to our mistakes and the misdeeds we have been on the receiving end of. To resist is nothing short of choosing to perpetuate a thing, for which we then carry responsibility. You may imagine a sign in the window of a shop where experiences are bought and sold, "Resist it and you buy it."
Therefore, let every man and woman choose their own role, as their conscience dictates, but let each also be responsible for their actions and desires and all that ensues.
Thanks again, John, for the understanding that continues to unfold, year after year.
In Love, Light, and Perfection
"I AM"
Graham Bennett
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