THE FEMININE FACE OF DIVINITY

On September 8, many communities and groups inspired by Gnostic spirituality celebrate

the descent of Holy Sophia.
According to the Gnostic tradition, Holy Sophia comes to Earth to be manifesting the Divine
Light, Love and Power to humanity and other beings with whom we share our wonderful planet.
Thus, we have the promise of the presence of Divine Wisdom in our lives.
It is a privileged opportunity to reflect on the feminine face of Divinity, which must be
recovered, promoted and valued.
When talking about God, his image is usually linked to the male dimension. But this image
has no solid foundation in the spiritual history of humankind.
Since time immemorial, humanity, in the diversity of its cultures, has had a perception of the Divine.
For tens of thousands of years, humans lived in harmony with the Earth, with the same
inseparable reality. The Earth was experienced by those so-called “primitive” humans as a cosmic
place to which everyone belonged and to which no group intended to exclusively control or
dominate. Humans did not feel the urge to take over the world. The Earth was understood as a
living organism and as the manifestation of the Great Divinity, which was mostly represented with
feminine features.
However, with the development of agriculture, cattle breeding and cities, the crisis of values
articulated around the figure of the Great Divinity broke out, and the desire for power, dominance,
exploitation of the land and human beings was reinforced. .
In their relationship with the Divine, human beings of all religions adopted a language influenced
by the cultures of the times and the places where they lived.
Judeo-Christian spirituality, from which Judaism, Christianity and Islam emanated, was no
exception.
Although the Bible categorically states that God is neither male nor female, biblical authors
were not immune to the influence of the patriarchal society in which they were inserted.
Hence most of the biblical references to God be presented with a male face. The names
of God most mentioned in the Bible are masculine: Eloim, El, El-Chadai, Adonai.
However, in the Bible, there are references to the feminine dimension of God, namely Schekinah,
the Presence of God, Chokmah or Sophia, the Wisdom of God, and Ruah, the Spirit of God.
In Jewish kabbalah, which represents the mystical and esoteric dimension of Judaism,
Binah represents the feminine principle of God, the origin of all that exists, and is therefore

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considered Mother Nature and Divine Mind. According to the kabbalah, all that exists is a
manifestation of the Divine Mind. This concept also exists in the most exoteric traditions of Judaism,
where the feminine dimension of God is called Shekinah or Ruah. The upper triangle of the
kabbalah consists of Kheter, Chokmah and Binah.
According to Kabbalah, the descent of the radius of the divine Creation follows this
sequence until you reach Malkut, the manifest universe.
The relationship of the manifested universe with God, the origin of everything that exists,
occurs in the opposite way. In a succinct manner, not reached Keter, the light Divine unmanifested
generating the entire movement of the Creation, without passing through Divine Mind (Binah) and
the Divine Consciousness (Chochmah).
Primitive Christianity, namely Gnostic Christianity, valued the legacy of the mystical and
esoteric tradition of Judaism. A legacy that was later overlooked by most institutional Christianity,
with negative consequences for humanity.
In this sense, for Gnostic Christians, the mind of God is called Sophia, equivalent to Binah
of the Jewish Kabbalah, representing Nature and Wisdom.
The masculine principle of God is the Cosmic Christ, equivalent to Chokmah, representing
Divine Consciousness, Fire and Spark.
Inseparable, Sophia and Christ, Binah and Chokmah represent Mind and Consciousness
and are different aspects of the totality of Divine Reality. One does not exist without the other.
In Eastern religions, the adoration of the feminine dimension of the Divine is present, despite the
weight of millennia of patriarchy.
In Hinduism, there is a cult of a female divinity, superior to all other divine beings, according
to which there is a great Divinity, called Shatki, who is the origin of everything that exists.
In Buddhism, a non-theistic religion, the feminine dimension of the Divine is revered as the
energy that nourishes, cares and heals, which is manifested in practices such as the cult of Kuan
Yin.
Currently, one of the main spiritual trends is the revaluation of the female face of Divinity,
either within the existing religions, either in new forms of spirituality.
One of the main contributions of feminist currents and other currents that call for a more including
view of God is the relativization of the boundaries between the divine and the human.
These currents value a progressive process of sanctification and divinization of each one
of us, through a process of inner transformation of our nature, generating a new spiritual existence.
The search for a new understanding about the Divine also corresponds to a search for a
new vision about the relationship between the Divine and humanity.

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Through the maternal and feminine dimension of the Divine, the Divine Mother, referred to as the
Holy Spirit, Shakti and other designations, which is the very presence of God's infinitely creative
power, which is both manifest and hidden, Creation appears and is renewed. Indeed, to speak of
divine Creation in contemporary terms is to recognize that the Divine acts as an infinite, primordial
and creative reality, simultaneously transcendent and immanent, fully respecting the laws of nature,
whose origin is itself.
Through the connection with the maternal and feminine dimension of the Divine, the Divine
Mother, the human being can overcome the path of illusion and walk the authentic path of return to
his essence.
The essence that we are divine beings, children of the Most High, according to the profound
words of one of the greatest wise beings of humankind.
The essence that we are sons of the Divine and therefore messengers of the great
universal values in our world.
To assumes this essence implies a new spiritual vision in which all beings, women and
men, human and non-human, have a place.
A spiritual vision based on the experience of an energy of unlimited love and
transcendental compassion, having as reference the human form that is closest to unconditional
love, which is maternal love.
The infinite Wisdom of the Divine Mother generates, sustains and renews Life, in its various
dimensions.
She is our common heritage, of all human and non-human beings.
She is a strength for individual and collective transformation and opens the horizon for a
new paradigm of human beings relations between itself, with Nature and with the Divine Source
from which everything that derives exists.

Daniel José Ribeiro de Faria

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Painting "Mother of the World", of Nikolai Roerich.