Mann, a Unitarian, said that the Church should not educate because it teaches “divisive doctrines” such as the Trinity. According to Mann, children do not need to learn Truths (doctrines) such as Trinity. They need to learn Virtue (ethics): to honor parents, elders, and teachers; to not covet or steal someone’s pencil or pear. The Bible should be taught, said Mann, as the source of values, but not as the source of truth. This distinction became spiritually fatal.

In February 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Mrs. Ketanji Jackson Brown to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the USA. During the confirmation hearings, she was asked, “What is a woman?”

The learned graduate from Harvard Law School refused to answer on the ground that she is “not a biologist.” 

Why don’t the intellectual elite know what a woman is? 

Well, the only way to define a woman is to differentiate her from man: Is “female” different from “male”? 

By

Vishal Mangalwadi

In February 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Mrs. Ketanji Jackson Brown to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the USA. During the confirmation hearings, she was asked, “What is a woman?”

The learned graduate from Harvard Law School refused to answer on the ground that she is “not a biologist.” 

Why don’t the intellectual elite know what a woman is? 

Well, the only way to define a woman is to differentiate her from man: Is “female” different from “male”? 

If male and female are different, then how can they be same and equal? If they are the same, how can a rationalist define a woman? 

Fifty years ago, it would have sounded preposterous that a supreme court nominee could not answer a basic question about the distinction between male and female. How did the West get here? While Carl Trueman has done an admirable job of showing the western philosophical scaffolding that makes transgenderism possible, there is surprising stream of thought that has fed into the larger confusion over male and female: A stream of thought with eastern garb. In this article, I’ll briefly outline how Hindu Monism undermined male-female dualism, renunciation of marriage, and male-female inequality. Finally I’ll outline how Hinduism’s rise in the West became a factor in homosexual and transgender acceptance. 

Hinduism and Transgenderism: Unlikely Allies? 

Hindu Monism is a crucial factor that explains a Rationalist’s dilemma of defining a woman. The belief that All-is-One suggests that every human being may have male and female chakras (energies). Dualism of male and female—the traditional binary view of gender—may be an illusion, Maya. Monism asserts that there is only one Soul: it is God—Infinite. That divine soul incorporates both male and female within it. 

Monism means that every male has female energy (Shakti) within him and every female has male (Shiva) chakra (psychic center) within her. 

The Hippies of the 1970s, came to India and learnt Tantra. They were taught that the female chakra lies at the bottom of the spine, a few millimeters above the rectum. It is called Kundalini. The male chakra, Shiva, resides in the crown chakra, on top. According to Hinduism, everyone has both male (Shiva) and female (Shakti) energy centers. Salvation, Enlightenment or Self-realization dawns only when female and male energies merge to become One. 

This “Enlightenment” is experienced when one awakens his feminine energy or Kundalini,. For normally it lies dormant, coiled up as a serpent. Meditation awakens the Kundalini. Tantric meditation includes manipulation of one’s genitals. That may require the expertise of a guru or a sex partner—whether male or female, the gender of the partner is irrelevant. 

Once awakened, Kundalini, that is, the feminine Shakti, travels up the spine through five different chakras or psychic centers. The meditator gets different psychedelic/occult/mystic experiences when the Kundalini passes through one of these chakras. The climax comes when one’s female energy merges into male energy and the two become one. At that stage, the Enlightened soul experiences its divinity.

This mystical philosophy understands Salvation as Enlightenment, not as forgiveness of sin or a sinner’s reconciliation with his Holy Father. For a Monist, to be saved is to experience or to “Realize” one’s Divinity. It means transcending the finiteness of being male or female; becoming One with everything. Thus, it is somewhat incidental whether a romantic relationship involves a man and a woman, or two men, or two woman—since the ultimate goal is oneness with everything. If two men enter into a homosexual relationship, even in this arrangement one of them experiences himself as a female. But in Hindu Monism, the ultimate belief is that they are neither male nor female, but one with the universe.

Hindu Renunciation of Marriage

Biblical marriage presupposes that each of us is finite. I am male, not female. Therefore, in order to be complete, I need my wife—my better-half. God-likeness means being one with my spouse for the rest of my life. But what if my Self is already Infinite? What if the female is already within me? In that case, I don’t need my wife; I need to experience my own Divinity/Infinity. 

It is for this reason that in Hinduism, the mystical quest for Self-Realization begins with renunciation of marriage. That ceremonial Oath of renouncing spouse and family is called taking Sannyas. Abandoning one’s wife and family is called Brahmacharya—a term wrongly translated, “Celibacy.” 

In English, Celibacy connotes renunciation of sex. Brahmacharya, on the other hand, harnesses sexual energy to become God or Infinite. Osho Rajneesh (1931–1990), the guru who taught Sex for Salvation, was honest in translating Brahmacharya as neo-sannyas. It is neo-asceticism because it admits that a seeker does not renounce sex. He uses sex to transcend the finite self—the binary view of sexuality as male or female. In his blockbuster novel, Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown expounded Tantric Sex, calling it Gnostic Christianity. 

To summarize: some post-Christian intellectuals that believe that male and female are interchangeable, find it difficult to make sense of the dualism of two distinct genders—male and female. They feel that Monism may be a possible explanation against the binary that the Bible enjoins. The problem is that denying the difference between male and female messes up these intellectuals’ traditional definitions of gender, sex, marriage, love, childcare, family or faithfulness. It gets to the point where a person cannot even answer the basis question of what a woman is. Their confusion ends up destroying wisdom and the family—the foundations of society. As the prophets lamented, a people without understanding condemn themselves to self-destruction (Hosea. 4:6, 14). 

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