The Four Faces of Women

A brief history of time—the story of women through the ages

What is the journey of the human soul but a journey back to innocence?

There was a beautiful little girl. Her spirit shone like the multiple rays of the sun. Everyone delighted in her company; she was natural, free and the embodiment of joy itself. She trusted everyone and that trust was returned.

When people met her, they could not help but smile spontaneously. She had the power to transform even the saddest of souls. Her purity was power, leading all who saw her back to the remembrance of their own freedom—the kind of freedom which gave birth to sheer delight, and hailed hello to strangers as they passed. It was a freedom that played and sang and danced and painted without any fear of judgment. This little girl’s freedom was the freedom of Innocence. In her eyes one would find a natural interest in new things, a curiosity that took her into the unknown, the yet to be discovered. This was the joy of learning, the art of living. She seemed somehow fearless and very happily she lived that way. She had no awareness of danger, and no concept of what it meant to stay safe. Hers was a totally joyous life.

She was free. She was powerful. She was Innocence. She lived in the essence of the Eternal Face

Before too long, the adults who journeyed with her in life began to fear for her safety. They yearned to protect her, to keep her Innocence clean and safe, beyond the impure intentions of others. And so they began to put up fences, invisible boundaries to keep the malicious ones at bay. They loved this little girl and her pure heart so deeply that they did all within their power to protect her. They created rules and guidelines to keep her in and others out. They were determined to look after this precious gift of free spirit that had been entrusted to them. Other adults felt the same about their Innocent Ones and so all the adults started to agree on communal rules and regulations. This would truly keep their beautiful Innocent Ones safe. And the Innocent Ones grew. And where they had once delighted in the sweet chasing of a gentle breeze in an open field, or the precarious climbing of a gnarled and wise old tree in the forest, now they could no longer do as their spirit wished. The rules said that there were dark and unknown creatures of the forest and that the field was too open, leaving them too vulnerable and alone. They began to shrink in their being. The abundant energy that was the pure expression of the soul began to constrict. And they grew. And the list of rules grew. But now, not all the rules were spoken or written. Sometimes there were things the Innocent Ones just knew. They could intuit the limits or the boundaries, which were constructed and they adjusted.

The traditions became law and the law was not to be broken. Soon everyone forgot the reason for the rules, but only remembered the rules themselves. With good intention they were stifling enough; without good intention, the rules became like a noose to strangle. And they grew. And they shrank. As they grew and shrank, some remembered that it had not always been like this, others had forgotten how it was when there was Innocence, and others still found it easier not to remember because in the forgetting there was a modicum of peace. At least they wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night angry and cursing and wishing they had died, or their parents had died, or both.

Now they were limited. They were bound. They were imprisoned. They wear the Traditional Face.

Those who forgot and those who chose to forget continued as they were. Not happy, not loving, not free. Numb in fact, but with a deep feeling of safety. The rules protected them from what was outside the files – the unknown territory through the gateway of fear.

But for those who could not help but remember the freedom, the long ago experience of unfettered delight, for these now not so innocent ones, there was great sorrow. They were imprisoned by the invisible threads of thought, the unassailable boundaries of tradition. When the pain became too great, when the sorrow burst like the raging of the white water, then the terror of prison was painted on their hearts like graffiti on the old stone walls of the place of parliament.

The not so innocent ones rebelled. They mustered their courage and held their vision of freedom. They did this by themselves in their homes, their churches and in their communities. They did it together. They created revolutions. They desperately fought to regain their half-remembered freedom, but the struggle and their hatred became prisons in themselves.

This they did not see. For the first time in such a long time, they felt relief. At least they didn’t have to follow those senseless rules any more. Indeed they began to make up rules themselves. New rules, modern rules. Rules that kept the past out. Rules that denied the old traditions. They constructed boundaries of separation and distaste. They created walls of hatred. And they thought they were free but they were not. They had created a revolution revolving back to where they began.

They had built their own prison. They were blind to the bars they had welded. They were lost. They wore the Modern Face.

And when they were very, very tired women, when they couldn’t be any more lost than they were, any more desperate or hopeless, it was then they were truly ready. Only then did the ego allow them to listen to the quiet Voice of Innocence and to feel in the stillness the Power of that Innocence. At the point when all seemed completely without purpose, purpose was revealed. At the time when they bad become absolutely exhausted, they learned the way to fullness. They began to let go of the hatred; they began to seek light instead of accepting darkness. As the not so innocent ones rose tentatively from their shadows, they reached out beyond anything they consciously knew and began to ask their questions. Depending on the depth of their yearning, on their willingness to make the journey through the darkness of their blindness, depending on each one’s capacity to surrender to the greater need of humanity’s cry of hope, depending on all this, then each came to embrace wisdom. They asked questions such as—Who am I? Who is God? What is the meaning of my life? And because their hearts were honest and true, because their questions came from the core of Innocence which lay deep within, hiding and waiting all the while until the sun shone again, then because of this, their questions were answered.

They were told of their Eternal self, the one of truth within. That beautiful self which is always there, occasionally leaping out to play, only to be sent away with a terse word calling for serious maturity. They were told that this self is the power to change the world, that indeed, if enough of these women could unlock the door and let this one of truth live fully in their lives, then that gentle force of Innocence would transform everything, One by one they would change, and as each changed an army of Innocence would be formed and this army would be more powerful than all the killing weapons of the modern world put together.

However, before these women could commit to this journey, they had to know that this pure self would be safe from the ravages of the unkind world they knew so well. They knew that the Innocence needed a protection that was not the limited and stifling safety of the Traditional Face. And they must remain free from angry reactions and the rage-driven rebellion of the Modern Face. They needed unlimited and pure power if they were to resolve the addictions, the habits and patterns, which characterized these two faces. They needed a Supreme Source of pure energy from which they could draw the strength to make the journey back to their Innocent selves.

And so it happened that this Source revealed itself to these women. It made them claim as their birthright all the pure power they required, and in return this divine being asked only one thing. “Give yourself to me, let me use your vision, your hope, your pure intention. Let me embrace your beautiful and innocent self and make you shine like a diamond for all the world to see. Be my instrument, my hands, my voice, my divine eyes. Help me bring everyone home to Innocence and home to me. You and others like you are the hope for your world. Save this time for being with me alone and together we can bring love and peace back into the wounded earth”.

And so they did as they were asked. They came to live in the experience of their Innocence with the protective and liberating powers from the Source. They made others like themselves and they changed their world.

They were innocent. They were filled with joy. They were at peace. They were living the truth of the face of the Shakti.

Caroline Ward began her career in the performing arts, and in 1997 founded the transition consultancy About People. Caroline was an early pioneer bringing Spiritual Intelligence and the arts to business in Australia, earning a reputation for being able to capture the hearts and minds of people at all levels of an organisation. Now living in Latin America, Caroline is focused on writing. She provides Leadership Coaching, continues to evolve and work with the international women’s program, The Four Faces of Women, and is currently focused on the development Leadership and Love in Chile. Caroline has been practicing and teaching meditation for over 15 years.

Αναρτήθηκε από  Afroditi Argyropoulou