Gender is Irrelevant

CHAITANYA CHARAN DAS





At core, we are spiritual souls, whereas our gender refers only to our shell, the physical body . Our spiritual identity is eternal, our gender is transient. According to the Bhagwad Gita, we attain in our next life a body as per the thought that predominates our consciousness at the last moment of this life. Only when we distance ourselves from our temporary physical gender will we be freed from ideological preconceptions that are inevitably dragged into discussion on the gender of God. So, in the conventional sense, gender refers to bodily gender, so God is neither.Yet, God is both male and female as seen in the worship of divine couples in Vedic tradition. The Vedic definition of God as the source of everything leads to an egalitarian understanding of God -as both male and female. In Radha-Krishna, Radha personifies the primordial cosmological female principle, and Krishna, the primordial cosmological male principle.
Sometimes, personification is mistaken to be a mere literary device, but the misconception overlooks the omni-dimensional all-encompassing nature of divinity . As divine embodiments, Radha and Krishna are particular individuals, yet they are universal individuals, being identical with the ontological principles they personify .
Krishna is compared to the sun, and Radha, to sunshine.The sun and sunshine coexist, each equally important for the existence of the other. Likewise, the singular Absolute Truth manifests as the plural Radha-Krishna for the sake of loving reciprocation.