Cosmic Beloved - I

I feel great resistance as I write this. Should I discuss such deeply personal experiences on a public platform? Wouldn’t they confound instead of enlightening? Have I myself gained anything from my experiences? However a long period of lying has created a sense of guilt in me. Now I want to come out with the truth- for the sake of the few who would care for it- even if it is absurd or deeply disturbing.
As I was undergoing preliminary sessions with Shah, I told him about the deep hold the feminine had on my psyche. I had masochistic fantasies about a dominant woman who had complete authority over me from a very young age. Suddenly a flash of insight exploded in my mind. It was more like a primordial craving. Was the worship of the mother goddess an answer to my suppressed fantasies? I had always dreamt of a beautiful ( at times divine, at times vulgar)woman, whom I wanted to worship, before whom I wanted to prostrate. Wasn’t worshipping Durga the antidote to my fantasies? At that time, I was still an agnostic. I wanted to worship Durga only to fulfill my masochistic fantasies. I felt part of my neurosis may have had to do with suppression of the masochistic dimension of my personality. I also discussed it with RK, the consumer behavior faculty. He told me the feminine has been part of every religious tradition, whether in overt or covert forms. There have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, the source... We talk of Mother Earth. And in Egypt we have the Mother Heavens, the Goddess Nut, who is represented as the whole heavenly sphere. While Hinduism is the only major religion wherein the mother goddess is worshipped on such a large scale (Her presence is specially marked in Bengal and Himachal), she is present even in Abrahamic religions. She is the Virgin Mary in Christianity and Fatima in Islam. Besides her suppression in mainstream Islam is more than made up by Sufism where she is the eternal beloved for whom the mystic yearns. Rumi considered Majnun the greatest of all mystics. Kabalistic Judaism too has strong associations with the feminine divine. I formulated a rough hypothesis for my condition.