Why women tend to be more spiritually inclined than men?

[Recursoinominado]

Here in the west women tend to dominate spiritual retreats, yoga classes, and holistic therapies, but in India, this seems to be the opposite, most hardcore spiritual seekers and masters are men...

Also, here in the West, gay men are more open to spirituality than straight males.

I am curious about your opinions on this matter... 

Another interesting observation is that women usually prefer "fluffy spirituality" (new age stuff) and men tend to be more direct and dry about it.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Recursoinominado

[kinesin]

Feminine is receptive energy, masculine is expressive energy.  Don't interpret this as a statement about the natures of men and women, I'm using 'feminine and masculine' in the gnostic sense where each are fundamental properties of everything in the universe.

To realise spiritual truth requires one to enter the feminine mode by opening up and allowing nature in, via observation and being sensitive to what is already there.  You need to listen rather than talk, to watch rather than do.  Those who are more generally masculine in their energy miss out on these signals because while they're expressing upon reality, no room is left for recieving.

Once again, I'm not talking about men and women, but something deeper which applies to everything in nature, not only the organisms.

[mandyjw]

All of life is a spiritual journey, there's just a point where you start being conscious of it and able to identify your desires and the nature of existence as spiritual. I find that more women tend to be more closed-minded to non-duality and understanding of the mind, wisdom aspect and more men seem closed-hearted to the feeling and healing oriented practices and teachings. Ultimately there is no real separation or conflict, just like there are no real men and women. An open mind is an open heart and an open heart brings about real understanding. 

 

[Shin]

In the east, it's blue/orange fiesta, in the west orange/green fiesta.

Blue is more malish (because opression of women), green is more womish (because inclusion of women).

Men are more autists too, and needs proofs, logic, and all the materialistic fiesta from stage orange to start to even consider something possibly true, so in countries which leans more towards green, it's not surprising than women tends to take the cake, they are less hindered by that.

 

[Lilia]

That's an interesting observation. From my perspective, I would say there are more men among gurus - perhaps because spirituality is a business, and business is more of a malish thing. 

Also, here in Eastern Europe, where women have been downgraded to a role of a "man's companionship" for years, men are more respected and seen as trustworthy. Information coming from men sounds more "expert". There's even a phenomenon here that has become a meme: "a women's psychologist". That will be a man in his late forties, often with a pickup background, who would teach single women how to make men happy!

[lmfao]

@Recursoinominado I think some men like myself can be too busy being arrogant assholes who mock "woo woo stuff" to actually be humble, open or listening to things. And humility is a very important thing I'm trying to relearn

It's not one sided however. If someone is autisticly minded like that, they can gain a sort of certainty/clarity [especially in the face of opposition, which maya and the world is rife with,] that someone else lacks. 

E. G., Leo and Ralston know they're right and reaching truth. It doesn't matter if 100 or 1 million people have opinions that they're wrong, those are just opinions. Compare that to the extreme of someone who's wishy washy and has no opinions of their own, they just accept culture mindlessly. 

--

I'm just trying to learn how to humble and open again. Being a willow tree in the wind and not an oak tree

Edited June 15, 2021 by lmfao

[Endangered-EGO]

Because men are more like autists.

 

Women are more intuitive.

 

The big bang is an relativist, autist, simplistic explanation for everything in existence.

 

What women feel and can't articulate is that energy exploding into existence is too much reductionism for accepting it as an explanation for everything thst exists.

 

Only in the west people who are scientifically minded explain things in terms of another. It's the backlash from religion.

 

In india and the east they haven't had that backlash yet. It's easier to see the problem if we can count the turtles. But if we csn see 100000 turtles all the way down, we are just going to refer to the last turtle carrying the earth (big bang).

 

Leo said it best: "the better the model the bigger the problem".

[Leo Gura]

Probably because most men in the west are struggling just to maintain their manhood. Spiritual practice requires a mature masculinity, which is pretty rare. Western culture promotes an immature masculinity which easily feels emasculated by spirituality.

Women are sorta immune to this issue. They are also more intuitive and follow their spiritual feelings better. But the downside is that this leads to rather weak and shallow spiritual practice -- which is what these yoga studios are. It is not serious spirituality.

I get the sense that when men decide to do spiritual work, they tend to be more serious/ hardcore about it.

[Preety_India]

You aren't right about Indian women. 

Indian women are very deeply spiritual but they don't have the luxury to open a yoga studio. 

Also Indian women who are spiritual are very introverted and remain anonymous and away from public and stay away from media. 

They are like nuns in a monastery 

They dont speak openly because India is a heavily male dominated culture and if a woman spoke openly about her spiritual practice she will be easily attacked in the media for simply being a woman. 

 

India does not treat its women spiritual followers fairly and they are sometimes treated as "less knowledgeable" and a gimmick and or a distraction. 

So women tend to stay away from openly practicing spirituality and do it in secret. They don't give speeches and rarely do so. 

Also women in India aren't considered qualified enough to be a Guru, the spiritual field in India is rife with sexism and male worship. 

 

So it creates an unfair representation that Indian women might not be spiritual. 

And the other part is that most Indian women almost 80% struggle with the question of survival and so only focus on getting married to men and submitting to the needs of the patriarchy, mainly bearing and raising children and obeying the Husband. 

She has little say in family matters, if she takes time out for spirituality then the Husband will divorce her. 

In contrast, Western women have 90% more freedom than Indian women can imagine in a lifetime. 

If a western woman opens a yoga studio, her husband will applaud her. 

If an Indian woman opens a yoga studio, the Indian husband will tell her to go back to the kitchen and serve him good food. 

 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

Women and gay men are less likely to be emotionally repressed in the same way that straight men are because stoicism isn't as pushed. They also tend to be more emotionally expressive and don't discount their intuition. Straight men on the other hand tend to dismiss anything that doesn't align with their strict notions of logic and rationality even when emotions and intution can be rational. To them and a lot of people who are like this, the dichotomy is emotional vs logical nor logical vs illogical.

Also, feminine integration is big. Often times femininity and things associated with such tend to be seen as frivolous, dumb, and inferior by the patriarchy and the repression of the feminine is much worse when it comes to men because as soon as he embraces his femininity, he is branded as less of a man or people think that something is wrong with him. 

[Girzo]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

But the downside is that this leads to rather weak and shallow spiritual practice -- which is what these yoga studios are. It is not serious spirituality.

The thing is, I feel that Hatha Yoga is even more potent than Kriya, but... all the girls that I know that do yoga, but don't seriously read books and meditate/contemplate, their spirituality is so shallow, it's like talking with cosplayers. Some even don't know what Samadhi is, never heard the word, but they will tell you all the bullshit about chakras or pineal gland that you can hear from the new age youtubers. My point is, even the most potent form of yoga won't work on someone without a proper foundation.

[Karmadhi]

I think another reason on top of what others said, is that males tend to be more rational and pragmatic then females. They have a bigger bias for pure logic, quantification and rationalization then females which use intuition more. Logic can create barriers on practicing spirituality. Another reason which i think is huge is that usually males tend to be more achiever focused. This is partially from evolution and partially due to gender roles where the man is supposed to provide tangible results, that is their definition of success. A male that earns an average income but is very spiritual would not be considered as successful by mainstream society. Spirituality is anything but tangible. 

It is not just spirituality that is dominated by females and gay men, the zodiac is another thing that is super popular with females and gay men. I remember once a guy friend told me: "An easy way to tell if a guy is gay is to see if he follows the Zodiac and shit like that".

Edited June 16, 2021 by Karmadhi

[Terell Kirby]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Probably because most men in the west are struggling just to maintain their manhood. Spiritual practice requires a mature masculinity, which is pretty rare. Western culture promotes an immature masculinity which easily feels emasculated by spirituality.

To add onto this from a Spiral Dynamics view, most men (particularly in the West) need to master and fully integrate the healthy aspects of Stage Orange. Healthy masculinity does exist (purpose, drive, mission, achievement, sexual conquest), and can be brought with men as they enter into Stage Green..which rounds it out (fuses it with feelings/emotion/feminine side). This sets you up to get into the more advanced aspects of spirituality, which emphasizes synthesis and holistic being (Tier 2, Yellow and Turquoise). It’s best to fully integrate the masculine and feminine prior to this.

[kai0]

i would say part of it is supply and demand and part of it is natural balance

spiritual wisdom and practices appeal more to the yin side by its very nature, and the reason is because of the overmasculine (yang) life style in the west, so its likely an overcorrection to secularism which tends to be very masculine so it requires overly feminine life style to balance it out

[Harikrishnan]

15 hours ago, Recursoinominado said:

Here in the west women tend to dominate spiritual retreats, yoga classes, and holistic therapies, but in India, this seems to be the opposite, most hardcore spiritual seekers and masters are men...

 

Another interesting observation is that women usually prefer "fluffy spirituality" (new age stuff) and men tend to be more direct and dry about it.

living in India what i have seen is women are really not into hardcore spirituality sitting for hours on meditation mat, doing kriya yoga etc but more into bakthi yoga devotion to God/Godesses channeling and new age stuff. I think its also cause of patriarchy and marrying them off in early 20's.  We are entering into a phase of women being independent for themselves and maybe in 25-30 we could see the rise of women yoga studio and all(there are few now)

Edited June 16, 2021 by Harikrishnan

[Harikrishnan]

5 hours ago, Preety_India said:

 

Also women in India aren't considered qualified enough to be a Guru, the spiritual field in India is rife with sexism and male worship. 

 

 

 

 

 

This is not True. There are many women spiritual masters who are very well respected like Sri Anandamayi Ma, Nirmala Srivastava(sahaja yoga), amrithandamayi amma, saradha devi, mother meera etc. They where all celebrated by blue people considerd them as God send, they where hated by left and orange.

[Flowerfaeiry]

Eckhart Tolle says women are closer to source because they can bear children and as such are more in their bodies.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Flowerfaeiry

[RickyFitts]

1 hour ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

Eckhart Tolle says women are closer to source because they can bear children and as such are more in their bodies.

I came across that passage just the other day whilst rereading 'The Power of Now', funnily enough - a little difficult to hear as a man if I'm being honest, but I think he has a point. Learning how to be consciously in my body has probably been the biggest challenge of my spiritual journey (particularly when my dumb, loudmouth brain has so much to say for itself  ), I spent years wrestling with various spiritual concepts but it became apparent to me after a bad break-up that it was on the level of feeling and sensation that I had to do the work.

[Neo]

Because spirituality requires being open minded and some men don't like throwing their entire life in the dustbin , even for a minute while they consider questioning everything they are founded on. Oh this is called ego isn't it?

[MatteO22]

21 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

Also, feminine integration is big. Often times femininity and things associated with such tend to be seen as frivolous, dumb, and inferior by the patriarchy and the repression of the feminine is much worse when it comes to men because as soon as he embraces his femininity, he is branded as less of a man or people think that something is wrong with him. 

This! 
 

tbh it’s a lot of social stigma, the roles men tend to play and be Put into in today’s society tend to be so rigid that they leave little room for spirituality. In so many ways, true spirituality is about receiving the essence of who you are. And since you’re not achieving anything, you might be labelled as a weak and useless man. And that shit can hurt as hell. 
 

But it’s also that women can be into spirituality, but it doesn’t mean it’s always genuine. The ego can dress up as a spiritual one because it may gain attention and praise for being a certain way. So spirituality can be used as a manipulative means to get what you want. 
 

… thuss I don’t think we can say that women are less rooted in their egos than men. It’s about the same for all of us.

14 hours ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

Eckhart Tolle says women are closer to source because they can bear children and as such are more in their bodies.

Yeah… I’m not sure about that. I think that birth and having a child can be a huge spiritual experience and a process of alignment with your soul, but fatherhood can be the same. 
 

Thing is Tolle has probably a predominantly female audience so maybe he just concluded that based on the percentage of females watching him ? Maybe.