“Allah knows what every female carries and what the wombs decrease or increase.” - 13:8
Many are the theories, theologies, and ideas of why is there something and not nothing. Rational mind asking these questions, seems to end up only even more involved in itself. His own confusion and limits are reflected back at him. Mad and angry at the mystery, he yells: "For indeed there is nothing but darkness and the projection of my light in it"
The great mystery hearing his denial of her existence, hearing the harshness by which he speaks, then sorrowfully responds: "What is wrong with you? The light you project into me is me, I am its mother, there is not a part of you that isn't me!"
The mind retreats to his room, and the mystery withdraws deeper into night.
She Whose Body is the Universe
"With what a tranquil face, with what an unclouded expression, with what joyous embraces was she taken up by her son! Happy indeed were the kisses he pressed on her lips when she was nursing and as a mother delighted in the child in her virgin’s lap. But surely will we not deem much happier those kisses which in blessed greeting she receives today from the mouth of him who sits on the right hand of the Father, when she ascends to the throne of glory, singing a nuptial hymn and saying: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.”?" - St. Bernard's Sermons
St. Bernard's Sermons are the source one of the most famed, elaborate, and beautiful words spoken of the "Song of Solomon", taking often a tone full of passionate love, even erotic rapture. Mary, among all the women, was given a divine mission - to deliver God onto the world. Her womb was the holy space in which, even God wanted to dwell before he was born as a man. St. Bernard, however, adds a tender and gentle reminder - God is Love, and she was filled with love because it was she who bore the Love in her womb.
Before Love was even known to the man, that same Love was hidden in "three veils of darkness" ("He creates you in the wombs of your mothers: creation after creation in three veils of darkness." - Qur'an 39:6). Before it showed its face before the world, it was nurtured by the love that love felt for itself. In both Hebrew and Arabic, the word for mercy & womb, bear the same root: racham (Hebrew) and rahim (Arabic). Ivan Illich reflects on this and describes racham as “the womb in the state of love.” Racham is the love that gives itself unconditionally without asking for anything in return. This is not mercy of the Judge, rather the unconditional mercy that does not exist in opposition to "non - mercy. Its existence is not relative, it is absolute.
The Womb is Love herself, as it is only Love that allows space without limits, without boundaries, for no other reason but to allow another to grow and take form. An idea similar to St. Bernard's and other Christian mystics is found in the Indian tradition. There, the mahavidya Bhuvaneshwari, who is the embodiment of the space, and whose body is the space, and everything existing are diamonds and jewels spread across her body, is also the embodiment of love as the Iccha Shakti. Moved by the love for her consort, she opens her body, as the space, in which His endless will and love is able manifest.
It is only unconditional and limitless love that offers infinite freedom, and it is through this great love, that she gives birth to gods. The "holy womb" that gives birth to gods is also a concept very familiar to ancient Egyptians. Egyptian goddess Nut, who is "She who Bore the Gods", is often portrayed as a woman arching her body over earth. Similarly, the hymn to Isis from the Shelwit Temple in Luxor sings: "She is the only lady, Reverence for Eset (Isis). She gives birth to the day".
Perhaps, all these traditions wanted to tell the following: It is not nothing that is behind the three veils of darkness, but rather, everything. For, Dante addressed his beloved as: "Quanto de ben po far natura. Per esempio di lei bielta` si prova" ("The sum of nature’s universe. To her perfection all of beauty tends"), seeing in her temporal existence, something of eternity.
She Who Absolves Not
"Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving" — "Inferno", Dante
The Gita says: "Of all creations I am the beginning and the end and also the middle", the Revelations speak: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End", and Qur'an tells: "He is the First, the Last, the Manifest, and the Unseen and He knows all things."
She was filled with Love, and she bore Love because she, herself, was Love. The Female of all females, the Womb of all wombs, gave rise to one thing before she gave rise to anything - she gave rise to Love. Everything exists, and there is something instead of nothing, because there is Love. Love is beyond any duality, and destroys duality because Love is the return to the primordial innocence. Lovers do not think of the Judge because the innocent and the pure do not go before judges. The lovers dwell "the womb in the state of love", the realm of unconditional mercy - they never knew anything else.
Love seems to be not only the highest principle, but rather, the only principle, and everything that turns its face away from Love, reasonably, fears the Judge.
Peace Friends, There is an case made by a very interesting translator of the Qur'an, that "Rahman" with its roots in signifying the womb actually means "Almighty". The opening words of the Qur'an and most surahs then becomes "In the name/character of Allah, Almighty and All Merciful". I have found this most fruitful a notion to entertain, in how it transforms many passages and states of being. The womb and the Feminine then as the source of both mercy AND power. This recalls Ibn Arabi's understanding of the Feminine, as Sachiko Murata speaks about in the Tao of Islam. It matches Chinese points of view, where the yielding/responsive is that which always overcomes. I find this frame most useful in particul…