Sometimes you know what you want, but you cannot get yourself moving. The ideas are there, the knowledge is there, but the step does not come. Or you work a lot, but your work is not recognised and does not bring what it could. In systemic work such experiences often lead to the question of how the masculine principle lives in you.
The masculine principle is not reserved for men. It is a quality that exists in every person: strength, will, movement, the ability to start something and bring it to an end. When it is mature, life gains direction. When it is burdened, blockages, insecurity about your own worth and a sense of powerlessness appear.
This text draws on the books Decoding the Soul, Codes of Love, Codes of Success and The Path of Healing and explains how the masculine principle is understood in systemic work.
What the masculine principle is
The book Decoding the Soul describes the masculine principle as the active principle. It is our strength, our movement, the work we do, the activities we undertake, life energy and the energy of awareness with which alone it is possible to set out on the path of self-realisation.
In the book Codes of Love, the masculine principle is the principle of consciousness, and the feminine the principle of manifestation. The role of the masculine principle is to give the initial impulse, and the role of the feminine to receive it, transform it and return it. One cannot exist without the other: energy without direction is scattered, and direction without energy remains only an idea.
“A mature masculine principle brings us the manifestation of creation and the increase of abundance through creation.” (from the book Decoding the Soul)
Man is the Creator
The same chapter describes the masculine principle as a creative force. If the path of self-realisation lies in the feminine principle, then movement, will and awareness are needed to set out on that path. When this principle is mature, we are professionally fulfilled and recognised, and our expertise, knowledge and abilities are recognised and valued.
The book also connects this with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: it describes the lower needs as the feminine principle and the higher ones as the masculine. Yet it emphasises that one cannot exist without the other. Similarly, the book Codes of Success sees the masculine principle in the business world in professional business skills and the feminine in personal skills, and points out that their balance is important both for the individual and for the team.
How the masculine principle becomes burdened
Decoding the Soul reminds us that throughout history both men and women were in subordinate roles: as slaves, soldiers, subjects, serfs, workers. On that historical training ground of power, everyone played the roles of victim and perpetrator. These patterns remain recorded in the collective unconscious.
The book describes in particular the division into slave and master, which throughout history only changes its names: serf and feudal lord, worker and capitalist, over-indebted citizen and bank. When this division lives in us, our capacity to work becomes conditioned by others, and the masculine principle remains constrained. The book vividly calls this freeing the “hidden slaves” within us.
That is why work on the masculine principle in this book also includes sentences about worth and mission: becoming aware of negative and self-destructive concepts about your own worth, becoming aware of your true nature and of what you carry as your life’s task, and allowing the field of work to mature in you. Strength that does not know what it serves easily turns into strain.
On a personal level, the way you live the masculine principle is shaped above all by your relationship with your father and by the destinies of the men in your family. Codes of Love points out that relationships with parents repeat themselves until we become aware of them, and that precisely these relationships show how our masculine and feminine principles manifest in life.
How the masculine principle is freed
Decoding the Soul offers a programme of systemic self-inquiry for releasing the masculine principle in consciousness and body. With each sentence you pause and observe what appears, without hurry and without force. Some of the sentences are:
- I want to become aware of the masculine principle in myself.
- I want to eliminate the obstacles to connecting with the strength of my male ancestors in myself.
- I want to optimise activity and passivity in me.
- I want to optimise father and mother in me.
- I want to establish the energy of the Creator in me.
These are neither promises nor positive statements. They are a conscious intention to look at what stands between you and your strength. According to the book, this kind of work strengthens the capacity for action, determination and awareness needed to achieve high goals, in balance with the feminine principle.
Strength that serves life
In the book The Path of Healing, through the conversations of Maca and Ljiljana, the masculine principle is described as what transforms energy through will, prayer and creativity. A mature masculine principle is neither domination nor struggle. It is a calm strength that knows where it is going and does not have to prove its worth to anyone.
When the masculine and feminine principles in you come into harmony, work stops being a burden and becomes expression. Then what you do carries your worth, and not the fear that you have none.