"What you're getting excited about is not A face, but a feminine face"
About this Quote
The line pivots on a tiny grammatical shift that opens a wide philosophical door. It points to the difference between reacting to a particular person and being seized by an archetype. The excitement is not about one unique face with its quirks and history; it is about the idea and energy of the feminine that the face evokes. Desire, in this sense, is less a personal appraisal than a response to a universal pattern that lives in biology, culture, and psyche.
Andrew Cohen, a spiritual teacher who speaks often about evolutionary spirituality and the impersonal, uses this distinction to loosen the grip of romantic projection. When attraction flares, the mind tends to weave stories about the specialness of this one individual. Yet beneath those stories, ancient circuits and cultural images are firing. The feminine face is not simply a face; it is a symbol that lights up values and longings linked to nurture, beauty, mystery, or generative power. Recognizing that dynamic does not deny the person; it clarifies what is actually moving in us.
The shift from a face to a feminine face also hints at the Platonic tension between form and instance. A specific person is an instance; femininity is the form. Marketing and media exploit this by abstracting the feminine into a promise that can be attached to anything from perfume to cars. Spiritual practice, by contrast, invites seeing the pattern without being hypnotized by it. Awareness can free us from compulsive chasing and allow a meeting with the person behind the symbol.
There is an ethical edge here. If we only see the archetype, we risk flattening individuals into signs. If we only see the individual, we risk being driven by unconscious forces. The statement asks for a double vision: honor the universal that animates attraction, and simultaneously grant full reality to the person who bears its trace.
Andrew Cohen, a spiritual teacher who speaks often about evolutionary spirituality and the impersonal, uses this distinction to loosen the grip of romantic projection. When attraction flares, the mind tends to weave stories about the specialness of this one individual. Yet beneath those stories, ancient circuits and cultural images are firing. The feminine face is not simply a face; it is a symbol that lights up values and longings linked to nurture, beauty, mystery, or generative power. Recognizing that dynamic does not deny the person; it clarifies what is actually moving in us.
The shift from a face to a feminine face also hints at the Platonic tension between form and instance. A specific person is an instance; femininity is the form. Marketing and media exploit this by abstracting the feminine into a promise that can be attached to anything from perfume to cars. Spiritual practice, by contrast, invites seeing the pattern without being hypnotized by it. Awareness can free us from compulsive chasing and allow a meeting with the person behind the symbol.
There is an ethical edge here. If we only see the archetype, we risk flattening individuals into signs. If we only see the individual, we risk being driven by unconscious forces. The statement asks for a double vision: honor the universal that animates attraction, and simultaneously grant full reality to the person who bears its trace.
Quote Details
| Topic | Romantic |
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