04. A FATHER-MOTHER GOD
The next aspect of Essene theology which we consider important will come as a great surprise to most. The Essenes consider God not as a male figure, but as both Father and Mother.
In the Essene manuscripts, Jesus the Nazarene teaches that God is both Father and Mother, and that all of nature is created in the divine image and likeness of Father-Mother God.
All of nature, the process Natural of all Dharma in our Dao physiology and psychology, consists of the Feminine Mother principle which consists of the root programs of Nature and correct survival, and their expression, which is the Masculine Father principle.
In the The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, "which was communicated to the original editors centuries ago, in different sections by different translators" (including a priest Placidus of the Franciscan Order, later a Carmelite), Jesus is said to have declared.
"God is the Two in One. He is She and She is He.... Therefore shall the name of the Father and the Mother be equally hallowed, for they are the great aspects of God, and the one is not without the other, in the One God."
God is a perfectly balanced spiritual attributes of the religious concept of the masculine (Father) and feminine (Mother) aspects.
"God is both male and female, not divided, but the Two in One.... In God the masculine is not without the feminine, nor is the feminine without the masculine: Love is not without knowledge, Justice is not without Mercy, the Head is not without the Heart. In God, the masculine powers and feminine powers are perfectly united as ONE."
Looking now at the beginning of the human creature,
"Verily, God created mankind in the Divine image male and female, and all nature is in the Image of God.... In the beginning, God willed and there came forth the First Beloved Son and the First Beloved Daughter, united as Love and Wisdom, created in the Image and Likeness of the Father-Mother, and of these proceed all the generations of the Spirits of God, the Sons and Daughters of the eternal.... From the will of God comes forth the Divine Sons and Daughters of God, and within each Son is the Daughter and within each Daughter is the Son."
Now while the Essenes believed that we are in His own image God is greater and above the human creature in Quantity and Quality and has the name "I Am".
Now the Masculine and Feminine principles reflect the One of Dao and that one is clearly more complete that any of its parts because it contains all Life.
While the great function of Avaivartika is to first eliminate all the symptoms of identity through meditation, we can see that the illusory verbal and conceptual "I Am" is the natural Identity of self/no-self.
The quoted text, also called the Gospel of the Nazarenes, is claimed by Essenes to be the Gospel described by many commentators of the early Church as the original teachings of the Nazarene called Christ.
It is considered by traditional Christians a fraud. We can take no position on this topic except to examine the contents in good faith with free critical inquiry.