Bennett

“This past year I received some somewhat strange news from a series of chance medical tests carried out for other reasons, that my chromosomal makeup is somewhat anomalous… Normally, males have an XY chromosomal profile and females have an XX chromosomal profile. But some people who are born outwardly “male” or “female” can have various chromosomal aberrations that are not the simple binary XX or XY. It turns out I am one of those people…

To be honest, I have always felt somewhat “gender ambiguous” … inwardly that I was a girl, even though I obviously had a boy body… I used to sincerely and naively believe that one morning, I would simply wake up and find myself in a girl body and just continue my life that way… I even remember telling my mom something about that when I was maybe around 5, and I will never forget her compassionate and loving motherly response….which was typical of her. She told me later that she thought that maybe I was just gay, which would have been just fine with her. Soon after that, she took me to a doctor out of concern and he said that gender confusion (now called gender dysforia) is sometimes pretty common among small children when their basic sense of self-identity is still being formed. “He seems like a very happy and loving little boy… He will probably just grow out of it”, the doctor said…

But I didn’t “just grow out of it”! I still haven’t” … one thing that spiritual awakening has clearly shown me is that personal identity isn’t something that’s absolutely fixed. It’s actually quite dynamic, fluid and ever changing and is affected by so many different factors and conditions. I feel no personal anxiety around all this at this point, although I did at various times in my life growing up… this is simply my personal makeup as a physical/emotional/spiritual being… I am what I am and have always been that, even though I may not have known about it consciously myself or may not have known what to call it or do about it. It was always clear to me on some intuitive level that I was “different” in this way.

I have come to feel and believe there are very few people that feel what we might describe as 100 percent, totally “masculine” or feel what we might think of as 100 percent, totally “feminine”. We all feel traits and energies of both what we might call, ”feminine” and “masculine” energy at different stages of our personal development… This is true, not just for me and other folks like me, but for all of us. We all need to integrate these different percentages of masculine and feminine energy that we are feeling. I think, people are feeling more comfortable these days saying, “Yeah, I’ve never felt 100 percent masculine all the time, but I’m mostly masculine.” or vice versa… it has become a more comfortable society to say that... But I suspect it’s also because the science around gender identity is now supporting that experience.

My personal discovery of “the science” of my own body has been an important discovery for me. This whole thing explains on an actual physiological level, part of why I have always felt connected in a profound way to females on a level that really has nothing much to do with physical/sexual attraction. It is more about feeling a sympathetic and empathic spirit connection that has, given rise to a deep need and attraction to integrating the seeming male/female polarities which dwell within me and of which I have always been acutely aware. I have deeply pondered over the karmic implications of all this and intuitively feel that there is probably some connection to past lives here on some level as well…

I’m not really sure precisely what all this means for me quite yet, or what my expression of it will come to look like in the next few years. But I do know and feel that I am on a journey of integration and further discovery around all of this and that the eventual outcome of it all will help me to more fully and authentically offer to the world my own unique presence and being, my own personal essence. Like everyone else, the personal expression of “my life” will incarnate and embody the reality of “presence” or “Spirit” in a way that will inevitably be quite unique and one of a kind. This is true for all of us, even those with less “exotic” chromosomes than mine!

I have always felt a need to be transparent and honest with people in my life and you are all “in my life” in a very real sense, even if we may never have met “in the flesh”. I just wanted you all to know this aspect of my journey because it feels so central to my personal life right now.. And I also hope that my own experience may be of some assistance to some of you who may be going through a similar journey to my own. I think there are many more people on a similar journey than we may think.

I have felt some hesitation and concern about a public disclosure concerning all this and have wondered how it might effect my relationships with my family and friends, and my teaching career. But… if I am to teach others about life and authenticity, integration and integrity, I myself must be a living example of it. So, even though this is very personal stuff, I have decided it is time to disclose it publicly. I sincerely hope that, whatever happens in my life and whatever expression my life takes, it will all be a kind of “teaching” about authenticity, integrity, and the courage to be true to ourselves. I have always hoped, as Saint Francis once is reported to have said, that…” I can preach the gospel/dharma/truth, wherever I go by means of whatever I do…..and if necessary, I will even use words”

I love you all! I invite you all to join me on this leg of my journey! It may prove interesting!.. I am reminded of what Forest Gump’s mom once said to him, “Life is like a box of chocolates Forest..…Once you open the box, you never really know what you are gonna get!”

Peace! ~francis”

~ In 2010, while in the middle of a Church Service in his monastery in Montreal, Francis Bennett suddenly experienced what he has come to call, “a radical perceptual shift in consciousness”, in which he discovered the ever present presence of spacious, pure awareness. He came to see that this awareness is actually the unchanging essence of who he really is and always has been; the Supreme Self, talked about by many sages and saints from many spiritual traditions down through the ages. He also came to see simultaneously, that this vast, infinite sense of presence at the center of his being (and at the center of the being of everyone else on the planet) is actually not at all separate from the presence of God, which he had been looking for during his many years as a monk and spiritual seeker.

Francis is now living a “new incarnation” as a spiritual teacher. Francis offers a blend of the Buddhist Traditions he studied, the contemplative Christian mystical tradition which he lived during his many years in monastic life, as well as the Hindu Advaita-Vedanta teaching of Sri Ramana Maharshi, who has had a profound influence on Francis.