"In sleep, you do not know whether you are a man or a woman," he said. "Just as a man, impersonating a woman, does not become one, so the soul, impersonating both man and woman, has no sex. The soul is the pure, changeless image of God."
Sri Yukteswar never avoided or blamed women as objects of seduction. Men, he said, were also a temptation to women. I once inquired of my guru why a great ancient saint had called women "the door to hell."
"A girl must have proved very troublesome to his peace of mind in his early life," my guru answered causticly. "Otherwise he would have denounced, not woman, but some imperfection in his own self-control."
- The above is an excerpt from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda