Women stand for the objective world for a man. They stand for

Hear the voice of Leonard Cohen, poet, prophet, and singer of the soul, who declared: “Women stand for the objective world for a man. They stand for the thing that you're not and that's what you always reach for in a song.” These words are not shallow praise, nor are they casual sentiment. They are the distillation of a lifetime spent in longing, in art, and in meditation on love. In them lies the recognition that women embody, for men, that which is beyond themselves—mystery, wholeness, and the eternal “other” that summons the heart into song.

The origin of this truth lies in Cohen’s own art. Throughout his music and poetry, women appear not only as lovers but as muses, symbols of what is missing, what is yearned for, what lies just beyond the grasp of the self. In speaking of women as the objective world, he does not mean to confine them, but to exalt their role as a mirror and as a doorway: a mirror that reflects the incompleteness of man, and a doorway into the larger mystery of life. In the space between the self and the “other,” between man and woman, art is born. For the song rises out of yearning, and yearning is always for what one is not.

Consider the story of Dante Alighieri and Beatrice. Dante scarcely knew Beatrice in life, yet in her he found the embodiment of divine grace. She became for him the symbol of salvation, the guide who led him through the heavens in The Divine Comedy. Beatrice was not simply a woman to Dante—she was the objective world, the embodiment of all that was beyond him, the eternal presence that called him higher. Cohen’s words echo this ancient truth: that men, gazing upon women, often see not only flesh and blood, but an image of the transcendent, a symbol of what they lack and yet desire to touch through art and love.

Cohen also reminds us that the longing for “the thing that you’re not” is the spark of creativity. The painter reaches for the light he cannot hold. The musician reaches for the harmony that slips beyond silence. The poet reaches for the truth that cannot be spoken plainly. And the lover reaches for the woman who embodies, in her difference, the promise of completion. This yearning is not weakness, but strength; it is the force that drives humanity to create beauty, to sing songs, to carve meaning out of existence.

Yet let us not mistake his words as placing women only in relation to men. For Cohen’s insight is deeper: he is speaking of the eternal dance between self and other, between what one is and what one is not. Women may symbolize this for men, but the truth is universal. Every human being is incomplete, and it is in reaching toward what we lack that we grow. Women, in Cohen’s vision, are the most immediate and powerful embodiment of this for men, but the principle belongs to all souls: art is born in the reaching.

O seeker, the lesson is this: do not be ashamed of longing. Longing is the root of beauty. The ache you feel for what you are not, for what lies beyond you, is not emptiness—it is a bridge. Women, as Cohen says, may embody this bridge, but so too do all the mysteries of life that call you outward. To yearn is to live; to suppress yearning is to wither. Reach, therefore, for the “other,” for the fullness of the world, and let your reaching be transformed into song, into creation, into love.

And what actions must you take? Honor the women in your life not only as companions, but as reflections of the mystery that awakens your own soul. When you feel the pang of incompleteness, do not drown it in despair, but transform it into art, into service, into beauty. Seek out that which you are not—wisdom if you are ignorant, compassion if you are hardened, courage if you are fearful. For in reaching for what you are not, you become more than you were.

Thus remember Cohen’s teaching: women stand for the objective world, for that which is outside the self, and it is this “otherness” that calls forth song. Let your life, too, be a song born of yearning—not a cry of despair, but a hymn of striving, a melody that bridges the gulf between what you are and what you seek to become. For in that reaching lies the nobility of the human heart.