Religion for the libidinous

[macavitykitsune]

Perhaps the thing I love most about Hinduism is that it allows for an infinity of relationships with the gods we choose, in the way each human chooses to interact with them. (A build-your-own-plan approach to religious fervour, as it were.) There have been saints and poets in the history of the Hindu tradition who worshipped the gods of their choosing as friends, as companions, as brothers and sisters, as mothers and fathers, as lovers and husbands and helpless infants and omnipotent, formless infinities.



One of my favourite pieces of religious poetry is the Neerattam by Periyazhvar, which is essentially a call to (a young, misbehaving, possibly-about-to-be-grounded) Krishna to come home and have your bath, you look like you’ve been rolling in the mud. A sentiment with which, I’m sure, any parents reading this are nodding along in agreement. Another poet, Andal, was the adoptive daughter of another Vaishnavite saint, and utterly devoted to Vishnu from early childhood. The legend goes that she would wear the garlands meant for the idol of Srivilliputhur, assuming that that was all right, as she was going to grow up and marry him, and that the god was pleased with her for it. From her early teenage, she sang exclusively to Krishna as a lover, from the chaste beginnings of the Tiruppavai to the frenzied edge of passion in her dreams of her wedding night with him in her frank and borderline explicit Naachiyar Tirumozhi. Nor is she alone in that; other saints like Meerabhai have also imagined themselves in the role of Krishna’s lover, a tradition that reaches back to the beginnings of Hinduism as we know it today.

While I adore these poems and their poets for expressing entirely understandings of the intertwining of divinity and humanity, I feel very differently about the attitudes surrounding the poets themselves. Hindu culture’s insistence on elevating anyone who engages in this kind of explicitly sexual connection with the divine to a state of divinity annoys me, to put it mildly. Even the article I linked to to provide background on Andal points out that it would be an apacharam (sacrilege) for anyone but Andal to do what she did.

File under: The Point, You Missed It.

The whole goddamn point of Andal’s story is that she is no more (and, to an advaiti, no less) divine than any of us. The point is that feeling that sexual/romantic connection to the gods is scripturally permitted, even encouraged if that’s how the individual feelsl. The point of her story is that if the connection you, random reader, feel to divinity is centred squarely in your netherbits, that is not just not wrong, but fine. Normal. Good. We humans are physical beings; we have bodies that ache and yearn and thrill every bit as intensely as our minds do. Acknowledging the physicality, the ordinariness, the normalcy of a sexualised or romantic relationship with the divine is incredibly important.

But of course, that would mean acknowledging that many (if not all) of the women singing about wanting gods, loving gods, and yes, even fucking gods, have desire, sexual desire, and that simply isn’t socially acceptable. It would mean acknowledging that many (if not all) of the men singing about wanting gods, loving gods, and yes, even fucking gods, have sexual desires, and that simply isn’t socially acceptable either. It would mean acknowledging that there’s relatively little sexual-romantic poetry directed at the goddesses, and maybe that has something to do with the fact that while Hinduism sees gods as free agents, free to reciprocate or at least accept the desires of humans, most Hindus don’t feel comfortable according that autonomy or independence to the gods who happen to be female.

Maybe that’s too much hard work. Maybe that’s too revolutionary a thought process to have. Maybe it’s simpler just to deify a handful of people than to look at what stories their works might tell, what possibilities they might open up for all the rest of us. But it’s a simplicity that leaves Hinduism, and everyone in it, poorer. And seriously, the hell with that.

Comments

[rachel_riecheru]

I really enjoyed reading this, I like the idea of having your own personal relationship with the god/deity of your choice. I've always liked what I heard about Hinduism but have never really learned all that much about it. Overtime I decided I was a Buddhist/Shintoist.

I quiet like the idea of singing/thinking/writing about sex with gods is accepted as good thing. :)

[macavitykitsune]

^__^ Thank you! And I definitely think it's healthy, too. Though it seems more widespread than Hinduism/Sufism, which were the only traditions I knew of that did that...

[7veils]

Actually, that's not much different than the mystical branches of Christianity and Sufism, either, although you could say that the most repressive and sexist people completely dominated those religions and basically tortured and executed anyone who disagreed with them. So they controlled the press. But if you look at the poetry of St. Teresa d'Avila, for example, it has the same elements as Mirabai or Andal, only insert Christ for Krishna.

[macavitykitsune]

Ooh, that's really intriguing! Is it a fairly mainstream thing now? Obviously, it couldn't have been Back Then, but. And I knew about Sufism, but wasn't aware of mysticism in the Christian traditions. *runs off to check St. Teresa's work*

[7veils]

Is it a fairly mainstream thing now? Obviously, it couldn't have been Back Then, but.

No, not now, not ever. Not as long as publicly celibate, (and frequently closeted), men run the Church.

Also, Teresa's work — if you can stomach it — is all couched in flowery language about like 'I met my beloved [Christ] in the garden and the fountains erupted.' So, it's a treat-and-a-half to read. (Not.)

Here's a fairly good photo of Bernini's famous mannerist sculpture The Ecstacy of St. Teresa at St. Peter's Basillica in Rome, so you have to know there was something very out of the ordinary about her. Now, the whole western world has become so mental (I mean that literally as well as figuratively: reductive, analytical, synthesizing, critical and centered in objective consciousness, dismissive of 'non-rational' knowledge or wisdom) that mysticism tends to be treated with derision and skepticism. So, between that, and the Church, which has always had a funny relationship with women, you would be hard-pressed to find anything written on St. Teresa that isn't utter nonsense.

But I tend to have more of a Joseph Campbell outlook on the female figures in the Catholic Church, and there were many of them: Some taken from the Old Testament, both saintly and villainous alike, Sarah, Rebecca, Naomi, Jezebel, The Pharoah's Wife, Tzeporah, et al ...); some from Christ's life: his mother, Mary; his aunt, St. Anne; his lover girlfriend shakti devotee, Mary Magdalene; his housekeeper, Martha (poor Martha!); Salome ... and then a whole host of saints and angels from the archangel Hanael to St. Margaret, St. Teresa, St. Ursula and many others (including some taken from Pagan sources and later dismissed as Apocryphal. The story of St. Margaret emerging whole from the stomach of the dragon was one such Christian myth struck from the Catholic pantheon.)

Essentially, as Campbell postulates, all these saints and angels bear the same mystical imprimatur as Hindu or Taoist gods and goddesses. They each represented a certain aspect of consciousness. Quite a lot of focus was upon the Virgin Mary, who was also Regina Angelorum (Queen of Angels), Stella Maris (Star of the Sea), Regina Prophetarum (Queen of the Prophets), Vas Clemens (Vessel of God's Mercy), Regina Caelis (Queen of the Heavens) and a host of other attributes including the Moon and the Throne of God. Some mystics believe that this was actually Mary Magdelene, not Mary, Mother of Jesus, but that is considered heresy by the Christian orthodoxy. But the point was that each of these different Marys had different attributes. One was a source of mercy and compassion. One interceded for petitioners against the full wrath of an impersonal God. One was a guiding star of light over turbulent waters. One came to bestow light during the hour of death. One helped the soul transcend its worldly tribulations. One crushes the evil dragon under her feet. These would be similar to powers attributed to different Hindu goddesses like Parvati, Durga, Savitri.

One thing that would be interesting about female mystics in Catholicism is that many of them were allowed to retreat from the world and become cloistered. The general idea was that the world would be intolerant of their visions and devotion, so they would take the vow of chastity, poverty, obedience and silence, and spend their days in silent contemplation and acts of quiet service (like doing the laundry.) The general idea behind the Vow of Chastity was that the nuns 'married' Christ. So many of them had sexual relations with him in their imaginative consciousnesses. Actually, many priests did as well, although there is almost no mention of this anywhere. Or the image of the beloved would appear to a monk or priest as Mary or one of the saints, or he would think of it as a terrible succubus come to prey upon him. But you cannot spend your life in meditation and devotional hymn singing without stirring up (as they would say in the schools of yoga) the kundalini. And many of them, monks, priests or nuns, were unprepared for sublimating this energy by merging it in the heart chakra with descending light from the crown or alta center, or some other such relief. (They just didn't know how to do that, or the Fohat energy — which was called the Holy Spirit, Spiritus Sanctum in Latin, Pleroma in Greek, or Shekinah or Ruach Elohim in Hebrew — didn't respond to them.) So quite a lot of them went absolutely bonkers. Score one for sex and the Catholic Church.