Rambling Librarian tells me that Gandhi said celibacy made his marriage better. This was apropos of one of my earlier posts where I asked what is marriage without sex. Well, Gandhi, for all his greatness, hardly gave unalloyed happiness to his wife and children.
Not everyone can be as ascetic as Gandhi. We have heard, of course, of sacred and profane love. But is such a dichotomy really possible? When I posed that question about marriage and sex, I was really thinking of love and happiness. And what is love and how do we express it? Through a touch, an endearment. When I think of my wife, who is in Calcutta (Kolkata) while I work in Singapore, I see her face, hear her voice — I see her as a woman, not as an abstraction.
We are ordinary people who enjoy music, movies and good food, things that appeal to our senses. We are sensual by nature.
Isn’t that why we beautify churches, temples and mosques?
Have we ever seen an ugly Jesus Christ or a dowdy Mother Mary?
Why do the faces of Hindu gods and goddesses radiate beauty and serenity?
Why is Buddha so calm and serene?
We love beauty that is palpable, tangible, physical.
It is sanctioned by the scriptures.
We Hindus happily celebrate the love of Radha and Krishna, worship the Shiva linga, have our erotic sculptures in ancient temples.
There is eroticism in the Bible, too, in the Song of Solomon. That is said to be an allegory about the relationship between Christ and the church, between Christ and the individual believer.
If that is so, it is hardly unusual. Hinduism too encourages believers to love gods and goddesses with the same ardour. Even Islam, perhaps a more austere religion, has its Sufis who sing their love of God with passionate abandon almost reaching a trance-like state.
Beauty is truth — truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Those were the last lines of Keats in Ode on a Grecian Urn.
I don’t want to know more.
All I want is the warmth of love and happiness.
Related posts:
