Making Religion Sexy

And I thought this article was about XTC!

Peace

farzana,
i liked this better than your other work since it is less hysterical and seems more thought out. clever.

to add my two bits, one of my favorite pieces of sculpture is in rome in the santa maria della vittoria. its by bernini and its called ectasy of st. theresa. please take a look at it (im sure you can find it in any text book)...you`ll enjoy it. its an amazing piece. the story behind this work is about how struck st theresa was by the love of god. bernini made this statue as he read this description offered by st teresa
`...when he pulled the golden dart out again, and he left me burning in great love of god, the pain was so great that i screamed aloud, but i also felt such an overwhelming sweetness that i wished the pain to stay with me forever.`

im really looking forward to seeing the discussions your article will trigger this time round on chowk :)

rizvi.

Sigmund Freud would be proud of you. Only thing is, SF is now thought to have gone overboard in considering sex as the driving force for all human activity. Powerful? yes, Interesting? certainly. But the driving force? maybe not. The two (sex and religion) go hand in hand though, and are often to be found intertwined together, if I may say so without evocating further imagery.

The point of the following is that spirituality should permeate all of life, including sex, and the symbolism noted by Ferzana Versey follows from principle. That is, Hindu symbols are manifestations of spirituality. This is opposite to the idea that the symbolism is the result of sublimated sexuality.

-Arun Gupta

A quote from indictraditions :

How is it that our shastras even consider Kama and Artha as one of the four Purushaarthas? This over emphasis on a world -rejecting spirituality is the product of the medieval yogas as Sri Aurobindo puts it. Vedic culture knew no such shallow distinctions between the secular and the sacred. Everything is divine for us even Artha and Kama. Krishna says in the Gita that he is that Kama which is not opposed to Dharma.

Another quote :

Perhaps what makes Vedic ideas fundamentally different from other religions, is its insistence that God (Brahman, Allah, Father in Heaven, the Ground etc) has to be realised by the individual (in an earthly incarnation; some claim this is possible from other planes too) and that till that happens, intellectual speculations and cannonical definitions, texts, doctrines etc would only be at best akin to the story of the blind describing the elephant, an exercise not entirely false, but certainly incomplete.

Knowing God is not the same as realising God, because knowing implies duality (the knower and the known as separate, whereas realising implies the destruction of the duality where the knower and the known are merged).

The implications are profound and perhaps the most significant of this would be `Who can claim to be a teacher?` Clearly anyone who makes a claim of being such would be under the spell of duality and therefore contradicting the fundamental basis of the Vedas. The very vocal and strident positions espoused by the semitic traditions (on being the only way etc), therefore suffer from the obvious taint of unenlightened, ignorant and ego bound human intervention.

......

One last implication (there must be countless others) ... owing to the contradiction of direct instruction about God, the idea of God is engendeared in the Hindu psyche through the process of `rememberence`, which is why the idea of God is implicit to a degree of saturation in Indian culture. Our names, our food (brahmarpaanam), our music, our festivals, our life styles, births and death, our harvests, our epics and legends, our language, the smrithis, etc. Through this manner a gradual raising of the consciousness in every individual is set into motion.

This is why Hinduism allows unlimited representations for visualising God, so that each individual temperament finds accomodation. The response varies ... and for those who are mature, the language becomes bolder (without the fear of it being misunderstood).

----

Farzana,

Can`t resist noticing your attempts at creativity and looking intelligent

``and its stress on Karma (a single dropping of alphabet would make it ‘kama’, lust) ``

Karma is a Sanskrit word and if you remove sound ``r`` from it, it would become ``kum`` that has no meaning in Sanskrit. (Of course you will find one in English) If you want to use further such bright creative writing ideas in your future articles, here are some suggestions

``karma - remove k and rearrange - Rama``

``remove r and m - kaa - snake of Jungle book``

``rearrange - maark - a Indu sounding name for that drug company ..``

Now!! please don`t say that ``we are not amused``

One wonders how someone can live in a country and be so ignorant of its traditions and its reality.

For instance, at independence, I believe, there are more instances of Hindu polygamy in India than Muslims (even as a percentage of population). So, how are Hindus ``bound to monogamy`` ?

Ferzana Versey`s article reminds me of this joke :

A patient is shown an Rorschach ink-blot by his doctor, who asks ``What does this remind you of ?``

The patient replies ``sex``.

The doctor shows the patient a second ink-blot. ``What does this remind you of ?``

``Sex``

And so on. The doctor finally tells his patient -- You need help.

And the patient replies -- But it is your collection of dirty pictures !

-Arun Gupta

Ms. Versey!

I must admit that it is an interesting perspective though the idea is not new. Our Freud was a staunch advocate of this perspective.

Here is something for everyone:


GUIDE TO A SAFE SEX (OOPS) I MEAN SAFE FAX

Q: Do I have to be married to have safe fax?

A: Although married people fax quite often, there are many single people who fax complete strangers every day.

Q: My parents say they never had fax when they were young and were only allowed to write memos to each other until they were twenty-one. How old do you think someone should be before they can fax?

A: Faxing can be performed at any age, once you can learn the correct procedures.

Q: If I fax something to myself, will I go blind?

A: Certainly not, as far as we can see.

Q: There is a place on our street where you can go and pay to fax. Is this legal?

A: Yes. Many people have no other outlet for their fax drives and must pay a ``professional`` when their needs to fax become too great.

Q: Should a cover always be used for faxing?

A: Unless you are really sure of the one you are faxing, a cover should be used to insure safe fax.

Q: What happens when I incorrectly do the procedure and I fax prematurely?

A: Don`t panic. Many people prematurely fax when they haven`t faxed in a long time. Just start over, most people won`t mind if you try again.

Q: I have a personal and a business fax. Can transmissions become mixed up?

A: Being bi-faxual can be confusing, but as long as you use a cover with each one, you won`t transmit anything you`re not supposed to.

Oh what have we Chowkwallahs done to deserve being subjected to this gibberish. Please Mid-Day editor, give her her old job back.

Interesting way of looking at it. My friend Kabuliwallah holds a very similar view. Its a pity you two cant get along.

A very well written article infringing on certain personal beliefs of many but isn`t that what the First Ammendment is all about. :-)))

A very good effort. Keep Coming!