Dealing with Taboos of Sexuality in the Radha-Krishna tradition Options

[Gerard]

Similarly, it is not of my concern whether anyone gained any positive experiences within ISKCON; that is also up to the individual to talk about and there are already several threads there for one to go and register their appreciations if they have any, or politely discuss the Emperor's nakedness in hushed tones. There's always one.

So on GR you are a disgruntled ex-HK and on the Caitanya Symposium you are an interested proof-reader of GV translations. What are you?

[zanardi]

Sometimes it seems that the construction of layer upon layer of intricate theology to explain this, even that which is meant to assist the individual in understanding the reasons for and causes of his attraction, actually seems to serve the purpose of removing oneself further and further away from the embarrassment of having to admit and confess to what it actually is at the end of the day.

You mean "loving insertion" (please, some beautiful music here and maybe images of rivers flowing etc)?
The choice of language in these connections can veritably mean that one ends up just beating around the bushes. It is like some people think soft porn is OK, but at the same time hard core porn is just too much for them. In actuality it is the same thing, just that in the other one they are not beating around the bush, but showing and doing everything as it is.

Of course I do not know how these ultra spiritual personalities perform their loving insertions, but I am ready to change my opinion as soon as they show me the proof in the pudding.

[Ananda]

You mean "loving insertion" (please, some beautiful music here and maybe images of rivers flowing etc)?
The choice of language in these connections can veritably mean that one ends up just beating around the bushes. It is like some people think soft porn is OK, but at the same time hard core porn is just too much for them. In actuality it is the same thing, just that in the other one they are not beating around the bush, but showing and doing everything as it is.

Given that the whole premise of the esoteric GV reality revolves around beating around the bushes, it's hardly surprising that we see such a grand level of duality on all things sexual. You worship a god who beats around the bushes of Vrindavan in order to get to beat around the bushes of the girls hiding their bushes in the bushes, and bang bang --- you have the cosmic climax of ecstasy laid out bare before you like a blast of sunshine coming from the world beyond, and you need to intensely celibate to be able to hold on to that holy bushy vision.

This is why for example the name of Rasputin, that hallowed mystic from the land of Rasiya, means "juicy bottocks", "wet underwear" or "juicy hollow", as also "any cake or pastry filled with seasoning or stuffing of any kind", depending on whether you use a soft (त) or a hard (ट) tee, and your choice of position for the tee. It all comes down to the science of linga-murtis, the shapes and curvature of the symbolic signs employed in beating around the bush, and the better your twist, the greater your spiritual success.

[Brainiac]

Oh no, I was as always constantly totally aware of this fact. In fact, teenage? Wasn't it acarya-wise stated he was merely eight years old and therefore no banging was physiologically even possible and therefor only the bad, I repeat, evil, section would insinuate mundane sex (disgusting).

Actually I've always wondered about that myself. Did the acharyas state such things, and if so, who did and what did they say?

I was under the impression that these "8-year-old Krishna and 17-year-old Radha" (or whatever) were the domain of certain Indian swamis (such as Sai Baba) who protest loudly against sexual interpretations. I am sure if one looks hard enough one can find similar statements by other swamis too. But as far as Gaudiyas were concerned I thought everyone was on the same page about this. Reminds me of an old article I wrote for the SB people where I quoted the Sri Gaura-Govindarchana-Smarana-Paddhati of Dhyanacandra Gosvami, which says that (in nitya-lila) Radha is 14 and Krishna is 15.

[Ananda]

Actually I've always wondered about that myself. Did the acharyas state such things, and if so, who did and what did they say?

I was under the impression that these "8-year-old Krishna and 17-year-old Radha" (or whatever) were the domain of certain Indian swamis (such as Sai Baba) who protest loudly against sexual interpretations. I am sure if one looks hard enough one can find similar statements by other swamis too. But as far as Gaudiyas were concerned I thought everyone was on the same page about this. Reminds me of an old article I wrote for the SB people where I quoted the Sri Gaura-Govindarchana-Smarana-Paddhati of Dhyanacandra Gosvami, which says that (in nitya-lila) Radha is 14 and Krishna is 15.

The "child-Krishna and adult-Radha" theme is prominent in the Brahma-vaivarta-purana, much of which appears to be a work post-dating Chaitanya, as it finds notice in the works of the Goswamis only in stray references. The BVP has however gained a great deal of foothold in popular Hindu religiosity.

The commentaries on the participants' age in the Rasa-lila have to do with what the Gaudiyas term prakata-lila or the manifest pastimes (that often take awkward turns when you try to reconcile different versions of the same story), while the so-called "eternal age" is the couple's ages in their aprakata-lila, or the eternal sacred loop of eight-fold daily dalliances.

[darwin]

It’ll be great, because while all those PHDs are in there talking about modes of alienation, we’ll be in here quietly humping.

---Woody Allen

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[darwin]

I was always turned off by all that god is a man we are all women and lets be gay for god spiritual transvestitism they would preach to me on the gaudiya internet.

The thing is that when God is a woman the guys aren't out on the street crowing about it like they do with the homosexually oriented scriptural theology.

I have always believed in god as a woman. I will never talk about it. It may seem the opposite but some can see through it all as just my attempt to attract.

When we mock the god using the term banging or argue back no don't that is bad it may seem we are using the same words from the same books but we never received the Veda of it really. We are all mispronouncing the name of god as Thomas JJ Altizer would say.

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[Dhyana]

It’ll be great, because while all those PHDs are in there talking about modes of alienation, we’ll be in here quietly humping.

---Woody Allen.

Cute
And it awakens echoes of some mellow poems on the theme of, Let others study and meditate etc etc... I am fully satisfied by... [followed by some cute description of, let's say, watching how Nanda chastises baby Krishna... or maybe, for the brave, something from another rasa.]

[Gerard]

I was always turned off by all that god is a man we are all women and lets be gay for god spiritual transvestitism they would preach to me on the gaudiya internet.

The thing is that when God is a woman the guys aren't out on the street crowing about it like they do with the homosexually oriented scriptural theology.

I have always believed in god as a woman. I will never talk about it. It may seem the opposite but some can see through it all as just my attempt to attract.

When we mock the god using the term banging or argue back no don't that is bad it may seem we are using the same words from the same books but we never received the Veda of it really. We are all mispronouncing the name of god as Thomas JJ Altizer would say.

But when you say god is a woman aren't you doing the same thing as the people who are saying it's a man which was 'condamned' by your line "When we mock the god using the term banging or argue back no don't that is bad it may seem we are using the same words from the same books but we never received the Veda of it really." ?

[Ananda]

The sheer fact that we discuss in grand detail the genital ventures of the said gods tells more than its fair share about the unchallenged sublime supremacy of this particular original form of the two-armed absolute autocrat from the cowherd village. It's the supreme godhead at his most universal appeal, we heard the doctor say. At least it was so to those who shared the peculiar taste of endlessly discussing the said ventures in and around the bushes of Vrindavan.

To each his own, but in my view the devotional concept of gods is a definite back-tracking from the older Upanishadic universals and the sacred cycles of nature, as far as directly touching the actual substance of existence goes, anyway. The less abstract a religion becomes at its heart, the faster downhill its track, with its supreme rulers and pontiffs in command, in its canon law and its hardening ideologies and decreasing freedom of thought, invention and discovery.

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[Gerard]

Hegel said abstract thinking is a characteristic of simple-minded people who only think in generalities. Some say, like Hegel, that the more abstract a religion, the more degenerate.

It's funny how people can come to the exact opposite conclusions.

[darwin]

But when you say god is a woman aren't you doing the same thing as the people who are saying it's a man which was 'condamned' by your line "When we mock the god using the term banging or argue back no don't that is bad it may seem we are using the same words from the same books but we never received the Veda of it really." ?

See that I said I have always believed "in god as a woman." I purposefully did not say "god is a woman."

My intent is to not subtract anything from god by my affirmations. It has nothing to do with thinking about other people with their gods or what other people are thinking. I had God like one would have a drug habit.

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[Gerard]

But when you say god is a woman aren't you doing the same thing as the people who are saying it's a man which was 'condamned' by your line "When we mock the god using the term banging or argue back no don't that is bad it may seem we are using the same words from the same books but we never received the Veda of it really." ?

See that I said I have always believed "in god as a woman." I purposefully did not say "god is a woman."

My intent is to not subtract anything from god by my affirmations. It has nothing to do with thinking about other people with their gods or what other people are thinking. I had God like one would have a drug habit.

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Sorry, I missed the subtle difference.

[Brainiac]

The "child-Krishna and adult-Radha" theme is prominent in the Brahma-vaivarta-purana

From memory, the BVP contains the most explicit descriptions of Radha-Krishna sex I've ever seen. Plenty of squeezing (very hard), biting, scratching, mad rutting, very animalistic. Funny how the writer of BVP portrays Krishna as a fan of the rough stuff. No donkey-punches though, we have to have standards.

[Ananda]

Hegel said abstract thinking is a characteristic of simple-minded people who only think in generalities. Some say, like Hegel, that the more abstract a religion, the more degenerate.

It's funny how people can come to the exact opposite conclusions.

For me, the more abstract it is, the more universal it is, and the more refined it is. Laws of physics, mathematical formulae; they are very general, and it has taken considerable effort in the history of mankind to distill those generalities from the mass of specificity we are daily surrounded by and swamped in. Our minds are so cluttered by the chaos of specificity that we become altogether blind to the logos of all underlying unity and symmetry.

If there is a creator god, those patterns are the language and fingerprints of that god; and the more people worship their man-made symbols as the height of their religion, the more they are missing the underlying point, a direct experience of how the universe exists and revolves, and how you exist integrally in it — which something that is much more immediate than any liturgy would ever unveil, a reality that lurks in the shadows behind the holy cows we portray as the benevolent hub of the universe.

When you go forward to more and more specific, you end up with abstract subatomic particles. When you go backward to more and more general, you end up with abstract universal conceptual patterns. Somewhere half-way there is the happy human middle-ground or "medium-blurred zoom" that we are often so hell-bent on escaping, and it's somewhat in a conflict with these two extremes of reality as well.

And then we take this half-way-blurred human angle, creating a god with his wanton sports in our own design? It isn't supreme specificity or refinement of conception, it's an artificial superimposition put in place to give people some sort of a starting point before they can begin to delve deeper into the universality in the nature of all existence. The fact that it may be a later evolution certainly doesn't mean it's a further evolution.

[darwin]

It's funny how people can come to the exact opposite conclusions.

Don't worry. I spend hours writing replies to Ananda that I never post. Soon maybe I will find my voice. I have almost stopped forgetting it is not Jagat I am writing to.

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[Brainiac]

Yep, yep. Now if we try to do as Ananda has suggested, to break the taboo to see what deeper level of truth it might contain, then one level that is evident for me would be, for the male practitioner, to break out of the superiority straitjacket the culture of that day put him in.

To yearn to be a woman in that culture is comparable with the European medieval saints putting the worms eating them alive back onto their open wounds if they fall off.

Plus the forest -- not the village where you stay in the bounds of your privileged position and where everybody scrutinizes your every move. And breaking the rules. Making yourself effectively impossible in the society.

It goes against your self-preservation instinct. It is quite something to ask of an aspiring bhakta. It might bring about an encounter with another aspect of oneself.

All very good points, of course. I can appreciate that the existence of such literatures provided a form of escapism for a strait-jacketed environment. It is not only Radha-Krishna stories that fulfill this function, but there are several Romeo-and-Juliet types of literatures in classical Indian literature, among the more memorable ones would be the tales of Laila and Majnu, Heer and Ranjha, Shireen and Farhaad, etc. (Strictly speaking, these are either of Islamic origin or have strong Islamic influence, but they have captured the imagination of Indian writers and poets for generations.)

On the subject of "deeper meanings" and the like, I confess to being extremely sceptical. Personally I'm not too keen on them.

[Gerard]

Hegel said abstract thinking is a characteristic of simple-minded people who only think in generalities. Some say, like Hegel, that the more abstract a religion, the more degenerate.

It's funny how people can come to the exact opposite conclusions.

For me, the more abstract it is, the more universal it is, and the more refined it is. Laws of physics, mathematical formulae; they are very general, and it has taken considerable effort in the history of mankind to distill those generalities from the mass of specificity we are daily surrounded by and swamped in. Our minds are so cluttered by the chaos of specificity that we become altogether blind to the logos of all underlying unity and symmetry.

If there is a creator god, those patterns are the language and fingerprints of that god; and the more people worship their man-made symbols as the height of their religion, the more they are missing the underlying point, a direct experience of how the universe exists and revolves, and how you exist integrally in it — which something that is much more immediate than any liturgy would ever unveil, a reality that lurks in the shadows behind the holy cows we portray as the benevolent hub of the universe.

When you go forward to more and more specific, you end up with abstract subatomic particles. When you go backward to more and more general, you end up with abstract universal conceptual patterns. Somewhere half-way there is the happy human middle-ground or "medium-blurred zoom" that we are often so hell-bent on escaping, and it's somewhat in a conflict with these two extremes of reality as well.

And then we take this half-way-blurred human angle, creating a god with his wanton sports in our own design? It isn't supreme specificity or refinement of conception, it's an artificial superimposition put in place to give people some sort of a starting point before they can begin to delve deeper into the universality in the nature of all existence. The fact that it may be a later evolution certainly doesn't mean it's a further evolution.

Well, you seem to be on a completely different scale of reality than I am. You go from subatomic particles to universal patterns in a seemingly 3-D concept. I, on the other hand am a religious person so if I could delve deep into matter I would end up, in my belief I admit, with deva's and other beings. When I go to the other end of the scale I would also end up with deva's or gods or angels.

And in the middle would be the human being thinking in abstract concepts.



But suppose I would stay at the material side of the matter and I would delve deep into the sub-atomic matter I would discover there is actually nothing there, if you remove all the space between all the sub-atomic particles in all the universes there would not be more than one pinhead of matter which is to me just another way of saying "maya".

So I don't think there is one single spectrum to place this conceptual thinking on.

[Ananda]

Well, you seem to be on a completely different scale of reality than I am. You go from subatomic particles to universal patterns in a seemingly 3-D concept. I, on the other hand am a religious person so if I could delve deep into matter I would end up, in my belief I admit, with deva's and other beings. When I go to the other end of the scale I would also end up with deva's or gods or angels.

To bridge the two scales together, if you thought of god as the totality of existence and his will as the natural ebb and flow of the universe, and if you thought of gods as the smaller self-contained vortexes within the grand flow, I believe that'd do it. I also believe that the more we try to apply human faces and characteristics to transhuman "entities" or "continuums of nature", the farther away we are from directly meeting and touching upon them.

Rather than break free and extend our human frame of reference, we often seek to superimpose our very limitations to realities grander than humanity, in order to make them more manageable. This is incidentally why manyu common patterns and forces evolve into deified beings portraying certain archetypes of existence; the way we humans paint them in our culture, they are literally caricatures of something greater than fits the limited human focus.

And in the middle would be the human being thinking in abstract concepts.

I find that human beings think far too little in abstract concepts. We are so immersed in and overwhelmed by detail that stress, very literally caused by excessive mental preoccupation with details, is one of the grand and growing problems of human society. A little bit of extra abstraction would go a long way to smooth it out, and make the big picture more manageable as well.

So I don't think there is one single spectrum to place this conceptual thinking on.

I suppose my holy grail here would be in working towards a single universal symmetric spectrum, in which all subjective spectra of experience reside. To find the farthest harmonic container or root pattern for all of existence. I suppose the way all this was discussed in Indic thought of yore is one of the big factors that kept me in there for as long as it did.

[darwin]

Ananda is not a personalist. But didn't he want to be? Did he not try hard to not be the way he is? As many of us have, tried to remove this whole way of thinking from his brain the way one might try to burn off a wart? Extreme chanting and forced marches around Radha Kund. Kund. Radha Kund. God you know what that sounds like? Such a beautiful name. I don't even know how you pronounce it, kund or kund. Either way it really does sound like it means it doesn't it? Maybe it actually does. And Ananda will now come on here and tell me. And he is right again.

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