A few years ago, an imam urged his congregation to "avoid looking at the moon because its beauty will distract you from thinking of God". By far, he is not the only holy man or woman to say such a thing.
Jiddu Krishnamurti, a man who lived such an exemplary life that thousands or tens of thousands of people once considered him the final reincarnation of the Buddha (Though he himself seems to have thought that ridiculous), passionately wrote:
The religious arguments against beauty seem to boil down to just three basic arguments: (1) Beauty will hinder or prevent you from "coming near to God", or from attaining to enlightenment (or god, samadhi, satori, kensho, etc), (2) beauty is shallow or superficial, and (3) beauty is fleeting, transitory, and fragile.
As to the first argument, it strikes me as true that beauty can hinder or prevent what might conveniently be called, "spiritual realization". But what exists in this world that cannot hinder or prevent you from spiritual realization if and when you become emotionally or psychologically attached to it?
Anything and everything you become attached to has the very same effect of hindering or preventing you from spiritual realization. Consequently, the solution is to destroy your attachment, but not to deny the things you are attached to. To deny the things you are attached to is foolish because the denial itself is an action of the self and thus serves to actually strengthen your attachment. You will merely substitute "I am emotionally and psychologically attached to beauty" for "I am emotionally and psychologically attached to denying beauty".
Treat beauty like a flower that you do not want to pluck and possess -- for that would be clinging to it, that would be becoming attached to it -- but rather pause only briefly to see and smell the flower before passing it on the road. Thus, attachment will not become a problem that hinders or prevents you from spiritual realization.
Second, the argument that beauty is shallow and superficial is really an argument that your approach to beauty is shallow and superficial. But if you are concerned with spiritual realization, isn't that precisely how you should approach beauty? Not as something so profound you are tempted to cling to it, to become attached to it, but as something so shallow and superficial that you would delight in it lightly and fleetingly without clinging to it.
As for the third and final argument, that beauty is "fleeting, transitory, and fragile", is that a sound objection to it?
Surely, we should not devalue things simply because they are fleeting, transitory and fragile. Flowers don't last forever, nor do most loves. Does that mean viewing flowers and loving people are foolish?
Balderdash!
I say that makes them all the more precious!
Our fleeting years of beauty should be precious to us too. Youth has a glow, a beauty to it, and nearly every young person possesses that beauty for awhile. It is not something to be disparaged because it eventually ends, anymore than we would disparage life itself because life itself eventually ends.
How pathetic are those who live without wholly embracing life, who devalue and deny life because it is transitory! They ought to have carved on their tombstones, "I was given the greatest gift, the gift of life, but refused it. Passerby, if that is your path also, then weep not for me, but for yourself."
Beauty, along with the purest forms of love, are what make it possible for us to embrace life, to wholly accept life on its own terms, even when we are worn and troubled. And unless we can fully accept life, how can we fully live? If we fail to fully accept life then we do not die, it does not actually kill us to deny life, but rather we become "dehydrated human beings", we become shells, outwardly smiling while inwardly sighing in despair.
The only spiritual danger beauty truly poses for us is that we might become emotionally or psychologically attached to it. But that is not an intrinsic problem with beauty, but a problem with ourselves. To blame beauty for creating the problem, and then to deny beauty, is to deny life. Would a genuinely holy man or woman deny life?
Comments? Questions? Radical Political Pamphlets? Used tissues?
Jiddu Krishnamurti, a man who lived such an exemplary life that thousands or tens of thousands of people once considered him the final reincarnation of the Buddha (Though he himself seems to have thought that ridiculous), passionately wrote:
"Throughout the world, so-called holy men have maintained that to look at a woman is something totally wrong: they say you cannot come near to God if you indulge in sex, therefore they push it aside although they are eaten up with it. But by denying sexuality they put out their eyes and cut out their tongues for they deny the whole beauty of the earth. They have starved their hearts and minds; they are dehydrated human beings; they have banished beauty because beauty is associated with woman." [Think on These Things, Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1964, pp 62-63]
The religious arguments against beauty seem to boil down to just three basic arguments: (1) Beauty will hinder or prevent you from "coming near to God", or from attaining to enlightenment (or god, samadhi, satori, kensho, etc), (2) beauty is shallow or superficial, and (3) beauty is fleeting, transitory, and fragile.
As to the first argument, it strikes me as true that beauty can hinder or prevent what might conveniently be called, "spiritual realization". But what exists in this world that cannot hinder or prevent you from spiritual realization if and when you become emotionally or psychologically attached to it?
Anything and everything you become attached to has the very same effect of hindering or preventing you from spiritual realization. Consequently, the solution is to destroy your attachment, but not to deny the things you are attached to. To deny the things you are attached to is foolish because the denial itself is an action of the self and thus serves to actually strengthen your attachment. You will merely substitute "I am emotionally and psychologically attached to beauty" for "I am emotionally and psychologically attached to denying beauty".
Treat beauty like a flower that you do not want to pluck and possess -- for that would be clinging to it, that would be becoming attached to it -- but rather pause only briefly to see and smell the flower before passing it on the road. Thus, attachment will not become a problem that hinders or prevents you from spiritual realization.
Second, the argument that beauty is shallow and superficial is really an argument that your approach to beauty is shallow and superficial. But if you are concerned with spiritual realization, isn't that precisely how you should approach beauty? Not as something so profound you are tempted to cling to it, to become attached to it, but as something so shallow and superficial that you would delight in it lightly and fleetingly without clinging to it.
As for the third and final argument, that beauty is "fleeting, transitory, and fragile", is that a sound objection to it?
Surely, we should not devalue things simply because they are fleeting, transitory and fragile. Flowers don't last forever, nor do most loves. Does that mean viewing flowers and loving people are foolish?
Balderdash!
I say that makes them all the more precious!
Our fleeting years of beauty should be precious to us too. Youth has a glow, a beauty to it, and nearly every young person possesses that beauty for awhile. It is not something to be disparaged because it eventually ends, anymore than we would disparage life itself because life itself eventually ends.
How pathetic are those who live without wholly embracing life, who devalue and deny life because it is transitory! They ought to have carved on their tombstones, "I was given the greatest gift, the gift of life, but refused it. Passerby, if that is your path also, then weep not for me, but for yourself."
Beauty, along with the purest forms of love, are what make it possible for us to embrace life, to wholly accept life on its own terms, even when we are worn and troubled. And unless we can fully accept life, how can we fully live? If we fail to fully accept life then we do not die, it does not actually kill us to deny life, but rather we become "dehydrated human beings", we become shells, outwardly smiling while inwardly sighing in despair.
The only spiritual danger beauty truly poses for us is that we might become emotionally or psychologically attached to it. But that is not an intrinsic problem with beauty, but a problem with ourselves. To blame beauty for creating the problem, and then to deny beauty, is to deny life. Would a genuinely holy man or woman deny life?
Comments? Questions? Radical Political Pamphlets? Used tissues?
(I'm talking to you, government.)
