In Defense of Beauty Against This World's So Called "Holy Men" (A Polemic)

[Terese]

How i see it is that anything eternal is spiritual in nature, and anything temporary is material in nature. Great beauty can exist in the material world, but due to its transitory nature it can produce negative feelings of loss and attatchment. I do agree that beauty should not be shunned, whether it is of a flower or a woman. Attachments are hard to break. I have attachments myself.

 

[Apologes]

Interesting. I'm used to people trying to use beauty to prove God and glorify him through it.

I never saw anyone claim beauty is somehow harmful to one's spiritual life.

 

[Sunstone]

I never saw anyone claim beauty is somehow harmful to one's spiritual life.

Out of curiosity, how familiar are you with ascetics and ascetic traditions in Christianity and elsewhere?

 

[Brickjectivity]

In my reply I want to highlight what Sunrise123 has pointed out in their post.

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.

Go back to GunsGermsNSteel basics. Here is one way we may have arrived at our present waypoint: The beginning of agriculture unlocked some terrible truths about humanity. We are still reeling from that explosion of population, and one of the first things we found was that we were tyrannical in nature. The strong were beautiful. We sought meaning in masculinity, in beauty, in power and in breeding; but this was a terrible mistake. Then some did an about-face going to the opposite extreme. They said "This is terrible and cruel, so lets do the opposite!" So they did, but the opposite went against human nature. Now we are still trying to come to terms with some uncomfortable middle in between.

 

[sealchan]

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:

"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?

You cannot transcend that which you cannot face.

The final oxherding picture picture says it all...

A bitter battle,
Defying one's own body
One's fleeting life.

Is there any beauty in Heaven?

 

[David T]

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:

"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?

Beauty is the foundational reality of The new testament often times rendered invisible by the faithful. We love to take beauty, own it, enslave it, and the sell it. Not unlike forests. We have to put fences up around tiny portions of the forests and put guard dogs on duty to keep ourselves of from our nutty need to consume all of the forests. And many companies complain that fenced 10% is wasted $uc€$$...

 

[loverofhumanity]

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:

"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?

You make some very good points. My understanding is that in this life we must walk the spiritual,path with practical feet.

 

[Apologes]

Out of curiosity, how familiar are you with ascetics and ascetic traditions in Christianity and elsewhere?

If we're talking about the mainstream ascetism, I know the basics of it. The focus is on rejecting temptation and material things, not really aesthetic beauty such as the beautiful moonlight or the Notre Dame window.

We (catholics) value beauty and art and have always supported and collected it. Ascetism is focused on simplicity and modesty which may exclude some of the more luxurious arts, but hardly any monk would deem beauty in itself sinful for the Vatican itself values it.

Still, I wasn't really thinking about such groups but the more typical religious figure such as the priest running your local parish.

 

[Sunstone]

If we're talking about the mainstream ascetism, I know the basics of it. The focus is on rejecting temptation and material things, not really aesthetic beauty such as the beautiful moonlight or the Notre Dame window.

We (catholics) value beauty and art and have always supported and collected it. Ascetism is focused on simplicity and modesty which may exclude some of the more luxurious arts, but hardly any monk would deem beauty in itself sinful for the Vatican itself values it.

Still, I wasn't really thinking about such groups but the more typical religious figure such as the priest running your local parish.

Agreed that Catholics are pretty good at valuing art and beauty. It differs somewhat among Protestants. Of the three most important early Protestant theologians -- Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli -- Luther, like a Catholic, allowed both religious and secular art in his church. Calvin allowed only religious art. Zwingli allowed almost no art in his church -- not even stain glass windows.

 

[Apologes]

Agreed that Catholics are pretty good at valuing art and beauty. It differs somewhat among Protestants. Of the three most important early Protestant theologians -- Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli -- Luther, like a Catholic, allowed both religious and secular art in his church. Calvin allowed only religious art. Zwingli allowed almost no art in his church -- not even stain glass windows.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that.

 

[exchemist]

I'm guessing that you feel "fleshly beauty" is somewhat less valuable or precious than "spiritual beauty", because the former is transitory and the latter is not. What I don't understand is this, PopeADope: Why would being transitory amount to something having any less value than it would have if it were eternal?

I mean, the duration of a thing does not make sense to me as something that increases or decreases that things value.

Sometimes a person's bones endure longer in the grave than they themselves endured in life. Does that mean their bones are more valuable than their life was?

Most mystical experiences in which our awareness is radically changed are brief and fleeting, lasting only a few moments, but are they therefore any less life changing, any less life affirming?

Sexual orgasms are thought by many people to be the most intense physical pleasure they have experienced in the whole of their lives, but does that mean they would be happier if they experienced such things constantly, through the day and through the night, with no pause or break? It would be easy to say so, but think what havoc that would make of living!

From my experience the pleasure in sexual sensations is all to do with context. The same is true of many pleasurable things.

Lasting well-being comes from fulfilment, not pleasure, or even happiness. A job well done, someone else made happy, a lasting insight.....

 

[Cateau]

Beauty is like ugliness....its a curse lol, or should i say boo-hoo. Depicted hardcore in Malena (2000) and the Hunckback of Notre dame. One can't help but stare but we can help in not judging. Typically they have ppl reinventing their persona in their minds based off their looks and that's just a nightmare that they begin to treat you as the being they created you to be as without ever even meeting you just glances. One thing that stuck me was when the Son of Man described himself as being looked down upon, possibly for being dark compared to the Pharisees, pretty much ugly and as a silk worm.....im like I feel for you bro, I'm sure that's not even you on all those candles and pictures, that guy is too pretty and obviously masonic.

 

[atanu]

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:

"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?

But where is it? Where is it really?

(Well. You asked for questions).

 

[Al Ibn Al Amra]

It could attract you offcourse .