Youth and Beauty (Was LalithA SahasranAma [459] sumukhi)

[Guest guest]

Hi Mary Ann:

 

I take and appreciate your point. Sure, go into any nursing home,

and you're probably going to find more accumulated experience and

wisdom than you will at a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated's

latest Swimsuit Issue. This much is true.

 

But we are talking about imagery that points beyond the human to

something absolute and eternal. Look at Greek and Roman sculpture:

images of Divine Beings, whether they are portrayed as male or

female, tend to be specimens of astonishing physical beauty and

perfection (and youth). Same with ancient Hindu sculpture – the

female figures are voluptuous, and male figures are virile; artists

quite naturally drew upon human ideals of beauty (whether those

ideals are subjectively "right" or not is a matter of individual

response of course).

 

Certainly, there are exceptions: Bhairava forms of the Divine

Masculine; Bhairavi forms of the Divine Feminine. Dhumavati,

Chamunda, the early Kali, etc., are examples in which physical age

and the inevitable decay of the flesh are invoked for some of the

most powerful imagery in the canon. But that is beside the point.

 

There are, broadly speaking, two main paths of Shaktism: The dark

way of Kali, and the bright way of Lalita. My initiation was into

Srividya, which is primarily a bright path, though the darker

aspects certainly have their place. Lalita is called Shodashi, She

Who is Eternally Sixteen. Why is She eternally sixteen? Well, first

of all because the Dhyanas (scriptural meditation imagery) call for

Her to be sixteen, and that is what the practitioners (male or

female) follow. Also because the reality of the time and place in

which the dhyanas were realized was that average human life

expectancy was 30 or so. Sixteen was, for men and women alike,

something like the high flowering of adult beauty. Maybe if they

were written in modern times, the ideal would be raised to somewhere

in the 25-35 range? I dunno.

 

Now perhaps you are right, that those who were male among meditators

and followers of Devi were a primarily a bunch of randy goats who

liked their wimmins meaty, beaty, big and bouncy. Pretending to

worship Devi when they *really* were thinking about polishing their

big, long lingams, right? And maybe the women were no better -- a

bunch of naughty nymphs who were secretly turned on by sketchy

characters like the lithesome pin-up boy Krishna and his sexually

charged games; like Radha, having an intense mental love affair when

she should have been attending to her boring old husband and snippy

in-laws. What a nasty bunch of libertines!

 

But maybe – just maybe – there was (and is) something more going on

here. Maybe the beauty of these divine creatures really did lift

them above sexual fantasy and into the realm of divine bliss. Maybe

the passing experience of human orgasm led them to the larger bliss

of Divine Unity. That's what Tantra promises anyway – maybe it's not

bullshit? The gurus, male and female, promise us it's not. But we

can only discover the Truth for ourselves.

 

Also, as Max Dashu and I have discussed, all of these physical

descriptions have multiple levels of meaning. The Lalita

Sahasranama, the Soundarya Lahari and all of these are divided into

groups of names, some of which tell stories, some of which describe

pujas and rituals in coded language, some of which correspond to

portions of Sri Chakra, some of which describe physical ideals. But

when we are told She is "slim-waisted," for example, it doesn't just

signal to the sadhak, "Whoa, she's a hottie! Forget the fat,

wrinkled goddesses; this is the Wisdom Babe for me, dude!" (Not to

say *nobody* thinks like that; we are all humans at whatever level

of spiritual development ;-)). But in fact, "slim-waisted" indicates

to the informed sadhak that there is "nothingness at the Center."

Put away the brewskis, no party here tonight. (Or maybe, a bigger

party than we bargained for?)

 

Why do magazines feature impossibly beautiful men and women? I don't

deny that there are abundant reasons to object to "the ideal of

beauty that the pop-culture and youth culture of the modern-day

media promotes." But I'd venture to say that – putting aside for a

moment all of the very valid societal and health-related objections –

that is because seeing human perfection of some sort really does

make us feel better at some level. It's just *nice* to see how

beautiful human beings can be.

 

Same with ballet, for instance, or any classical or stylized system

of dance -- *real* human beings just don't move like that. We are

not so unaffected by gravity, so unfettered in movement; but even

the greatest ballet stars can only pull it off for a relatively

brief number of years. Still, it feels nice to see how beautifully

human beings can move when they approach some impossible standard of

perfection. Same with the most beautiful music, especially vocal

music – to hear our blumpy, sloppy human feelings expressed so

purely and perfectly! Human beings hardly ever sound so nice – but

isn't it wonderful to know that some of us can? And sure, you could

take all this and get angry or envious – "why can't *I*

look/move/sound like that?!" But I think most of us "get it" for

what it is, at a very profound level – a vindication of humanity.

 

I don't deny that there is a profound beauty of a different kind in

the elderly and those who are battered and scarred by time and hard

experience – a human beauty akin to old rock formations or gnarled

ancient trees. I am not saying that youthful beauty and perfection

is better than this. It's not. It's just different. And for whatever

reason, the Divine ideal most commonly called upon in Hindu systems,

as it was in ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome and so on, is

youthful beauty. It just is. The Abrahamic systems – Judaism,

Christianity and Islam –lean more toward the rugged old patriarchs.

And Wicca and many other Pagan, Goddess-centered systems often call

up rugged old matriarchs. Whatever works for you, that's the thing –

it is up to the individual, innit?

 

But when we use the human being as metaphor for the divine in

Tantra, the beauty dynamic I've described is the one that's

generally at work. And if it works for you – and initiation into a

bright-path lineage of Shaktism generally indicates that it does –

the heartbreaking perfection of the human form at its ideal balance

*can* be used as a stepping stone to the more subtle delights of

Divine experience.

 

That's my take anyway. Of course I am quite aware as well that

Maatangi is indeed a "hottie" – but whatya gonna do? That's part of

who and what She is! And you're right – just look at all the trouble

that damn lingham got Siva into with Parvati! She took the form of

Maatangi as a test to see how he could withstand a high-octane

Chandali's relentless onslaught of charm and beauty. Needless to

say, the Great Ascetic flunked big-time and ended up with another

Mahavidya scaring the bejezzus out of Him. Poor guy!

 

So your point is well taken. But let's be fair: For better or worse,

masculine and feminine youth and beauty have been part and parcel of

the iconography of Hinduism since millennia before the "pop-culture

and youth culture of the modern-day media" ever existed.

 

Aim MAtangyai NamaH

 

 

, "Mary Ann"

<buttercookie61> wrote:

> One point I would like to make in all this posting about Her

beauty

> and wisdom is that possibly her body is aged, wrinkled, fat, etc.

> Mostly, wisdom comes through experience (yes, there are certainly

> exceptions to this, but most 35+ year olds would know from

personal

> experience the ways that understanding deepens with time).

>

> There is the ideal of beauty that the pop-culture and youth

culture

> of the modern-day media promote. Devi Bhakta's Maatangi (forgive

any

> misspelling) is a classic example of this youth culture ideal, I

> think. If I'm mistaken about this, I apologize, but last I saw

DB's

> Maatangi, she was youthful and full-breasted. I think what causes

> men to image the Goddess in this way is more in homage to the

Shiva

> Lingam than to Devi :-P

>

> Mary Ann

>

> , "Devi Bhakta"

> <devi_bhakta> wrote:

> > "SumukhI [means] 'having a beautiful face,' i.e. shining with

> wisdom."

> >

> > - Dr. C. Suryanarayana Murthy, Commentary, 1962

> >

> > , "NMadasamy"

> <nmadasamy@s...>

> > wrote:

> > >

> > > sumukhi : Handsome-faced

> > >

> > > By wisdom, the beauty of the face increases. The Srutis

> say, "One

> > who

> > > knows this, his face shines" [chA Up., IV. 14.2] also "O dear

> child,

> > > your face shines like that of a sage [brahmavit]".

> > >

> > > Or, Sumukhi is a certain deity to be worshipped as a part of

the

> > > Sodasi [mantra].

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > > BhAskararAya's Commentary

> > > Translated into English by R. Ananthakrishna Sastry