Monday, July 23, 2007

Divine Being-Male or Female?

This is not the first time I am writing something which one of my readers have asked me to ponder about...

When there is a scarcity of good thoughts the only way you can replenish the supply is by borrowing a thought or so for sowing the seeds in your brains farmland!

The question in question today is the eternal question in debate as to whether our most revered divine being's sex, and not sexuality... now that had caused much more debates in an established curriculum of religious edicts, which proposed god as man or woman... for instance say Hinduism, which accepted same sex marriages in a very polite way as Shiva and Vishnu bearing an offspring called Ayyappan whose birth was a result of the seductive beauty of Mohini, one of the forms which Vishnu used to take, in once instance to get Elixir of life from the Asura's (Demon clan) and on another to kill the asura called Bhasmasura through a tricky enchanting dance! All said and done, vishnu was a male god, who bore a male god's son.

Also in Hinduism god's were also in the form of half man-half woman too, like the Ardha Narishwara (Meaning Half male and female eshwar=divine being), and in a way helping the enunch's get some respect in a society where they were battered often.

So much of my writing till now holds for the hindu aspect, as being a hindu devotee, and someone who have learned hinduism from my grandmother, I think I am only in a position to talk a lot about something which I have some amount of knowledge, although I don't claim it to be perfectly right either.

As to christianity, God in his divine form was always male, even when it came to the holy trinity, the father the son and the holy spirit, same case in hinduism also the trinity here too is all male... Bhrama Vishnu and Maheshwara (Shiva). Islam although doesn't present god in such a context, but the gender for all purposes when framing sentences in the same is also mostly male.

So what do I think? Now that is the question someone asked me... When I think about it, god needs to hold no gender, gender is his instrument for us to copulate and head on with our lives as a diverese genetic pool!

Why should god have a gender? He/she is not looking at a having sexual pleasures, God is a divine being who is above all the materialist values of sex, life, happiness and distress. We paint him/her in our colors of human urges as we want to identify ourselves with god, again a small materialistic pleasure by us selfish humans. I am not refuting the fact that even hermaphrodites (beings who have both sexual organs have their way of enjoying the act of copulation (like snails).

Here the idea goes a bit further, I feel god will not have any sexual organs to term himself/herself male or female.. he/she will be pure energy, can we classify pure energy as male or female? When you are not interested in sexual pleasures, you have no reason to introduce new divine beings into this world, why do you need a sex?

In all I feel god is only pure energy which maintains an equilibrium of things, we might want to cry and pray to him/her for our feelings, and expect him/her to alter the world for us, but then when we ourselves talk of the greater good as intelligent beings, I suppose being the most intelligent being, god would only take those steps considering the greatest good... an equilibrium of all things present to be maintained as per the plans god holds for all things living, dead and non living objects!

I have used him/her to refer to god, the more appropriate word should have been "it", but as the english language refers to something which does not hold life... How can I use it from someone who is the orgin and ending of all things living?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was a joy reading this blog. It changed my thinking.
Previously I was searching for the answer: whether god is man or woman but now my thinking got a new direction. I totally agree with your view: why we want to know God's sex. This blog can make people who debate on God's sex speechless. Great Work...

Nitin

Healthy Foodie said...

Interesting thought Sree! And it definitely isn't debatable :).. is amazing how we never try to think beyond our existing paradigms.. in this case male or female and we simply choose to ignore that God could be energy or some other kind of supernatural force. Esp liked the way u concluded the blog!

Tressy said...

its great sreekumar(?) ( i dont noe who u r).
but i dont agree with all ur ideas.
everyone has differnt opinions and concepts.
k...keep going ...n update frequently.
tresspearls.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

in this article, you seems to be absolutly convinced that god exists. your thoughts regarding the your faith in existance of god is something i am looking forwrd to read.

i believe in vedic period hindus used to keep different forms of energy as gods such as varuna, agni etc. a human form was attributed for relating better to godand for no other purpose.