Article about Homosexuality in Hinduism

An article about homosexuality in Hinduism Today :

Some right-wing Hindu groups, active both in India and in the United States, have expressed virulent opposition to homosexuality. However, several modern Hindu teachers emphasize that all desire, homosexual or heterosexual, is the same, and that aspirants must work through and transcend desire. For example:

* Hindu philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti said that homosexuality, like heterosexuality, has been a fact for thousands of years, and that it becomes a problem only because humans focus too much on sex.

* When asked about homosexuality, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of the international Art of Living movement, said, “Every individual has both male and female in them. Sometimes one dominates, sometimes other; it is all fluid.”

* Mathematician Shakuntala Devi, in her 1977 book The World of Homosexuals, interviewed Srinivasa Raghavachariar, head priest of the Srirangam temple. Raghavachariar said that same-sex partners must have been cross-sex partners in a former life. The sex may change, he said, but the soul retains its attachments; hence love impels them toward one another.

* When, in 2002, Hindu scholar Ruth Vanita interviewed a Shaiva priest who had performed the marriage ceremony for two women, the priest said that having studied Hindu scriptures, he had concluded, “Marriage is a union of spirits. And the spirit is not male or female.”

* As Amara Dasa, founder of Gay and Lesbian Vaishnava Association, noted in Tritiya-Prakriti: People of the Third Sex, several Gaudiya Vaishnava authorities emphasize that since everyone passes through various forms, genders and species in a series of lives, people should not judge each other by the material body but should view everyone equally on a spiritual plane and be compassionate, as God is.

Still, there is little discussion of this issue in most Hindu religious communities. Consequently, some teachers and lay followers retain their anti-gay beliefs. As a result, many LGBT Hindus have left their religious communities.

Indian newspapers, however, have reported several same-sex weddings and same-sex joint suicides over the last 25 years. These incidents have primarily involved female Hindu couples living in small towns and unconnected to any LGBT rights movement. Several weddings have taken place by Hindu rites, some with family support. The suicides often resulted from families forcibly separating same-sex partners. In Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West, Ruth Vanita analyzes these phenomena.

The millennia-long debate in Hindu society over homosexuality, which was somewhat suppressed in the colonial period, is again becoming active. In 2004, Hinduism Today reporter Rajiv Malik asked several Hindu swamis (teachers) to describe their feelings about same-sex marriage. The swamis expressed a range of opinions, positive and negative. They felt free to differ with each other — evidence of the liveliness of the debate, made possible by the fact that Hinduism has no one hierarchy or leader. As one swami, Mahant Ram Puri, remarked, “We do not have a rule book in Hinduism. We have 100 million authorities.”

 

Great stuff, Svggdnbeauty. Hope this will help to create a more humane understanding and acceptance of homosexuals all over the world.

 

True enough - but it's a mistake to think that because a man discovers the inner femminine, or a woman the inner male, that necessarily leads to a desire for a sexual expression of this.
Not that sexual expression of it would be wrong - it all depends on the quirks of the individaul.

C.G.Jung called the femmine aspect of the male psyche the Anima, and the male component of the female psyche, Animus. To become a complete person, to achieve what Jung calls 'individuation' means having both sides fully integrated.

Some relate this to the logical, rational (male) side, and the intuitive, feeling (female) side.
Yin and yang. You need both in balance.

 

Sexual desire is not something we can control very well... whether it is homosexuality or heterosexuality, the man or woman should just engage in their respective activities without attachment In my humble opinion.

 

good point... if one naturally hs no desire for sex, that is great to renounce but if one has desires, a joyful expression of that desire expands one's soul

 

you see attachment leads to suffering, aversion also leads to suffering. So, we should act, even in sexual actions without attachment or aversion to them.

 

Expressing a desire without attachment is impossible. A desire by its very nature is born from attachment and the repeated fulfillment of the desire strengthens the same attachment further.
But yes, supression is wrong. When desire is there, express and fulfill it IN KEEPING WITH DHARMA. Eventually, when the finitude and ephemeral nature of all sense pleasures dawns on us, and a thirst for the permanent higher bliss manifests, the first step of sublimation of desire and desire-prompted activity has started.

 

That way of keeping with dharma is acting without attachment to it.
If you start being attached to your actions, you will also deal with the consequences, just surrender to God and continue doing things spontaneously based in dharma.

 

That reminds me of an old ISKCON story.

A young man expressed concerns over gender identity/sexual orientation to Srila Prabhupada...SP replied: "just pick one and be that, and engage in Krishna's service".

Another fundamental principle taught by Srila Prabhupada...without the gradual development of higher spiritual taste, attachments persist, even if "renounced". He referred to an artificial show of renunciation as "monkey renunciation" or "showbottle spiritualism".