Incidentally, Monica, I should first acknowledge that I misrepresented your refeerence to a "superior being" as "higher being." I apologize for my carelessness. Secondly, I wanted to mention that you have provided a good example of precisely what makes "spiritual" language so uncomfortable for me. By citing Ghandi's self-imposed food deprivation with the implication such aescetic and austere rejection of human bodily needs is a desirable goal for one to aspire to, you have precisely described what I find so problematic about spirituality-talk as the kind of talk that soon leads directly to an adversarial non-acceptance of human sexuality--that leads, that is, to a rejection of so-called "carnality" in opposition to so-called "spirituality." This santificaton of austere deprivation of physical pleasure and of asceticism in general has long been one of the fiercest means of opposing enjoyment of human sexuality and other forms of lusty sensuality. The biographies of so-called saints and ascetics are often brought forth, as you have done with the case of Ghandi, as evidence of spiritual growth; but, to me, such biographies are typically case studies in disorders of one's naturally occurring benevolent self-regard or even of more severe disturbances of the kind that psychoanalysts used to call "moral masochism." Conisder Suso, who would presumably be much more "spiritually grown" that Ghandi, for Suso's self-torments make Ghandi's look like a walk in the park. The life of Suso is described by William James in his book "The Varieties of Religious Experience" Below I quote (and in places just summarize or paraphrase) William James's report of Suso's own autobiography as it appears in James's book "Varieties of Religious Experience." .... And now, as a more concrete example of...the irrational extreme to which [one]...may go in the line of bodily austerity, I [William James] will quote the sincere Suso's account of his own self-tortures. Suso, you will remember, was one of the fourteenth century German mystics; his autobiography, written in the third person, is a classic religious document. He was in his youth full of a temperament full of fire and life; and when this began to make itself felt, it was very grievous to him; and he sought by many devices how he might bring his body into subjection. He wore for a long time a hair shirt and an iron chain, until the blood ran from him, Sometimes he cried to Almighty God in the fullness of his heart: Alas! Gentle God, what a dying is this! When a man is killed by murders or strong beasts of prey it is soon over; but I lie dying here under the cruel insects, and He continued this tormenting exercise for about sixteen years. At the end of this time, when his blood was now chilled, and the fire of his temperament destroyed, there appeared to him in a vision on Whitsunday, a messenger from heaven, who told him that God required this of him no longer. Whereupon he discontinued it, and threw all these things away into a running stream." Suso also made himself a cross with thirty protruding iron needles and nails that he carried on his bare back between his shoulders day and night. Next Suso tells of his penitences by means of striking this cross and forcing the nails deeper into his flesh, and likewise of his self-scourgings--a dreadful story--and then goes on as follows: "At this same period the Servitor procured an old castaway door, and he used to lie upon it He describes how in winter he suffered from the frost, his feet full of sores, his legs dropsical, his knees bloody and seared, his loins covered with scars from the horsehair, his body wasted, his mouth parched with intense thirst, and his hands tremulous from weakness. He bore all of these exercises to disconnect from his bodily, and "earthly," desires for gratification in order to perfect his quest for the sake of his "spiritual" aspirations. Throughout all these years he never took a bath, either a water or a sweating bath; and this he did in order to mortify his comfort-seeking body. He practiced during a long time such rigid poverty that he would neither ... As James notes, Suso, unlike some other ascetics, did not achieve the state of mind in which he could find any pleasure in his self-imposed tortures. He always suffered even while he sought the suffering on his own initiative. There are further self-imposed tortures described by Suso having to do with thirst which are very difficult to read for anyone with a compassionate inclination once one has surfeited on this kind of agonizing reading. A celebration of unnecessary suffering that otherwise brings one no pleasure seem to me to be also the essence of a life that defies the most basic concept of morality--that gratutitous suffering is a bad thing for people. Even to this day, persons such as Suso are considered saintly by many persons who would espouse an alleged value in renouncing "carnality" (or in renouncing our "attachment to earthly things"). I invite readers to consider that while these very troubled ascetics are still praised as spiritually enlightened, we also find that ordinary women who would promote the use of birth control are rejected as immoral by, for instance, the recently deceased but allegedly spiritually developed modern-day Saint Mother Teresa. Teresa made use of her celebrity to spread an anti-birth-control agenda. Such attitudes clebrating gratutious pain while rejecting harmless birth-control methods of finding safety in pleasure are simply an example of transvaluation--calling something that is bad good and calling some that is good bad. Think of what good the Susos and Ghandis and Teresas of the world could have done with their energetic dedication to a worthy cause if they had also directed just some of their ambitious dedication toward the moral aim of seriously advocating on behalf of a philosophy that rejected all forms of unnecessary human suffering and instead spoke and acted for the cause of human joy and pleasure. If "spiritual growth" is asceticism, as is implied by the reference to Ghandi's asceticism and the attribution of value in rejecting "earthly" connections in general (a modern version of rejecting what used to be called "carnality"), then "spiritual growth" is precisely the kind of thing that makes it a likely adversary of a full acceptance of human sexuality. Incidentlly, have you read anything about how Ghandi got along with his wife and with his and her sexuality?
so that he was obliged to leave them off. He secretly caused an undergarment to be made for him; and in the undergarment he had strips of leather fixed, into which a hundred and fifty brass nails, pointed and filed sharp, were driven, and the points of the nails always turned towards the flesh. He had this garment made very tight, and so arranged as to go round him and fasten in front, in order that it might fit the closer to his body, and the pointed nails might be driven into his flesh; and it was high enough to reach upwards to his navel. In this he used to sleep at night. Now in summer, when it was hot, and he was very tired and ill from his journeyings, or when he held the office of lecturer, he would sometimes, as he lay thus in bonds, and
oppressed with toil, and tormented also by noxious insects, cry aloud and give way to fretfulness, and twist round and round in agony, as a worm does when run through with a pointed needle. It often seemed to him as if he were
lying upon an ant-hill, from the torture caused by the insects; for if he wished to sleep, or when he had fallen asleep, they vied with one another.
yet cannot die. The nights in winter were never so long, nor was the summer so hot, as to make him leave off this exercise. On the contrary, he devised something farther--two leathern loops into which he put his hands, and
fastened one on each side of his throat, and made the fastenings so secure that even if his cell had been on fire about him, he could not have helped himself. This he continued until his hands and arms had become almost
tremulous with the strain, and then he devised something else: two leathern gloves: and he caused a brazier to fit them all over with sharp-pointed brass tacks, and he used to put them on at night, in order that if he should try
while asleep to throw off the hair undergarment, or relieve himself from the gnawings of the vile insects, the tacks might then stick into his body. And so it came to pass. If ever he sought to help himself with his hands in his
sleep, he drove the sharp tacks into his breast, and tore himself, so that his flesh festered. When after many weeks the wounds had healed, he tore himself again and made fresh wounds.
at night without any bedclothes to make him comfortable, except that he took off his shoes and wrapped a thick cloak round him. He thus secured for himself a most miserable bed; for hard pea-stalks lay in humps under his head, the cross with the shap nails stuck into his back, his arms were locked fast in bonds, the horsehair undergarment was round his loins, and the cloak too was heavy and the door hard."
receive nor touch a penny, either with leave or without it. For a considerable time he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body, save only his hands and feet.
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