Page:Love in Hindu Literature.djvu/90

76 VI. THE DIGNITY OF SEX. The dignity of sex is brought home to us from an altogether unexpected quarter also. I am referring to philology^ especially the philology of al^stract terms, metaphors, similes and analogies. Everybody is well aware how the experiences of purely spiritual and. absolutely non-secular life have to be recorded in the language of the senses, the tongue of sexual life in the last analysis. It may or may not be true that sex- impulse is the basis and awakener of the highest mys- tical ecstasies. But it is a fact that expressions of the most super-sensuous life have been in terms of the senses. The language of Divine Love, spiritual union, self-surrender to God, "monistic" " self-realization," and so forth, has been the language of sex. And it is because of this that the art of pure humanism is liable to be misinterpreted as allegory of transcendental life, or geniune spiritual experiences as horrible carnalism.

Vivek-ananda, one of the greatest idealists of modern India was lecturing in America on the " Religion of Love." His primary object was to condemn the human love as hollow and unreal. His message is : " There cannot be any love but in God : why then all these loves ? These are mere mistakes." If any sentiment could be non-sensual, that it was. But the very title of hig lecture is "Intense Longing is the first step." Without context the headline is calculated to attract the Romeos and Juliets from the Broadways of U.S. cities.

This almost unconscious treatment of highest non- sensual impulses in terms of the sensual owing to the short-comings of human language should be carefully