so similar?
Guruji: We Indians consider the life giving energy of Nature, Prakriti as female. Nature is full of energies: some erotically enticing, some ferocious, some aesthetically peaceful. Goddesses in this temple represent most of the harmonious energies of Nature, which move a person from being human to being a divine personality.
What is the nature of divine beings? To express love towards all beings, and all life, irrespective of man made caste, class, race or country distinctions. Their love knows no bounds. It is all pervasive. Unconditional love, pervading all of Nature is shown as the nudity of the icons here. Nudity does not mean removing clothes alone. It also means removing all patterns of thinking that separate one person from another. It means getting rid of the ideas like these are my people, this is me; in other words, the sense of I and mine, called Eg o. It means expanding one's love to all people. It may help to illustrate these ideas with a story from Bhagavatam. Once some divine nymphs were bathing nude in a lake. The 100 year old Vyasa was passing by. They felt a sense of shame and covered their breasts with their hands.
After a little while his son Suka, a 16 year old male was passing by, totally nude, absorbed in Nature. They did not even notice him. They were playing and laughing. Vyas noticed this and came back to them and asked them: " I am a 100 year old sage without any sexual passions. I was clothed. When I was passing, you felt a shame. How come you did not feel the shame when my son, exhibiting his nudity, was passing by? I do not understand this strange behaviour of yours." To this, they replied: " O venerable sage, we know your gre atness. But when you were passing by we flrt that there was a human observer. When Suka was passing, it was like a bird flying in the sky, like tree leaves rusling,
like water flowing over our very bodies. We did not feel that there was anyone serving us. When there is no one else is gbserring, and we are all by ourselves, how and why would we feel a sense of shame? Are we ashamed of ourselves?" Vyasa realised that he was not fully absorbed in his true nature, he felt a separation from it.
The whole of nature (and billions of living forms in it) are all nude. Only humans cover themselves with their shame. When Adam ate the apple, he felt ashamed of his and Eve's nudity. That was the original sin: being ashamed of nudity. Nudity itself was not sin; they were nude before eating the apple, they were not sinful then.
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