The Philosophy Of Love Poem by Gayathri Seetharam

The philosophy of love
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
As Hindu mythology goes
Kunti, the mother of the Pandava brothers,
As an unwed maiden,
Was made pregnant by the rays of the sun god
Who appeared before her and chanted the mantra of love
Kunti went on to abandon the child born out of wedlock
And led a normal life with more than its fair share of misfortune
But she was contented with her legal brood of five sons
And before the Kurukshetra battle between the Pandavas and the ruling Kauravas began
She begged the grown up son she had forsaken, Karna,
To spare her 5 legal children in the war,
Karna who was known for his generosity, flatly refused,
And secretly, Kunti, must have "denounced him to the last of his race"
For he died on the battlefield
And it suddenly struck me that his father, the Sun God, was granted immortality,
And the sunlight lights up the world;

Botticelli painted his Birth of Venus, Goddess of Love,
Who appears naked in an umbrella or lotus-like green shape
And she gently caresses the soul
And penetrates her innermost being
And speaks to the core of her heart
Love holds the inflamed soul of the man
Spellbound with her flaming desire
And created a doorway for the female psyche to penetrate the soul of the man
There arises a doorway to creativity in the soul of the mortal being, man and woman,
And a pathway for inspired work;
Love is misguided sometimes and works in strange ways
Which are anathema to the workings of the good soul and the good mind
In Homer's Iliad, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love,
Teaches Hera, the wife of Zeus, King of Gods, the art of seduction
And Hera, ensures the victory of Greece over Troy
By making love to her estranged husband
Who lets down his guard and his soul of love
Takes possession of his mental psyche;

From each of the tale, there is a moral
And that is that: 1. the race of the Sun God could not be denounced for there would be darkness on earth
And 2. Falling in love and experiencing sexual love transforms a being into a more beautiful soul
And 3. God has a weakness for pure, romantic love between adults even if it is illicit love
For Helen, Queen of Sparta would have been abducted by Paris, son of Priam who is King of Troy
And in the process, Helen falls in love with Paris and the Trojan war ensues
And Zeus, as I have deduced, for the greater good of pure love in mankind, is in favour of Troy
While Hera feels since Helen has fallen in love with Paris, her lover,
That she had to have been faithful to her lawfully wedded husband, Menelaus,
The reader is led to believe (and I must say that I have only referred to Homer's Iliad)
But in reality, she is supporting the Greeks against the Trojans because she is angry with Paris, the Prince of Troy,
For having judged her as the least pretty amongst Aphrodite, Athena (the third child of God)and herself;

There is a fourth moral here and that is to not test the power of God
And even Psyche, Goddess of a Pure Soul and a Beautiful Mind, may be worsted
If she pits her forces against the power of God
For in Homer's Iliad, right in the beginning
When the golden garb of dawn is enveloping the land of earth,
Zeus who loves the power of lightning, warns the god and goddesses not to go against his strict decree from Mount Olympus.
Notes:
1. I am enclosing the first page of Homer's Iliad (Robert Fagles' translation and a Bernard Knox introduction)to prove that either the internet is confused or the author of the book got confused while he was translating the portion of the seduction of Zeus by Hera and in page 1 for I have read only these portions.
2. From the internet: Hera is consequently the queen of the gods. In Homer's The Iliad, we see her fighting on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans- not because she has a special fondness for the Greeks, but because she is angry with Paris, the prince of Troy, for saying at one point that Aphrodite is prettier than she is.