There is no problem with the Gift of Eros; there is a huge problem with our wrong way of receiving the Gift. We grasp at it, and thereby we deprive ourselves of it. We ‘cling’ on to it, thus disallowing its ebb and flow in our life. Even if we get what we desire, once we ‘have’ it, we desire something else. Such desire is discontented, unsatisfied, invariably disappointed, because it is ‘delusive’ in its craving. We want to feast, but all we can do is devour.
Buddha made all this very clear, and it is his great contribution to have purified the Hindu Eros which, in its very richness and prolixity, had grown corrupt and needed a simplifying that would wash it clean. Eros washes us clean, in order to robe us in glory, and splendour. But when the vehicles of Eros are themselves too distorted, this dynamic is lost. The religious vehicles must be washed clean, simplified, reduced to an essential core, before they can be trusted to wash clean, simplify, reduce to an essential core, the human estate. Buddha did not just enlighten humanity; he enlightened the factors that are the enlighteners of humanity.