SHOULAO
Many Xian are connected to the main symbols of the Dao, and almost each association evokes a wealth of meanings, in a delicate balance between internal forces and external influences.
Shoulao the god of longevity was the personification of the masculine principle and Yang essences.
For this reason was often correlated with the dragon and the crane, symbols of a long life lived in the control of the sexual power of meditation and exercise.
In some representations that immortal genius is portrayed with a fish, a symbol of Yin, considering the fact that the groove fruit evokes the female vulva.
Although his figure appears also associated with Yin energy because of this fruit, its evocative power is undoubted Xiwangmu offset by the Queen Mother of the West, the personification of the feminine principle of yin and sovereign of the immortals.
He lives in a lush garden in which flowers and birds thrive and where, thanks to his care, is growing a peach tree, which will earn the rare fruits of immortality.
She is often represented as holding a plate of offerings, a symbol of female sexuality, and for centuries has been a strong model of femininity for Taoist adepts.
Shoulao represents more of the symbols in which the believer or seeker Taoist must identify in its quest for balance and eternal life, rather than a person of flesh and bones really lived millennia ago.
Looking at his statue, you can understand the symbolism and the wisdom that is hidden in it, connected to the Chinese tradition: an old sign of wisdom for all the experiences he has lived his life, leaning on a stick of knowledge that brings a flask , the latter a symbol of the fact that both drank from the fountain of true knowledge and life eternal.
Closer to the crane, an animal that remains faithful to his mate for life, symbolically represents the fact that the rate should remain faithful to his intentions to achieve its objectives of long life, controlling and directing sexual energy to strengthen the body and the mind rather than disperse it uselessly in sexual acts only to achieve the pleasure an end in itself.
This does not mean that the Taoist can not have sex or to have a satisfying sex life, but he prefers to have intercourse without ejaculation, through hard training, to avoid weakening himself.