Women’s Spiritual Nature

Submitted and endorsed by Visakha Priya dasi with permission from the author

“When irreligion is prominent in the family, O Krishna, the women of the family become polluted, and from the degradation of womanhood, O descendant of Vrishni, comes unwanted progeny.”

“Good population in human society is the basic principle for peace, prosperity and spiritual progress in life. The varnasrama religion’s principles were so designed that the good population would prevail in society for the general spiritual progress of state and community. Such population depends on the chastity and faithfulness of its womanhood. As children are very prone to be misled, women are similarly very prone to degradation. Therefore, both children and women require protection by the elder members of the family. . . According to Canakya Pandita [a famous brahmana advisor], women are generally not very intelligent and therefore not trustworthy. So the different family traditions of religious activities should always engage them, and thus their chastity and devotion will give birth to a good population eligible for participating in the varnasrama system. On the failure of such varnasrama–dharma, naturally the women become free to act and mix with men, and thus adultery is indulged in at the risk of unwanted population. Irresponsible men also provoke adultery in society.” (Bg. 1.40 & purport).

“Now, in the Manu–samhita it is clearly stated that a woman should not be given freedom. That does not mean that women are to be kept as slaves, but they are like children. Children are not given freedom, but that does not mean that they are kept as slaves . . . A woman should be given protection at every stage of life. She should be given protection by the father in her younger days, by the husband in her youth, and by the grownup sons in her old age . . . modern education has artificially devised a puffed-up concept of womanly life, and therefore marriage is practically now an imagination in human society. Nor is the moral condition of woman very good now.” (Purport to Bg. 16.7).

Today, such statements naturally raise questions, or even antagonism and anger, in our minds. Are women inferior to men? Are they less intelligent? Are men truly able or eligible to protect women? What does it mean that women should not be given freedom?

There are numerous feministic arguments to this effect, many of which are strong and persuasive, dealing with discrimination, oppression, misrepresentation and exploitation of women.

World religions only aggravate the problem by the full legitimization they accord to explicit patriarchal (chauvinistic) perspectives, and it appears that the above-mentioned statements originate from a similar worldview.

I too, most probably, would become disturbed without having a deeper acquaintance with the Vedic scriptures and culture, and especially with the personality of Srila Prabhupada, the author of those lines. He was a person who had a rare ability to love others, one of those deep loves that are possible only out of a connection with God, and which can contain each and every person in the universe. He saw the spiritual within each one, and could help men and women alike to awaken and cultivate their spiritual nature to the fullest extent of freedom and self-fulfillment, which exceed any material identity. Out of his many female disciples, not even one was ever treated in a discriminating, disparaging, or materially-bodily manner by him. He granted them complete liberty, just as with his male disciples, to develop their natural skills and to act and blossom in their spiritual journey. And yet, he nevertheless wrote those words. What did he mean?

To understand this we must first understand his philosophical and cultural world, that of the Vedic knowledge.

The Vedic knowledge commences with the perception of the self as spiritual, belonging to an eternal, conscious and blissful nature. While the real self is an eternal spirit soul, the psycho-physical body that envelops it is decomposing and temporal, merely constituting a changing “dress” for the soul. As a result, none of us is his or her external identity, and therefore each individual is in actual fact neither a man nor a woman; these are but designations that relate to our current body and not to the spiritual self. However, even though we are not our bodies, we are currently situated in and identify with a certain body, and are consequently conditioned by its psycho-physical constitution. And there are clear differences between the “dress” of a man and that of a woman.

The distinction between masculine and feminine exists at the core of the Vedic theology. The Purusha is the male, the source, the center, the master, the enjoyer—God—who expanded Himself into many for His ever-increasing spiritual bliss, and prakriti is His energy. She is feminine, symbolizing the feminine qualities; she is dependent on the male-God, she exists for His pleasure, she expands His pleasure, and with her His pleasure rests. She is defined through Him, without a separate independent existence; she is the infinite number of individuals (the souls) who have expanded from Him to exchange transcendental loving relations with Him. The Purusha is attracted to provide protection and shelter to prakriti, and she finds pleasure in serving Him.

The superior prakriti, or the Lord’s first expansion for the purpose of pleasure, is embodied in a perfect feminine figure, which is a transcendental manifestation of the Lord’s pleasure-giving potency (hladini-sakti, ananda, or by Her name, Sri Radha). Therefore, in His supreme aspect of love, the Vedic God is described as two, a man and a woman, or Radha and Krishna. Although one in their identity, they are eternally separated, in order to taste the sweetness of a loving relationship.

One of God’s names is Madana-mohana, or He who attracts Madana (Cupid). Cupid, the god of love (or the principle of lust), is considered the strongest in the material world. But even he is completely captivated by God’s charm. This means that love of God is more attractive than lust. In any case, God Himself, the omnipotent, is captivated by His pleasure potency, the embodiment of love of God, Sri Radha. She is therefore called Madana-mohana-mohini, or the enchantress of the enchanter of Cupid. The Lord is saktiman, or the energetic, and she is sakti, the energy. The loving reciprocation between them is based on a transcendental conjugal relationship that constitutes the original taste of love, adi-rasa. Conjugal relationships in the material world, or sexual relationships, are but an imitation of that transcendental spiritual taste, forming the central point of attraction in worldly existence.

The same transcendental feminine personality, Sri Radha, who is the embodiment of spiritual love of God, expands herself into an inferior manifestation, the embodiment of the material energy, or Durga Devi, the goddess of matter. As the embodiment of matter, she allures the souls and invites them to come and enjoy her. In this way she binds them through the agency of sex, or the attraction between men and women, to material existence. She is also called the illusory energy, or maya, since the pleasure she offers is ephemeral and is factually filled with suffering. While Sri Radha reflects the nature of surrender, service and feminine love for the Purusha, Durga Devi reflects the opposite aspect of the feminine nature—sexual, seducing and cunning, in need of the Purusha, the man, to attract, charm, and bewilder.

Those souls who are attracted to the material existence are, therefore, souls who chose to deny their prakriti nature and to disconnect themselves from their relationship with the Lord, and are now trying to establish their position as if they are the Purusha – the enjoyer and controller, the center for whose pleasure everything is meant. Yet we all want the same thing – to gain control, as much as we can, over the resources of the material energy, and over each other, for our own selfish pleasure. For this reason our entire existence is characterized by a struggle for supremacy and power, and the existential law is that the strong exploit the weak.

Since we try to imitate here the divine play of love, along our karmic journey one of us sometimes assumes the role of the Purusha, the enjoyer, while another plays prakriti, the giver of joy. The male body represents the Purusha – autonomous and independent, and the female body represents prakriti – subordinate and defined by the Purusha. They are two kinds of natures, or ego, different from each other, and simultaneously, attracted to each other, and in a proper environment, also complementing each other.

Religious injunctions are essentially meant to demarcate and minimize the tendency towards egocentricity and the strife for supremacy, as well as to enable cooperation and regulation of the sexual tension between the two genders, or two types of ego. In any case, in the present age, Kali-yuga, the influence of the mode of goodness constantly declines, while that of the modes of passion and ignorance is on the rise. Consequently, sense gratification is taken to be the ultimate goal of life, and the entire atmosphere becomes saturated with self-interest, hypocrisy, and callousness. In such a state, the principles of religion are often used to justify egocentricity and even as a method for exploitation, abuse, and control of the strong over the weak – the weak gender. A woman is perceived as a means to satisfy the sexual needs of her husband and as mother for his children, in negation of all independence and freedom to fulfill herself beyond that.

The feminist fight for women’s liberation takes part in the struggle of the entire modern world to free itself from the burden of religious oppression. The modern person defines himself or herself through the right for freedom – the freedom to fulfill oneself without the strict and confining laws of religion, the freedom to enjoy without fearing sin, the freedom to control one’s destiny, the freedom to explore the truth, and even the freedom to believe or not in the existence of God.

In any case, when this important struggle for freedom is basically reduced to sexual freedom, and women become “free” to procure sex just like men, it is no longer advancing anyone, but rather degrading the entire society. In the strife of fanaticism and religious oppression vs. sexual freedom, women, as a class, are left harmed. Although in many ways they are more free, they continue to be taken (even by themselves) as a sex object and to be used as a symbol for sexuality. The material-sexual atmosphere increases their material-sexual tendency and furthers them away from their devoted and loving nature. In fact, this transition between “a saint and a prostitute” is rapid for women, since these are two aspects of their prakriti nature. This is also the reason why they are not considered very intelligent (in the Vedic culture an intelligent person is one who can distinguish between matter and spirit, and women are more easily swayed to identify with their material body on account of its external beauty).

Since the sexual environment promotes their lower nature, the maternal feeling, which constitutes the highest feminine quality and a supreme value in a healthy society, is damaged first. Without healthy motherly love, the entire population (progeny) is harmed. Sadly, due to the influence of modern times and the great emphasis given to sense gratification, sexuality is cherished today even more than maternity, and it permeates all of our contacts.

It seems, therefore, that a certain synthesis is required to reconcile the two extremes—oppression vs. freedom—that would provide, on the one hand, complete freedom, and on the other hand, an environment free from sexuality. It should be a synthesis of a higher nature that would uplift us beyond the material plane and the attempts at material problem-solving, which constantly yield nothing but new problems.

The culture of dharma, which connects one’s psycho-physical nature with one’s spiritual nature and holds self-fulfillment as an ideal, creates the suitable atmosphere for real freedom, thus offering such a synthesis (this article does not expound on the topic of dharma since there is a separate and elaborate article in this regard that is recommended to read alongside this one).

As previously explained, in the material existence we all try to experience the taste of being the Purusha – the master — despite being spiritually servants. Therefore, the culture of dharma teaches how to transform the spirit of lordship into a spirit of service, and views freedom as a journey for spiritual self-fulfillment, not as “doing whatever I like” and enjoying without limits. In such a culture, the human body becomes a vehicle. Each one of us acts in the world according to our tendencies and bodily skills. We currently act to satisfy our egos, or our imagined Purusha nature, but if we perform the activities natural to us in a spirit of service, we will gradually be cleansed of this false ego and return to our original spiritual nature, the nature of prakriti. In this spirit, others are no longer considered objects of enjoyment but an opportunity for service.

Generally speaking, as prakriti, it is the wife who is responsible for the inner culture of the house, and it is she who creates the proper environment for relationship (even if she has her own career). She is the base, the binding element, the gentle and supportive strength. The man, as the Purusha, is the source of security, especially in contacts with the outside world. A husband and wife’s commitment to each other in a spirit of service creates a secure and natural environment for spiritual growth and freedom – the freedom to fulfill oneself to the fullest extent, beyond the momentarily “I feel like it/I don’t feel like it” of the senses, and beyond the ego and the material conditionings.

The Vedic literature is filled with the stories of great women who, on account of their loyalty to dharma, attained the perfection of self-fulfillment: Gandhari, who blindfolded herself as not to surpass her blind husband; Kunti Devi, who preached to her husband to abide by the Vedic injunctions and composed her famous prayers; Damayanti, who saved her husband, Nala, from a life of sin; Savitri, who thoughtfully released her husband, Satyavan, from the hands of Yamaraja, the god of death; and there are many other examples. There are also women who were great spiritual teachers and great composers, like the south-Indian Andal, Mira Bhai, Jahnava-devi of Bengal, and so on.

In fact, when the Vedic scriptures discuss the need to protect women, the intention is specifically in regard to protection from the sexual energy or sexual environment, which corrupts the feminine qualities and the entire society. This kind of protection is only possible when society holds motherhood as the highest expression of feminism, and women as a whole are seen as mothers. Indeed, in the Vedic culture men were educated to see every woman, except for their wife, as a mother (mataji). That means that she is not a sexual object for their pleasure, but an object of respect. The protection of the father, husband and son is not meant to lock her at home and hide her from the world, but to implant in her a sense of security and belonging (which she requires as prakriti) for her different occupations and contacts with the world. In any case, when a woman is not defined through a connection with a man, she is prone to anxiety, and in her attempts to obtain the security of a Purusha she is forced to appeal to her lower nature – the sexual and seductive.

A word on men: dysfunctional maternity produces children with emotional lacks. Such children grow, naturally, into adults, who are us. In any event, a man who carries emotional lacks with him becomes emotionally dependent on a woman, and needs her like a mother. Such a childish man (which most men are today) is not very strong. A woman, however, is dependent by nature, and therefore she is not weakened by a state of dependence like men are. In fact, due to neediness, such a man repeatedly glides toward his weak side – emotionality, which is the woman’s strong side. Therefore, for many reasons, a materialistic society increases the power of women and decreases the independent and autonomous position of men. Undoubtedly, in such a state men cannot function as a source of inspiration or protection for women, and not even for themselves. And this is the face of society today . . .

Thus, one who is not emotionally satisfied must constantly look for more external stimuli, although these can never bring about real satisfaction. A society of such dissatisfied people is neither stable nor peaceful. Such a society is the outcome of dysfunctional maternity; dysfunctional maternity is the result of a material-sexual environment; and such a material environment, which regards sense gratification as the ultimate goal, is the consequence of eschewing the spiritual ideal, which alone enables true growth and freedom.

In light of this, if we now return to Srila Prabhupada’s lines (at the beginning of the article) we may understand them differently.