By Gaurav Mittal
Gita explains that it is difficult to understand how to act properly (BG 4.17). Still, I have been clear about my goal of life which is to attain bhakti by focussing my thoughts upon Krishna. I did not spend my energy to understand what is proper action for women. It is difficult to understand as I am myself not a women and also, this topic is little controversial. Even though Srila Prabhupada encouraged women to become devotees, accept guru etc., there are abundant Vedic verses which show that chastity or dedication to one’s husband as only path for women. Actually, women’s guru is supposed to be husband after she is married and she is supposed to serve him irrespective of his behaviour. For example, sastra recommend man to focus all his thoughts upon Krishna. But for women, it is recommended that they should focus all their thoughts upon their husband. One can quote gopis as exception.
Four years ago, I got fortune to have a beautiful daughter. This gave me responsibility to raise my daughter and forced me to decide value system in which she should be raised. Islamic followers can convince women to wear veil all the time when they are outside. That means that I can mould my daughters thoughts in a way that I want to a high degree.
In Kali-yuga, everyone is sudra. Our spiritual and moral level is much more lower than Vedic ideals. Therefore, I consider myself as sudra devotee. There is nothing wrong in being sudra. Krishna tells in BG that sudra can become his devotee. My level is much more lower than level of people when Gita was spoken. Similarly, I cannot expect women to be at the same level. Same level of chastity observed by women like Sita, Mandodari, Anusuya etc cannot be expected from women in this age. Chastity as mentioned in Vedic literatures is a internal quality. These qualities cannot be forced upon women.
Another important aspect is that chastity is not only advised for women but also for men. In Ram-Charit-Manas, it is mentioned that Lord Ram states that there is no one in Raghu-vansh who sees others women with lust even in dreams. Seeing women purely without lust was very important quality of all Vedic men. Can even dozen men (even great gurus) claim that they see women without lust? Even though in Vedic world men were allowed to marry more than one women, they are never allowed to see other women with lust.
Summary is that I myself cannot completely follow Vedic ideals and therefore, it is stupid or foolish for me to force those ideals on my daughter.
Here are some Vedic values which I am inculcating in my daughter.
Protection of women – How to protect my daughter?
My mother always taught me that my real parents are Sita and Ram. The basic essence of saranagati is seeing Krishna as sole maintainer and protector. Actually, I cannot even protect myself. How can I protect my daughter? I do my duties towards my daughter. I provide her love, care, support and spend lot of quality time with her. I do my best for her to be happy. But I understand that her real protector is Ram Himself. I teach her also that same principle. We pray to Ram everyday that He is our father, mother etc and our protector, maintainer etc. Few months ago, my daughter was coughing a lot. I could not do much but to provide her support. I asked her how can I help her. She replied back that I cannot help her and only Krishna can help her. I was happy to hear that. I come up with different way to teach her to surrender to Ram and develop internal saranagati. I am confident that she will be truly protected if she develops true internal surrender to Ram and it is my duty to develop that. It is important to develop surrender (saranagati) to Ram in childhood. What I teach to my daughter is nothing special based on gender? I teach same saranagati to my son also.
Internal advancement: How to make my daughter internally advanced?
Srimad Bhagavatam gives very easy way to make us and children advanced. That way is to hear pastimes (lilas) of Ram. When we hear lila’s of Ram, then He purifies us (SB 1.2.17). My daughter is always immersed into lilas. She plays pastimes of Ram and Krishna with her toys. She tells me that she dreams about Krishna. When my son comes back from school, both of them many times try to play some Krishna lila. I bought all the animation movies about Krishna that I could find from Vrindavan. That has also helped them to focus their thoughts upon Krishna. Another way is to make them do good japa. My son started doing japa when he was four in nice meditative way. After japa, I generally ask him how he felt while doing japa. There are two reasons to ask him this question. I want him to himself think and go deeper into japa experience. In this way, from early childhood he is realizing and internalizing positive effects of japa. Also, that helps me to guide him. He gives very good experiences of japa e.g. he saw Krishna in his heart, he felt relaxed, he saw Krishna and sages were showering flowers upon Him etc. Doing japa will also help them to develop mind control and sense control which will help them in later stages of life.
Best friend and guide: How to make them connect with their eternal best friend, Krishna in their heart?
Krishna residing in our heart is very important concept of bhakti. It is amazing to see how much Krishna loves us that He is ready to accompany us, guide us, witness us, protect us and take care of all the living entities. I have been teaching them and helping them to realize Krishna in their heart. They know that Krishna is always with them. They know that they can talk with Krishna and He listens to them. Actually, Krishna is waiting eagerly for them to talk with Him. Whenever they sleep, I try to remind them that they should think about Ram or Krishna. When my son was 4 year old, he will tell me many times that he wants to tear his heart to see Krishna within his heart? That showed that he was developing desire to see Krishna. I come up with various ways to make them realize this concept. Very important activity related to realizing Krishna within one’s heart is that one truly develops faith that Krishna is within him and Krishna listens to him. Therefore, one can talk with his beloved friend. I encourage them to talk with Paramatma and try to develop this deeper connection through prayers. Japa is another way to connect with Paramatma. When they do japa, I ask them that they need go deeper within and connect with Paramatma within them. They need to call upon Krishna within their heart and as soon as Krishna hears them, He comes.
Apart from making above endeavors to bhakti, I also see that it is important from them to have fun and that is also part of bhakti. My son loves soccer and basketball and my daughter will start soccer from next spring. Actually, my Saturday will go in their soccer games. Weekdays will also go in soccer practice, dance or piano classes.
For me, protection of my daughter means that I should help her to realize Paramatma within herself and also, provide love, care, support, time etc. I am always there for her and will unconditionally support her without any expectations. I will enable her and give her values to get guidance from Paramatma and she will chose her own path and I will also be there to guide her whenever she needs. But raising her in Vedic way does not mean that I will try to force her into a particular lifestyle. She will chose her lifestyle according to her level of advancement. Instead of externally controlling actions of my son and daughter, it seems to me that better way is to make them internally advanced and internally equanimous and sense controlled. In this way, the process of bhakti will not be burden to them but will be full of bliss (svadu svadu pade pade).
In Iskcon, protection of women generally means whether they can hold any leadership role or give classes or lead kirtans. Many man get agitated by seeing women. They instead of realizing they there is problem with their mind and their own advancement, they think that their lustful desires will be fixed by controlling behaviour of women or their clothes. One devotee from India was once criticizing US. For him, US seemed to be very materialistic place where people are into sense gratification. I have been in India and also, same tendencies are present in India also. Later on, he indirectly accepted that US is bad because of clothes which women wear. Seeing women in mini-skirrts agitated his mind. I kept wondering where is the problem. Is the problem in external environment or the problem is in his mind which sees women with lust?
Opposite of attachment is aversion. We need to be equanimous in duality i.e. attachment and aversion. Many men while trying to remove attachment or attraction towards women develop aversion instead of developing equanimity. Aversion is also undesirable and take us away from Krishna just as attachment takes us away from Krishna. A real varnasrama dharma can only be implemented when there is a section in society which is equanimous in dualities i.e. without attachment or aversion towards opposite sex.
This article is very well written that becoming parents and house holder one must give proper guidance to their own children to move forward in Spiritual Advancement. The most secret aspect of Varnashram Dharma is enjoying pastime with children by planting one’s seed as spirit by becoming ideal parents. This is the personal aspect of Varnasharm Dharma.
But there is one social aspect of Varnasharm Dharma which is supported by many schools of thought and one premium such school is ISKCON. In a school all the students can not be expected as brighter than sun and as pleasant than moon. Some children are average; some may be very bright and in other cases some are below average. So when a child attend any school, one needs to follow the rules and regulations of that school along with the dress code. But though there are certain rules and regulations needs to be strictly followed but some regulations can be imposed based on the merits of students as decided by their teacher by constantly monitoring the personal and academic behavior of the students. So some kind of regulations are suggested by the teacher of the school and in our case that is by the spiritual master.
In this material world everybody is fallen and that’s why we had accepted material body. Soul is fallen because of some kind of lust for material enjoyment. So as everybody is fallen in this material world lust can not be eliminated as long as one poses any kind of material body and enjoy any kind of sense gratification.
But our purpose is that we want to move out of this material world by controlling our senses completely so we pray to Krsna for His mercy and protection. But before Krsna acts we need to keep ourselves in devotional services by chanting His glorious names and pastimes such that we should not be in the environment where we can easily attracted to the sense gratification. So maintaining clean environment for engaging ourselves completely in Krsna’s service is very important in our family life as well as in our place of worship. So dressing of men and women in religious places where we engage ourselves helps us to focus our mind into devotional services to Krsna, specially for those who are not so advance in sense controlling.
For the above reason, many of the previous Achariyas has mentioned that vaisanavas should engage themselves always in devotional services with other devotees and only should discuss about Krsna and previous Vaisnava Acahariys. But as a householder one must need cooperation from all family members including wife and children. But all cooperations may not come as expected for every householder devotees because behind that there is many aspects such as past Karmas, fore fathers Karmas, fury of demigods etc. So the only remedy is chanting holy name of Krsna always and keeping focus on the lotus feet of Krsna and many renowned vaisanavas for their mercy, one may easily can get mercy of Krsna and can enjoy Krsna’s pastime along with His devotees.
Thank you Srimanta Prabhu for your comment.
>For the above reason, many of the previous Achariyas has mentioned
>that vaisanavas should engage themselves always in devotional services
>with other devotees and only should discuss about Krsna and previous
>Vaisnava Acahariys.
I agree with you. You remind me of another important point which is to provide opportunity to children to associate with other like-minded kids who share similar values. This also gives them more confidence about their own faith, brings them closer to Krishna and helps their self-esteem.
Dear Gaurav Mittal,
Your sentiments are very good. But there are practical applications of the duties that you have mentioned for protecting the women (in your case your daughter).
These are mentioned in the Dharma Sastras (and the same information is confirmed in the 11th Canto of Srimad Bhagvatam in condensed version in the section of duties of various varnas and ashrams).
Several places Srila Prabhupada mentions that one should NOT disregard the dharma sastras like (in the puport of First Canto where the Queens are waiting to receive Lord Krsna entering Dwarka)
Some of the examples are that the women should be protected by the father, husband and sons respectively and progressively according to their age. Protection means in all aspects, e.g mentally, phisically, spiritually and emotionally.
One should also teach the basic rules of etiquette and various duties of various orders otherwise how will they know how to behave. All these rules are listed in the Dharma Sastras.
Thank you
Gita
I gave instances in my article to make children internally realized and internally advanced. If they are internally advanced, then they automatically become sense controlled. Then, those rules of etiquette will be followed by them automatically. Also, I am always there to guide them. More important is to make them internally realized.
When rules are followed without understanding the essence of the rules, then it is niyama-agraha.
I agree with you that we should teach basic rules of etiquette. They should be followed with understanding essence of the rules. In my article, I did not mean that one should not teach moral values to children.
Can you yourself follow all the rules of Dharma-sastra?
If you are married, have you ever felt sexual atraction even in thoughts towards any man other than your husband? If you are not married, can you state that you will never feel any sexual atrraction even in thoughts to man apart from your husband? Are you ready to burn on your husband’s body (become sati) after his death?
If you answer yes to first 2 questions or no to 3rd question, you are very unchaste lady from the perspective of dharma-sastra. Otherwise, I bow down to you and you are sati born in kali-yuga.
I feel that external pretension is useless. My whole question is:
Can I expect my daughter to be internally chaste? Can I expect that my daughter will only be internally attaracted to one man in her life and that man will be her husband?
If she is internally advanced, I will encourage her to be internally chaste. But if she is not, then I will let her be according to her level of advancement.
Problem is that those people who lack realizations are into rules. For them, rules are most important. For me, internal advancement is more important.
I used example of my daughter to illustrate important fact about women issue. Iskcon leaders when talk about this issue are more into externals. They want to act like police. They want to force people into following particular rules. But externals don’t matter. More important is internals.
A sannyasi who is externally showing that he can control sex desire but internally focussing his thoughts upon women is not a sannyasi. A man whose internal thoughts dwell upon women is fallen to the degree of his internal attachment to women. We are advanced to the degree of internal detachment.
If you go deeper into Bhagavad gita, you will understand that it talks about consciousness (internal state of mind). As far as external actions is concerned, it mainly talks about killing of people. Krishna asks Arjuna to kill people. But killing brings us closer to Krishna if done with proper consciousness. Internal consciousness is more important than external actions. If people in Iskcon understand this simple concept, I think many issues will be resolved easily.
Gaurav Mittal has stated: “Internal consciousness is more important than external actions. If people in Iskcon understand this simple concept, I think many issues will be resolved easily. ”
Internal consciousness can only be know by external actions. Ultimately the two can’t be seperated a’s the soul is active by nature. Srila Bhaktisiddanta has said that we can know a persons advancement by the language he uses. Speaking of course is an external action.