{"id":2294,"date":"2006-11-28T20:04:15","date_gmt":"2006-11-28T19:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=2294"},"modified":"2007-02-06T01:08:39","modified_gmt":"2007-02-06T00:08:39","slug":"varna-ashrama-dharma-and-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=2294","title":{"rendered":"Varna-ashrama Dharma and Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gaurav Mittal<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Here are some Vedic values which I am inculcating in my daughter.<\/p>\n

Protection of women – How to protect my daughter?
\nMy 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.<\/p>\n

Internal advancement: How to make my daughter internally advanced?
\nSrimad 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.<\/p>\n

Best friend and guide: How to make them connect with their eternal best friend, Krishna in their heart?
\nKrishna 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Gaurav Mittal<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-gaurav-mittal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}