By Devaki Devi Dasi<\/p>\n
It is not so long ago that in many parts of Europe spiritual culture was strongly prevailing. For example Italy has a strong heritage of spiritual culture. Some time ago people were very religious and pious here, and even today we can still find so many old and beautiful churches everywhere. Infact in the South we have old Greek temples dating back to the Roman Empire. The general standard of life was rather simple then, and people were mainly living of agriculture. One of my aunties is married to an Italian, and fifty years ago in my childhood we were visiting Italy almost every year during our school holidays. It is not at all long ago, that we could find here the same principles of spiritual culture which we also know from our Vaisnava culture. I remember distinctly how in my childhood my mother took great care that we girls would dress neatly and cover our bodies very nicely when visiting Italy. She discouraged us from wearing shorts and other clothing which would be revealing and provoking lusty thoughts and desires in men. I also remember how our family was discussing the fact that my auntie, now being married to an Italian, was not encouraged to leave the house alone in the evenings, especially after dark. This was a sensational fact for us Germans in those days – that she was not “allowed” to freely move around as she liked. So the idea that a woman should be protected also existed then, even in Italy. Krsna’s system was still more present then.<\/p>\n
Throughout the Srimad Bhagavatam Prabhupada is emphasizing the importance of woman’s protection. In SB.6.18.42 he explains the following: “Women are self-interested by nature, and therefore they should be protected by all means so that their natural inclination to be too self-interested will not be manifest.(…) A woman should not be given independance at any stage. Women must be cared for so that they will not be free to manifest their natural tendency for gross selfishness.(…) This is not a criticism of women but a practical study of their nature.(…) In SB.9.9.32 he states: “Independance for a woman means miserable life. In this age, so many girls are unmarried and falsely imagine themselves free, but their life is miserable.” Also in SB.4.21.4. he explains in more detail: (…)Similarly, a welcome offered by unmarried girls who are internally and externally clean and are dressed in nice garments and ornaments is also auspicious. Kumari, or unmarried girls untouched by the hand of any member of the opposite sex, are auspicious members of society. Even today in Hindu society the most conservative families do not allow girls to go out freely or mix with boys. They are very carefully protected by their parents while unmarried, after marriage they are protected by their young husbands, and when elderly they are protected by their children. When thus protected, women as a class remain an always auspicious source of energy to men.”<\/p>\n
A man likes to protect a woman and be her hero – it is built into his very nature, and it gives him a higher purpose in life. Whenever I travel by train in Germany, I never lift my luggage into the train myself, but I always ask a young fellow to help me. And I can clearly perceive how much pleasure and encouragement he receives from such requests coming from a woman. It gives him a sense of accomplishment, which is indeed empowering him to be active and responsible. Krsna has given this nature to men, just to make sure women receive the protection they are meant to have.<\/p>\n
However, he can only play this role of being the protector if we women accept a subordinate position. As soon as we want to be equal, men cannot protect women any longer. One can only protect somebody when situated in a higher position. In these modern days we strongly propagate equality of men and women, and thus men are losing this heroic function they are meant to play within human society.<\/p>\n
I remember one mataji in South India once shared with me, how she was traveling on a bus when she was pregnant, and nobody was getting up to give her a seat. When she requested some young fellows to get up and let her sit, one of them replied: “You women want to be equal – so why should I get up?” Nevertheless, because he still had some little cultured behavior in his blood, he stood up to give her his seat.<\/p>\n
In Bangladesh I have also experienced, how this principle of protecting a woman does not only protect her, but also him. It protects a man from using women for sense gratification. In spiritual culture the principle of protecting women is the very highest principle – far above the principle of brahmacari life. And it is indeed the greatest honor for a man to play this role. If he somehow violates this principle, and maybe even uses the situation for his sense gratification, he will lose all honor and respect and would be rejected from the entire society. It is worse than death for him. Thus the role of protecting a woman channels his male nature and energy in an uplifting and constructive direction, which protects her aswell as him. Now, in these modern days, men have lost this heroic contribution to human society, and thus as a global reaction their male energy can easily be misdirected into a violent and abusive nature.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, in order to receive protection one has to be willing to give up one’s independance. This is the price to be paid. We cannot maintain independance and at the same time expect protection. This principle we find between Krsna and His devotees (as all surrender unto Me I reward them accordingly, BG.4.11), and even also within temple life. The more we serve within a temple community and give up our independance, the more the devotees will feel impelled to give protection to us. It is a natural way of reciprocation within any relationship.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, what puts Krsna’s system out of place is the fact, that the entire society becomes less God conscious, and thus men use their superior position in order to exploit and abuse. Thus Krsna’s Divine order for protection turns into a system for abuse. This is what happens when sense gratification replaces God consciousness as the goal in life. And it develops proportionally to economic development. Nevertheless, the solution to abuse and exploitation is not independance and equality. The solution is to put Krsna back on the top of the hierarchy – Krsna’s Divine order for protection. An intelligent and Krsna conscious woman will thus carefully chose who she allows herself to depend on and to be protected by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Devaki Devi Dasi: It is not so long ago that in many parts of Europe spiritual culture was strongly prevailing. For example Italy has a strong heritage of spiritual culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28327","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=28327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28329,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28327\/revisions\/28329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}