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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Devaki Devi Dasi: A woman is meant to be the energy and inspiration to man. This is, in a
\nnutshell, the beautiful role we women are meant to play-such a great
\nresponsibility! Srila Prabhupada very nicely explains this in the purport to
\nSrimad-Bhagavatam 4.21.4: “When thus protected, women as a class remain an
\nalways auspicious source of energy to man.”
\nIf we women want to learn how to support and inspire a man to rise to his
\nvery best performance, if we want to empower him and bring the very best out
\nof him, we have to first of all understand a man’s heart and nature-how he
\nticks. Only then we can know how to act for his inspiration. A man wants to
\nbe the glorious hero for a woman, especially for his wife, but ultimately
\nfor any woman. Srila Prabhupada explains this in the following purports:
\nSrimad-Bhagavatam 4.25.41:
\n“Every husband is certainly a great hero to his wife. In other words, if a
\nwoman loves a man, that man appears very beautiful and magnanimous. Unless
\none becomes beautiful in the eyes of another, one cannot dedicate his whole
\nlife to another.”
\nSrimad-Bhagavatam 10.25.33:
\n“It is natural that a young man wants to do something wonderful in the
\npresence of a beautiful young girl. The gopis were the most beautiful and
\npure-hearted young girls, and Sri Krishna performed the most wonderful
\nactivities in their presence. Thus He entered deep within their tender
\nhearts, enlivening their eternal devotion to Him.”
\nKrishna is the topmost hero, and in the material world we find the perverted
\nreflection of this principle as male nature wanting to be the hero for a
\nwoman. Thus the most painful situation for a man is when he appears as a
\nfool and loser in the eyes of a woman. Such an experience compares to 1,000
\nknives piercing his heart.
\nWhen she even thinks or says, “Just see, I told you so! Why didn’t you do it
\nlike I told you?! Just see, I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it i I could
\nhave told you this right in the beginning!”-such thoughts or words are like
\nso many razor blades cutting his male heart into pieces. It entirely
\ndisempowers him. It takes away all his inspiration and motivation to be
\nresponsible and active. It can even completely block and almost paralyze
\nhim. In fact, it can ruin his very life. A husband cannot follow in the
\nfootsteps of his wife-it is the wrong rasa.
\nI remember from my own married life, every time I was trying to give my
\nhusband some good advice in all friendship, saying, “Why don’t you do it
\nlike this and this and this?” He answered jokingly: “You know what, I
\nexactly wanted to do this. But now that you told me, I cannot do it
\nanymore.”
\nThis is how the male ego works. If we women want to have nice, harmonious
\nrelationships with men, we have to be very careful. Better not to instruct
\nmen what to do and what not to do, especially as a wife. If we are thirty
\nyears older and we act like a well-wishing, wise and affectionate mother we
\ncan perhaps say something. But for a wife, she had better learn the art of
\nmaking her husband believe that her idea is his idea.
\nAll that is required in order to learn this art is our willingness to give
\nup the credit for the idea-that we renounce the ego satisfaction of being
\nthe one who knew better. As soon as we try to get this satisfaction of being
\nsuperior, the male ego will not like it and will react accordingly. Often
\nout of spite he will do the opposite, even though he might understand that
\nit would be the right thing to do.
\nOften devotees ask me for advice about their family problems. I have met
\ncouples where the wife is always trying to be number one-she is “Mrs. Pure
\nDevotee”, getting up at 2 am, and chanting all of her rounds etc. If this is
\ndone with a certain egotistical motivation, trying to show off how Krishna
\nconscious she is, and indirectly telling her husband that he is in complete
\nmaya, it will entirely block and discourage him.
\nAs Srila Prabhupada explains in his purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.23.2, “A
\nman’s psychology and woman’s psychology are different. As constituted by
\nbodily frame, a man always wants to be superior to his wife, and a woman, as
\nbodily constituted, is naturally inferior to her husband. Thus the natural
\ninstinct is that the husband wants to post himself as superior to the wife,
\nand this must be observed. Even if there is some wrong on the part of the
\nhusband, the wife must tolerate it, and thus there will be no
\nmisunderstanding between husband and wife.”
\nA husband wants to be in the front, in a superior position. If his wife
\ntakes the superior position, then she will not agree to be the auspicious
\nsource of energy and inspiration to him any longer. However, most men need
\nthis feminine energy in order to be inspired and motivated. And since he
\ncan’t receive this energy, he becomes almost as if he were paralyzed. I have
\nseen examples where a husband becomes so frustrated that he turns into an
\nalcoholic, even though second initiated. It is a very serious matter.
\nIf women do not have this knowledge, they will definitely do and say the
\nwrong thing, and will be surprised why their husband is becoming uninspired,
\nlethargic, irresponsible, and even turns away from Krishna consciousness.
\nA mentor may definitely take the side of the wife, saying, “Your husband is
\ndrinking; he is not a devotee. He is useless-you better leave him and get
\ndivorced.”
\nWe might not even realize to what extent she is contributing to the whole
\nsituation. Unless we have this knowledge we will surely give the wrong
\nadvice in all marriage problems. I have come across other examples where she
\nis also trying to be number one as a big preacher, always ten steps ahead of
\nher husband. As a result he loses all interest in spiritual practices, and
\neven stops chanting. He then puts all his time and energy into his
\nprofessional career, because there he can be number one and be the hero, as
\nhis wife doesn’t know anything about his field of expertise.
\nAgain, if devotees don’t have this deeper understanding, they may say, “Your
\nhusband is in maya. He is not a devotee. Maybe you should get divorced.”
\nWe have the example of Gandhari blindfolding herself, because she does not
\nwant to be in a superior position to her husband. So women have to take the
\nsame stance if they want to be the power of inspiration to a man. Whenever a
\nhusband becomes lazy, lethargic, uninspired, and irresponsible, it often
\nmeans that his wife does not know the art of being the inspiration to him.
\nSaying this does not mean that we are blaming the women. No, it simply means
\nthat we women have such powerful energy! It is in our hands to inspire a man
\nand bring him to his very best capacity, or to block him and almost ruin his
\nlife. Such is the power of feminine energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Devaki Devi Dasi: A woman is meant to be the energy and inspiration to man. This is, in a nutshell, the beautiful role we women are meant to play-such a great responsibility! Srila Prabhupada very nicely explains this in the purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.21.4: “When thus protected, women as a class remain an always auspicious source of energy to man.”<\/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-66926","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\/66926","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=66926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66929,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66926\/revisions\/66929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}