Re: Women in ISKCON

from Padyavali ACBSP

Dear Prabhus

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Last July when I was visiting Toronto I happened to see on the front page of the Toronto Globe and Mail the report by the United Nations about women's abuse in the world. Their published findings stated that they knew that abuse of women was a rampant problem in today's world but they were unprepared for the numbers they came up with and they felt that these figures were not the full picture. The report stated that**** 60 million*** women were **missing** in the world. Most in and around Asia, Africa, but in many other nations as well. The figure was staggering. The details gruesome.

I, as Srila Prabhupada's disciple in the last twenty five years (training single women in Brahmacarini ashram) have seen the condition of many of the women in today's world. The world has become an unsafe place for women and children. Those women who come to the shores of ISKCON have often been through child abuse, rape, abortion, molestation, borne children, divorced, husband beatings,rejection, death of parents or their children etc. and crimes such as drugs and protitution. Many women suffer from mental illness and fear as a result of the treatment they have received. Those serving in the Women's Ministry know these statistics very well.

The Women's Ministry of ISKCON was not set up to make these women into feminists or to be feminists themselves by taking up the work of this ministry but actually to act as a bridge between the abusive world by making ISKCON a place where women could take shelter of our movement and have their battered lives restored to some kind of order.

Once restored they are able to take to our processes nicely and develop their Krsna Consciousness, marry (in some cases) and build Krsna Conscious communities and safe environments for their families and children at the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada and Krsna.

All of this is in line with the teachings of Lord Caitanya: Patita Pavana. The friend of the most fallen.

"Quote" Advaita Acharya is actually the person who brought down Lord Caitanya. He called the Lord to come, and he assisted in His pastimes. Advaita Acharya, although he was actually propagating this Nama Sankirtana movement before the Advent of Lord Caitanya was not achieving very much success. By Sri Caitanya's own arrangement, although Sri Advaita, Maha Vishnu Himself, was here propagating the Yuga Dharma, the chanting of the Holy Names, the greatest demons that the world has ever known descended at the same time by taking birth in the Lord's most sacred land, the land of Gaura, the Holy land of Bengal.

The devotees endured the atrocities and the harassment of these powerful demons. The Nawab Hussein Shah, the incarnation of Jarasandha. Chand Kazi the incarnation of Kamsa, who tried to stop the devotees' loud chanting in public. His city chieftains, incarnations of Hiranyakasipu and Hiranyaksa, Jagai and Madhai, who committed abominable acts simply for their own perverted entertainment (including the rape of women). The demons' activities made it appear that even the Supreme Lord, Maha Vishnu in the form of Sri Advaita, was not very successful in propagating the Hari Nama Sankirtan movement.

Of course this was for an ulterior motive, for Sri Advaita desired to be unsuccessful because he wanted Sri Krsna Caitanya to come down. And in this most unfortunate and perilous age of Kali yuga, when the living entities are so degraded and suffering so many forms of calamities, he wanted to give them the most precious things. When the illness is so severe, the doctor has to give the most powerful medicine. Advaita Acharya wanted the credit to go to its ultimate Source Sri Krishna Caitanya. So he called the Lord to come down.

As it is the nature of the devotee to always want to glorify his beloved Lord, it is similarly the nature of the Lord that He wants always and only to glorify His devotees. Sri Caitanya demonstrated this at the Maha Prakash when He so beautifully revealed Himself as the Supreme Personality of Godhead to His pure devotees. He showed each devotee that form of Godhead that the devotee most loved and gave benedictions to them.

He asked Advaita Acharya what benediction He could bestow upon him. Advaita selflessly requested, "When You distribute this mercy, You give it to everyone.YOU GIVE IT TO THE WOMEN, the sudras, the poor, the unfortunate living entities. Without discrimination, You distribute it,and make all the living entities cry in the ecstasy of pure love of God and roll in the dust of the ground. "

Sri Caitanya was very pleased by this request, and He granted that benediction. Then Sri Advaita further requested,

*****"When you distribute this pure love of God, don't give it to those who are envious, to those who are malicious toward the devotees, because if You give this sweet nectar to those who are like envious snakes, they will simply become more venomous. They will use its potency simply to impede this movement. They must first become free of their pride by burning their own envy. So You don't give it to them."******

(Gaura Lila , The Pastimes and Precepts of Lord Caitanya condensed from C.C. and Sri Caitanya Bhagavata by H.H. Varsana Swami)

From the above statements by Sri Advaita and Lord Caitanya one can understand that this movement is for the most fallen as Lord Caitanya demonstrated when he delivered Jagai and Madhai. No where in the teachings of Lord Caitanya, whose movement we live within, did He ever speak that the women of this age would have to become Vedic ladies to receive this mercy. Rather he allowed an old lady to stand on His shoulders to see Lord Jagannatha. This mercy is coming to the women of the world through the benediction of Sri Advaita given by Lord Caitanya.

To call the work of trying to save the women of this world by bringing them to Krsna Consciousness the names that I have seen on the internet recently is abominable. Who are these men to judge this work and call it feminism and be threatened by it? Why are the women of the world trying to band together and create some measure of safety for themselves and their children? Because this is the Age of Kali and the women and children of this age are most unfortunate. Look at the war in Serbia and Croatia. It was the women and children and the fathers and grandfathers that were killed and tortured by the soldiers. It wasn't men fighting men on a battlefield. Ethnic cleansing they called it. Now we want to bring this kind of ethnic cleansing to ISKCON. Let us get rid of those who are working the hardest to help others into this movement.

(Srila Prabhupada was practical and saw single women as a means to push on the work of the society, They like the men of the society had to chant sixteen rounds, attend morning schedule and serve.) Practical. He never once mentioned that they had to be Vedic ladies to do this as GHQ is mentioning.

But Satsvarupa Maharaja's purport to this letter says it all...............

This letter almost entirely consists of directions for a brachmacharini asrama. We should not superficially think this letter is dated or we have already completely established unmarried women's asrama in ISKCON.

The directions here establish that there definitely should be an unmarried women's ashram, "Those who are married couples, Srila Prabupada writes. "there is nothing to be said---simply live together as husband and wife." "But there is a group of unmarried women, usually composed of young girls, waiting to be married and girls already married but who have since lost their husbands, who will join ISKCON. There also may be some women who join ISKCON but prefer to remain single or who had been married previously but don't wish to remarry. So there will always be a need for brahmacharini ashram. Here Srila Prabhupada gives many suggestions for how the women's ashram should be conducted.

******Prabhupada DOESN'T DESCRIBE AN ASHRAM OF MARRIED WOMEN MIXED WITH UNMARRIED WOMEN. (So for the grhastas to look after the women's affairs is not Srila Prabhupada's instruction.) It is better for the brahmacharinis ****esprit de corps*****that they have their own place and unmarried status and that they don't have to constantly mix with household affairs, other wives with their children, or men. I remember a brahmacarini who was sixteen and lived with a householder couple. Srila Prabhupada advised her not to remain with them; if she did she would practically become a grhasta herself. When the women becomes grhastas then "there is nothing to be said" but while they are brahmacarinis the temple authorities can organize separate living quarters for them.

The main point Prabhupada makes here is that men should live separately from women. One might object that the whole brahmacharini concept is a concoction. In Vedic society a young girl lived at home with her father until she married, then her husband took care of her. There were no brahmacharinis. ***But Americans know nothing of VEDIC CULTURE,*** and according to VEDIC CULTURE, American women live like prostitutes. SRILA PRABHUPADA DID NOT TURN AWAY SUCH WAYWARD GIRLS WHO SHOWED SINCERE INTEREST. He thought if he did that "They might be annoyed, and whatever Krishna Consciousness they are trying to develop might be checked."

He therefore said, "Let there be a brahmacharnini ashram. " But this was bound to cause a dilemma. The brahmacharinis would quarrel with each other, they would not be able to live together in Krsna Consciousness peacefully. Srila Prabhupada, however viewed these things philosophically and said that because we are individuals, of course there would be quarrels.

***Still he was not deterred in his desire to establish a women's ashram. He did not say, ***Forget the Brahmacharini Ashrama. Women will fight like cats, so let them go to hell. We cannot provide for them. Let them live at home.

Rather, Prabhupada gave practical suggestions: Who would pay for such an ashram? He suggests the brahmacharinis distribute books. He instructed them not to beg, but they could sell his books. Persons conditioned by Western upbringing would require a more substantial diet. Prabhupada mentions that it would be useful for them to type and assist in printing books.

This is an instructive letter for engaging women to save them from their lusty tendencies while at the same time pushing on the Krsna consciousness movement. (Satvarupa Dasa Goswami Volume l,Letters from Srila Prabhupada.)

Sita Dasi, wife of Jivan Mukta Dasa lived with me in the Toronto Temple's Brahmacharini Ashram for three years. I was in charge of that ashram from 1980 to 1986. She lived in my room and served nicely as a brahmacarini until we arranged her marriage to Jivan Mukta Das. I am so shocked at the stance that she and Jivan Mukta are taking on this issue. Their rudeness towards other devotees, their name calling and plots to bring down the women's ministry. What is this? If you forget Lord Caitanya everything will appear impossible and if you remember Him all things will be possible. Please remember Lord Caitanya and his pure devotee's instructions as discribed above and join with us in Lord Caitanya's sankirtan movement.

Don't try to twist things to suit your personal concoctions of His mercy. This is not good. I am very surprised that you would speak and act in such a fashion. That others have joined you is even more shocking. There is no mercy in what you say and no love in what you do. I personally have no interest in pursuing your line of thinking as it is wrong for this age and for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. You see what will happen if the Grhastas take over the women's ashrams. Jiva prabhu (who was found shot to death after he took over the women's program in Berkeley), and Dharmatma Dasa in New Vrindama ended up with 4 wives.

Be wise Sita, and take Srila Prabhupada's good advice "when the women become grhastas then there is nothing to be said." Srila Prabhupada did not want to mix grhastas and single women for all reasons stated, but he did want the women to be in charge of the women's ashrams and that the womens's ashrams should have a women's ministry seems sensible to me. The sannyasis and the grhastas have ministries, why not the women? We are all servants following the same path and pushing on this sankirtan movement. No one was threatened by the formation of those other ministries, why are you so disturbed by the women's ministry and read all sorts of things into it that are not there.

Because Malati prabhu came from the background that she did she perfectly represents the mercy of Lord Caitanya as do Jaghi and Mudhi. She gives great hope to many other women (and men) who have lost all hope and are in despair in this hellish age. What you see in her being there with her Women's ashram is Srila Prabhupada's words in action for single women. And what you see in Malati is a married women who has returned to the Brahmacarini Ashram and is serving her Spiritual Master's instructions for this ashram.

Those who know Malati and her ashram know this is true. Can you not see this? Did Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda continue to throw into the faces of Jagai and Madhai, after they surrendered to Them, all their sins from their past activities. The miracle was that Lord Caitanya forgave them their sins and so did Lord Nityananda. Lord Nityanada said to Lord Caitanya (as Lord Caitanya raised his sudarshan Chakra to kill Jagai and Madhai) "If you kill these two you will have to kill them all, they are all like this. Your mission is not to kill but to purify them with the chanting of the Holy Names."

There are many Malaties also out there and many Jagai's and Madhai's but by Lord Caitanya's and Srila Prabhupada's causeless mercy may they also receive the grace to recover and serve Krsna. Srila Prabhupada when asked " Do you make miracles? He said " My disciples are my miracles".

Because Malati was so fallen she qualified for Lord Caitanys's special mercy and is a shining example of His mercy in this dark world. Radhanatha Swami understood this and that is why he nominated her to the GBC. You may say what you will but what I have described is what has really happened and who can find fault with this? Let them burn their own envy as Sri Advaita warned Lord Caitanya not to give His mercy to those who are envious.

"When you distribute this pure love of God, don't give to those who are envious, to those who are malicious towards the devotees, because if You give this sweet nectar to those who are like envious snakes, they will simply become more venomous. They will use its potency simply to impede this movement. They must first become free of their pride by burning their own envy. So don't give it to them."

Please Sita, live peacefully as good examples in your grhasta ashram and abstain from taking on matters that you are seemingly not qualified to understand. Do you remember the day you walked into the Brahmacharini ashram in Toronto at supper time wearing your school uniform (navy blue tunic and white blouse) You were to tell me later that you had boarded a train directly after leaving school and came from Montreal to Toronto.

When we asked you where you had come from and what we could do for you, you replied as a very young sixteen year old "I want to be a devotee". I want to stay here". Remember. I explained that because you were under age that we could not keep you. You refused to give your name except Sarah or say where you had come from. So I told you I would have to let the police know you were here and that your name was Sarah. Which I did. Finally the next day you gave in and contacted your parents who were out of their minds with worry. They left immediately for Toronto but you refused to leave with them or let them take you back. You told them "If you don't let me stay here I will keep running and you will never find me". So they signed the papers that allowed you to stay and you finished your high school from the ashram. You lived in the ashram for almost three years.