Is that varnasrama dharma? A Cut and Paste philosophy!

July 17, 1999

> I am not a westerner, if I can put it this way. I was born in a Muslim

> country and in a pious Muslim family. Although I already joined KC, I was

> still held responsible for giving authorization so that my two sisters get

> married to husbands chosen by my parents.

PAMHO AGTSP

You have an interesting background.

I can empathize with Ameyatma Prabhu's presentation, because the western,

feminist prescriptions for social equality have all but destroyed the family

unit over here the west. Last week, my wife and I were at my paternal aunt

and uncle's house for dinner, and one of my cousin sisters remarked,

"Nowadays, only 39 percent of men are willing to commit themselves to a

marriage." (I personally know she is very anxious to get married.) I

remarked, "When milk is freely available in the market place, why keep a

cow?" Her reply was, "That's a kind of gross example, but I understand what

you are saying." In otherwords, in the clamor for power (they call it

"equality", but that's a farce), [western] women have short-changed

themselves of stable marriages.

With regard to the rest of your response to Ameyatma Prabhu, there are

reasons why women should stay in the back, and why, as far as possible (and

definitely much farther than the Western sense of gender egalitarianism is

willing to tolerate) various social roles like temporal and spritual

leadership, should be designated by gender. Why, for example, do the Vedas

enjoin that only a man can accept the sannyasa ashram within the varnashrama

institution, and not women? Isn't that "sexist"? But the fact is, in our

vaishnava society, we have a lot of women and many men who really do think

such a demarcation is sexist and meant for a more primitive society.

Anyway, I'm not trying to instruct you, or anything like that. I am only

trying to describe the social environment to which Ameyatma Prabhu is

directing his comments (which is largely western). Since you mentioned your

background as being non-Western, I thought some background might be helpful.

Of course, you live in the West, but just to minimize the chances of

misunderstanding, I am pointing out some facets of modern, western thinking.

Your servant, Krishna-kirti das

Recommended Posts