Sarasvati Thakura

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> Sarasvati Thakura also said that women are on the level of jungle men, or

> wild people, meaning aborigines. He warned that women generally cannot go

> to a very high level of consciousness, so he warned that though their

> words may be sweet, their hearts are very hard. This, of course, is from

> sastra.

 

Here is one quote. Please pay your attention to the last paragraph of the

purport where Srila Prabhupada gives spiritual outlook on this otherwise

materialistic remonstration by Sri Kasyapa Muni:

 

SB 6.18.41

 

arat-padmotsavaˆ vaktraˆ

vaca ca ravaŠ€mtam

hdayaˆ kura-dh€r€bhaˆ

str…Š€ˆ ko veda ce˜itam

 

TRANSLATION

A woman’s face is as attractive and beautiful as a blossoming lotus flower

during autumn. Her words are very sweet, and they give pleasure to the ear,

but if we study a woman’s heart, we can understand it to be extremely sharp,

like the blade of a razor. In these circumstances, who could understand the

dealings of a woman?

 

PURPORT

 

Woman is now depicted very well from the materialistic point of view by

Kayapa Muni. Women are generally known as the fair sex, and especially in

youth, at the age of sixteen or seventeen, women are very attractive to men.

Therefore a woman’s face is compared to a blooming lotus flower in autumn.

Just as a lotus is extremely beautiful in autumn, a woman at the threshold

of youthful beauty is extremely attractive. In Sanskrit a woman’s voice is

called n€r…-svara because women generally sing and their singing is very

attractive. At the present moment, cinema artists, especially female

singers, are especially welcome. Some of them earn fabulous amounts of money

simply by singing. Therefore, as taught by ®r… Caitanya Mah€prabhu, a

woman’s singing is dangerous because it can make a sanny€s… fall a victim to

the woman. Sanny€sa means giving up the company of women, but if a sanny€s…

hears the voice of a woman and sees her beautiful face, he certainly becomes

attracted and is sure to fall down. There have been many examples. Even the

great sage Viv€mitra fell a victim to Menak€. Therefore a person desiring

to advance in spiritual consciousness must be especially careful not to see

a woman’s face or hear a woman’s voice. To see a woman’s face and appreciate

its beauty or to hear a woman’s voice and appreciate her singing as very

nice is a subtle falldown for a brahmac€r… or sanny€s…. Thus the description

of a woman’s features by Kayapa Muni is very instructive.

 

When a woman’s bodily features are attractive, when her face is beautiful

and when her voice is sweet, she is naturally a trap for a man. The €stras

advise that when such a woman comes to serve a man, she should be considered

to be like a dark well covered by grass. In the fields there are many such

wells, and a man who does not know about them drops through the grass and

falls down. Thus there are many such instructions. Since the attraction of

the material world is based on attraction for women, Kayapa Muni thought,

“Under the circumstances, who can understand the heart of a woman?” C€Šakya

PaŠita has also advised, viv€so naiva kartavyaƒ str…u r€ja-kuleu ca:

“There are two persons one should not trust—a politician and a woman.”

These, of course, are authoritative €stric injunctions, and we should

therefore be very careful in our dealings with women.

 

Sometimes our KŠa consciousness movement is criticized for mingling men

and women, but KŠa consciousness is meant for anyone. Whether one is a man

or woman does not matter. Lord KŠa personally says, striyo vaiy€s tath€

™dr€s te ’pi y€nti par€ˆ gatim: whether one is a woman, ™dra or vaiya,

not to speak of being a br€hmaŠa or katriya, everyone is fit to return

home, back to Godhead, if he strictly follows the instructions of the

spiritual master and €stra. We therefore request all the members of the

KŠa consciousness movement—both men and women—not to be attracted by

bodily features but only to be attracted by KŠa. Then everything will be

all right. Otherwise there will be danger.