SB 6.18.41

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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 brahmacari or

sannyasi.

 

TEXT 41

 

sarat-padmotsavam vaktram

vacas ca sravanamrtam

hrdayam ksura-dharabham

strina-m ko veda cestitam

 

 

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

Kasyapa 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

nari-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 Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, a woman's singing is

dangerous because it can make a sannyasi fall a victim to the woman. Sannyasa

means giving up the company of women, but if a sannyasi 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 Visvamitra

fell a victim to Menaka. 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 brahmacari or sannyasi. Thus the description of a woman's features by Kasyapa

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 sastras

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, Kasyapa Muni thought, "Under the

circumstances, who can understand the heart of a woman?" Canakya Pandita has

also advised, visvao naiva kartavyah strisu raja-kulesu ca: "There are two

persons one should not trust--a politician and a woman." These, of course, are

authoritative sastric injunctions, and we should therefore be very careful in

our dealings with women.

Sometimes our Krsna consciousness movement is criticized for mingling men

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

woman does not matter. Lord Krsna personally says, striyo vaisyas tatha sudras

te 'pi yanti param gatim: whether one is a woman, sudra or vaisya, not to speak

of being a brahmana or ksatriya, everyone is fit to return home, back to

Godhead, if he strictly follows the instructions of the spiritual master and

sastra. We therefore request all the members of the Krsna consciousness

movement--both men and women--not to be attracted by bodily features but only

to be attracted by Krsna. Then everything will be all right. Otherwise there

will be danger.