Engaging Female devotees

[Guest guest]

At 5:54 -0800 11/22/99, COM: Basu Ghosh (das) ACBSP (Baroda - IN) wrote:

>

>And yes, I'm all for the GBC encouraging the ladies in various departments

>of devotional service. At the same time I feel that both the GBC and the

>senior ladies should promote traditional vedic concepts of womanly life

>amongst all the devotees. Isn't that what Srila Prabhupada did when he

>taught us to eat, sleep, & dress, etc., like vaishnavas?

 

Exactly. Srila Prabhupada was the perfect example of how to engage all his

disciples according to their individual skills and talents. Seems he was

way less preoccupied with bodily designations that the GHQ club.

 

If you look at his quotes about the good-old-vedic-days, he is glorifying

the great devotees of that time, praising their outstanding qualities and

Krsna Consciousness. However, as Prtha prabhu showed us in her previous

text, *when Prabhupada gave specific instructions to his disciples*

(expertly adjusted to kali yuga time, place and circumstance), his main

concern was that they become Krsna conscious and engaged in devotional

service according to their individual propensities.

 

I'm not saying that Srila Prabhupada would have been disappointed if his

female disciples had become like Draupadi and his male disciples like

Arjuna. But I don't ever remember reading a single quote where he said he

was disappointed that they weren't. In contrast, he was able to find an

ability in every disciple and to devise a way of engaging it in Krsna's

service. This included women singing (often leading kirtana, even with men

present), art (even running art depts with men serving under them),

reciting sanskrit verses (with men following), giving classes (again with

men present, who were listening), worshiping the deities and doing guru

puja (again, not an emergency measure, plenty of qualified men were

present) etc. etc.

 

This is what it means when you say that Prabhupada taught us to behave like

Vaisnavas. Not that he would want women shoved away from having the

darsana the deities or that he'd be upset that they weren't more "shy" and

voluntarily going to the back, which seems to be the GHQs "mantra of the

day". I don't understand why the GHQ thinks it knows better than

Prabhupada and wants to change his standards? Maybe it has something to

do with wanting to control women, rather than to protect them.....?

 

If you are going to argue that all of Prabhupada's statements and actions

on this topic were for the first generations of ISKCON devotees only and

that he was expecting devotees in the second and subsequent generation to

be treated completely differently, please provide specific quotes to that

regard. I don't mean general ones, praising certain qualities of

modern-day Indian-born devotees or those of the great devotees from times

past. For me to believe that Prabhupada wanted such a drastic shift, I

would need specific quotes such as "allowing girls to _____ is just an

emergency measure. In all future generations I want them to do ___" Or

"although I authorized Jyotirmayi to study at the university, it's only

because of her western upbringing. Future generations of girls who have

grown up in ISKCON will not be allowed to study". Specifics. Otherwise,

we need to follow the example Prabhupada set and his instructions to his

own spiritual daugthers, rather than the speculations of the GHQ as to what

he might have done or wanted.

 

Ys,

Madhusudani dasi