Respiritualize or Perish

[Guest guest]

[From "Respiritualize or Perish," a chapter in *Glimpses of Traditional

Indian Life,* by HH Bhakti Vikas Swami]

 

(While recalling his early life, Rasaraja dasa suggests that the spiritual

and philosophical foundations of Hindu society are missing and that...we

must bring back this spiritual dimension.)

 

BVS: The Western society is a complete disaster, and Indians are blindly

following them, due to propaganda from the West.

 

RD: A main part of that propaganda is the idea that women in India are

treated improperly. Some years ago, I was giving a lecture in India. In the

audience were many educated, cultured, middle-aged women who felt they were

oppressed. I asked them, "Suppose you go into the bazaar in the evening to

buy vegetables. Can any man who doesn't know you come and say hello to you?"

 

They said "No."

 

I asked, "Do you think a man you do not know can ask you 'What's your name?'"

 

They said, "No! He cannot ask!"

 

"Do you think he could ask you, 'Would you like to go for dinner some day?'"

 

They said, "Impossible! No stranger can behave like this with us. If anyone

tried to talk to us like that, the public would beat him up."

 

"But in the West," I told them, "men will approach even women that they have

never met and speak to them like that. So, where would you say women are

given more respect, in India or in the West?"

 

"They all replied, "In India."

 

Then I said, "So this idea that women in India are not respected is a big

propaganda myth. Actually, India is a place where women are treated very

nicely."

 

In India, the women's need for chastity is respected. If a society does not

respect that need of a woman, and in fact encourages her to shed it at every

opportunity, what kind of freedom is that? Freedom to degrade? What kind of

respect can they claim to have for women?

 

Economically also, the women were protected in traditional India. Yet they

had a lot of say, a lot of control. The father would not usually do anything

without consulting the mother. That's a very high-grade life.

 

BVS: Definitely. Even two generations ago in the West they used to have the

same ideas--respect for women and so on. Women wouldn't even go out to shop

alone.

 

RD: That's right. You are exactly right. Even in the mid-seventies, when I

worked for General Motors, I had a colleague who was about 45. I was only 26

then. He told me that when he was in college, boys and girls did not go

freely and mix together. He said "All this is new. We have never seen such

things."

 

It was only in the '60s that all this so-called liberalism came in. Or maybe

we should call it animalism. Before that, many of the adults were having

illict sex life, especially rich people. But that was all kept behind closed

doors.

 

BVS: Yes, in the '60s they philosophized it. (GOTIL, p 162-3)