Did NASA land men on the Moon?

[suchandra]

 

Haribol, vikrama. I dont object to your posts, but I do want to clarify two things. Srila Prabhupada spoke, of course, of how indiscriminate intimate association with women was detrimental to spiritual growth. This is not discriminatory, but a fact. Even martial art practitioners are told this, wasted sex life has no benefit if one wants to conc4entrate on anything.

 

That said, some followers of Srila Prabhupada have never risen to aham brahmasmi status. In other words, gender issues are often a shambles in his society of devotees. Because they have not yet grasped the very rudimentary prerequisite of understanding that these forms do not constitute the self in any way. So, if we hear devotees speaking of inferiority of women, this is because they are not yet even able to understand the basic premise of bhagavad gita.

 

Prabhupada is being blamed for something that is simply not true. His disciples are all vaisnavas, therefore, if one judges them due to their material form, they are actually offensive, very much so. We are told not to associate with women, but we are told that we must associate with vaisnavas. When one says a vaisnava in a female form is lust, maya devi, all these ignorant terms, this only indicates the inherant lust in the male who makes these assertions, not the innocent female who is being subtly raped by such losers.

 

While I always reafd about the brain size and other things, it is never said that Srila Prabhupada also made it very clear that female disciples possess many times more of two special qualities, so much more important than insignificant brain size (BTW There is a form of encephilitis that makes one have no brain at all, only spinal fluid, and these folks are mensa qulaity.) These qualities of loyalty and devotion are things that men only wish for. No man in the stories possesses such devotion as Queen Draupadi, who krsna served as a menial servant, at her beck and call throughout, regardless of what he was doing at the time. No one has a better grasp on loyalty as do the great queens of our literature.

 

So all this mysogenistic arguement is a bunch of meaningless crap, and Im actually ashamed of those who should know better. Srila Prabhuopadas female disciples are such great queens and we have lost out by mistaking them for their temporary material forms. And Srila Prabhupada thought this way as well. He always asked about govinda dasi's welfare before he even thought of Goursundara, this is my experiance, and it was first hand.

 

Hare krsna, ys, mahaksadasa

 

Thanks Mahak, this is important, Prabhupada always said that as soon a woman becomes a Vaishnavi she's above material conditioning. On the other hand, if Prabhupada would comment now about the career of his male leaders, he hardly would mention that men are more intelligent.

[Kulapavana]

 

Thanks Mahak, this is important, Prabhupada always said that as soon a woman becomes a Vaishnavi she's above material conditioning.

 

But he still wanted their education limited to four years of gurukula and their social role limited to stay-at-home-mothers...

 

We were told that a sudra-natured Vaishnava can do all the duties of a brahmana, but a brahmana natured Vaishnavi should get only 4 years of rudimentary education? that is just not consistent at all.

[suchandra]

 

But he still wanted their education limited to four years of gurukula and their social role limited to stay-at-home-mothers...

 

We were told that a sudra-natured Vaishnava can do all the duties of a brahmana, but a brahmana natured Vaishnavi should get only 4 years of rudimentary education? that is just not consistent at all.

Probably the version how the GBC handed it on to us. Prabhupada would never give such general instructions but rather see the individual situation. When a girl has high school diploma, who would say she should not go to university? Much has changed since 1977, more than 90% of present new disciples don't live in the temple, have to maintain their own household, so many devotee families broke up, etc.

[Kulapavana]

 

Probably the version how the GBC handed it on to us. Prabhupada would never give such general instructions but rather see the individual situation.

 

Prabhupada ordered the move of most gurukulis to India in 1976 primarily because the US government standards mandated the same level of education for boys and girls and mandated other standards he deemed were not austere enough.

 

76-01-20 Letter: Jayatirtha

"If we were to run our school as it was actually to be run, they would close it down, and factually they will place more and more codes and restrictions as the school develops to water down the process until it becomes unrecognizable and useless."

 

 

January 31, 1977 – Room conversation – Bhubaneshwar

Satsvarüpa: Yes. (break) Mainly it's about the girls who are over ten. They were in Våndävana and discussed this with Jagadéça, but they couldn't settle up, so they wanted to know what you think. Their idea is that... As of now, there is no plan for a school for the girls over ten, but just that they should return to their parents and not get any more schooling. But they're thinking that there should be, and one reason is that you said in France that the girls could learn these sixty-four arts. So they were thinking that there should be a school for girls over ten, and that it should be situated in India. One reason is that in India our teachers can take help from Indian Life Member ladies who know these arts. Our Western devotees don't know them, the cooking and painting and things like this, but the Indian women do. ...

Prabhupada: My opinion is already there according to the... They should be chaste, faithful to husband. Little literary knowledge, they can read. That's all. Not very much.

Satsvarupa: As for the details of where and how to do this, that should be worked out by the GBC.

Prabhupada: Yes.

 

April 29, 1977 - Conversation - Bombay

Prabhupada: So far gurukula is concerned, that also, I have given program.

They have given the name of "girls." We are not going to do that.

Tamala Kåñëa: What is that?

Prabhupada: Girls. Boys and girls. That is dangerous.... Girls should be completely separated from the very beginning. They are very dangerous.

Tamala Kåñëa: So we're... I thought there were girls in Vrindävana now. They said that they're going to have the girls' gurukula behind the boys' gurukula. Gopäla was talking about that.

Prabhupada: No, no, no. No girls.

Tamala Kåñëa: It should be in another city or somewhere else.

Prabhupada: Yes. They should be taught how to sweep, how to stitch...

Tamala Kåñëa: Clean.

Prabhupada: ...clean, cook, to be faithful to the husband.

Tamala Kåñëa: They don't require a big school.

Prabhupada: No, no. That is mistake. They should be taught how to become obedient to the husband.

Tamala Kåñëa: Yeah, you won't learn that in school.

Prabhupada: Little education, they can...

Tamala Kåñëa: Yeah. That they can get at home also.

Prabhupada: They should be stopped, this practice of prostitution.

[suchandra]

 

Prabhupada ordered the move of most gurukulis to India in 1976 primarily because the US government standards mandated the same level of education for boys and girls and mandated other standards he deemed were not austere enough.

 

76-01-20 Letter: Jayatirtha

"If we were to run our school as it was actually to be run, they would close it down, and factually they will place more and more codes and restrictions as the school develops to water down the process until it becomes unrecognizable and useless."

 

 

January 31, 1977 – Room conversation – Bhubaneshwar

Satsvarüpa: Yes. (break) Mainly it's about the girls who are over ten. They were in Våndävana and discussed this with Jagadéça, but they couldn't settle up, so they wanted to know what you think. Their idea is that... As of now, there is no plan for a school for the girls over ten, but just that they should return to their parents and not get any more schooling. But they're thinking that there should be, and one reason is that you said in France that the girls could learn these sixty-four arts. So they were thinking that there should be a school for girls over ten, and that it should be situated in India. One reason is that in India our teachers can take help from Indian Life Member ladies who know these arts. Our Western devotees don't know them, the cooking and painting and things like this, but the Indian women do. ...

Prabhupada: My opinion is already there according to the... They should be chaste, faithful to husband. Little literary knowledge, they can read. That's all. Not very much.

Satsvarupa: As for the details of where and how to do this, that should be worked out by the GBC.

Prabhupada: Yes.

 

April 29, 1977 - Conversation - Bombay

Prabhupada: So far gurukula is concerned, that also, I have given program.

They have given the name of "girls." We are not going to do that.

Tamala Kåñëa: What is that?

Prabhupada: Girls. Boys and girls. That is dangerous.... Girls should be completely separated from the very beginning. They are very dangerous.

Tamala Kåñëa: So we're... I thought there were girls in Vrindävana now. They said that they're going to have the girls' gurukula behind the boys' gurukula. Gopäla was talking about that.

Prabhupada: No, no, no. No girls.

Tamala Kåñëa: It should be in another city or somewhere else.

Prabhupada: Yes. They should be taught how to sweep, how to stitch...

Tamala Kåñëa: Clean.

Prabhupada: ...clean, cook, to be faithful to the husband.

Tamala Kåñëa: They don't require a big school.

Prabhupada: No, no. That is mistake. They should be taught how to become obedient to the husband.

Tamala Kåñëa: Yeah, you won't learn that in school.

Prabhupada: Little education, they can...

Tamala Kåñëa: Yeah. That they can get at home also.

Prabhupada: They should be stopped, this practice of prostitution.

But this you see right now in London, by government resolution the Hindu Gurukula with an ISKCON school principal has to serve meat at the school's refectory to not be offensive against the non-vegetarians. If they serve meat other rotten stuff like cigarettes and alcopops follow. Could be at the end that children who are vegetarians and devotees can't bear up against the frustration to visit such a school which calls itself Gurukula. Prabhupada's USA experiment with a Gurukula, I don't know what American devotees were doing, in Europe the Vaishnavas behaved more like real monks when joining a temple, we hardly had any children. Seems like in US the first thing what happened when a girl joined ISKCON - she became pregnant.

[Kulapavana]

We were talking about treating female devotees based on spiritual consideration. You said: "Prabhupada always said that as soon a woman becomes a Vaishnavi she's above material conditioning." And I attempted to show that in practice his approach exactly followed their material conditioning, using very antiquated and simplistic social patterns on top of that.

 

As to schooling practicalities Iskcon has much to learn. Jewish schools in England don't have to serve pork to their kids for example. Too bad Iskcon leaders are unable to learn the simple ways of using existing laws and examples from other religious groups to their advantage. Then again, they never impressed me as a bright bunch of people.

[suchandra]

 

We were talking about treating female devotees based on spiritual consideration. You said: "Prabhupada always said that as soon a woman becomes a Vaishnavi she's above material conditioning." And I attempted to show that in practice his approach exactly followed their material conditioning, using very antiquated and simplistic social patterns on top of that.

 

As to schooling practicalities Iskcon has much to learn. Jewish schools in England don't have to serve pork to their kids for example. Too bad Iskcon leaders are unable to learn the simple ways of using existing laws and examples from other religious groups to their advantage. Then again, they never impressed me as a bright bunch of people.

Thanks for clarifying prabhu, you're right, even Krishna says,

striyo vaiśyās tathā śūdrās te 'pi yānti parāḿ gatim (BG 9.32) -

Vaishnavis have to be considered as having reached param gatim.

Prabhupada's attempt to find an ideal lifestyle for modern Western Vaishnavas anyway was adjusted by Krishna Himself - things which didn't work out got changed. Here a prominent tv lady, Eva Hermann, wrote a book very similiar what Prabhupada wanted for his female disciples - not to work in karmi jobs. Prabhupada might have called it, "sweeping and cleaning", what this actually means is, woman should manage a nice Krishna centered household, raise nice Krishna conscious children, travel once a year to the Holy Places, etc. and not work like the karmis for mammon.

In other words, didnt Prabhupada say he wanted his female disciples to live like in Vaikuntha?

[stonehearted]

 

But this you see right now in London, by government resolution the Hindu Gurukula with an ISKCON school principal has to serve meat at the school's refectory to not be offensive against the non-vegetarians. If they serve meat other rotten stuff like cigarettes and alcopops follow.

Maybe England is drastically different From the US, but in Alachua, Florida, the devotees opened a government charter school. The school lunches are all prasadam. All the teachers are devotees, and more and more non-devotees from the local community are enrolling their kids in the school, even though the lunches are vegetarian.

 

 

I don't know what American devotees were doing, in Europe the Vaishnavas behaved more like real monks when joining a temple, we hardly had any children. Seems like in US the first thing what happened when a girl joined ISKCON - she became pregnant.

Where did you get that idea? Although I only lived in a couple of temples, I've been around rather a long time, and I didn't see any such thing. Some girls joined who were pregnant, but I didn't know any women who got pregnant while living as brahmacharinis; I'm not saying it didn't happen, but you make it sound as though devotees in US temples were screwing all the time. Maybe there's some stereotying going on here. I'd bet some Americans had a similar idea about European devotees, especially the French and Italians.

[suchandra]

 

Maybe England is drastically different From the US, but in Alachua, Florida, the devotees opened a government charter school. The school lunches are all prasadam. All the teachers are devotees, and more and more non-devotees from the local community are enrolling their kids in the school, even though the lunches are vegetarian.

 

 

Where did you get that idea? Although I only lived in a couple of temples, I've been around rather a long time, and I didn't see any such thing. Some girls joined who were pregnant, but I didn't know any women who got pregnant while living as brahmacharinis; I'm not saying it didn't happen, but you make it sound as though devotees in US temples were screwing all the time. Maybe there's some stereotying going on here. I'd bet some Americans had a similar idea about European devotees, especially the French and Italians.

Gurukula schools at the European mainland - never heard of this. May be here and there some little, short-term home-schooling of 4 or 5 kids. But nothing getting close to Dallas, New Vrindavan, LA, Alachua etc etc. Although we have some 500 mio people, Vaishnavism was never given the chance to become a real society. Our GBC men sent from US followed the policy to rather return a Vaishnavi mother to her parents than to open a gurukula.

[skp]

 

Exactly. They have softer hearts. Bhakti is a "religion" of the pure heart. The intellect can only take us to the point of understanding that we need to give our hearts to Krsna. Also valuable for preaching. But it is not intellegent to give more importance to intelligence than the heart.

 

The purifed heart must rule the head or one becomes a dry academic or the proverbial Nowhere Man from Yellowsubmarine.

 

 

 

You are right Thesit Ji. Just dry intellect without love can never help a person in involving in devotional service to Krishna.

[skp]

 

Pregnancy is physical. [True] love is spiritual. Similarily, a woman may have a different mindset than a man, but all of us are the same gender (neuter) when it comes to our soul, and it is from our soul that devotion to a specific God/Goddess comes from.

 

As a matter of fact, women are nearly impossible to convert. I tried it with my mother - she's stubborn as a mule. Men, meanwhile, are easier to convert (I myself have bounced back and forth between religions before settling on Hinduism in general). As said before, there are many exceptions.

 

You are right that we are all originally spirit souls and therefore the gender aspect does not matter. But, if we see even from Krishna's own pastimes in Vrindaavana that the ladies responded to Krishna. The best pastime is the one in which Krishna's friend ask for some food from the Brahmanas, who refuse. But, their wives instantly engage in delivering the food to Krishna and His friends.

 

I guess, as you mentioned in your comment, there can be exceptions to this rule...

[skp]

 

In the passages under discussion, Prabhupada doesn't seem to be referring to the differences you guys are stressing above. His tone was unambiguous - women have got brains half the size of those of men and are usually dumb, unreliable and untrustworthy. Likewise, if a sexual union results in a baby girl, that means that the woman was more dominant that the father, whereas the opposite holds true in the case of a male child.

 

THIS is the garbage that anyone in his right mind would and should not swallow. Or is it that your knowledge of eugenics and behavioural genetics chimes with the foregoing?

Vikram, I understand that you want to look everything in an extremely logical way and reach a conclusion. But, at some point of time it is better to not try and logically understand each and every matter. The reason is that even the human logical thinking has got certain limitations and therefore cannot understand everything.

 

A person who is absorbed in thinking of Krishna 24/7 has to be respected and each and every statement given by him should be understood in the right spirit of understanding.

 

If you really want a logical explanation, then science has proved that the cow-dung has got beneficial ingredients only recently where-as, the Vedas have informed this to us in the ancient times itself.

 

The point is that science takes a lot of time to come to conclusion and prove something which is already there in the Vedas..