Vedic Women Deserve Protection
When I did bhaktin Tiana's astrological chart in the summer of
1992, I told her she should not feel rejected by our devotional community at
ISKCON Berkeley, because:
"ISKCON is far from being the kind of society Srila Prabhupada envisioned.
Srila Prabhupada stressed 'simple living, high thinking.' He wanted devotees
to live on farm communities, without relying on modern industry and
technology--much like the Amish. He emphasized 'traditional values'--the
girls would be taught cooking and sewing, while the boys would be trained to
work the land.
"He said young males would study in the gurukula, the school of the
spriitual master, beginning at age five, and would remain bramachari
(celibate) until age 24, when permitted to marry.
"The kumaris (virgin daughters), meanwhile, would be taught to worship Shiva
in the hopes of getting a good husband, would marry at age 16, and would be
trained to be subservient to their husbands. Marriages would be arranged,
and there would be no question of divorce or separation. Devotees would only
reside in Kali Yuga cities for preaching and missionary work."
I've been fortunate enough to study under some of the finest astrologers:
James Braha, who is associated with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi'sTranscendental
Meditation (TM) movement, and Nalini-kanta dasa (Tom Hopke), a Prabhupada
disciple. My friend and godsister in the San Diego FOLK program, Margaret
Dvorak, described Nalini as "...one of those 'fringe' type devotees; a few
rounds, a few regs, you know how it is..."
What I thought had been private consultations with Nalini in the summer of
1989 were recorded and broadcast without my knowledge or consent. (During
one such session, for example, I asked if we could step outside and talk in
private.) In his book, How to Read Your Horoscope, he calls the free love
guru Rajneesh a "demon". And in my chart, he wrote: "With the Moon in the
pure sign of Virgo in the seventh house, try to show an example to others
about cleanliness and sexual purity." Yet he sanctions teen pregnancy! What
a hypocrite!
Nalini introduced me to an underage girl, saying she was a "single mother",
so I assumed she was available. I took off my glasses, in the hopes of
making myself look more attractive to her. He could tell right away that I
was turned on by her, because when I referred to her as "beautiful", he
replied in a soft, seductive voice, "yes, she is..."
According to Vedic civilization, only princesses like Draupadi are allowed
to select A HUSBAND. Srila Prabhupada repeatedly quoted the Laws of Manu as
having said that women must never be given independence: they must be
protected by their fathers in their youth, by their husbands in married
life, and by their sons in their old age. Srila Prabhupada said that
according to Vedic civilization, if an unmarried girl leaves home, or leaves
her father's care, even for a moment, no one will marry her. Srila
Prabhupada said further, after being forced to tolerate divorce in his own
society (ISKCON), that a woman with children, strictly speaking, cannot
remarry.
Ravindra Svarupa dasa writes: "...marriage can also be part of devotional
service. Marriage does not confer a license for sexual indulgence. It does
not sanction a holiday from religious principles. Rather, according to
religious principles sex is meant only for begetting God conscious
children...Children born of parents who are free from lust will be
exceptionally pure and naturally inclined toward devotional service...Even
the sexual union of a man and a woman can be used in the service of Krishna.
It is extremely good fortune for a child to be born from parents engaged in
self-realization, for from his earliest moments he lives in an atmosphere
uncontaminated by lust and greed, and he takes in the principles of
spiritual life with his mother's milk."
Srila Prabhupada similarly writes in The Path of Perfection: "Yoga does not
mean going to some class, paying some money, engaging in gymnastics, and
then returning home to drink, smoke, and engage in sex. Such yoga is
practiced by societies of the cheaters and the cheated...If one tells you
that you can indulge in sex as much as you like and at the same time become
a yogi, he is cheating you. If some so-called guru tells you to give him
money in exchange for some mantra and that you can go on and engage in all
kinds of nonsense, he is just cheating you. Because we want something
sublime and yet want it cheaply, we put ourselves in a position to be
cheated...if we want perfection in yoga, we have to pay for it by abstaining
from sex. Perfection in yoga is not something childish, and Bhagavad-gita
instructs us that if we try to make yoga into something childish, we will be
cheated. There are many cheaters awaiting us, waiting to take our money,
giving us nothing, and then leaving."
So I was under the impression this teenage girl had gone out and gotten
pregnant, around the same time my friend Rankin Fisher (a former Missionary
Baptist minister) and I were causing our own scandal within ISKCON: writing
a paper on temple congregations; demanding that disciples who haven't been
following their vows over long periods of time step down and just become
part of the laity, just as Srila Prabhupada allows fallen sannyassis (monks)
to serve as grihastas (householders). Umapati Swami rejected our plan,
thinking we were diluting (i.e., "watering down") the principles, and for a
long time I was sickened by what I thought was hypocrisy on the part of the
ISKCON leadership; e.g., tolerating falldowns in areas like not chanting a
full 16 rounds every day, not attending the morning program, divorce and
illicit sex within marriage, etc. while rejecting the idea of a formal
laity.
Sarva Satya dasa (of the ISKCON World Review) had told me earlier that I was
in some kind of "penalty box" for having committed offenses against devotees
(vaishnava-aparadha). But he wouldn't say what the offenses were. From my
perspective, it's the other way around: devotees committed offenses against
me!
Rankin told me he was convinced Krishna Consciousness could easily become as
widespread and influential as an evangelical Christian denomination of
several million people, if we had a lower echelon of service; a formal
laity. Sometimes devotees misunderstand; we're advocating EXPANDING the
sankirtana movement (to bring in people from all walks of life, and engage
them in devotional service) --not breaking it in two.
So when I was introduced to this girl, I thought the ISKCON leadership was
admitting defeat. I thought the joke was on Umapati Swami. This ("fringe"
devotees, teen pregnancies, etc.) is the future of ISKCON! Having been alone
for so long, I was more than willing to rescue her from the stigma of unwed
motherhood, but wasn't sure if this wasn't a trap, to scandalize me further,
since she WAS underage ("jailbait"). So unless she were to respond to my
subtle overtures (e.g., taking off my glasses, and referring to her as
"beautiful"), there wasn't much I could do...although for the next couple of
years, I kept telling myself, "I should have gone for her!"
I told a 17 year old Hindu-American devotee, Vineet Chander, in an April
1995 letter that was propagated widely throughout ISKCON, "I find it amusing
that there are devotees out there preaching standards to the 'conditioned
souls' neither they nor their children are able to follow."
I've heard that some devotee parents try to justify the lax standards of
their children, by saying things like, "My daughter has kshatriya
inclinations..." and in ancient times the princesses were allowed to select
a HUSBAND (not a boyfriend). If this argument is true, it means they're
acknowledging varnashrama dharma, and that ISKCON is not merely a
brahminical movement.
This was my conclusion to Vineet; I also told him in that same letter,
"Srila Prabhupda has built a house in which the whole world can live.
There's room for fringe-type devotees." To quote another disruptive
religious figure, "Let he among you who is without sin cast the first
stone." We ought to have a formal laity within ISKCON: a few rounds, a few
regs for the general mass of people... newcomers to Krishna Consciousness
and fallen initiates serving the brahmanas together. This is
varnashrama-dharma.
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