You Men are Such Simple Creatures
BY: CITRALEKHA DEVI DASI
Nov 03, 2012 — USA (SUN) — An exchange on the Female Diksa Guru issue between Citralekha devi dasi and Ajamila das.
Ajamila das wrote:
"In daivi varnashrama dharma women follow Stree Sharma and remain the perfect Krishna conscious wives at home. That will be almost all women.
However, Srila Prabhupada gave another option for women who might be exceptional, like Yamnuna Devi Dasi and so on. He instructed that they could go higher than Stree Dharma and become qualified to be a diksha guru.
Srila Prabhupada said not so many female diksha gurus, but he did instruct and encourage some women to be become qualified and to be a diksha guru.
Srila Prabhupada's emphasis was on QUALIFICATION, not gender.
I don't believe for one minute there are no sufficiently qualified women in our movement, at least half a dozen or so names come to mind.
Srila Prabhupada instructed all the men to listen to Yamuna Devi's transcendental singing every day, because she was transcendentally qualified.
All I'm saying is that if there are qualified spiritual daughters why not empower them to increase the preaching as Srila Prabhupada had desired.
Hoping this meets you well. Hare Krishna!! "
ys
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Citralekha devi dasi wrote in reply:
This text by Braja Sevaki dd about Urmila dd was circulating about 7-8 years ago and is a clear example of what we women see but you men are oblivious to.
"Women are envious by nature. Unless a woman is self-realized and transcending her bodily designation, then she is acting on the platform of a woman and therefore will revert to her envious nature. In this instance, Urmila has done just that. Here is an example: this year when Urmila was here, she gave her famous "Prabhupada made mistakes" class. Sitting on the vyasa-sana, acting like guru already. Then goes to the market, 10 minutes later, and sees Praghosa prabhu's wife, Radhanga Mataji -- mother of six devotee children, unwavering in her dedication and commitment to her husband and her Supreme Lord - in other words, someone I'd consider far more of a good example than Urmila. Urmila saw Radhanga and said in a very "bitchy" tone, "So, is your husband still chasing this two wives thing?" Radhanga just looked at the woman next to her and said, "The coriander is fresh, maybe I'll get that..." and walked away. What dignity!"
"So I mean by this example, "and then becomes a mouse"! She will sit on a vyasasana, but then go to the market for gossip? That is NOT a "guru". So either self realized, by her behavior (and I don't mean the false face she puts on to the public) or she's not qualified."
As I sometimes jokingly but at same time seriously tell my dear husband, "you men are such simple creatures you don't understand feminine wiles and how women manipulate men." What I mean by that is that it takes a woman to see through the conniving manipulations of another woman. Once my best friend was worried about her husband. One young woman was coming to the temple and she would approach my friend's husband and ask him questions about Krsna, and the Gita. She always went to him, not others, for the Q&A session. Both of us could see that this girl was hitting on my friend's husband. But when my girl friend tried to tell this to her husband he would not believe. He thought she was just jealous and rebuked her for accusing this girl. And so it continued but after some time the girl tried to get more intimate, so my girl friend approached her husband again and told him what was really going on. Somehow by the mercy of Lord Krsna, her husband realized that his wife was right and he stopped "preaching" to that young woman. It was just in the nick of time. Who knows what would have happened if it had continued. Well actually we all know what would have happened as this history repeats itself countless times in the bedroom.
Why am I telling you this? Because it is the same way with these women who are agitating to be diksha gurus. We women can see that it is materially motivated as Visnupriya just told us.
True is only from material perspective but remember we are not pure or advance yet. Just like men are greedy for power, women like to be recognized and loved. Maybe you don't need such things in life.
Some years ago before I got married I was living in a temple that many devotees passed through during their travels so I had opportunity to meet several of the women who are grooming themselves to be diksha gurus by traveling here and there alone to "preach." I recall when this particular famous one first started coming to our temple. The Temple President was thrilled to have her come and he really gave her lots of good PR.
We matajis were so happy, because she was not just a direct disciple of Srila Prabhupada, but a woman, mother, wife, devotee in woman's body, just like us. Till then we were listening to classes of Prabhujis and sannyasis. All men. So they would naturally speak about spiritual life from the perspective of men. How to be a good brahmacari, grhastha or sannyasi. But how to be a good mother, wife, and grandmother, we could only hear from a woman devotee. Otherwise if we women listen all the time just about men's duties in spiritual life, as a consequence we all think we should also become like them. Leave home and be brahmacarinis, later gurinis, and sannyasinis, because we were trained in temples that way.
So it was kind of a relief to hear that she is coming, and we had hopes to have her association a lot, just with us women, for our issues in spiritual life, which you cannot discuss with gurus, and sannyasis, or any other men.
Somehow or other, although she stayed long enough to give good quality of time to us, she did not. She was unapproachable. She gave regular Bhagavatam classes for both men and women, and men generally liked. People from congregation liked, because many of them do not read Srila Prabhupada's books, so they were easy to impress with rhetoric abilities. But we, full-time girls were so disappointed. There was nothing for us. First of all, her "personal" behavior was not personal. She kept a distance from us, very clear line in between. We were allowed to do services for her, but to get some drops of guidance on issues that are actually important to women (family etc) was hard to get. She made it clear who was the "guru" and who the "servant." She didn't show interest in us. She was all in herself. Some of our local full-time matajis in ashram, who are second generation, and not direct disciples of Srila Prabhupada, possess more devotee qualities than she does. They are personal, they sacrifice, and take care of their female subordinates in asrama and congregation. They are real persons. But this one was so cold, arrogant, and puffed-up. We wondered, "Krsna, she's been devotee for so many years, and instead of becoming humble, she is so PROUD, so self-absorbed". It was very unattractive.
So neither we got guidance, that was expected from someone who was senior mata, Vaisnavi, woman, wife, mother, neither she exhibited some basic human traits in our communication and relationships. She loved to be served by us. But it was all cold. And we actually wanted her to leave. Because she did not give example that we would like to follow. When we heard she was coming again on other visits we all frowned and tried to avoid having to serve the "ice-queen" with the fake smile she flashes to the men.
Her classes were more like a teacher teaching at school. Not much philosophy. Or if she spoke philosophy, it was speculation, and twisting and turning things. In a sense, she would just confuse us. For example in a class there is a statement from Bhagavad-gita, and Srila Prabhupada's purport. And she would ask question "What do YOU think?" Some devotee said with respect "Why WE have to THINK if Srila Prabhupada explained it clearly? Why you, mother, are trying to lead us to speculate?" So we did not appreciate her approach. It was very weird and confusing, although she appears to be very educated, and good in rhetoric and giving class. But quality of content was poor. She left impression on most of us girls (when we later discussed her classes in our asrama), that she lacks proper understanding of sastra.
She is popular with those who don't know her, but we suppressed ourselves and didn't tell the girls in congregation who had respect for her just because she was a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, that she is actually not a good example to be followed because she has no interest to teach and guide us like women, but more interested in her CAREER, how to come on the top.
She even glorified herself about having 4 exalted planets in her chart, not knowing that the murderer of John Lennon also had same because he was born on same day, like 100,000s of other people. So that was another sign how she loves herself and thinks she is so special, and wants us to recognize her as such, a very special person.
She left an impression of someone who uses the name of Srila Prabhupada, by being his direct disciple, to put all of us others down, below, like we do not have chance to be as good as she is. Very competitive nature, and constantly tried to prove that she is most intelligent, best of the best (although as we noticed, she may speak well, but she is not wise). And it looks ugly, when someone is trying so hard to impress others.
The main point is that she tried to act like a male preacher, but in that case there are many more men in our society much more qualified than her to act as male preacher, who are doing that service much better than her. So in that sense she is not special or outstanding amongst men. She leaves impression of constantly trying to prove that she is representative of ALL female devotees and is actually better than our male devotees. She has some cheerleaders who are silently behind scenes encouraging and supporting her in her ambition. We got more knowledge and guidance from different sannyasis and Prabhujis, and from Srila Prabhupada's books about how a woman can be a devotee according to her nature, than we got from her. We didn't get any from her on that topic.
And if we look at her from the perspective of a woman preacher, she does not preach for women at all. So it is a big failure. In other words, neither she is good when acting as a man, and as a woman, she does not deliver message to us women.
As a consequence of the fact that we lack women who teach us stridharma by example many (10+) of my full-time devotee mataji friends who served for years in the temple at one point left not only the temple, but unfortunately many of these good, highly qualified, hard working girls, left Krsna Consciousness or have very weak practice. When I ask them why? "Because I wanted to have a family, with husband and children and to be a devotee also. I don't want to be a man or a brahmacari or sannyasi. But that is how we are trained in ISKCON, to become like men." So they were very frustrated because ISKCON didn't provide classes by senior matajis on stridharma which teaches us women how we can become a pure devotee of Krsna by following our nature as a woman in grhasta ashrama.
There are still senior women who teach at VIHE and MIHE that girls should NOT marry and have family, that stridharma is bogus and just material low dharma.
These women who want to be gurus are doing great dis-service to young women in our movement because they are not examples of stri-dharma, they think it is bad, yet it is what young women actually want. They want Krsna AND family life, not to renounce everything on the bank of the Yamuna and become renunciant world preachers. These girls just want to preach to their children and family friends or sometimes go on book distribution on special occasions. But since it is not promoted they become fried and fulfill their needs as best they can outside of ISKCON.
So these women who want to be diksa gurus are useless because they are materially motivated to get to the "top" and be celebrated as pure devotees. If they would be spiritually motivated SHIKSA gurus then they would show by their own examples of following stridharma and teach stridharma to young women so that they can stay in Krsna Consciousness in ISKCON in the grhasta ashrama, as opposed to getting frustrated and seeking family life outside. Only a woman who is following stridharma can teach another woman stridharma, we cannot expect sannyasis to do so.
As I said, you men are so simple you can't see what women are up to even when it is happening right in front of your eyes. But we women can see through them and I tell you that in truth, I don't want to be around such women and neither do my girl friends. As explained here.
We women have a certain nature and unless we have completely transcended it, then it will make its ugly appearance. So better to have a male guru in satva guna than a woman guru any day. Because when women show their conditioned nature it is not nice, especially for other women.
Recently there was a text circulating about Urmila dd having a "Marxist Kitty party." Well those kitties can be very catty and have sharp claws. Women commit violence differently than men, they use gossip, clique-ism, and isolating and ruining a woman's relationships with other women. Since women are relationship oriented this is serious violence.
This text by Braja Sevaki dd about Urmila dd was circulating about 7-8 years ago and is a clear example of what we women see but you men are oblivious to.
"Women are envious by nature. Unless a woman is self-realized and transcending her bodily designation, then she is acting on the platform of a woman and therefore will revert to her envious nature. In this instance, Urmila has done just that. Here is an example: this year when Urmila was here, she gave her famous "Prabhupada made mistakes" class. Sitting on the vyasa-sana, acting like guru already. Then goes to the market, 10 minutes later, and sees Praghosa prabhu's wife, Radhanga Mataji -- mother of six devotee children, unwavering in her dedication and commitment to her husband and her Supreme Lord - in other words, someone I'd consider far more of a good example than Urmila. Urmila saw Radhanga and said in a very "bitchy" tone, "So, is your husband still chasing this two wives thing?" Radhanga just looked at the woman next to her and said, "The coriander is fresh, maybe I'll get that..." and walked away. What dignity!"
"So I mean by this example, "and then becomes a mouse"! She will sit on a vyasasana, but then go to the market for gossip? That is NOT a "guru". So either self realized, by her behavior (and I don't mean the false face she puts on to the public) or she's not qualified."
This is what we women don't want you men to see, what our real natures are like. If you did then you would not want to make women gurus. I hope that like my friend's husband you figure out what these women are up to before it is too late.
You men are supposed to protect us women. But you don't want to or know how, or know who to protect us from. We need to be protected from bad men, other women, but most of all from our selves.
Yhs
Citralekha dd
Edited slightly
