Find a Female Diksa at the Burning Ghats
BY: BASU GHOSH DAS (ACBSP)
Nov 10, 2012 — BARODA, INDIA (SUN) —
The following excellent message was composed by Gita Nagari dasa, long time Vrindavan resident, now at Mayapur. One note: Mandodari, the wife of Ravana, is also one of the "pancha kanyas", devoted wives, as is Gandhari, etc., as per the verse below:
Ahalya Draupadi Sita Tara Mandodari tatha
Pancha kanya smaret nityam mahapataka nashanam
"The daily remembrance of the five Pativratas, namely, Ahalya, Draupadi,
Sita, Tara, and Mandodari eradicates great sins".
Gita Nagari dasa wrote:
Dear Basu Gosh Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
I have been again reading your e-mails about women becoming initiating spiritual masters , and I feel compelled to make a second comment.
At the pinnacle of Vedic civilization, there was one stark compelling way in which Vedic women proved beyond doubt to everyone and all their transcendent "beyond the modes of material nature", "beyond the bodily concept of life" superior consciousness (if they had truly attained such consciousness). Their superior spiritual elevation was displayed to all beyond doubt by one amazing act.
No-----they did not become initiating Gurus ----so all would know of their advance spiritual elevation. It is not in this way that they displayed their advancement. But they displayed their superior consciousness -------they displayed their advancement------ by voluntarily mounting the funeral pyre of their husbands and following them into the next life. What an act of utterly compelling complete transcendence!!!!!!!
Our sastra is filled with women who choose to perform this act-----Madri, Arci, Ghandhari-----to name a few. Yet at no time in ISKCON do we ever have to send out guards to the burning ghats, to stop the "transcendent" women of ISKCON from mounting the funeral pyres of their husbands. We don't have to stop them from displaying their spiritual elevation by following these examples from the sastra. Matter of fact , many of our ISKCON women cannot even get their heads around this kind of transcendent act. By the time most of our men get to the funeral pyre many of the wives are long gone, bolted for greener pastures. The men are dying alone ------without the wife in sight-------never mind being followed by their wives into the afterlife.
I am duly initiated and not seeking a spiritual master. But I suppose I would take a female guru. The female guru I would accept is the one that had to be dragged off of the funeral pyre of her deceased husband kicking and screaming against her will. That is the spiritually advanced woman. Not the women who has ejected or moved on from her husband for the greener pastures of life (and death) without the complications of serving her husband to the very last breath.
Hare Krishna
Your servant
Gita Nagari Dasa
