 | Protection, like everything in Krishna consciousness, is ultimately meant to help one advance spiritually.
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| | “Protection means what? Your protection idea is very limited. You want to be protected for a few years. But the protection of Krishna is perpetually you are being protected. Tyaktva deham punar janma naiti. You don’t get any more material body. That is real protection.
(Morning walk, September 19, 1972, Los Angeles)”
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| | Here, in speaking about the traditional culture of India, Prabhupada explains what ultimate protection is: rakhe krishna mare ke mare krishna rakhe ke - “That person whom Krishna wants to protect, no one can kill; and that person whom Krishna wants to kill, no one can protect.” As Prabhupada said in the room conversation quoted above (January 7, 1977), what can the father, husband, or son do? Ultimately, Krishna is our protector.
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| | “Women must be protected, and it is the duty of the leaders of our Society to see that this is carried out.
(Letter to Satsvarupa, February 10, 1973)”
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| | We can’t minimize women needing protection - the #MeToo movement is evidence that sometimes some men are out of control and so unqualified that they force themselves on women. Women need to be protected from such men, and the most effective way to do this is for women to serve in the association of Krishna’s sincere devotees. When, in such an environment, women fully use their talents and proclivities in Krishna’s devotional service, their absorption is another form of protection.
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| | “Women should be always protected. That is ... Protection does not mean negligence. No. Protection means to give him [her] all facilities. That is protection.
(Lecture, SB 3.28.18, October 27, 1975, Nairobi)”
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| | Protection ultimately means that as far as possible, we remove the physical, mental, and emotional obstacles to another’s spiritual progress; that we facilitate and encourage that person’s devotional service in whatever form that service takes.
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| | Srila Prabhupada protected women by:
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| | · Educating them about their true identities as spirit souls;
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| | · Engaging them in devotional service, a process by which they could attain liberation from death and rebirth, the ultimate protection;
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| | · And, when limited facilities were available for the devotees’ use, giving them a due share of those physical resources. In India, for example, Prabhupada would ensure that his female disciples had proper transportation, prasada, and sleeping facilities.
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| | An immature man may feel threatened by a woman who has a voice, intelligence, ideas, or any other form of power. Such a man, in the name of protection, may actually commit violence if he discourages, denigrates, or prevents that woman’s chosen devotional service. Protection is not about denying someone service based on the body in which he or she has appeared. That would be repression or oppression and would cause only distress. Rather, protection means providing a safe place from which one’s protégé can perform her service.
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| | Often, capable women who want to offer service in the Hare Krishna movement are not encouraged to do so. The movement is a poorer place for having lost out on a wealth of abilities.
Visakha Dasi photographing, Mayapur
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| | Women are one of five groups that, in a traditional Vedic society, require protection. Such protection means acknowledging value: we protect what we know is valuable.
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| | “In the glorious days, or before the advent of the Age of Kali, the brahmanas, the cows, the women, the children, and the old men were properly given protection.
(SB 1.8.5, purport)”
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| | “1. The protection of the brahmanas maintains varnasrama, the most scientific culture for attainment of spiritual life.”
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| | “2. The protection of cows maintains the most miraculous form of food, milk, for maintaining the brain.”
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| | “3. The protection of women maintains their chastity, by which we get a good generation of children for peace and progress of life.”
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| | “4. The protection of children gives the human form of life a chance to prepare for liberty from material bondage.”
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| | “5. The protection of old men gives them a chance to prepare themselves for life after death.”
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| | “The child must be taken care of. That is good. Similarly, woman also. Just like old man like us, I am always taken care of... That is civilization. That is human society.
(Lecture, SB. 1.8.51, May 13, 1973, Los Angeles)”
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| | Here, Srila Prabhupada gives himself as an example of a protected person. Clearly, that one is protected does not mean that one is unable to fully utilize his or her propensities in Krishna’s service. It is not that because women need protection they cannot speak or sing or manage or lead or do any other service that they’re inclined to do, just as protecting old men did not limit the activities Srila Prabhupada was able to perform.
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| | “Prabhupada: If a woman is perfect in Krishna consciousness... Just like Jahnava-devi, Lord Nityananda’s wife, she was acharya. She was acharya. She was controlling the whole Vaishnava community.
Atreya Rshi: Lord Nityananda?
Prabhupada: Wife. Jahnava-devi. She was controlling the whole Gaudiya Vaishnava community.
Atreya Rshi: Do you have references about that in any of your books, Srila Prabhupada?
Prabhupada: I don’t think. But there are many acharyas. Maybe somewhere I might have mentioned. It is not that woman cannot be acharya. Generally, they do not become. In very special case. But Jahnava-devi was accepted as, but she did not declare.
(Room conversation, June 29, 1972, San Diego)”
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Vaishnavas want others to excel regardless of the body those persons inhabit and are therefore eager to recognize, encourage, and facilitate excellence in other devotees. Thus in daiva varnasrama, we do the service we are qualified to do, regardless of our body. And we are encouraged to do that service. Rather than become threatened by women who are serving, Vaishnavas are proud of them and what they can accomplish.
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| | Everyone can have the courage - and it may take courage - to see Vaishnavis as full persons and support them in doing all they can for Krishna. This is a vital part of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and example.
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| | “Professor O’Connell: Is it possible, Swamiji, for a woman to be a guru in the line of disciplic succession?
Prabhupada: Yes. Jahnava-devi was — Nityananda’s wife. She became. If she is able to go to the highest perfection of life, why it is not possible to become guru? But, not so many. Actually one who has attained the perfection, she can become guru. But man or woman, unless one has attained the perfection ... Yei krishna-tat-twa-vetti sei guru haya. The qualification of guru is that he must be fully cognizant of the science of Krishna. Then he or she can become guru. Yei krishna-tattvavetti, sei guru haya. In our material world, is it any prohibition that woman cannot become professor? If she is qualified, she can become professor. What is the wrong there? She must be qualified. That is the position. So similarly, if the woman understands Krishna consciousness perfectly, she can become guru.
(Interview, June 18, 1976, Toronto)”
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| | Prabhupada gave his female followers responsible service as heads of the pujari department and pujaris, preachers and book distributors, art department heads and artists, headmistresses and teachers, proofreaders and other BBT staff, kitchen heads and cooks, and in a number of other areas. He based his appointments on their qualifications, not their sex. In his book A Living Theology of Krishna Bhakti, Tamal Krishna Goswami writes, “In addition to noting the many ways women contributed, Prabhupada credited his movement’s success to their magnetic presence amidst the men, nearly all of whom, he reasoned, would not have otherwise stayed.”
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| | If we don’t follow daiva varnasrama, we have only a caste system, an artificial system that forces people into molds according to their birth - a mold for which they may even be unsuited.
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Think of a topiary. A topiary is a shrub clipped to create a particular shape. When we look at a topiary, we don’t see the plant’s natural shape but the shape that’s been imposed on it. Topiaries may be visually entertaining, but when that “clipping” is applied to people and they are forced to function in ways that may be artificial for them, it leads to misery. To prevent someone from serving Krishna according to his or her personal proclivities is a kind of violence. No one wins - not the persons involved, not the Hare Krishna society, and not the promotion of Krishna consciousness. It’s a loselose-lose scenario.
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| | Empowerment is the opposite of this forced “topiary” methodology. To empower means to recognize, encourage, and facilitate one’s abilities and then create a framework in which one can work in a stronger and more confident way. To empower, then, means to recognize others’ qualities, trust them, and offer them fresh challenges. In Srila Prabhupada’s words:
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| | “Our leaders shall be careful not to kill the spirit of enthusiastic service, which is individual and spontaneous and voluntary. They should try always to generate some atmosphere of fresh challenge to the devotees, so that they will agree enthusiastically to rise and meet it. That is the art of management: to draw out spontaneous loving spirit of sacrificing some energy for Krishna.
(Letter to Karandhara, December 22, 1972)”
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| | Disempowerment means to concentrate first and too much on the framework within which others work, without the requisite acknowledgment of their potential. Disempowerment is also known by names like sexism, racism, bureaucracy. Within the Hare Krishna movement there is no limit to what can be done if we as a Society empower our members.
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| | When book distribution was in full swing in the 1970s, several accomplished book distributors wanted to train other devotees to distribute effectively. They explained their proposal to Srila Prabhupada - how they would tell the devotees what to say to stop people, what to say about the book, what to say about donating for it. Prabhupada responded, “Simply teach the devotees how to be sincere. Then Krishna in their heart will inspire them to say the right thing. Each person is his own genius.”
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| | Srila Prabhupada expected greatness from all of us. And greatness is evoked when we’re championed.
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| | “Great people usually have somebody around them who expects them to be better than they have any intention of being.
(Saint Gregory the Great)”
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| | Expectations are powerful. It’s been shown that teachers’ expectations of students strongly influence those students’ behavior and accomplishments. Srila Prabhupada gave us, his followers, responsibilities. He trusted us and expected us to accomplish great things on his behalf. As he writes in his purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.9.30:
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| | “The mercy the Lord bestows upon a particular person engaged in executing the responsible work entrusted unto him is beyond imagination. But His mercy is received due to our penance and perseverance in executing devotional service.”
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| | Having high expectations of ourselves and those around us can propel us to achieve what we otherwise wouldn’t. We all need to expect a lot from one another - and then help one another to live up to those expectations. Srila Prabhupada wrote to Himavati on December 20, 1969:
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| | “I am especially proud how my householder disciples are preaching Lord Chaitanya’s Mission. This is a new thing in the history of the Sankirtana Movement. In India all the acharyas and their descendants later on acted only from the man’s side. Their wives were at home because that is the system from old times that women are not required to go out. But in Bhagavad-gita we find that women are also equally competent like the men in the matter of Krishna Consciousness Movement. Please therefore carry on these missionary activities, and prove it by practical example that there is no bar for anyone in the matter of preaching work for Krishna Consciousness.”
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| | Here and in other places is Srila Prabhupada making temporary concessions for his fallen Western women disciples? Did he do and say things to pacify such women and expect us, in the future, to institute more traditional Indian roles for women? Rather than speculate in this way based on our own ideas, culture, or adopted culture, we want to simply follow what Srila Prabhupada directly wrote, taught, and practiced. We believe that ISKCON should do the same: follow what Srila Prabhupada directly taught, and not reinterpret or guess that he actually meant something else.
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| | For us to make this required, refreshing, and much-needed change in the opportunities for Vaishnavis in Srila Prabhupada’s movement, we can approach this issue as he did, that is, from the spiritual perspective. Then Srila Prabhupada’s movement and the women in it can flourish as they are meant to.
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