Original Article - Women in ISKCON; Presentations to the GBC, March 2000

It was with great satisfaction that I read the introduction and texts of presentations to the GBC from respected Vaisnavis. It is due, in great part, to their dedication that there is now a greater mood of including women as full ISKCON members. For instance, to my amazement, H. H. Gopal Krsna Maharaja invited me to deliver a Srimad-Bhagavatam lecture in Delhi in April although he was scheduled to do it. In Mayapur, I was happy to have a place to see Radha-Madhava for mangala arati without fear of the men bumping into me. I could even chant japa in the temple room!

However, when I was invited to deliver a scriptural lecture in Mayapur, during the usual morning class, it was in a facility outside of that normally given for the English ­Bhagavatam class. There is no objection to a woman speaking on the scriptures to devotees and guests on temple property during the official class time, as long as the class is in a separate place. Clearly the Mayapur administration knows that the spirit of its restrictions is incorrect, but it still enforces them to the letter. In Mumbai I encountered the same situation - an invitation to speak on Bhagavad-gita during the morning class, but not in the temple room.

Besides the simple fact of inertia - these rules and procedures have existed for a while and we may find it hard to change course - I read in all the presentations the pull between our external and spiritual duties.

The many times that Prabhupada speaks and writes about women's position in society, or the psychological differences between men and women, he is dealing with our external duties. I do not agree with some of the authors that the societal/economic model of varnasrama is antiquated or irrelevant. Perhaps it cannot be fully established in the present age, however, its establishment to any degree will help all of us achieve the spiritual platform. A sane and stable society makes spiritual progress easier, whereas a disrupted society makes it more difficult. The lack of engaging everyone, not only women, in their external duties according to their propensities, and the lack of solid, functioning families with a pious economic base, has led to many ISKCON members being without a foundation for their spiritual practices. Prabhupada writes that the purpose of marriage is to make the mind peaceful for spiritual life. A peaceful marriage is much more likely when both the man and woman work with their natural differences.

To promote a revival of ancient mores of female behaviour is laudable. However, as the presentations indicate it has been very difficult to practically apply these within ISKCON. I would suggest that there are three reasons for this. First, we do not understand ancient varnasrama. Second, we often practise our already distorted understanding hypocritically. Third, we do not distinguish between external and spiritual duties.

Our modern understanding of varnasrama, especially as it relates to a woman's place in it, is often grossly inaccurate. For many years ISKCON leaders described women as a fifth class. However, the scriptures clearly describe women in all four varnas as having distinct psychological natures befitting their class. We think women made little economic contribution in ancient times, whereas in reality they had duties in both their varna and asrama. In terms of women's interactions with their male protectors, there are many stories of chaste women, glorified as socially ideal, who do not fit our modern conception of 'submissive'. Sometimes ISKCON members equate the culture of a part of modern India with varnasrama, although it is well known that there are many practices there which are a result of British and Muslim influence or just degradation over time. We have to carefully sort out what is and is not Vedic culture.

We have also applied our misunderstood ideas about women's social place in a hypocritical manner. For example, many temples have forbidden women from various services yet send the same women away from their husbands and young children in order to earn money for the temple.

The fundamental problem of using Prabhupada's good, clear and applicable instructions on the cultural place of women in order to deny women spiritual facility, is not misunderstanding or hypocrisy, but the confusion between external and spiritual duties. Most of the women who made presentations stated how Prabhupada distinguished between the two, both in theory and in his own example.

Prabhupada writes in the purport to Bhagavad-gita 9.30, 'In the conditioned state, sometimes devotional service and the conditional service in relation to the body will parallel one another. But then again, sometimes these activities become opposed to one another.'

Our spiritual duties of hearing, chanting, remembering, offering prayers, and so on, are fully on the transcendental platform and, while usually in harmony with our external duties, may sometimes appear to conflict with them. For example, culturally, the women serve the men in the family and eat when they are done, but spiritually the men and women equally view the Deity of the Lord.

I can only echo, therefore, the requests of the women who spoke so eloquently - let us live our philosophy. Let us live the traditional cultural aspects Prabhupada taught us as much as we can in our present time, as ISKCON shares with the rest of the world a desperate need for societal stability. And let us also live, simultaneously, the principles of equality of spiritual service that he taught us.