The Marxist Kitty Faction
BY: CITRALEKHA DEVI DASI
Nov 08, 2012
What follows is an exchange on the Female Diksa Guru issue between Citralekha devi dasi and Ajamila das (his text indented):
Dear Respected Ajamila Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Please excuse me for being slow to reply as I had to attend to my duties.
On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 8:37 AM, Ajamila (das) ACBSrila Prabhupada (Goloka Books - UK) wrote:
Dear Citralekha d.d. Hare Krishna!! Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
I read your letter entirely, and I carefully noted all your points.
I understand your perception of women that we men may not be able to see how women can get very catty with each other. I've seen it all before and you have pointed it out very clearly and I thank you for coming forward and expressing your views that the qualification of certain female diksha guru candidates might be called into question in respect of the above. I appreciate you expressing yourself very clearly.
Male gurus also sometimes pull similar ego stunts with their piers who are seen as inferior for one reason or another. Its expressed more in a lion like way with men and in a cat like way with women as you pointed out.
Being "catty" is only one of the faults of us women. I am blushing and too embarrassed to list all of them, but Lord Krsna who made the female form is well aware of what our frailties and defects are and they are mentioned in various places in the sastra. For example you could start with how Urvasi described women as having the hearts of foxes. All these sastric descriptions of women are true and apply to the women in ISKCON. Do you think we came to ISKCON via Vaikuntha airplanes? Just as the male devotees are not above material contamination the same with us women. But as described in this text women's basic nature is much lower than that of a male so unless she is completely transcendental like Mother Jahnava or Gangamata Gosvamini her other less than adorable qualities (aside from cattiness) are bound to manifest. Who will protect us from these women? If someone tries then they will be called chauvinists, Taliban, GHQ etc. and such unqualified women will continue as they are doing even today.
The varieties of gurus is unlimited. One person's guru is another person's poison so to speak. Even that potential guru you were referring to would get some disciples who could make some advancement to the level of that guru. Srila Prabhupada describes that there are kanistha, madhyama, and uttama gurus. But kanistha gurus are not recommended and should avoided. It seems you have encountered a kanistha level guru candidate. Such gurus have entered the system in the past and this will inevitably re-occur because of the fact that a devotee can rise to the madhyama and then decline again to the kanistha level or worse.
Therefore the onus is on the prospective disciple to study the sastras thorougly and know in full what is a bona fide guru and then select a guru accordingly. A madhyama adhikari is fixed, learned, and humble while a kanistha can waver, is not sufficiently learned, and will have ego problems.
It's not hard to tell who is who once a prospective disciple knows what to look for in a prospective guru after studying the sastras. It's all there in Srila Prabhupada's books.
In the case of the female candidates they are being marketed in ISKCON as rare cases so exceptional that not since the time of Jahnavi Devi and Gangamata Goswamani has there been bona fide female diksha gurus. (Other so-called female diksha gurus in Bengal belonged to apasampradayas but to promote their case they say Gaudiya tradition had many Female Diksa Gurus, and count bogus apasampradaya ones as authentic, this is cheating and is another fault of us women that will manifest along with cattiness). In any case ISKCON's Female Diksa Guru candidates are being promoted as such rare souls that for first time in centuries we will have Female Diksa Gurus. So how do you think mass of new inexperienced devotees will react to this? Are they sophisticated enough to see through this cheating? I don't think so. They will think "Srila Prabhupada said ‘Female Diksa Guru is so rare' therefore our Female Diksa Gurus are on the level of Jahnava and Gangamata" that is what they will think.
Your description of how you felt about the potential female gurus you have encountered leaves me wondering if there are any women in our ISKCON that are sufficiently qualified to be a diksha guru which Srila Prabhupada desired. But I'm not in touch with all the potential female guru candidates all around the huge big ISKCON world. Your concern that some female devotees will come forward for the wrong reason is a reality and that will need to be dealth with the by the GBC committee offering the final no objection for each female guru candidate.
These women in the Marxist Kitty Party are mostly bitter, old women, who could not keep their husbands and do not live with their family if they have one. How are they going to teach us to have an ideal Krsna conscious family life? Please tell me that? They spit on stri-dharma and family life. A woman needs to feel secure in her family. But these "Marxist Kitties" create enmity between men and women, how will this strengthen my family? They are out of touch with the spiritual and material needs of younger women in ISKCON who want to have Krsna and family life. Yet these women think of themselves on the level of the dvija-patnis who wanted to give Krsna food. But how many of them can even cook something to offer to Krsna?
They think that women should wander all over the world to "preach." And they think that this is what Srila Prabhupada wanted and that this will make him happy. But it is not what Prabhupada expected of his spiritual daughters:
"Everything will be satisfied. Just like our women, Krsna conscious, they are working. They don't want equal rights with men. It is due to Krsna consciousness. They are cleansing the temple, they are cooking very nicely. They are satisfied. They never say that ‘I have to go to Japan for preaching like Prabhupada.' They never say. This is artificial. Krsna consciousness means work in his constitutional position. The women, men, when they remain in their constitutional position, there will be no artificial (indistinct) (loud traffic noises)." Morning Walk—27 May 1974, Rome
These women are obviously not satisfied as Srila Prabhupada describes above. And why? Because they are NOT Krsna conscious. If they had been Krsna conscious they would be satisfied to serve Krsna from their constitutional position in this life as women via stri-dharma. They are not feeling bliss in their heart by serving in their constitutional position as women because they have failed as women and cannot show proper examples as "person Bhagavatams" of how chaste ladies in Bhagavatam followed their stri-dharma and set needed examples for us to follow. Because they don't like their God-given prescribed duty they try to paint it black as material. And thus rebel against Krsna. It is this spirit of rebellion against Krsna that landed us in the material world and will keep us here.
Since they failed as women they now want to try and artificially imitate the men. These "Marxist Kitties" want to do just the opposite of what Srila Prabhupada describes above, they think they have to go to Japan to preach. This means that they are actually not fit to preach what to speak of be a guru. These frustrated old women think that now they will get the family they couldn't have before by replacing children with disciples because they want to be loved, cherished and worshiped and especially taken care of in their old age - something they couldn't get at home. They have no bliss in their hearts only bitterness and frustration because they think happiness will be achieved by imitating men by some material adjustment, that happiness will come from outside.
And what will they "preach?" "That Krsna is God and that we are His servants." That anyone can tell us or better yet read in Prabhupada's books. They know the philosophy but they don't know the religion (dharma), and so philosophy without religion is speculation. So what is the religion (dharma) of how to be a woman? That they don't know.
They don't know how to practically apply the knowledge of sastra in our lives as women, how to be women in Krsna consciousness. They want to speculate and invent some new way. But Lord Krsna already created the perfect way for women to apply Krsna consciousness in their lives and that is called Stri-dharma. By performing stri-dharma for the pleasure of the Lord it takes us back to Godhead and trains us to actually live in Lord Krsna's society in Goloka Vrndavana. This these women cannot do because they do not practice it and in fact despise it. They will not fit into Lord Krsna's world because there the women do practice stri-dharma but they don't. (You cannot have parakiya rasa unless there is grhasta ashrama.)
As someone else said before:
Would you take instruction from a brahmacari who didn't follow brahmacari dharma?
Would you take instruction from a grhasta who didn't follow grhasta dharma?
Would you take instruction from a sannyasi who didn't follow sannyasa dharma?
I am assuming that your answer would be an emphatic NO. You would not let any of them sit on the vyasasana what to speak of initiate.
So my question is why should we take any notice of stris (women) who do not follow stri-dharma?
If stri-dharma is low dharma, then so is brahmacari, grhasta and sannyasa dharma. But why is it if a man doesn't follow his dharma he is not qualified and often vilified and removed from his position, but if a woman doesn't follow it is ok? In fact we will make her a Temple president, GBC and now guru. Please explain this to all of us?
Srila Prabhupada's emphasis was on QUALIFICATION.
As Prabhupada said above, "Krsna consciousness means work in his constitutional position." So for men they have one sphere of work and for us women another. If you try to artificially make it the same then it creates a disturbance in society.
Having these Marxist Kitties who are blatantly against stri-dharma and spit on it become diksha gurus will be a major blow against the young women in ISKCON and the cause for further undermining the family. Let me repeat what I previously wrote:
"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."
I want to add that while I was fortunate to get married later in my 30s, after I was deprogrammed from what I was taught as a young brahmacarini by some wise persons - that it is okay to be married and have a family and that I wouldn't displease Srila Prabhupada and instead go to hell and be reborn again for fulfilling my natural tendencies and desires as a woman to have the security of family life. Unfortunately some of my mataji friends who didn't leave ISKCON to get a family are now in their late 40's and into 50s and now looking for a husband and family! Who will marry them? Will ISKCON take care of them after lifetime of service? No. (Unless they become diksha gurus! See the material motivation.) They have to move out and find a job in their old age to support themselves when instead family should have provided that security.
Getting married and having family life is something women should do when they are very young and attractive and can easily find a husband. But who will marry a 47 or 50 year old sickly woman? (Sickly from over-work in the temple.)
And why were we young brahmacarinis discouraged from getting married? The temple leaders preached, "Everyone should go out and distribute books, you are young (20). What, you want now to get married and serve your husband and make babies? You want to live such selfish life of sense gratification? Or, you want to go out for the rest of your life, or at least now when you have young body to give that body in sankirtan yajna by distributing books every day?" We all felt guilty of even thinking of getting married and having babies. It was considered very fallen condition to get married and having children. ("They are having sex you know.") We didn't decorate our body with any jewelry or makeup and completely covered up head so that no man would ever feel slight attraction to ever marry us. We were very clear in our mind that: "marriage is maya, family is maya, children are maya." So in this way we were programmed to not marry. No wonder some families hated for their girls to join the Hare Krsnas.
So why were we pushed in this way? To sell books to collect as much money as possible. And what happened to the money? After few years leaders who preached this "philosophy" disappeared and so did the money, and the temple was closed.
I thank Krsna that I later met some sane devotees who preached to me and cured me of this "preaching", and I was able to marry. But some of my older friends as I mention were not so lucky. This same "preaching" is being done in MIHE and VIHE by members of the Vaisnavi Ministry, especially Prasanta dd, who never married, and discourages young women who attend her VIHE courses from marrying (contrary to Prabhupada's instruction that all women should marry). She is their shiksha guru and creates big disturbance for these young women's lives and their families who want them to get married. She catches these young girls to become her servants and leave their families and travel with her to help her create her guru profile. I know several whose lives she nearly wrecked by such preaching. I don't know how many, whose lives she has successfully wrecked and who will become bitter women in their old age without any family to protect and take care of them. Prasanta dd is not alone in doing such "preaching," these Marxist Kitties all spit on stri-dharma and Krsna Conscious family life and think they are above such things.
And here is something to think of: when these Female Diksa Gurus travel they will need some assistants, and the same when they get old or sickly. So who will take care of them? Not their male disciples, but young women who will either have to leave their families or forgo family life for years together, and then later after they are all used up they will not be able to find a husband to marry them.
To conclude, from this soul's (in a female body) point of view, this whole idea of Female Diksha Guru is the essence of stupidity, a disaster for ISKCON and Lord Caitanya's preaching mission. Especially here in India they will think we are low class barbarians, that we may know the philosophy but that we don't know how to apply it. The proof being that we have no culture. As one young Indian girl recently wrote on Facebook: "I love Krsna, I love my devotee friends but my family will not let me come to the ISKCON temple. Other temples ok but not ISKCON. They are afraid I will give up my responsibilities and become a sannyasi." This is what the Indian public thinks of how ISKCON deals with women, that we stop girls from getting married and having family life. Where did they get this idea about ISKCON from? Being the material world, family life is not to be perfect and negative examples can be found, but even in this age of Kali the average Indian knows that for women the safest and most secure place is family life. But to the Indian public, ISKCON is seen as anti-family because the Marxist Kitty faction despises stri-dharma.
Your humble servant
Citralekha dd
I don't want to start naming who I think might be qualified but I believe in our ISKCON there are some elgiible women there to take up this most important service for Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada clearly wanted it, and it will eventually happen.
In the meantime I can only suggest for those seeking a diksha guru to seek a qualified male or female diksha guru after being 100% certain the guru is sufficiently qualified.
Hoping this meets you well. Hare Krishna!!
ys
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