Functioning in Kali Yuga as a woman in the Bhakti tradition - bridging the gap between sastra and reality

The atmosphere is charged with the material energy in Kali Yuga. Also Varnsharama and other support structures are not in place for women. How can a woman apply the principles of the Vedic tradition in such an environment? As many focus on what a women should do and should not do- we will also need to discuss how we need to give ourselves room within the framework- to grow individually and engage our uniqueness in the service of the Lord.The goal of the seminar is to not introduce rigid stereotypes- rather it is to understand ourselves and the Daivi Varnashrama system well enough so as to resonate with the principles at our individual frequencies. When an individual(woman in this case) feels safe and has enough room to grow and engage their uniqueness in Krsna's service they can grow by leaps and bounds in Their love and devotion to the Lord. We will address some questions here:

• Room to Grow:
• Sine there are many perplexities in Kali Yuga we need the help of self realized souls at every step of our lives so that we can navigate our lives perfectly enough to set the stage to go Back To Godhead
• Does not mean we allow the mind all it fancies
• Room to grow means under discussion with higher authorities we discuss the best course of action for ourselves.
• Lives have to be guided- because we on our own do not know how to go back to Godhead.
• Also guidance will be given in proportion to our receptivity, submission and surrender
• Some of us may have a certain type of conditioning that may cause us to not being able to stick to our dharma? We were raised to do extremely well academically and grow in our careers- having that mindset even if we are attracted to following the vedic principles it doesn't seem natural?
• • Honesty of where I am is extremely important- as we accept where we are we can take steps to make a transformation.
  • We need to introspect -
  •  Is what I am doing against the religious principles and regulative principles of human life- eg someone may want to be a bar dancer.
  • What effect will that cause on my consciousness and how will it impact my duties as prescribed by my higher authorities
  • On the other hand , immature renunciation will lead to problems. At the same time we cannot use "Gradual" "Do it slowly" " Do what you can" as a license to continue things that may not be healthy for our Krishna Consciousness.
  • Some of the following points are helpful:They have been excerpted from HH Romapada Swami's article linked here and here
  • "There are no hard and fast rules in molding one's life towards either model, but devotees are encouraged, without being coerced, to adopt these principles according to the degree of faith, conviction and realization that they personally have, their personal situations and in consultation with experienced devotees in matters of how to effectively apply this in individual situations."
  • "To the degree that we can adopt these time-tested and compassionate teachings of our previous acharyas and sages, to that degree we will benefit and also serve as beacons of real-world examples, thereby nurturing the faith of others in the effulgent teachings as being practical in today's active world."
  • "to prohibit or to promote to pursuance of a higher material education or career path; however, depending upon the qualities of a particular individual, it may be a much less optimal and fruitful option, compared to a thoughtfully pursued course of life that is based more closely on Vedic, Krishna conscious principles."
  • "Duty implies that it is prescribed by higher authority: the scriptures identify duties according to different natures of categories of persons, while spiritual master understands the nature and tendencies of a particular individual and thus prescribes work that they are most suited for, yet in a manner that will purify and elevate them. Although material duties by themselves are external and de-linked from Krishna, particularly so in the context of our modern technological society -- yet when worldly duties are under the sanction and direction of scriptures and spiritual authorities, it becomes easy to connect these activities to Krishna.

Take Charge of Your Emotions Dec 7th, Session Summary

Thank you all for your participation last week, your discussion enlivened the evening. We are not the only ones with difficult emotions :) that need to be processed.Last week we discussed the relationship between thoughts, feelings and behaviors . We connected it with the Bhagavad Gita verses 2.62 and 2.63 linked for your reference.


This week on Dec 7th we will discuss:
-  How we are trained to suppress emotions and numb ourselves in difficult situations
- The detrimental effects of suppressing our emotions to our health and to our future behaviors.
-  We will do exercises on learning how to connect with our feelings

By connecting with your feelings, you activate your buddhi (intelligence), to process your feelings. Without confronting your feelings, the buddhi, also known as the fire of mental digestion, cannot digest those feelings and we remain victims of our own feelings. Be open to learning what your feelings are telling you.

You can view Last Week's presentation at this link.

On Motherhood- an excerpt from a Book

We came across a nice passage about motherhood from the book Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power by Dr. Terri Apter


Relationship with the mother and how it influences other relationships over a lifetime.

• The way we see and value ourselves is influenced by her view of us. How we behave others to behave towards us is in part a function of early interactions with our closest family members
• Recent findings in brain science have deepened our understanding of a mother's pervasive influence. Our relationship with her becomes a model for all intimate relationships. It shapes the circuits of our infant brain- circuits that are used to understand and manage our own emotions and to read other people's thoughts and feelings. 
• In all observed cultures, in all recorded times, human infants engage intimately with the person who cares for them, and in all recorded times, in all observed cultures, the parents who introduces an infant to the interpersonal world of love and dependence is the a mother. A mother and baby lock together in a mutual gaze , each looking back to the other.This early prolonged eye contact is so important to the growing human brain that evolution has left nothing to chance. A brain stem reflex ensures that the baby turns to look at the mother's face.
  
• Until recently , so-called experts on babies advised parents that babies could not really see a mother and that babies had no concept of what a person was for many months or even years after their first all- absorbing introduction to their mother, but new findings show something very different. The areas of the brain that adults use to recognize and respond to faces are active from birth. from the moment a baby looks into his mother's face, he sees a person.He sees someone who expresses feelings and whose expressions show responses to him. This interaction triggers high levels of hormones that flood the infant with pleasure. These endogenous opiates are a healthy version of external opiates like heroin- that block pain and produce pleasure.They reward the infant as he engages in the primary lessons of vital interpersonal relationships. sight is not the only trigger for these pleasure inducing chemicals. Newborns orient their heads to the sound of their mother's voice, and they rapidly learn to recognize and follow its tone and rhythm.
• They stare longer at an image if it smells like their mother. The instinct a mother has to hold her baby on her left side(which is wired to the right side of the brain) facilitates right hemisphere to right hemisphere communication, the part of the brain that specializes in the emotional self. As she cradles the baby on her left side, she communicates with the infants right brain and the infant's behavior stimulates the mother's right brain.
• Even negative emotions of fear can positively stimulate a baby's growth, when the fight or flight system is activated, the rate of breathing increases, along with the heart rate and blood pressure, but as a mother soothes a troubled infant,he feels the ebb of negative emotions and has his first lessons in the crucial task of regulating his own emotions
• Mother's brain also undergoes changes- it is stimulated to
  
  new growth and learning as she engages with her infant. In response to infant's cries and laughter, the parent's brain activity reveals a special pattern. In addition, the complex brain structures that control our emotions the limbic system undergo structural changes as we engage in parenting behavior. These changes increase a mother's ability to pick up cues from the infant.
• As a mother and baby interact , each gets smarter. Each is engrossed by the sights and sounds and movements of the other, each is hunry to learn the other's language. Their mutual focus is so intricately coordinated that is has been defined as an elaborately flowing dance wherein the participating partners get to know themselves through each other. Human psychology as we know it begins in this primary relationship. A passionate and absorbing bond with his or her primary caregiver, who is almost always the mother, is the infant's first experience of loving and being one person in a loving pair.

What happens if a mother does not respond?
If the mother's face becomes frozen the baby becomes distressed. The baby seems outraged that his signals are ignored. It is not easy to soothe a baby who has experienced this interruption in the relational conversation.

Reference Point of Love

• These early interactions form a reference point for what each of us seeks in people we love, to be seen and understood. Children form many relationships with other relatives and with friends that impact on their lives, but the emotional signaling between infant and a mother forms the core sense of being a person with feelings who can communicate feelings to others
• A key experience of having a difficult mother , whether we are three months old or thirty years old, is of the negative of that positive eye to eye engagement. With a difficult mother , our efforts to shape our mother's view are constantly frustrated. we feel ignored, erased, annihilated. We doubt who we are and what we feel. Perhaps our signals are interpreted as bad or mean or selfish. We then inhabit a world of shame in which being known entails criticism and derision.
• Children work hard to make sense of their interpersonal experiences.
  
  "Who is reliable?" and "who offers me warmth and comfort and feeding?" and "whose touch and smell are associated with these?" are questions intrinsically related their survival. As the rudimentary sense of self and other person becomes more sophisticated, so do questions about their meanings:"what does that behavior indicate about me?" and "Does the person I am trying to communicate with understand me?" and "Do my feelings resonate with others?" and "Am I really communicating?"
• We continue to be particularly vulnerable to a mother's responses, even as we develop very different bonds with other people who see and discover us in different ways. for most parents and their children, the experience of belonging to each other has its ups and downs, but whatever the trip ups and scrapes along the way, the relationship is largely comforting, supportive and expansive.
• But what does it feel like to suffer more pain in a relationship than comfort and pleasure? what if those profound experiences of connection and embeddedness are so uncomfortable that, in reaching out for comfort and security, we are restricted and punished? what if we have to distrust ourselves or discount our own wishes or constantly police our thoughts and actions to gain comfort from the person we depend upon? when this dilemma shapes a son's or daughter's experience of a mother, I use the shorthand of a difficult mother to refer to a relationship that has many parts and many contexts and perspective.