CTW: Appreciating Gender Differences: Social Behavior and Abilities

• Verbal Abilities
• Women show higher performance levels on tests of verbal fluency. This may be because the female auditory cortex is more dense than that of the male. This difference and other sensory differences like it could be because of the sex hormones that impact the fetal brain during development
• Mathematical attitudes and effects
• Small difference , also could be due to difference on how the teachers percieve a boy vs a girl. Parents were, and sometimes still are, more likely to consider a son's mathematical achievement as being a natural skill while a daughter's mathematical achievement is more likely to be seen as something she studied hard for. This difference in attitude may contribute to girls and women being discouraged from further involvement in mathematics-related subjects and careers(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_psychology)
• Influenceability and Conformity(Peer Pressure)
• Woman conform more and may thus be more prone to peer pressure
• Aggression
• Males across race, culture, country , age
• Small Group Behavior
• Tasks that require task orineted behavior men performed better. Tasks that require social behavior for good performance women perform better. A women's interactive style helped increase group productivity. Men generated more solutions in same sex groups when working individually. General cultural sex roles are manifested in task group interaction as well- women were more socio emotional in their interaction whereas men where more engaged in active task behavior
• Leadership Behavior
• Women lead in a more democratic way and men do in a more autocratic way
• Non verbal communication
• Women more accurately interpret nonverbal, communication. In sum, based on a literature of hundreds of studies, it appears that women occupy a more nonverbally conscious, positive, and interpersonally engaged world than men do. women make greater effort to increase interpersonal comfort
• Empathy
• 
• Understanding and tracking relationships and reading others' emotional states was particularly important for women for tasks such as caring for children and social networking.Women perform better than men in tests involving emotional interpretation, such as understanding facial expressions, and empathy.
• Inter species empathy
• An international survey of 12 Eurasian nations (n>4000) was conducted between 2007 to 2008. The initiator and principle investigator of the survey, Dr Jenia Meng, found that females on average have a higher level of empathy with nonhuman animals than males. 

References:
Psychology of women: A Handbook of Issues and Theories
The Psychology of Women- Helene Deutsch
Sex Differences in Human Psychology
Sex Differences in Human Physiology
Emotions during Menstrual Cycle- womenshealth.about.com
Emotions during Menstrual Cycle- Dr Christina Hebbert

CTW: Appreciating Gender Differences: Physiology

• Size, weight and body shape:

• Men weigh more and are taller on an average. Women have a larger hip section than men,for giving birth to infants with large skulls
• Strength, power and muscle mass: 
• Females have less total muscle mass than males. Males are stronger than females.
• Skeleton: 
• Males have denser, stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments.Male and female pelvises are shaped differently. The female pelvis features a wider pelvic cavity, which is necessary when giving birth.
• The female pelvis is larger and broader than the male pelvis which is taller, narrower, and more compact. The female inlet is larger and oval in shape, while the male inlet is more heart-shaped.
• Respiratory System :
• Males typically have larger tracheae and branching bronchi, with about 56% greater lung volume per body mass.
• Skin and Hair: 
• Male skin is thicker (more collagen) and oilier (more sebum) than female skin,[29] but females have a thicker layer of fat under the skin. Males also generally have darker skin than females. The lighter skin in females helps their bodies synthesize more Vitamin D from sunlight and absorb more calcium, which is needed during pregnancy and lactation. Men have more body hair than females 
• Sensory systems
• Women are more sensitive to smell and have more pain receptors on their body.In addition to defined diseases and syndromes, many common “everyday” pains appear to overburden women rather than men. Therefore, studies consistently find that women report more severe pain, more frequent pain, longer-lasting pain, and wider-ranging pain than men.[94] For example, common painful conditions such as dysmenorrhea may predispose females to more widespread musculoskeletal pains.
• Brain and Nervous System:

• Human males, on average, have larger brains than females. According to a 1995 study, female brains are more compact than male brains in that, though smaller, they are more densely packed with neurons, particularly in the region responsible for language.
• Intelligence: In studies concerning intelligence, it has been suggested that the ratio of brain weight to body weight (rather than actual brain weight) is more predictive of IQ levels. While men's brains are an average of 10-15% larger and heavier than women's brains, some researchers propose that the ratio of brain to body size does not differ between the sexes.However, some argue that since brain-to-body-size ratios tend to decrease as body size increases, a sex difference in brain-weight ratios still exists between men and women of the same size.
• Auditory and Language Related Regions: 
• Studies using MRI scanning have shown that the auditory and language-related regions in the left hemisphere are proportionally expanded in females versus in males.
•  Conversely, the primary visual, and visuo-spatial association areas of the parietal lobes are proportionally larger in males.

Speech and Language: The corpus callous is located at the sagittal divide and is the primary commissure in the human brain. It connects the left

and right hemispheres of the cerebral cortex, which allows them to communicate with each other. With respect to language, males predominantly use their left hemisphere but females use both their right and left hemispheres. The right hemisphere controls emotion, so using the right hemisphere adds more prosody to speech.In males, the corpus callosum is larger than females.[71] However, the splenium and the isthmus subregions of the corpus callosum are larger in females. The genu subregion is larger in males. These subregions may serve as the basis for sex differences in language.

• Memory Storage and Spatial Mapping: 
• The hippocampus has been proven by imaging to be larger in women than men. The hippocampus is crucial for memory storage and spatial mapping of the physical environment. This structural difference may be responsible for variations in behavior between the sexes.
• Navigation: Studies show that women are more likely to navigate using landmarks, while men are more likely to estimate distance in space or orientation.
• Chronic Stress Studies of rats show that males could learn better in the face of acute stress, while chronic stress is dealt with better by females. Sex hormones may influence female hippocampal cells to tolerate brain damage better than the same cells in men. The studies of the rats' influx and deflation of hippocampal cells can be translated to the difference in memory and spatial behaviors between the sexes
• Amygdala:
• The amygdala, which is the structure that responds to emotionally arousing information, respond to the environment and reacts with stress. The male amygdala is proportionally larger than that in women, causing sex to be a determining factor in reactions to stress. In studies of rats, there are more numerous interconnections seen in males in regard to this structure, suggesting the same pattern in humans. Katharina Braun and company (Otto von Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany) studied a litter of Degu puppies removed from their mother and determined that hearing their mother's call produced a higher concentration of serotonin in males' amygdala and a decreased concentration in females' amygdala. In this case, stress causes females' emotion regulation to drop, while males seem to keep more of an even keel. While this study was limited to rodents, it provides a possible explanation of why anxiety disorders occur more often among human females than males

References:
Psychology of women: A Handbook of Issues and Theories
The Psychology of Women- Helene Deutsch
Sex Differences in Human Psychology
Sex Differences in Human Physiology
Emotions during Menstrual Cycle- womenshealth.about.com
Emotions during Menstrual Cycle- Dr Christina Hebbert

CTW: Appreciating Gender Differences

Today we will go through various studies to understand and appreciate Gender Differences between men and women. Our Creator - Lord Sri Krishna is Supremely wonderful. Understanding Gender differences is a great way to appreciate His creation and the thought behind it as well.

Men and Women have been created differently right from their physiology, to how they process information, to how they experience and express emotions all perfectly created to suit the role of being a man for men and for being a woman for women.

We will go through the data present in these links below:

CTW: Appreciating Gender Differences: Physiology

CTW: Appreciating Gender Differences: Social Behavior and Abilities

CTW: Appreciating Gender Differences: Emotions

CTW: Appreciating Gender Differences: Strengths and Weaknesses for men and women

We will also discuss how this difference in physiology affects decision making - we will see this from examples in shastra of Sita Devi, Sati and some other examples.

Celebrating True Womanhood(CTW)First Things First

Thank you all for making the choice to participate in this engaging discussion of "Celebrating True Womanhood". We are engaging in this dialog amongst the woman devotees of the seattle congregation- together we can understand these things, share our views and inculcate together the qualities of womanhood for ourselves and for the future generations.

As participants to the conference call we all are in agreement with the following:

• I am going to hear with an open mind

• Some of us may have had very difficult experiences at the hands of male authority or female authority in our lives- they may have abused their power and used the tenets of vedic wisdom about woman in a way that suits them. That would have brought about great anger in our minds and hearts . Some of us may still have vestiges of the same in our hearts. Every time we hear anything about "Women are subservient to men", "woman need to be protected" etc "woman must serve the husband, inlaws" our difficult past experiences come to haunt us, the anger comes forth. We are so overtaken by our experience that we block any good new information coming our way.
• We may criticize the standards - we push back, because we do not want to go through those difficult experiences again.. we either criticize the standards or never fully accept them
• From acceptance comes transformation
• I accept my conditioning
• On the other hand some of us maybe very attracted to standards- we hear and we want to immediately apply. some of us maye absolutely fine in picking up and applying new information while for some others there may can be sheer fatigue of acting at a platform they we are not at.
• In order to make progress towards the goal it is important to be compassionately aware of our conditioning and how far we are from the ideal state. This enables us to take a stepwise approach towards growth for the latter category.
• I am only competing with myself - my own last victory to become more in sync with my unique psychophysical nature and be of greater service to Lord Krishna. 
• I will work only on myself without having the expectation that someone else will change
• This call is not a place for male bashing, in laws bashing and feminists :)

Celebrating True Womanhood- starting Thursday Oct 17th over Conf/SKYPE 11:30am to 12:30pm

What it is to be a woman was not something we learned in a formal setting. It was something we picked up from observing our mothers, aunts and other ladies who touched our lives. They had picked their lessons from their mothers and aunts. In course of time the treasure of true womanhood has fast vaporized as the culture of all societies is changing from spiritual to material. Certain feminine virtues that were upheld even as close to a decade ago are now considered backward, orthodox and archaic. It can be very confusing to be a spiritual woman in these times as the spiritual and material cultures are diametrically opposite for they are based on opposite ideals. 

It is with great pleasure we invite all women to transforming discussions on the topic "Celebrating True Womanhood" . We will discuss over 9 to 10 sessions every thursday 11:30am to 12:30pm:

*The Nature of a Woman
*Appreciating Gender Differences
*The Vedic Society -Spiritual Culture- The Goal
*The Vedic Society -The Four Social Orders and the Four Social Classes
*The Vedic Society - The purpose of Marriage
*Women as Worshipable Mothers
*Other Aspects of a Woman's Role
*Understanding what other religions have to say about womanhood
*Functioning in Kali Yuga as a woman in the Bhakti tradition - bridging the gap between sastra and reality
*The gap between my consciousness and the consciousness of true womanhood
*Raising our boys and girls

It is important that we reconnect with the spiritual culture explained by the Gurus and acaryas, through the Bhagavad Gita As it Is and Srimad Bhagavatam. When we understand the goal and values of such a culture and how each person's individuality was properly engaged so that they could advance spiritually, we will come to appreciate a woman's role in the spiritual sense.

Each one of you is important to your family and society. Please join us, to deepen our understanding of the importance our role as a woman and Celebrate True Womanhood!!!

Please register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1FF6Sz-d90hciRSXCeyPFDpXVcjv3gKA2D2Hbjigp_BY/viewform

Conf call details:
Dial-in Number: 1-213-342-3000 (West Coast)
Organizer Access Code: *2094581 (you must include the leading star key)
Participant Access Code 8016560

Skype Details:
Call me on navkishori.rns - I will add you.

The other Gopis want to know what it is about Smt Radharani that makes her so dear to Krishna

Damodarastakam Text

namāmīśvaraḿ sac-cid-ānanda-rūpaḿ
lasat-kuṇḍalaḿ gokule bhrājamanam
yaśodā-bhiyolūkhalād dhāvamānaḿ
parāmṛṣṭam atyantato drutya gopyā

(2)

rudantaḿ muhur netra-yugmaḿ mṛjantam
karāmbhoja-yugmena sātańka-netram
muhuḥ śvāsa-kampa-trirekhāńka-kaṇṭha-
sthita-graivaḿ dāmodaraḿ bhakti-baddham

(3)

itīdṛk sva-līlābhir ānanda-kuṇḍe
sva-ghoṣaḿ nimajjantam ākhyāpayantam
tadīyeṣita-jñeṣu bhaktair jitatvaḿ
punaḥ prematas taḿ śatāvṛtti vande

(4)

varaḿ deva mokṣaḿ na mokṣāvadhiḿ vā
na canyaḿ vṛṇe ‘haḿ vareṣād apīha
idaḿ te vapur nātha gopāla-bālaḿ
sadā me manasy āvirāstāḿ kim anyaiḥ

(5)

idaḿ te mukhāmbhojam atyanta-nīlair
vṛtaḿ kuntalaiḥ snigdha-raktaiś ca gopyā
muhuś cumbitaḿ bimba-raktādharaḿ me
manasy āvirāstām alaḿ lakṣa-lābhaiḥ

(6)

namo deva dāmodarānanta viṣṇo
prasīda prabho duḥkha-jālābdhi-magnam
kṛpā-dṛṣṭi-vṛṣṭyāti-dīnaḿ batānu
gṛhāṇeṣa mām ajñam edhy akṣi-dṛśyaḥ

(7)

kuverātmajau baddha-mūrtyaiva yadvat
tvayā mocitau bhakti-bhājau kṛtau ca
tathā prema-bhaktiḿ svakāḿ me prayaccha
na mokṣe graho me ‘sti dāmodareha

(8)

namas te ‘stu dāmne sphurad-dīpti-dhāmne
tvadīyodarāyātha viśvasya dhāmne
namo rādhikāyai tvadīya-priyāyai
namo ‘nanta-līlāya devāya tubhyam

TRANSLATION

1) To the Supreme Lord, whose form is the embodiment of eternal existence, knowledge, and bliss, whose shark-shaped earrings are swinging to and fro, who is beautifully shining in the divine realm of Gokula, who I (due to the offense of breaking the pot of yogurt that His mother was churning into butter and then stealing the butter that was kept hanging from a swing) is quickly running from the wooden grinding mortar in fear of mother Yasoda, but who has been caught from behind by her who ran after Him with greater speed--to that Supreme Lord, Sri Damodara, I offer my humble obeisances.

2) (Seeing the whipping stick in His mother's hand) He is crying and rubbing His eyes again and again with His two lotus hands. His eyes are filled with fear, and the necklace of pearls around His neck, which is marked with three lines like a conch shell, is shaking because of His quick breathing due to crying. To this Supreme Lord, Sri Damodara, whose belly is bound not with ropes but with His mother's pure love, I offer my humble obeisances.

3) By such childhood pastimes as this He is drowning the inhabitants of Gokula in pools of ecstasy, and is revealing to those devotees who are absorbed in knowledge of His supreme majesty and opulence that He is only conquered by devotees whose pure love is imbues with intimacy and is free from all conceptions of awe and reverence. With great love I again offer my obeisances to LordDamodara hundreds and hundreds of times.

4) O Lord, although You are able to give all kinds of benedictions, I do not pray to You for the boon of impersonal liberation, nor the highest liberation of eternal life in Vaikuntha, nor any other boon (which may be obtained by executing the nine processes of bhakti). O Lord, I simply wish that this form of Yours as Bala Gopala in Vrndavana may ever be manifest in my heart, for what is the use to me of any other boon besides this?

5) O Lord, Your lotus face, which is encircled by locks of soft black hair tinged with red, is kissed again and again by mother Yasoda, and Your lips are reddish like the bimba fruit. May this beautiful vision of Your lotus face be ever manifest in my heart. Thousands and thousands of other benedictions are of no use to me.

6) O Supreme Godhead, I offer my obeisances unto You. O Damodara! O Ananta! O Vishnu! O master! O my Lord, be pleased upon me. By showering Your glance of mercy upon me, deliver this poor ignorant fool who is immersed in an ocean of worldly sorrows, and become visible to my eyes.

7) O Lord Damodara, just as the two sons of Kuvera--Manigriva and Nalakuvara--were delivered from the curse of Narada and made into great devotees by You in Your form as a baby tied with rope to a wooden grinding mortar, in the same way, please give to me Your own prema-bhakti. I only long for this and have no desire for any kind of liberation.

8) O Lord Damodara, I first of all offer my obeisances to the brilliantly effulgent rope which binds Your belly. I then offer my obeisances to Your belly, which is the abode of the entire universe. I humbly bow down to Your most beloved Srimati Radharani, and I offer all obeisances to You, the Supreme Lord, who displays unlimited pastimes.

REMARKS/EXTRA INFORMATION:

This song was originally spoken by Satyavrata Muni in a conversation with Narada Muni and Saunaka Rsi.

This song is sung during the Month of Kartik, also known as the month of Damodara. As quoted in the Sri Hari-Bhakti-Vilasa, "In the month of Kartika one should worship Lord Damodara and daily recite the prayer known as Damodarastaka, which has been spoken by the sage Satyavrata and which attracts Lord Damodara. (Sri Hari-bhakti-vilasa 2.16.198).”

This is usually sung in Raga Asavari in Lofa or Bengali ektal, or Bhairavi in kaherva or bhajani tala.

Glories of the Kartik month

Just as there is no yuga equal to Satya-yuga, no scripture equal to the Vedas, and no place of pilgrimage equal to the Ganges, so there is no month equal to Kartika. Even unserious persons who execute devotional service according to the regulative principles during the month of Karttika, and within the jurisdiction of Mathura (or Vrindavana) in India, are very easily awarded the Lord's personal service". During the Kartika month millions of devotees worship Damodara Krishna with ghee lamps and devotional bhajans, glorifying His playful childhood pastime of stealing yogurt. (H.H. Mahanidhi Swami)

"When one offers a lamp during the month of Karttika, his sins in many thousands and millions of births perish in half an eye blink."

"Please hear the glories of offering a lamp during pleasing to Lord Kesava. O King of brahmanas, a person who offers a lamp in this way will not take birth again in this world."

"By offering a lamp during the month of Karttika one attains a pious result ten million times greater than the result obtained by bathing at Kuruksetra during a solar eclipse or by bathing in the river Narmada during a lunar eclipse."

"O Tiger among sages! For a person who thus offers a lamp burning with ghee or sesame oil, what is the use of performing an asvasmedha-yajna? "

"Even if there are no mantras, no pious deeds, and no purity, everything becomes perfect when a person offers a lamp during the month of Karttika."

"A person who during the month of Karttika offers a lamp to Lord Kesava has already performed all yajnas and bathing in all holy rivers. "

"The ancestors say: When someone in our family pleases Lord Kesava by offering to Him a lamp during the month of Karttika, then, by the mercy of the Lord who holds the Sudarsana-cakra in His Hand, we will all attain liberation."

"By offering a lamp during the month of Karttika one burns away a collection of sins as big as Mount Meru or Mount Mandara. Of this there is no doubt."

"A person who offers a lamp during the month of Karttika attains a result that cannot be obtained with even a hundred yajnas or a hundred pilgrimages."

"Even a person addicted to all sins and averse to all pious deeds who somehow offer a lamp during Karttika becomes purified. Of this there is no doubt."

"O Narada, no sin exists anywhere in the three worlds that will not be purified by offering a lamp to Lord Kesava during Karttika."

"A person who offers a lamp to Lord Krishna during Karttika attains the eternal spiritual world where there is no suffering."

"As fire is present in all wood and may be extracted by friction, so piety is always present in the offering of a lamp during the month of Karttika. Of this there is no doubt."

"O King of brahmanas, when someone offers Him a lamp on the full-moon day of the month of Karttika, Lord Krishna, finding that He does not have sufficient money to repay that gift, gives Himself in exchange for that lamp."

"One who offers a steady lamp to Lord Hari during the month of Karttika enjoys pastimes in Lord Hari's splendid spiritual world."

Even one who never performs religious rituals or even the worst sinner will surely be purified by this offering. O Narada, in the three worlds there is no sin that can stand before this Kartika dipa. In fact, by presenting this dipa before Lord Vasudeva, the eternal abode can be reached without obstruction.

"All the results acquired by donating grains during pitri-paksha or by distributing water in the hot months of Jyeshtha or Ashadha are easily gained in the course of Kartika merely by reviving (relighting) a dipa offered by someone else."

All glories to beautiful Lordship Sri Sri Radha Damodarji!
All glories to Kartik Masa!


"In Kartik month, after bathing in the morning, one should worship Lord Damodara. At night, one should light brilliant lamps filled with either ghee or sesame-seed oil, and place them in these places - in the Lord's temple, around the base of tulasi plants, and in the sky. During the month of Kartika, one should eat only vegetarian foodstuffs and Bhagavan's prasad remnants. There should be incessant harinama-kirtana and smarana. The sole activity to be done during the observance of Damodara-vrata is the worship of Sri Sri Radha-Damodara." – Srila Bhaktivinod Thakura