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.

Why the protest by women in being women and following their duties nicely? Why are there the impostor feminists?

• The consideration of who is higher or lower based on the Asuric Varnashrama has lead to the conception that cooking, cleaning, supporting the family from the background, being the leading light of the family, providing the nurturing care and love, encouragement to the husband and family members, and raising the next generation with proper spiritual values and culture is less important than everything else.
• Rather when we see the duties
• as a perfect vehicle for our advancement in developing love for Krishna
• as our service to Krishna
• as a responsibility He has entrusted upon us it keeps us happy and excited in doing our prescribed duties nicely
• When we get our sense of worth from the above the materialistic culture does not faze us- it does not shake us from the mode of goodness
• As Kali Yuga progresses a  woman may have to do duties apart from her prescribed duties as well but if she is situated with a proper understanding of the Daivi Varnshrama system she will not compromise on her prescribed duties as she understands their importance.

Mundane(Asuric) Varnashrama versus Daivi Varnashrama

In the previous post
Relationship between - Levels of Consciousness, Modes of material nature and Varna
we discussed how the type of consciousness we have influences the type of work we like to be engaged in.

We also discussed how Vaishnava is considered higher than the Brahmana.

In the table below we will see how Daivi Varnashrama is different from Asuri Varnashrama in the sense that everyone is aspiring for the pleasure of the Lord by the work they do whereas in Asuri Varnashrama one is motivated by their own pleasure.

Asuri Varnashrama	Daivi Varnasharama
Follow rules but without understanding it is for  the pleasure of Krishna	Following the rules and regulations of a particular varna with a clear goal i.e. to please Krishna
Therefore in Asuri Varnashrama Prana maya is better than the anna maya, the vaishayas are better than the sudras, ksatriya are superior to vaishyas, brahamanas are superior to the rest.	Everyone does things for the pleasure of the Lord and is trying to situate themselves at vijnana maya and ananda maya – one does not consider oneself or others higher or lower based on the varna. One is considered higher or lower based on the level of spiritual attainment of kanistha, madhyama and uttama and not what type of work they are doing- because all types of work is being done for the pleasure of the Lord. Everyone is respected because they are all engaged in pleasing the Lord as per the rules and regulations. Therefore a kirtan singer singing for the pleasure of the Lord is respected properly as a vaishnava as much as a temple cook or a preacher, whereas in the system of Asuric a performer is not considered on the same level as a brahmana as it is not being done for the pleasure of the Lord.
Under the garb of a particular so called higher varna they may exploit the lower varna	Exploitation is out of question as : Brahmanas are considered the head of the Lord, Ksatriyas the Arms of the Lord, the vaisyas are considered the belly of the Lord and sudras as the legs of the Lord. So one does not say that head of the Lord is better than the feet.
All four varnas have different culture in how they dress, eat, live. Therefore in the villages they used to have areas earmarked for particular varnas so that they could freely practice their culture without disturbing the other varnas	Vaishnava culture is common not different like the asuric as everyone is trying to follow the same culture in an attempt to go back to Godhead even if the service they do for the Lord maybe different.

If we can understand the difference between the two systems - then when we can make it work. If we want to follow daivi varnashrama but if we follow a rule just as its a rule and dont know its connection with Lord then what is the difference between us and the smartas-. Bec the difference between any situation in the material world is simply consciousness, nothing- your consciousness is Xcendental you are in the spiritual realm and if your consciousness is material you are in the material realm.
8.4 million species is based on consciousness and our posn in varnashrama is also based on consciousness.

Reference:

HH Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami Varnashrama Seminar 01- Brahmacarya

The Need for Varnashrama

The Need for Varnashrama

• The conditioned nature that the spirit soul acquires by its interaction with matter makes it very difficult for the soul to revive its eternal connection with the Lord. It puts the soul in the mode of ignorance - at that platform one does as one pleases further leading to an unregulated mind.

• The unregulated mind pushes one further in the mode of ignorance leaving hardly any scope for the soul to revive its eternal nature of servitude to the Lord.

• If we were transcendental  to the modes of material nature, we simply hear about the Lord and would become devotees immediately and would act on the transcendental platform. E.g Kumaras smelt the tulasi leaves from the Lotus Feet of the Lord and they become self realized. Sukadeva Goswami hears the pastimes of Krishna and he became self realized. We have heard Srimad Bhagavatam many times and have smelt tulasi leaves but many of us haven't become self realized. This is because of the conditioned nature- it takes some practice to change that. 

• Varnashrama Dharma helps us get rid of this conditioned consciousness- this is the most essential point of Varnashrama- all rules and regulations are simply to destroy the material conception we carry that is keeping us away from being situated in our eternal identity as servant of Krishna.

• Thus to elevate men from the animal status,to the mode of goodness the divisions of the four social orders and the four social classes are created by the Lord for the systematic development of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Quotes from Srila Bhakti Vinoda Thakur about Varnashrama Dharma

• Caitanya Siksamrita 249
• " First, it should be said that without taking proper care of body, mind, society and spirit, a person cannot perform the more elevated activities of bhakti. How can the seed of devotion, faith, awaken in the heart if a person dies prematurely, develops mental problems and never learns anything about spirit? And if a person gives up the rules of varnasrama and acts as he pleases, his physical and mental actions will be like those of a madman. He will be engaged in the worst sins. No sign of bhakti will be visible."
• Bhaktyaloka 216
• "The main purpose of varnashrama-dharma is this: By gradually following varnashrama-dharma a human being will become eligible to perform devotional service."
• Caitanya siksamrita
• "Though a person situated in the world may accept spiritual dharma, he does not give up the rules of mundane dharma, for the rules of varnasrama still assist him in supporting his body, mind and social environment. Being comfortable as a result of proper body, mind and surroundings, he is able to attain the eternal bliss of worshipping the Lord."

Varnashrama includes everyone
 Thus Varnashrama divides society into four natural groups based on the individual characteristics and dispositions.If one follows the rules and regulations of the group they belong to very sincerely - they are able to overcome the dictates of the mind and act from the platform of goodness versus acting from the platform of ignorance.

Relationship between - Levels of Consciousness, Modes of material nature and Varna

• Anna maya (Kama)
• Platform of the mind , the senses, anything we can perceive and deal with the senses- arts, science... and of course eating sleeping mating and defending
• For Sudra the platform of occupational activity is the senses because to do the arts you require the senses. Their situation is ann maya.(kama)
• Mode of ignorance
• Prana Maya(artha)
• Being able to understand that others also have life
• This means we have to be able to work with others- recognize others exist they have desires, needs, and our attempts to get our needs and desires met cannot conflict with others. 
• From this platform comes economic development, material justice- anything where one person has to deal with others.
• Vaishyas are in Prana maya- economics, justice- to make a government  road- this is prana maya- your trucks have to go down, to make all this kind of things is prana maya
• Mode of passion and ignorance
• Mana Maya-(dharma) platform of religious principles
• It also means jnana because there is knowledge- but this knowledge is the knowledge that the mind has affinity for.
• Because the mind likes following of this principles. Where we say mind is going crazy means there is no standard to connect it to, thinks anything - all social principles and rules and regulations are meant to keep the mind peaceful.
•  If we let the mind go a little bit- it runs away with the senses.
• By the social rules and regulations the mind is controlled.This is the platform of dharma.
• This is the realm of activity for the ksatriya
• Mode of passion
• Vijnana Maya- 
• We understand we are not the body we are the soul- this platform of the soul we view the the world- Brahma Bhuta platform- Brahmana level
• This is the bottom level of transcendence. We know we are the soul but do not know we are the servant of Krishna.
• Brahmana means that who knows brahmana.Brahman there are three levels-
• dvija- right to study perform vedic rites and sacrifices and learn the vedic knowledge. But he knows nothing. 
• Next level is vipra- one who has knowledge- he has studied vedic knowledge and has become expert- you also called them pandit 
• Mode of goodness
• Ananda Maya-
•  To know we are spirit soul and servant of Krishna. and we are trying to serve.
• This is the Vaishnava Platform- the third level of the Brahmana.
• Mode of transcendental goodness