Bhakti Vidya Purna Maharaja
Mataji asks a question: Women can chant gayatri, can lead kirtan, can give Bhagavatam class, can worship the deity, so why they are not allowed to perform yajnas?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: Leading kirtan anybody can do, giving class anybody can do, deity worship at home anybody can do, but women don’t worship the deity here or in Vrndavan or in Mumbai. Because that’s temple standard. All other temples are technically a home standard. Yajna is a media. The point is that Agni does not like it.
So since women are very sensitive and understanding about the feeling of others, so if Agni does not like it, or Ugra Nrisimha does not like it, because Ugra Nrisimha is without His wife so how then it is possible for a woman, who is supposed to be His wife assistant, to come forward to serve Him?
But it goes both ways, Ugra Nrisimha also cannot be worshiped by a grihasta man because he is with his wife so how can he approach the Lord Who is without His wife?
Therefore only brahmacaris worship Ugra Nrisimha.
We do have the element that these are people so Agni just does not like to be approached in this way.
Because a woman is going to do yajna, when is she going to do this yajna? Whenever. Right? Service like this is nitya, every day.
At home, OK, there the wife can sets the altar and get someone else to do the puja, the son, the husband, but it does not fly in the temple. You are the servant, you do it.
That’s why women can be involved in home worship but not in temple worship.
As I said, all our temples except for three are set as home temples.
If you know pancaratra, if you don’t know pancaratra then, yes, you can say anything, speculate as you like, do anything.
Because you are connecting these different things that have nothing to do with each other. Gayatri, lead kirtan, give Bhagavatam class, worship the deity so why not yajnas? But they are all different categories, they are not connected.
It is like why only women can have babies, why men can’t have them?
Plus, deity worship means what kind of deity worship?
The ladies like to come in even better if someone else already undressed the deity and wiped Him, and then to put the dress, to put the flowers, to do all these nice things, do the offering, do the arati, anything that’s personal and anything that’s seen. You know what I mean?
Which woman will go for years with the salagram worship with all the technical details in the back where nobody sees and nobody sees the salagram? Name me one; I will be happy with one name. You understand? It is against the nature.
Why is the lady there? Because you can see it, all other ladies will say – “O, they look beautiful today!” – that’s her inspiration. Anybody is telling Jananivas that his worship of the salagram is fabulous? Who would even know? How could you tell? You see the salagram and the face, bas, that’s it. You can’t tell if the worship was done nicely. But you can see the clothes, you can see the garlands, you can see these things. So that means unless you know what is a woman you can’t understand these answers anyway. So that’s the point, God created man and woman, He knows who they are and therefore He is giving them their duties. So you have to know who they are.
So in the yajna, because the fire is the most pure, therefore can only be touched by someone who is pure.
A woman is going to do all these achamans and stuff like that?
Do you know how many levels of purity there are?
What they are teaching there (The Mayapur Academy) is home worship. Even the samskaras they are teaching there is a general thing. But the point is like this: the water that is here, behind you, this is for washing your hands. The acaman cup is used for the deity. And even then, there is one acaman cup that is used for your purification and there is another one for the deity. So already here we described three levels of purity.
Men have trouble with that, let alone ladies. Women will only do it because it is the religion, because purity is a good thing, this, that. But that’s who? Brahman women. Brahman women don’t have problem with this because they know who they are. Any woman that knows the standards of purity knows they are not pure.
It is said that there is one day in the month that they are considered pure.
Then they are called, I think, atrei. Which means killing a woman on that day after taking the bath is equal to killing a brahmana.
On that day, everything is so clear, they can discuss philosophy, they have so much realizations, everything happens on that day, and then next day - bang, back to normal. All the emotions flood in, but that one day…That does not mean that on that day they can do yajnas.
Means that there is only one day when they are like that. And nitya means it is every day. Is that makes sense? So it is a matter of understanding what is a woman, what a woman actually likes? Just like if you look in an architecture book, let’s say about offices. OK? And you look in there at the offices. And some of these modern offices are very slick, they are made of glass and stainless steel, there is one computer on the desk, one lamp, like that, so who can work in such offices, men or women?
Mataji: Men.
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: Right. If there was a woman there then there would have been pictures, flowers, she can be the CEO of a biggest company in the world, you go to her home, she still has her teddy bear in her bed. So that’s the point is that there is an inherent nature in the woman. And therefore God is trying to please that. Why would women want to make yajnas, because that’s just a thing that they can’t have, so the things that you can’t have give you a taste. But why should they look there for this taste? Because the men are not providing the taste where they should get it naturally and that’s why they are looking here.
That’s why they are after anything that men have. The man is supposed to provide, he is not, so therefore they are going to get everything he has.
That’s the point, it is not a matter of whether you like it or not, that’s the way Agni likes things done.
The woman will not spend the time to get the svaras exactly right in the vedic mantras, that’s why they are not trained to chant these mantras.
Because it sounds nice, it is good enough, why be fanatic? But you have to be fanatic in these things. But that’s why only men can do it.
Salagram worship – you have to be fanatic about it.
So if you not going to do all the technical things, why are you going? Therefore it is just not done. Because we will take that the home worship and the salagram worship is the same, but they are not, the salagram is directly Visnu, he is not installed, He is Visnu, but the deity is installed.
Therefore – the yajnas, the salagram and the big temple worship – these are the things they don’t do. And that’s it.
Everything else they can do, everything else they can learn.
There is so much there, if there is 99 percent or 98 percent of what you can do, why going there? Do the 98 percent first and then you can talk about the 2 percent that is left. They are not doing the 98 percent and want that, whatever it is, they want that, you know.
Why don’t ladies start wearing caupins? Why they don’t do that?
Men wear white always, white dhoti, white kurta, day in and day out, the whole life, why don’t the women do that?
The man only have 3 sets of clothes or 5 sets of clothes, why don’t the women do that?
The man does not shave his legs, why don’t the women do that?
He leaves his eyebrows alone, he does not pluck them, so why don’t the women do that?
And is it fair, he does some good activity she gets 50 percent of that, she does some bad activity, he gets 50 percent of that, is that fair, is that equal?
Why the men are not striking about that? The point is that women already have 90 percent of the whole thing, now they say we want from the 10 percent that are left 50 percent and you get 50 percent. We are not talking about from 0 to 100 percent, the women already have the whole package and they want more. Therefore it is cheating.
Mataji asks a Question: Women don’t receive upanayana because they are not qualified?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: No, they receive upanayana in the form of marriage. They do receive but it is in the form of marriage.
Mataji: But sometimes we see women do yajnas…
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: They don’t do yajnas there. It is like this, if I take a pack of noodles, cook it and give it to you, is that cooking?
No. So what are they doing is not yajnas.
Because of your endeavor to make the best arrangements for the fire to be able to accept the wood, the ghi and all the offerings. So these things burn holes on your clothes, ghi gets all over the place, everything turns black…
So when you watch those yajnas that women are doing what it is like? They have this small fire and everything is perfect. This is not yajna. It does not have anything to do with Agni, it is all about them being the center of attention.
Basically that means their husbands don’t know how to take care of them so they have to come in public and try to get some attention.
Because somebody who is actually brahminicaly qualified, why they have to do that?
Mataji: ... (silent)
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: Because it is a media where they cannot function. If they say, men can do it, so we can do it, but then men are wearing white. Why don’t the ladies start wearing white? Simple.
Just think of the money you will save. Think about all that endeavor for everything like that. So why is not that done? No, because we are women and we need all these things…so the point is that they are going to do all those things in the yajna. The man is doing the yajna and that’s it, when the woman is doing it, it is the whole thing about who is looking, what the other ladies will say – who she thinks she is to do this – this is going on…So there is nothing in a yajna for women.
Deity worship – yes, dressing the deity, the interaction, the beautifying, there is something there for them. So they can be involved in the field of pancaratra.
But in the Vedic yajna there is nothing for a woman to be involved in.
The ladies like to dress the deities, the ornaments, that’s what the ladies like. But there are none of those in the yajna. The setting up the yajna – the ladies traditionally do this. They can do all the decorations. But those ladies they don’t want to do anything like that, it may spoil their clothes and this and that…They just want to come in and do the little dinky yajna…I have seen it, their fire is that big.
And they are doing some big yajna, hundreds of people are attending. They don’t know the nature of men and women. These women don’t get the attention they need in their family life and in their social life and they need to go out in public and to get this feeling of being the center of attention, anything that can give them this feeling.
Brahmacaris dress the deities every day. They are not out there asking – what do you think?
But the ladies, if they do something like this they are out there expecting to hear the comments – it was so nice, but if they don’t hear such comments they will not do it again.
So that means there are certain things the men do and women don’t just because of the nature. Like the salagram worship with all the mudras, the ladies don’t want to do all these technical things; they want to draw the nice faces only. It is fun to learn them, ladies know them. But they don’t do it because every day it is the same, it is boring for the ladies, but dressing you can change every day. But now you do this mudra, now chant this mantra, and all this never changes, this part the ladies don’t like.
So one should know what works and what does not work, otherwise one will be dissatisfied. The brahmacaris are on the altar, they do the worship and go, there are no conflicts, no riots, but if there is just one woman involved there is a big problem, I have seen it.
Once a year here in Mayapur they do everything, they polish Pancha Tattva, and it becomes a riot, who is in charge, who says what, who she thinks she is, that is all that is going on. They polish the deities, but it is not nice. Therefore there are certain things that women do and things they don’t.
Mataji: But what if a woman is brahminicaly qualified?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: But brahminicaly qualified means they work in a brahminical environment, it does not mean that they can do the yajnas.
Mataji: …
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: It is just like this, when Prabhupad was here did the ladies make yajnas, or worship the deities?
Did ever ladies do any yajnas? Not one.
It was not even a discussion, it just does not happen. People can do it, men and women are equal, but where are they equal? Do you want to be equal to a man? Or you want to be superior to him or junior to him? Equal, where is the fun in that? It is the difference that makes the whole environment that the women work. People don’t understand that. If you buy something for 10 rupees and sell it for 10 rupees where is the profit? But if I buy it for 10 and sell it for 100, or 1000, or 1 000 000… So the greater the difference, the greater the profit. The greater the difference between men and women – the greater is the profit in their interaction. Why the men instead of hanging the whole day with the brahmacaris don’t spend half of the day just making their hair and making sure they look all right? Because the difference is there is a taste. But if we are going to work on equality here then…You go downstairs here, the brahmacaris eat the same things, day in, day out. It does not change. You see any women down there? No. So? Equal means that. You want to be in the men’s world – then be in the men’s world. Not pick and choose what do you want out of it. You are in it, or don’t bother. If everything is equal why don’t the men ask “How do I look?” They come in their white dhoti and say – “You did not say if you like my dhoti!” “No, I like your dhoti.” “No, but you are just saying that!”
Devotees: Chuckling.
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: You would like that, you would be comfortable with men like that in your house? Right? No. So where is the equality? This whole thing comes from frustrated women where men don’t know how to deal with them. Men don’t know how to be men so then the women have to fill the gap, but still they are trying to fulfill the needs of women. Though they are doing it by picking certain things from the men’s world, but they are not functioning there in that way.
Mataji: Many people marry because they have sexual needs. But after having a child as a result some just want to have sex without having children. Do they have to perform all rituals before sex?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: The point is that sex has strange phenomena that it produces children. Therefore if you have sex it will be in a regulated fashion, in specific time and all this things. Basically there are two things – unbridled desire which will always be a problem, and the other point is, at least in most of the people, you can buy this comment or not, it is up to you, in most cases people don’t understand the actual meaning of intimate interaction between man and woman. Because most of what is intimate is not sex. Men only know sex, and sex is better than nothing for the women. But actually women are not looking for sex, they are looking for that intimacy. So if that is understood then there will be lot of things that they can be close and intimate and there will be no need of sex. But because people are untrained then the bottom line is just sex and then you have this problem.
Mataji: What is the solution?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: The solution is training but you can train only someone who wants to be trained, and unfortunately when people get married they think that they are the world experts in men-women relationships but unfortunately very few are.
Mataji asks a question: Women can chant gayatri, can lead kirtan, can give Bhagavatam class, can worship the deity, so why they are not allowed to perform yajnas?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: Leading kirtan anybody can do, giving class anybody can do, deity worship at home anybody can do, but women don’t worship the deity here or in Vrndavan or in Mumbai. Because that’s temple standard. All other temples are technically a home standard. Yajna is a media. The point is that Agni does not like it.
So since women are very sensitive and understanding about the feeling of others, so if Agni does not like it, or Ugra Nrisimha does not like it, because Ugra Nrisimha is without His wife so how then it is possible for a woman, who is supposed to be His wife assistant, to come forward to serve Him?
But it goes both ways, Ugra Nrisimha also cannot be worshiped by a grihasta man because he is with his wife so how can he approach the Lord Who is without His wife?
Therefore only brahmacaris worship Ugra Nrisimha.
We do have the element that these are people so Agni just does not like to be approached in this way.
Because a woman is going to do yajna, when is she going to do this yajna? Whenever. Right? Service like this is nitya, every day.
At home, OK, there the wife can sets the altar and get someone else to do the puja, the son, the husband, but it does not fly in the temple. You are the servant, you do it.
That’s why women can be involved in home worship but not in temple worship.
As I said, all our temples except for three are set as home temples.
If you know pancaratra, if you don’t know pancaratra then, yes, you can say anything, speculate as you like, do anything.
Because you are connecting these different things that have nothing to do with each other. Gayatri, lead kirtan, give Bhagavatam class, worship the deity so why not yajnas? But they are all different categories, they are not connected.
It is like why only women can have babies, why men can’t have them?
Plus, deity worship means what kind of deity worship?
The ladies like to come in even better if someone else already undressed the deity and wiped Him, and then to put the dress, to put the flowers, to do all these nice things, do the offering, do the arati, anything that’s personal and anything that’s seen. You know what I mean?
Which woman will go for years with the salagram worship with all the technical details in the back where nobody sees and nobody sees the salagram? Name me one; I will be happy with one name. You understand? It is against the nature.
Why is the lady there? Because you can see it, all other ladies will say – “O, they look beautiful today!” – that’s her inspiration. Anybody is telling Jananivas that his worship of the salagram is fabulous? Who would even know? How could you tell? You see the salagram and the face, bas, that’s it. You can’t tell if the worship was done nicely. But you can see the clothes, you can see the garlands, you can see these things. So that means unless you know what is a woman you can’t understand these answers anyway. So that’s the point, God created man and woman, He knows who they are and therefore He is giving them their duties. So you have to know who they are.
So in the yajna, because the fire is the most pure, therefore can only be touched by someone who is pure.
A woman is going to do all these achamans and stuff like that?
Do you know how many levels of purity there are?
What they are teaching there (The Mayapur Academy) is home worship. Even the samskaras they are teaching there is a general thing. But the point is like this: the water that is here, behind you, this is for washing your hands. The acaman cup is used for the deity. And even then, there is one acaman cup that is used for your purification and there is another one for the deity. So already here we described three levels of purity.
Men have trouble with that, let alone ladies. Women will only do it because it is the religion, because purity is a good thing, this, that. But that’s who? Brahman women. Brahman women don’t have problem with this because they know who they are. Any woman that knows the standards of purity knows they are not pure.
It is said that there is one day in the month that they are considered pure.
Then they are called, I think, atrei. Which means killing a woman on that day after taking the bath is equal to killing a brahmana.
On that day, everything is so clear, they can discuss philosophy, they have so much realizations, everything happens on that day, and then next day - bang, back to normal. All the emotions flood in, but that one day…That does not mean that on that day they can do yajnas.
Means that there is only one day when they are like that. And nitya means it is every day. Is that makes sense? So it is a matter of understanding what is a woman, what a woman actually likes? Just like if you look in an architecture book, let’s say about offices. OK? And you look in there at the offices. And some of these modern offices are very slick, they are made of glass and stainless steel, there is one computer on the desk, one lamp, like that, so who can work in such offices, men or women?
Mataji: Men.
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: Right. If there was a woman there then there would have been pictures, flowers, she can be the CEO of a biggest company in the world, you go to her home, she still has her teddy bear in her bed. So that’s the point is that there is an inherent nature in the woman. And therefore God is trying to please that. Why would women want to make yajnas, because that’s just a thing that they can’t have, so the things that you can’t have give you a taste. But why should they look there for this taste? Because the men are not providing the taste where they should get it naturally and that’s why they are looking here.
That’s why they are after anything that men have. The man is supposed to provide, he is not, so therefore they are going to get everything he has.
That’s the point, it is not a matter of whether you like it or not, that’s the way Agni likes things done.
The woman will not spend the time to get the svaras exactly right in the vedic mantras, that’s why they are not trained to chant these mantras.
Because it sounds nice, it is good enough, why be fanatic? But you have to be fanatic in these things. But that’s why only men can do it.
Salagram worship – you have to be fanatic about it.
So if you not going to do all the technical things, why are you going? Therefore it is just not done. Because we will take that the home worship and the salagram worship is the same, but they are not, the salagram is directly Visnu, he is not installed, He is Visnu, but the deity is installed.
Therefore – the yajnas, the salagram and the big temple worship – these are the things they don’t do. And that’s it.
Everything else they can do, everything else they can learn.
There is so much there, if there is 99 percent or 98 percent of what you can do, why going there? Do the 98 percent first and then you can talk about the 2 percent that is left. They are not doing the 98 percent and want that, whatever it is, they want that, you know.
Why don’t ladies start wearing caupins? Why they don’t do that?
Men wear white always, white dhoti, white kurta, day in and day out, the whole life, why don’t the women do that?
The man only have 3 sets of clothes or 5 sets of clothes, why don’t the women do that?
The man does not shave his legs, why don’t the women do that?
He leaves his eyebrows alone, he does not pluck them, so why don’t the women do that?
And is it fair, he does some good activity she gets 50 percent of that, she does some bad activity, he gets 50 percent of that, is that fair, is that equal?
Why the men are not striking about that? The point is that women already have 90 percent of the whole thing, now they say we want from the 10 percent that are left 50 percent and you get 50 percent. We are not talking about from 0 to 100 percent, the women already have the whole package and they want more. Therefore it is cheating.
Mataji asks a Question: Women don’t receive upanayana because they are not qualified?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: No, they receive upanayana in the form of marriage. They do receive but it is in the form of marriage.
Mataji: But sometimes we see women do yajnas…
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: They don’t do yajnas there. It is like this, if I take a pack of noodles, cook it and give it to you, is that cooking?
No. So what are they doing is not yajnas.
Because of your endeavor to make the best arrangements for the fire to be able to accept the wood, the ghi and all the offerings. So these things burn holes on your clothes, ghi gets all over the place, everything turns black…
So when you watch those yajnas that women are doing what it is like? They have this small fire and everything is perfect. This is not yajna. It does not have anything to do with Agni, it is all about them being the center of attention.
Basically that means their husbands don’t know how to take care of them so they have to come in public and try to get some attention.
Because somebody who is actually brahminicaly qualified, why they have to do that?
Mataji: ... (silent)
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: Because it is a media where they cannot function. If they say, men can do it, so we can do it, but then men are wearing white. Why don’t the ladies start wearing white? Simple.
Just think of the money you will save. Think about all that endeavor for everything like that. So why is not that done? No, because we are women and we need all these things…so the point is that they are going to do all those things in the yajna. The man is doing the yajna and that’s it, when the woman is doing it, it is the whole thing about who is looking, what the other ladies will say – who she thinks she is to do this – this is going on…So there is nothing in a yajna for women.
Deity worship – yes, dressing the deity, the interaction, the beautifying, there is something there for them. So they can be involved in the field of pancaratra.
But in the Vedic yajna there is nothing for a woman to be involved in.
The ladies like to dress the deities, the ornaments, that’s what the ladies like. But there are none of those in the yajna. The setting up the yajna – the ladies traditionally do this. They can do all the decorations. But those ladies they don’t want to do anything like that, it may spoil their clothes and this and that…They just want to come in and do the little dinky yajna…I have seen it, their fire is that big.
And they are doing some big yajna, hundreds of people are attending. They don’t know the nature of men and women. These women don’t get the attention they need in their family life and in their social life and they need to go out in public and to get this feeling of being the center of attention, anything that can give them this feeling.
Brahmacaris dress the deities every day. They are not out there asking – what do you think?
But the ladies, if they do something like this they are out there expecting to hear the comments – it was so nice, but if they don’t hear such comments they will not do it again.
So that means there are certain things the men do and women don’t just because of the nature. Like the salagram worship with all the mudras, the ladies don’t want to do all these technical things; they want to draw the nice faces only. It is fun to learn them, ladies know them. But they don’t do it because every day it is the same, it is boring for the ladies, but dressing you can change every day. But now you do this mudra, now chant this mantra, and all this never changes, this part the ladies don’t like.
So one should know what works and what does not work, otherwise one will be dissatisfied. The brahmacaris are on the altar, they do the worship and go, there are no conflicts, no riots, but if there is just one woman involved there is a big problem, I have seen it.
Once a year here in Mayapur they do everything, they polish Pancha Tattva, and it becomes a riot, who is in charge, who says what, who she thinks she is, that is all that is going on. They polish the deities, but it is not nice. Therefore there are certain things that women do and things they don’t.
Mataji: But what if a woman is brahminicaly qualified?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: But brahminicaly qualified means they work in a brahminical environment, it does not mean that they can do the yajnas.
Mataji: …
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: It is just like this, when Prabhupad was here did the ladies make yajnas, or worship the deities?
Did ever ladies do any yajnas? Not one.
It was not even a discussion, it just does not happen. People can do it, men and women are equal, but where are they equal? Do you want to be equal to a man? Or you want to be superior to him or junior to him? Equal, where is the fun in that? It is the difference that makes the whole environment that the women work. People don’t understand that. If you buy something for 10 rupees and sell it for 10 rupees where is the profit? But if I buy it for 10 and sell it for 100, or 1000, or 1 000 000… So the greater the difference, the greater the profit. The greater the difference between men and women – the greater is the profit in their interaction. Why the men instead of hanging the whole day with the brahmacaris don’t spend half of the day just making their hair and making sure they look all right? Because the difference is there is a taste. But if we are going to work on equality here then…You go downstairs here, the brahmacaris eat the same things, day in, day out. It does not change. You see any women down there? No. So? Equal means that. You want to be in the men’s world – then be in the men’s world. Not pick and choose what do you want out of it. You are in it, or don’t bother. If everything is equal why don’t the men ask “How do I look?” They come in their white dhoti and say – “You did not say if you like my dhoti!” “No, I like your dhoti.” “No, but you are just saying that!”
Devotees: Chuckling.
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: You would like that, you would be comfortable with men like that in your house? Right? No. So where is the equality? This whole thing comes from frustrated women where men don’t know how to deal with them. Men don’t know how to be men so then the women have to fill the gap, but still they are trying to fulfill the needs of women. Though they are doing it by picking certain things from the men’s world, but they are not functioning there in that way.
Mataji: Many people marry because they have sexual needs. But after having a child as a result some just want to have sex without having children. Do they have to perform all rituals before sex?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: The point is that sex has strange phenomena that it produces children. Therefore if you have sex it will be in a regulated fashion, in specific time and all this things. Basically there are two things – unbridled desire which will always be a problem, and the other point is, at least in most of the people, you can buy this comment or not, it is up to you, in most cases people don’t understand the actual meaning of intimate interaction between man and woman. Because most of what is intimate is not sex. Men only know sex, and sex is better than nothing for the women. But actually women are not looking for sex, they are looking for that intimacy. So if that is understood then there will be lot of things that they can be close and intimate and there will be no need of sex. But because people are untrained then the bottom line is just sex and then you have this problem.
Mataji: What is the solution?
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami: The solution is training but you can train only someone who wants to be trained, and unfortunately when people get married they think that they are the world experts in men-women relationships but unfortunately very few are.
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