Discussion On The Female Diksha Guru Issue: Amongst Godbrothers-3

Dear Godbrother Prabhu,

Namonamaha.  Jaya Srila Prabhupada!

Received your message: 

You said Engaged Female disciples in going out and preaching> Wanted that his female disciples follow traditional women roles of not going out I have never heard or read that Prabhupada specifically said he didn’t want his women going out. Do you have any direct references from Srila Prabhupada to substantiate this? I know that you have concluded that Prabhupada’s wanting to establish varnasrarma means all female preachers should retire. But I have never heard Prabhupada say or write directly that this is what we would do to establish varnasrama . Any direct references from Srila Prabhupada I have evidence that he encouraged them to preach (not talking about becoming gurus here) but no evidence this was time-based. 

FYI, I and others find your reference to Suniti not relevant to Kali yuga, for in the age they lived, non of us, male or female, would be qualified to give diksa? But we would not argue that mleccha men cannot give diksa today because they couldn’t give diksa in another age. After all, Manu says varna is by birth. That was true in other ages but not today. Of course, a few vaisnava women have given diksa and Prabhupada knew that, so he couldn’t mean that qualified women in Mahaprabhu’s movement cannot give, and I assume you agree that a few liberated woman were qualified to give.  

Your servant,

A Godbrother

Prabhu, I forwarded your message to Damodar Das Prabhu, an Indian bodied brahmachari who has done much research on the subject of female diksha gurus.  His response appears below this.  

Just my own response to this statement of your’s: FYI, I and others find your reference to Suniti not relevant to Kali yuga, for in the age they lived, non of us, male or female, would be qualified to give diksa?

Prabhu, this is just your speculation, at attempt at establishing a “fallacy of a principle”.

You see, go over the purport carefully.  Prabhupada did NOT – NOT – mention this is for an earlier age.  He pointed wrote: “according to scriptual injunctions”.   He was writing for the readers, his students, and the

general mass of people.   If he wanted, he would have commented as such – that his instruction on the various types of gurus did not apply anymore!

Anyway, Damodar Prabhu has responded to this with many more details.

Thanks in advance for your kind consideration of what he wrote.

Hope this meets you well.

—————-

Damodar Das:

Respected Prabhu,

Please accept my humble obeisances,

Sri Sri Guru Gaurangau Jayatah.

 Any direct references from Srila Prabhupada

I have supplied the evidence in the Footnote itself. I would request you to read the full reply.

If you have received it on PAMHO then you may have missed reading evidences due to PAMHO’s not supporting rich-text-format. Footnotes appear at end and that too difficult to make out.

So you can go to ( Please click here )

Regarding few vaisnava women giving diksa you can please refer to the Harmonist on a similar issue, visit:

http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/03-16/editorials13784.htm

Regarding mleccha men giving diksa in ISKCON, I would humbly like to bring your attention that one doesn’t become mleccha just by being born in mleccha family just as one doesn’t become brahmana just by being born in brahmana family. Thus, those devotees who have brahminical qualities but have been born in mleccha families, can become guru according to Narada Pancaratra also. Those who are born as women, may have very sattvic qualities, just at there were women with very sattvic qualities in other yugas also; but they were brahmanis and they never became diksa-gurus but guru-patnis (wives of their husbands). Thus women although sattvic are prohibited from becoming diksa-guru because their prescribed duty is something else.

Regarding Suniti purport, you say that it was meant only for satya and other yugas but not for kali-yuga. This has been discussed to and fro so many times and it seems we will have to agree to disagree and let the viewers or readers decide for themselves. Still once again I will just put my arguments in summary to reply you:

(Note: One of heavy logical to and fro on this was done with almost all ISKCON leaders in the email loop. Find it here: https://tinyurl.com/Suniti-HdG-DD)

*  Srila Prabhupada doesn’t say that this was not meant for Kaliyuga

*  Srimad Bhagavatam is meant specifically for Kaliyuga (SB 1.3.43,kalau nasta drsamesa…)

*  The verse under discussion SB 4.12.32, doesn’t speak anything about diksa guru, their qualification, etc. If SP didn’t mean it to be applied for Kaliyuga, why would he point it out in the purport? There was no need to describe it.

*  There are many instances in which agnihotra yajnas and other processes like dhyana comes in Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita. Srila Prabhupada does mention that for Kaliyuga this is replaced by sankirtana yajna. Thus, SP clarifies when some instruction of sastra is to be replaced by some other instruction for kaliyuga. In case of Suniti purport he did not only not describe this but gave some instruction which was not directly in the verse. This shows that he meant it for ISKCON

*  If you say that in satya etc yugas women were not getting diksa but in kaliyuga women can get diksa, so there is difference and so they can give diksa also. Answer to that:

*  In satya etc yugas even ksatriyas and vaisyas were getting diksa but they were not allowed to give diksa. So just getting diksa doesn’t give one permission to give diksa also.

*  Also, the procedure by which women became eligible to get diksa is pancaratrika process governed by pancaratras like Narada Pancaratra. Although pancaratras allow women to get initiated (and thus SBSST and SP did give them initiation), the same pancaratras forbid women from becoming diksa-guru.

*  If you say that SP did not follow Narada-pancaratras for ISKCON’s initiation process then you will have to prove which sastras did he follow to establish ISKCON’s initiation process?

*  If you say that SP made his own procedure then you will have to prove how your argument is not different from the argument of Rtviks who establish their philosophy saying that SP was powerful to establish a new procedure of initiation which doesn’t involve guru.

*  FYI: Initiation that Dhruva Maharaja received was pancaratrika and not Vedic, because his age for Vedic initiation was not yet reached.

So Narada Muni initiated him in pancaratrika process. Commentaries of acharyas and Hari Bhakti Vilasa confirms this. (Please click here)