On Geographical considerations dictating theological conclusions

This short essay is in response to a recent decision by the ISKCON International Governing Body (GBC) in the matter of supporting, allowing, instituting, establishing, and blessing female diksha gurus in the ISKCON Hare Krishna Movement.

In the GBC resolution authorizing female diksha gurus, it is written: “The GBC Body authorizes local area committees to put forward for approval as initiating guru any devotee in their area, male or female, who is qualified according to existing GBC Law.”

It appears from this that female diksha gurus will be allowed and downright encouraged in Western liberal, modern, so-called “advanced”, “developed” countries like the USA, Canada, and Western Europe. This is due to largely to the correct perception of the liberal majority of GBC members that female diksha gurus will be discouraged or outright banned in Eastern Asian conservative countries like India.

It is my humble opinion that this part of the resolution to this theological question is the height of all folly!

Why create a schism in the worldwide ISKCON Hare Krishna movement like this ????

Why have one standard in one part of the world , and then , because of cultural norms or social pressures, have another standard in another part of the world ???? It just doesn’t make sense: talk about planting the seed for a future worldwide cleaving, a worldwide schism, that may lead to the break-up of our movement !!!!

Well, if this decision stands of allowing female diksha gurus based on geographical location, the seed for separation and division of the movement has already been planted, and it seems to me that this seed has been planted by our very own GBC who are supposed to protect the future viability of our movement as a worldwide united concern.

We all know that His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada during his manifest presence established certain unquestionable rules and norms of behavior for anyone who wanted to be a recognized ISKCON initiated devotee. Basically these norms are the four regulative principles  (no eating meat, fish, or eggs, no illicit sex, no intoxication, and no gambling ) and the chanting of sixteen rounds of the Hare Krishna mantra everyday on your beads.

These are worldwide norms, worldwide rules, unchangeable despite difference in local culture or country.

To be Krishna Conscious , I think all ISKCON devotees would agree, you have to, at the very least follow these rules, despite the prevailing ethos of your culture or country of birth.

If you come from a country or culture where these rules are considered not viable or doable, due to your luck as having been born there, you still have to follow these rules despite your circumstances. One cannot make the excuse of the circumstances of his birth to reject following these basic rules and regulations of the bhakti marg.

For example, I have found that among some French devotees, who I had the opportunity to associate with and spend time with in a relaxed mood, that they truly believe that it is not a very great sin or not a great departure from the basic standard rules and regulations of bhakti yoga if a person imbibes a glass of wine with their meals every now and then!

Please, don’t misunderstand me: these devotees know that it is just plain wrong, that it is a sin, that it is a breaking of the regulative principles of bhakti to drink wine. But despite their awareness of drinking wine being wrong, they still honestly do not consider it so important, or a grave sin, if someone does so! It is an easily forgivable lapse in their opinion. This is because of the prevailing culture in the geographical location of their births. They are raised in a culture where a meal is not considered a meal unless it is consumed along with a glass of wine, where moderate drinking is widespread, and where even from early childhood mostly everyone in France are served a glass of wine with thier meals!

So, should we allow the French devotees to decide, on a world wide basis, the theological question of what degree of sinfulness a glass of wine with a meal is or is not ?? Because if you ask them, you would get one answer to that question, but if you asked the same question of someone from a culture where wine is completely not allowed, you will get a completely different answer!

It seems to me that to allow westerners to answer the theological question on whether women diksha gurus ought to be encouraged, allowed, and promoted, and attributed to the teachings of vedic shastras and our acharyas, is kind of like asking French people to decide on what degree of sinfulness is the drinking of a glass of wine!

Obviously to those from countries where strict traditional vedic cultures were followed for generations, such behavior is a grave sin, but to the French it will always be a minor, venial sin, that can easily be forgiven.

Westerners I feel, are more than somewhat polluted by their births in Western liberal societies and are therefore basically unfit to really look at this question of instituting female diksha gurus with dispassion.

Consequently, I feel they should recluse themselves from the discussion.

Perhaps it is time for the western GBC members to cede the answer to the question of the need for female diksha gurus in our ISKCON institution to the Indian devotees, and just plain admit they are hemmed in by cultural limitations based on birth. After all, our movement originates in India, in the East, and perhaps an Asian eastern perspective is more in line with the spirit of the vedic shastras when it comes to this question.

My feeling is that it is always a mistake to concede the understandings of the science of Krishna bhakti that is based on the vedic shastras to political movements from different countries and cultures.

In the vedic shastras , the role of women in human society is pretty plainly and simply laid out.
Women in general are pious, helpful, Krishna conscious faithful wives , and devoted mothers transmitting Krishna bhakti to their offspring, and the glue that keeps a family together. This clearly seems to be the thrust of their primary essential duties.

Basically this unending , needless push for women diksha gurus is, when all is said and done, a Western political movement reaching into the realm of the vedic shastras, and is supplying a non-vedic answer to this topic. The rules for following the bhakti marg are the same everywhere, and if certain rules or understandings do not fit your country or culture, well change yourself and then try to change your culture. The role of women as promoted in the vedic shastras will never coalesce with the western feminist point of view.

Beyond this, for a worldwide religious institution like ISKCON, the rules of bhakti as set down in vedic shastras and by our acharyas such as Srila Prabhupada, and Srila Rupa Goswami, must not change from country to country or from culture to culture. The teachings of the scriptures just do not change from country to country or from culture to culture.

Basic morality as well, must not change from country to country or from culture to culture.

My humble submission to the ISKCON GBC is to please do not cleave our movement like this. Please maintain one standard, one religion, one understanding for the entire world. What is right and good in one part of the world is right and good in all parts of the world. What is ordained in the vedic shastras as good is good for all parts of the world.

So, it ought to be that women diksha gurus are accepted world wide, or not at all.

And it seems if you cannot get half of the world , the Eastern half of the world, to say yes to the theological question of allowing women diksha gurus, then stop the politics, and admit defeat!

As a matter of fact, if the Eastern countries, the Asian countries are hesitating to embrace the idea of instituting female diksha gurus, then if I was a Western GBC member, I would personally be asking myself what kind of cultural baggage I am bringing to the question that may be clouding my vision?

Half of the ISKCON world (some would say by numbers more than half) cannot be wrong.

Or are we going to give in to the thinking of those such as Rudyard Kipling and go the way of, “East is East , and West is West , and never the twain shall meet”?

If ISKCON adopts female diksha gurus, and by doing so, de facto have one rule for the West and different rules for the East, then I say that Srila Prabhupada would not be pleased with this development. Remember my Western friends who are reading this, Srila Prabhupada used to employ the analogy that the West is like the blind man who cannot see, and the East is like the lame man that cannot walk. When you combine the lame man with the blind man they can then go forward and make progress.

If the West is like the blind man and the East (which can see) is reluctant to embrace women diksha gurus, maybe we should listen to the wisdom from our Eastern brothers?

But definitely beyond this, even if in our headstrong blindness we disagree with our eastern brothers, we should not start down the road of making two ISKCONs — an Eastern one with one set of rules and regulations, and then a Western one with a different set of rules and regulations.

This push to go in like a needle and then out like a plow by instituting women diksha gurus, first only in the West, but not now in the East, (but maybe later if it’s supporters can get away with it) — is pure politics and nothing else. It is the first step down the road of splitting ISKCON in half.

In the circumstances, we will all be diminished, both those of us from the East and those of us from the West, if the authorization of female diksha gurus by the ISKCON international GBC is not reversed, posthaste!

Hare Krishna,

Gita Nagari Dasa