HARE KRISHNA.... JAI JAGANATH....
I strongly believe that in order to be a good devotee of krishna, we have to be good as a person as well. Bhakti yoga is not only about finishing our rounds, reading books, preaching and learning philosophies.....there is serious character building as well... as we progress in our spiritual life, we have to become better as a human..... we should be more polite, humble, truthful, sincere..well, these are actually the signs that show that we have progressed in our spiritual life
Now, the question is....how can there be devotees, chanting 16 rounds, doing tri - sandhya gayatri, reading books and preaching so well yet they are not able to display good attitude? I know this prabhu whose wife is also a devotee. He looks down on women....in general...he speaks harsh and vulgar words whenever he gets angry..... he gets angry for every single thing...doesn't have the patient to hear what others are trying to say..... very rude.....talks in a very harsh tone...
I am not blaming him but that is how he is and his wife is going through a hard time..... not to mention, beating his wife is something very common... i would like to know.... especially i would like to hear from the indians...is beating one's wife in the name of correcting her allowed in indian culture?
In mahabharat, shikandi was shooting rains of arrows on Bhishmadev..Bhishmadev knows for sure that shikandi is determined to kill him...He did not even counter attack him just because he knew that Shikandi was a woman in his previous birth.....now, that is a real man....how gentle he was..what an admirable character.... no wonder Krishna personally offered his respect when he was lying on the bed of arrows...
Why are some devotees,sorry to say especially indian men, why are they so harsh in nature despite their practice in bhakti yoga..
what can be done to change people like this?
kindly help....
Replies
i may chant my rounds and daily read books of Srila Prabhupada with attention, but if at the same time i do not do my homeworks at the university properly i will fail the exam.
So is family life.
It is an institution, if i do not perform my duties well i will fail.
And if our mind is not peaceful we won't be able to chant at all. So to perform our duties according to our varna and ashrama will bring some peace of mind so we can chant attentively.
So here we see that husband is not satisfied with wife. He has hatred towards her so of what he will think while chanting? Of course of beating a wife so where is devotion here? where is chanting here? It is useless murmerance of Names.
Krishna is not there. He will come when one calls with attention and love. So by inattentive chanting he is watering only grasses around the bhakti tree which will cover the Sun to a real bhakti tree and won't grow.
So it is essential to be satisfied in life especially it says that one should be satisfied with three things in life:
1. money he earns
2. wife or husband
3. food which he or she eats daily
and things one should not be satisfied in life:
1. with chanting
2. with serving to others
3. with preaching
Your servant,
hare krishna..very well said mataji..being chaste doesn't mean staying as a desireless entity. But he is a man who does not respect women in general..... i have heard him saying that according to the sastras, women are rubbish...well, Jaganath knows which sastra he is referring to...... i have never come across anything as such... whenever he is tight financially, he throws the anger to her....she works and she gives all her income to him..yet, no satisfaction....
he is just too fussy...if she comes home from work, and rest for a while, that's wrong. if she plays with her child then comes the question "why aren't you chanting?'' if she misplace any things mistakenly, then he says she is useless and he scolds not only her but her entire family.... If she asks for clarification, what else? he beats her...
if she tries to have a heart to heart session with her, he will say whatever he says is right and women cannot talk so much...what to be done?
i pity her because she married him just because he is a devotee.. i tell her this one thing.....you don't have to surrender your life to your husband..he does not deserve it.....this kind of human who is full of ego and impudence can never lead you in your spiritual life...not to mention taking you back home back to Godhead... in a nutshell, he is almost useless....
if he thinks that living with a woman is something so disguisting, the he can leave.... why would he torture himself going through such a hardship? krishna will teach him the right lesson at the right time....there will be a day where he have to come back to you....dont think about him and ruin your spiritual life.....
is it wrong to advise her such? or is that she must continue living in hellish condition with him....otherwise she will be called an unchaste woman. unfortunately nobody calls a man unchaste no matter how great a rascal he is...SAD....
In my opinion, it's best to stay away from the affairs of others. There is always a reason for our past, present, and future situations, and without knowing the reasons behind it, how can you make a fair judgment.
I agree that the treatment is incorrect, but if you want to give advice, go to the husband. Ask him which sastra states that Lord Rama - maryadha purushottam - ill treated Sita Devi. Ask him where in the Srimad Bhagavatam or the Bhagavad Gita is beating the wife encouraged, and which incarnation of the Lord has committed this act! In all the Lord's pastimes, there is nothing but utmost respect for the womankind. But as Maral Mataji said -- Krsna is not there, thus preaching may not help either.
But again this means interfering in their personal home affairs ... so it depends on whether you want to do it or not.
hare krishna.... that is what exactly it is..if someone is just posing himself as a devotee of the lord, what is the point of talking to such a person? its not interfering in their home affairs.... if everyone simply say that its your own karma so you suffer..then where is the care for the devotees...if we are in the situation, wouldn't we want anyone to be with us? she is really in a trauma with a one year old baby with her...living in a community that says that woman is always wrong...what will she do? i thought asking devotees opinions can help.. this is the most horrible situation for a woman.....
she got married to a devotee thinking he will guide her spiritually..he himself turning into the biggest threat for her..isn't it traumatic?
i know him too well...that is why..im not making a blind judgement.
and i know for sure that she is not the only one going through this....
i cant be talking to her about karma and jnana now...what she needs is hope and care...
the least that we could do...
haribol
I fully support the opinions the others are advocating (helping your devotee friend and telling her to leave, etc.) ... but I have a few questions:
1) Is the wife capable or leaving? I mean to say - can she take a stance for herself. Like Maral Mataji said - the husband will come and beg and this and that, but if she accepts the very first time, she's going to get worse treatment.
2) She has a baby to take care of too. From what I have read, it seems that she also works, so I don't think this raises any issues. As long as someone is there looking after the baby.
3) I don't know how much India has changed in terms of it's traditional and cultural values (especially in the home village of your friend), but I have read (for a college class), that Indian families look down upon the daughter returning home from the in-laws. If her parents are fine with this, it adds more power.
4) This last one is just for my own curiosity, and hopefully I haven't taken it too far, but could you think of any reasons that have stopped her from making the decision to leave?
Think about it this way - if the husband gets wind that the wife was going to "teach him a lesson" by leaving, and in the end, she didn't - the mistreatment will double, triple... So while I agree that the treatment is horrible, and I fully support the idea of her moving out ASAP, is she in that position to do so in the first place?
If she is, then by all means tell her to get out before the husband knows her intentions. But if she isn't, that could be a problem. The main thing is - we don't want her to change her mind halfway or even sympathize for the husband.
And this is sort of what I was getting at when I said "interfering" in the last message. It's ok to advise her, but she has to do it on her own for the full effect...
But since I'm unaware of the full story, this is just an opinion, please take it with a grain of salt.
Hope things work out for your friend (off topic but you should hook her up to IDT too, devotee association is key, and browsing the site has always made me feel better and 'stronger' .. it directly connects us to Krsna's family :D)
Your Servant,
my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
One thing i forgot to add to the above, yesterday's reply after when husband to his senses and begs for forgiveness wife puts conditions like 'from now on you should not beat me...'
This principle is not new and not anti Vedic. But it is method from Srimad Bhagavatam only and from other Puranas like Ramayana etc.
Such like conditions put Ganga Devi when she married to king Shantanu. She told that i will stay with you until you do not ask me what i am doing and why?
...
another thing is Urvashi put condition to another king 'if i marry i should not see your body naked usual times...also i will give birth to a child every year....'
So king Shantanu asked what was Ganga Devi doing and immediately she left. So she was strong, she was not some slave. She had her personality...
Urvashi also left seeing her husband naked...and left.
........................
concerning giving and taking some advices Radhe Prabhu:
everyone one of us need some guidance in life, i, You, other Devotees ...all are getting advices and giving advices and in this way helping each other to solve some problems, isn't it?!
So if person is suffering then we have to help Mataji. After taking so many replies, surely as You told she has to make decisions herself.
What You say mainly also same with leaving him alone for some time Mataji, isn't it?
Yes, that is good way. But she is doing it not for finding another man, no. Noway!
Let she agree with her karma, plus she has a child from him. So he is his child also.
But she has to try to change him by correct actions.
Every one and anyone can be changed. Just needed thing is proper education - lesson.
Your servant,
Hare Krishna
May be the devotee husband is going through some kind of dual personalities existing in him ( some kind of abnormal mental state). Whose knows?
Probably his own male friends should talk to him without indicating as if they know their family affairs.
From dhameshvari mataji's message it seems on one hand he asks his wife to chant on the other hand beats her.
Its difficult for me to digest the fact that someone chanting 16 rounds,reading scriptures etc can behave in such a way.
BG 9.30:" Even if one commits the most abominable action, if he is engaged in devotional service he is to be considered saintly because he is properly situated in his determination."
What if wife leaving the husband deteriorates the situation ?. The first and foremost help would be to let his devotee friends talk to him.
Jai shree Krishna
I also thought about that verse Mataji, but a paragraph in Prabhupada's purport had me rethink things:
From the above purport, one might assume that this accidental fall down is caused by societal pressures, but I usually see the opposite in devotees, where they don't care about societal pressures and just wish to engage in KC.
I think it would also be useful to know how long this has been going on, to get a good idea of maybe when this first started (for example if it started soon after marriage then it might be societal pressures; if it started randomly then it could be the brain washing from another person?). It would also help to know how long the husband has been a devotee too.
Hare Krishna Prabhuji
Absolutely correct!. On the name of Krishna or BG verses , one should not intentionally commit such crimes and declare himself/herself a devotee.
What I was trying to say is we cannot rule out the fact of someone being in depression or mental abnormalities. It is so common these days and it might be curable.
Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna dear Devotees, please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Mostly family life deals with psychology rather than spiritual practice. Of course spiritual practice is the only solution for all problems but still we have to have material knowledge also of how to deal in life.
So in earlier times how to live in family life was studied as a school subject boys in Gurukul girls at home. But these days there are no such courses.
Anyways, psychology says that in this situation where husband lost respect to wife and starts to treat her badly wife should take kids and leave her home to her own parents' house.
And do not reply anything. But she should never think of other man. Just to leave him until he comes to his senses. Until he become intelligent which means he will start to respect wife as a human being.
So if she does that in the beginning he will become aggressive and try to beat her or other things because of that she has to be under protection of her father or senior brothers.
So because now he is not eating proper food, home is getting dirty, life is difficult with no wife he starts to suffer so he starts to order to come home.
But no, wife should keep away.
It is not time yet.
After some time husband starts to beg please come. No!
After some time he starts to cry even, No!
After some time he understands his mistake and begs with tears wife to come home.
That is the time.
So MAIN THING IS STAY FAR FOR SOME TIME AND LET HIM UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF WIFE. That means he came to his senses, intelligence started to work and he started to respect wife, oh how much she was doing, such a rascal i was...
She was cooking, washing, cleaning...i was not seeing all...so he will see it when she is not there.
But such thing can be done only by that woman who is confident and who really loves her husband but not attached to him, to his money...but who really loves him.
Love means we want our beloved to become a sincere person in life but not degrade in life. So letting him to offend us she is letting him to degrade himself.
So she has to give nice lesson.
That is love.
And no need to care of gossips. We do what pleases God and Guru other things will be taken care.
Gossip, ...all these will be there but one should know that it is true action and be fixed in that.
Your servant,
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