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What Men Always Wanted to Know About Women

By Devaki Devi Dasi

During January the Institute for Spiritual Culture in Mayapur launched for the very first time the course “Men in Spiritual Culture – what Men Always Wanted to Know about Women”. A wonderful group of around 40 intelligent men attended all five sessions of three hours each with great eagerness and interest. The audience was very mixed: a couple of Prabhupada disciples were there, a few school teachers from the Mayapur Community, Bhakti Sastri teachers, many young fellows from all corners of the world, some boys who grew up in our ISKCON movement and are now in their twenties, some senior devotees from the Mayapur Community. Really, very inspiring indeed…! One might ask: “How is it, that a woman is delivering a seminar for men?” Actually, this course is all about women – what men always wanted to know about women, and never even thought of asking….! And who else should give such a seminar but a mother…! Our audience was greatly interested in the presented topics – listening with wrapped attention, asking good questions and engaging in lively discussions. The participants also put on humorous yet deep and meaningful role plays at the beginning of each session, summarizing the topics of the previous day’s discussions – a great tool to deepen our learning experience. Krsna is giving us a perfect and sublime system in the form of spiritual culture, which is meant to give us stability and harmony in this material world, so we can whole-heartedly develop our forgotten relationship with Him. However, if we think our system is better than Krsna’s system, then we will get chaos, instability, neglect and suffering. And this is the problem in these modern days of Kali Yuga: Krsna’s system is lost and forgotten. Prabhupada taught us that for every material problem there is a spiritual solution – even for horrible things such as child abuse, violence against women, etc. These things come as global reactions for not accepting Krsna’s system. If we would not be able to offer solutions to these problems – what would be the value of Krsna consciousness?! In this course “Men in Spiritual Culture” we gain deep insights into Krsna’s system. Unless our men deeply understand the most important position and role which women are meant to play within human society, they will not deeply understand and embrace their role as protectors and providers. The feminine energy is very powerful. We women have the power to inspire the very best within a man (SB. 1.9.27.,4.21.4., 4.26.15.) or to disempower him. Once men deeply realize this, it becomes of the greatest importance for them to keep their auspicious source of energy and inspiration healthy, balanced and strong. Therefore Manu Samhita (3.56) instructs us: “Where women are honoured, there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honoured, no sacred rite yields rewards.” We concluded this course with a pizza feast – indeed a good reason to celebrate its success….! Some participants were sharing that it was the most transformational week in their entire Krsna conciousness.