When spiritual culture encourages men to become brahmacharis how does it spiritualize the male-female relationship?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So the spiritual culture does not allow us to say form relationship with girls. And so then how can we form a relationship with God in the center? Is that your question? Okay. By spiritual culture not allowing you to form relationships, you mean basically to say that the culture does not encourage courting and dating and culture encourages more of arranged marriage.
Is that what you mean? Sorry? What? I mean Brahmachari or something. Oh, okay. So you are saying that the spiritual culture encourages people to become Brahmacharis.
Okay. That’s a very different question. See, there are different people with different natures.
Just as the shoe that fits one leg bites another leg because different legs are of different sizes. Similarly, different people are of different natures. And some people are more introspective, more solitary and they are meant more for the spiritual orientation.
And many people who become monks, who become renunciates, they themselves will be happier in a single life. Not only would they be miserable if they got married, they would make their married partner also miserable. Because they are of a different nature.
And this is just the way some people are. But that does not in any way mean that everyone has to be like that. In a spiritual culture, those who are renounced, they are respected.
And that respect has a reason. But that does not mean that everybody has to become like them. As I just said earlier that we have a vertical relationship with God and we have horizontal relations with others.
Most people focus only on the horizontal relationship and they neglect the vertical relationship. Actually, most people remember the vertical relationship only when they have some problem in the horizontal relationship. But the horizontal relationship itself is everything for most people.
So, in such a situation it is very easy to forget God or to reduce God to a utilitarian role. Utilitarian role means that God is someone whose existence is to facilitate my existence. That means, when people come to Krishna temple, they ask, if I go to other temples, I see that Devta is giving me Ashirwala.
But Krishna is playing his own flute. He seems to be lost in his own world. So, is Krishna concerned about me? I don’t.
Yes, Krishna is concerned about us. But he is concerned at a different level. When Krishna played the flute, we know in the Rastula, he invited the Gopis to come to him.
So, like that Krishna is playing his flute to invite us all to rise to spiritual consciousness, to be united with him once again. So, we exist at the material level of reality. Krishna exists at the spiritual level of reality.
And he is also blessing us. He also cares for us. But his caring and blessing is primarily in terms of inviting us to rise to the spiritual level of consciousness.
So, Krishna is saying, I am performing eternal delightful pastimes in the spiritual world. And you join me there. And you participate and assist in my pastimes.
But in a materialistic world view, even if God has a place, what is the place of God? That we tell God, God, I want to perform pastimes here. And you assist me here. So, that idea of God as just a utilitarian object for our material well-being, that is a very incomplete idea of God.
And those religions that have that idea, those religions stay largely materialistic. So, in those religious traditions, where there are people who devote themselves entirely to the vertical relationship, then they create an example of how God is to be made a priority now. By seeing examples of people who have devoted themselves to God, fully devoted, means they don’t have a married relationship with anyone else in this world.
That is the primary horizontal relationship. We can have many horizontal relationships. But the primary horizontal relationship is the marriage relationship.
So, those who focus on the vertical relationship with God, they become living demonstrations to society that this vertical relationship is for real. That there is, everybody needs relationships. And somebody is living single and they are living happy.
That means they must be getting emotional and emotional nourishment through some other relationship. So, God is real, love for God is real and the happiness that comes in loving God is also real. So, those who are in the renounced order, focusing on the relationship with God, they demonstrate that to the rest of society.
And because they are focusing on the vertical relationship with God, the rest of society in the spiritual culture respects them. But that is not the way everyone is going to be. Most people need horizontal relationships.
And it is not that that need is something wrong or unhealthy or undesirable or unspiritual. It’s also a part of our spiritual nature. So, it is not that everyone in the spiritual culture has to become a renunciate.
Those who have the nature, the disposition to become renunciates, they are praised, they are respected. But that doesn’t mean everybody has to become like that. Most people will be, there is a brahmachari sanyasi ashram, there is a grahastha ashram.
So, renounced order, there is a householder order. And this grahastha ashram, the word ashram means, that is also a place where we get ashray, where we get shelter of the supreme giver of ashram. Of the supreme giver of shelter that is God.
So, the horizontal, so the spiritual culture doesn’t mean that we are discouraged in our horizontal relationships. It simply means that due respect is given for those who focus exclusively on the vertical relationship. But there is abundant room for people who want to develop both their relationships in a harmonious way.
And that is going to be a standard. Even in the past, even when the Satyuga was there or some other golden age was there, at that time also most people were grahasthas. And we should not think that to become spiritual means that I have to renounce the world.
To become spiritual means that we have to bring God into our heart and into our life. And once we start bringing God into our heart, into our life, then we will ourselves be guided and inspired about how best we can live a life of loving service to God. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita 10.10, He says that if you become devoted to me, I will give you the intelligence by which you can come to me.
That means if we just focus on trying to practice bhakti and become devoted to Krishna, then we will find that we will be guided. A few of us, we want to become brahmacharis and they are encouraged. But it is not that everybody has to become.
And certainly it is not that to become spiritual or to become a devotee one has to renounce the world. We have to find out what is the best way in which I can practice bhakti and live my life in a sustainable way. And we gravitate towards that position gradually.
So, it is not that spiritual culture discourages relationships, relationships of the opposite sex. What it discourages is unregulated relationships, irresponsible relationships. So, grahastha ashram is a valid way in which one can connect with Krishna and get the ashram of Krishna.
And that is in a regulated responsible way when one forms a relationship. That is actually the way most people will be able to stably practice bhakti. And both are ashrams, both are ways in which we can move towards Krishna.
It is not that this is the way to move towards Krishna and this is not the way to move towards Krishna. No, both are ways to move towards Krishna. And we have to find out which is the best way in which we can move closer to Krishna.
Does it answer your question? Thank you very much. So, the last question. So, thank you very much.