Do women-devotees always have to be homemakers?
Yeah so if we consider yeah if we consider the question whether women were working in multinational culture it is true they were working and the one of the most common words in the in a non-spiritual worldview is or whereas in the bhakti worldview it is and you know if you see even in the impersonalist worldview it is matter or spirit you have to give up matter and take up spirit but the bhakti worldview is matter and spirit use matter in the service of spirit so similarly when we try to understand traditional culture we sometimes have this or worldview that a woman can be either a homemaker or they can be professionals and yes there are many women who try to do both but it it it is quite difficult it is very demanding and often it ends up that to be successful professionally the home gets neglected and because of that many traditionalists feel that women should just focus on the home and women working is not a is not traditional but the fact is that the point is that three things happened in socio historically if we see which change situations a lot in the past whether it is men or women they used to work close to their place of residences even if they are farmers or they were businessmen or whatever they were even the Kshatriyas they would if we consider Kshatriyas not just as kings but if you also come consider them as say the in west we may have had dukes and lords in India we may have had landlords they are not exactly businessmen they don't do any business but they would also have a geographical locale and they would travel within that locale so in any when the profession itself was close to one's own staying place at that time both the husband and the wife would have a kind of profession of course the maybe the husband was the main breadwinner usually but the wife also would have constructive engagement and quite often if we see in many traditional depictions if we see that it is not just the king alone who is involved in the state administration the king is there but in many narratives we see the king takes advice from the queen the queen is also involved in to some extent in looking after some aspects of the king's responsibilities so the point is that the kind of separation between home and work which happened after industrialization which meant that the when he had to work he himself had to go far away from the home and most of the work which women would do in the past would be something like cottage industries whether they would make some hand loom items or they would take care of cows or whatever they would do so that sort of profession became unsustainable when there was mass production and the whole economic model shifted from localization to globalization so then just as the men themselves had to often go far away from their native places far away from their families to work the predominant form of work became like that and if women had to work then they also had to choose some work which was similar and that's how the rupture between home and work came up for everyone and this acutely affected women much more than men so because men did not have so much responsibility at home women had responsibility at home and they could also do some work along with it but now when the workplace and the home got separated geographically then managing both became very difficult and as once so this was the first fragmentation of work and home that happened because of the change of the economy the second is that as mechanization came up in terms of using machines and gadgets for doing most of the work so women who had even in the home the amount of work that was there was no longer that much so this especially happened after the second world war and mechanization of home appliances took off in a big way prior to the war so the second thing that happened is that basically women it was difficult for them to work because it would cause them to neglect their homes but then in the home itself there was not much satisfying or challenging things to do enough and as education also became more and more centralized where the mothers did not have to play all that much role in the education as they may have had to play earlier now of course here there are different things the gurukul was a system but it was not that everybody all the children went away from their homes to gurukul the Pandavas they didn't go to a gurukul to stay there even Ram did not stay for many years in the gurukul so gurukul was one model of education but the point is that overall the the professional work became difficult for women and the homework also became relatively lesser and this led to this led to a feeling of tremendous under engagement and under achievement among women along with there was also a parallel third thing was there was an increasing glamorization of career women in the media and in the overall culture so because of which and others because of which women felt that if they have to have a sense of self-worth this is what they need to do and that's how the whole conflict between this is of course an elaborate subject but the point is that the conflict between home versus profession this is not a inherent conflict within Varanashram within the not just Varanashram but traditionally also wherever people were working it is the family it is quite often the husband would be doing something for earning a livelihood the woman would also be doing something but she usually would not have to compromise too much on her home responsibilities to do that so with respect to the bhakti culture now what is relevant our broad understanding is Yukta Vairagya that whatever is favorable that is what we accept for the practice of bhakti so if now for many devotee families where it is practical for them the wife may choose to not work and be a homemaker and do some active services in the temple and serve in other ways but whether that is necessary it's not directly this is the social and the spiritual are related but it is not the spiritual is wedded inseparably to any particular social model so although Varanashram there is an increasing attempt within our movement to try to establish Varanashram and that is good but Prabhupada never said Varanashram is the only way to practice bhakti and Prabhupada said that even if we take the statement that half of the mission is remaining but we could take the statement the other way and say that even without Varanashram half of the mission is complete so it is not that and in philosophically speaking when we say bhakti is unmotivated and uninterrupted that means that bhakti doesn't depend on anything material it doesn't depend on Varanashram also so whether a particular sociocultural model needs to be absolutely replicated for the practice of bhakti even from the philosophical point of view it is no there is no doubt here that certain sociocultural models may be more favorable for the practice of bhakti and some may be less but whether that will be applicable in each and every case that will vary from person to person so there's no need for any absolute insistence in my understanding if we have to replicate Varanashram then you we have to set an example about how Varanashram is I would say that the first example should start with sanyasis and brahmacharis sanyasis are the leaders of the community can sanyasis today live like traditional sanyasis nobody can do that you know they use all the sanyasis they have computers they use cell phones they travel by flights how is that according to traditional Varanashram model so in that sense I would say a rigid insistence on any particular social model is unsustainable and I would say it is not even philosophically sound but whatever is favorable for devotees that should be done and as far as engaging in bhakti is concerned now everybody there we talk about women being protected men should women should be protected but protection is not just physical or financial protection is also involving protection broadly involves providing a conducive environment for growth so if women if women have certain talents and certain abilities then those abilities need to be channeled and they need to be and facilities forums need to be provided where those talents can be used properly and so I don't I don't see any shastric basis for the idea that any clear shastric basis for firstly for the idea that women in the past were never employed that is difficult to sustain shastrically second that in bhakti requires a particular kind of social model that is also philosophically not very sustainable and thirdly even if something like that would be there we have the we have the principle of so whatever it is that every individual devotee finds easiest favorable for the practice of one's bhakti so there may be there may be some women who prefer to prefer to be homemakers other women may want to pursue their careers now we all have to every devotee will have to choose what is what is the way one feels most inspired to do something if we do something because of social pressure whether it is because in the devotee community there is social pressure to not work or whether there is a secular community there is a pressure to work if we do something because of social pressure we will ourselves be unfulfilled so the idea that the idea that women have to be only homemakers now there is one important factor to be considered is that the current way the the socio socio economics model is there that if women have to be career women often it's difficult for them to give due attention to their children and that is a major concern so how the everything will be balanced every devotee will have to decide based on one's own situation and considering the guidance of one's local guides but broadly I don't think I don't think any particular yeah I don't think any particular model is mandatory for any devotee to practice bhakti and I give the example that in Afghanistan they had a Taliban which said that women should not work and they imposed that now what happened because of the Afghan war is the insurrection and water was in many of the places men had been killed and the women were the primary breadwinners and in the women that you saw that women cannot work then the families were starving and the Taliban was asked about the Taliban said that you know Allah will protect well you can't blame Allah God makes arrangements through particular through his representatives the government cannot no government or no authority can push the blame on God so I would say that certainly that kind of extremism is not at all compatible with bhakti and that is just an extreme example of what happens when when particular social models are applied without any sensitivity to time place circumstance and in bhakti we have at least twice in this Bhagavatam itself we have Desha Kaal Vibhagavit we have in the Bhishma's pastime as well as in the as well as in the Dhruva Maharaj pastime Narada Muni instructing so broadly what I have seen in Prabhupada's quotes this is that Prabhupada if the women had been brought up in a in a traditional upbringing where women's primary role was homemakers like as it was for most Indian women that Prabhupada came in contact with then he encouraged them to continue that role but for the for the women who had brought been brought up in the west who had in every way who had who had their own career their own lives and their own their own way of living Prabhupada did not mandate that they have to be homemakers there was conversation Prabhupada says these western women are different now I would say rather than saying make it as a general statement as western women are different and Indian women are different my understanding of that is that we don't have to do something that is alien to our upbringing and our nature to practice bhakti so if some devotees have that nature where they would like to they would prefer to be homemakers that is fine but if someone wants to have some other activity which involves some career that is also fine just like we have we have this whole Varanashram where some there is the encouragement that devotees can live simply and have farm communities and have cows and demonstrate a traditional way of economy that is fine those devotees are inspired to do that they can do that but if somebody has lifelong lived in the city and that person is habituated completely to urban facilities to force such a person to live in a rural area in a rural environment for practicing bhakti and the struggle because of struggle of living in a rural environment will itself drain oneself so physically and emotionally that one will have no energy left to practice bhakti so we don't have to increase the difficulty in the practices of practice of bhakti similarly somebody has been in a rural setting it's not that they have to come to the city and learn the ways of the city to practice bhakti so as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu tells the Kurma Brahmana quoting Brahma that wherever you are situated you practice bhakti so although this is used generally to say that if somebody is a grahastha that person can be a grahastha that person doesn't have to become a sanyasi I would say that can apply also in terms of cultural compatibility so if someone has been if some women have been brought up or they find comfortable the idea of primarily focusing on the home that is fine but if someone would like to have some other some other channelization of their energies and they have some talents and some aspirations then they can also be accommodated in a way that the other responsibilities can be taken care of that will have to be adjusted but philosophically as well as historically there is no need for women to be restricted only to the role of homemakers for the practice of bhakti does that address the.