​What is intelligence – do women and lower castes have it less?

Answer Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZltIcmWnKA

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
what is intelligence and is it that the Brahman, Shudras and Vaishyas are less intelligent? Firstly, intelligence is the capacity for discernment for understanding what is right what is wrong, what is short term, what is long term what is material, what is spiritual and this is a capacity that is present in all human beings irrespective of their gender. Now animals also have some discernment if a cow is grazing and the grass over here gets over the cow can choose whether to eat grass here or eat grass there but the cow cannot think today in Ekadashi I should fast.
So basically the human beings have the capacity to regulate our impulses according to some higher principles and that capacity to regulate the impulses according to some higher wisdoms, higher principles that is intelligence and that intelligence all human beings have it. So in the scriptures when Naradeha is used Nara is often used in an inclusive sense like when a man proposes God disposes now this is not gender biased language. If woman proposes God disposes also equal it to her.
Here man is used in an inclusive sense to refer to God of humanity. So like that Nara, Deha, the human life is very precious that is used in an inclusive sense to refer to Nara and Sri both. Now having said that the basic capacity for discerning that is present in all the beings sorry all human beings and now with different human beings, males and females they have different psychophysical natures the soul is essentially the same but the body and the mind are made differently and there are whole books written about this hundreds of books written about it practically but essentially women have a stronger emotional pattern by which they can offer love, care they have a unique function which men cannot replicate that is bringing fresh life into this world and caring for that fresh life at a time when those infants are utterly dependent on others.
Among all the species in nature no other species has its infants in a state of utter helplessness as much as humans have. Even birds, their baby birds they also cannot fly about, they cannot flutter about but none other, no other species is as helpless as the humans and that helplessness of the humans of human infants is actually meant to help parents develop a culture of selflessness it is said that adults produce children and then children produce adults what does that mean? Adults come together and produce a child. But as long as it’s just I and me, we may quarrel, we may fight, but when a child is born the child comes in the center and both mature because of having the added responsibility of taking care of the child so that’s a whole different subject but suffice it to say that women have a more emotional, more developed emotional faculty as compared to men and correspondingly the rational faculty is less developed, that is more developed in humans, in males Now when Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita so in 9.32 he says that even they can attain perfection so here it is said that who can attain perfection? By the practice of Bhakti Yoga women, Vaishya, Shudra and Papayona all of them can attain perfection now on my website I have an elaborate answer to this question so we look at 24 commentaries of Acharyas on this verse and almost 14 of them talk about Papayona as a fourth category so women, Vaishya, Shudra and Papayona so Papayona is not an adjective describing women, Vaishya, Shudra rather it is a fourth category now Prabhupada also talks about this once or twice in his lecture on this verse but in the current translation that is there by BVT Papayona is like an adjective applying to these three categories but that is not a very scripturally sound interpretation at least an alternative interpretation is defensible because in the Vedic culture the Shudras are considered lowborn Vaishyas are not considered lowborn the Brahmana, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas all three of them are considered Brijas all three of them get the Gayatri Mantra at the time of their second initiation so in that sense to call Vaishyas as Papayona is inappropriate so that is why women, Vaishya, Shudra, Papayona and Papayona Vaishya, it is explained the Acharya has explained over here it refers to Vrishas, Yavanas and all those do not fall in the Varnashram category so in that if that is the understanding of this verse then it is not that women are considered less intelligent that is that women are also they are separate from Papayona, they are also another category and now what does, Prabhupada sometimes would use the word women are less intelligent now what does he mean by that it is if you look at it, Prabhupada is very clear in terms of the soul the body, the soul of a male or a female the soul is not, soul does not have any connection with the body or gender the soul is similar, the soul is transcendental now at the level of the soul there is no difference at the level of the body if we see there are different studies which talk about different things and sometimes women quite often, girls they may get better marks in exam than boys so in various fields, if you look at the material level, there is no clear cut statement which can prove that women are less intelligent or women are more intelligent so then what is Prabhupada talking about whenever he speaks such things one thing important is that in Acharya’s words should never be seen in separation from his actions so that means how did Prabhupada deal with people he never treated, none of his female disciples ever felt that they were ever less intelligent to anything like that Prabhupada would sometimes quote that the female brain is smaller than the male brain but then one time, one Mataji disciple, Vishakha Mataji, she went and asked Prabhupada in Philadelphia Prabhupada, the Prabhus are saying that our brain is smaller, therefore we are less intelligent Prabhupada just looked at him when you chant Hare Krishna, your brain grows now everybody must say about it it is not that we chant Hare Krishna because of the brain size too so Prabhupada was basically, don’t take this argument very seriously now Prabhupada had a sense of humour which can be forgotten if we just look at his words disconnected from the context of those words and that idea of a female brain being smaller than a male brain now that also is something which Prabhupada learnt from his college professor when he was in Scottish Church College so that college professor was a very conservative Christian Protestant and he had certain conceptions and Prabhupada just spoke them Prabhupada was not putting Shastra at that time and essentially Prabhupada never dealt with women in any way which made them feel that they were less intelligent so now what does less intelligent essentially mean then? it is in terms of the Prabhupada usually talked about intelligence not in terms of mathematical or analytical or verbal capacities he talked about it in terms of understanding one’s essential spiritual identity so all living beings identify with their body but in the female form the identification with the body is often much stronger for many women their whole sense of self-worth and self-identity comes from their physical beauty from their physical appeal and nature has also given women physical appeal for the purpose of the continuation of their race so in the female form the identification with the body is likely to be greater and in that sense the women can be said to be less intelligent but once one starts understanding spiritual philosophy and starts practicing that spiritual philosophy then all such considerations no longer matter so as devotees we should always focus on that which is favourable to bhakti and move onwards in our life so if some devotees always keep saying women are less intelligent then if anybody starts saying women are less intelligent we should understand that they are less intelligent person because they are seeing people they are seeing Vaishnavis they are saying people as not as souls or as devotees they are seeing them as women first you should be able to see everyone as souls first in terms of practical conduct there is of course certain etiquette to be followed but essentially if you find that somebody is very dismissive or disrespectful you just keep a distance from them and associate with those in whom you feel encouraged and we move forward in our bhakti accordingly