What should a wife do when her husband totally opposes her Krishna consciousness?

Say a husband is totally against his wife following Iskcon rituals like chanting 108*16 rounds, not eating onion and garlic, infect everything related to Iskcon, in this case what should a wife do?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question, if a husband is totally against his wife following Skaun ritual like chanting 16 rounds of 108 mantras and not eating onion, garlic, in fact he is opposed to everything related to Skaun, what should a wife do? Answer, this is a delicate question because it involves personal practical life application and in the Vedic tradition, the practical application is always guided by a personal spiritual mentor or guide, so I cannot give a direct answer, I can only tell broad principles, so this answer will have three points, first is the principle of horizontal and vertical relationships, second will be the principle that vertical relationship is more important than horizontal relationship and third is the art of harmonizing or at least balancing the horizontal and vertical relationships, so all of us have relationships in the world, these are horizontal relationships in the sense that all these people are related with us, but ultimately all of us are related with God, so the relationship with God is our vertical relationship and among these relationships, there need not be any conflict or contradiction if you understand the unifying purpose, our horizontal relationships are temporary, say horizontal relationship means you can be with my mother and father, with my wife or husband, with my children, with my other relatives, all these relationships are horizontal because those with whom we are relating are also at our level, they may be elder to us biologically or younger to us biologically, but they are also living beings, souls like us, so in that sense we are all equal, that’s why we are in the same realm, horizontal relationships we have with them, so these horizontal relations are temporary because our bodies are temporary and these relationships are mediated and based on the body, our vertical relationship with Krishna is at the level of the soul and that is eternal, so the ideal is that the horizontal relationships strengthen the vertical relationship and the vertical relationships also strengthen the horizontal relationship, that means that if the parents are devotees and the child in his horizontal relationship learn that I should obey my parents and if the parents teach the child that should go to the temple, bow down to the Lord, sing the glories of the Lord, chant the names of the Lord and child also learns that and child also develops his vertical relationship through that and similarly the vertical relationships strengthen the horizontal relationship, when the parents grow old and then the child may feel too materialistic and selfish and if he doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t believe in soul, doesn’t believe in next life, why should I take care of my old parents, let me just abandon them, I want to enjoy my life with my wife and my career and you just abandon them and this is what we see happening largely in Western culture, but if the child understands that actually God exists and ultimately I am accountable to God, I have a duty to God and if I don’t do my duty then I will suffer the karmic consequences and my duty to God is also to take care of those with whom I am related, so actually then that child will also be inspired to take care of his parents out of a sense of duty, so in this way if one doesn’t believe in God, one will feel that okay why do I need to take care of my parents at all, ultimately I have my life, they have their life, yes but if we understand the principle of karma and we understand that God is supreme and he is observing that we will understand that we have the principle of accountability, so also we will understand that even my parents are also the parts of God and I can serve my parents even through them, serve God even through them, so in this way the vertical and horizontal relationships they strengthen each other, that is the ideal Vedic situation and this is the situation when it is said matra deva bhava, pitra deva bhava, this is the situation when for the wife the husband is considered to be like God, that means the husband is a devotee of God and the husband is serving God, husband has a strong vertical relationship with God and the wife serves the husband then by her horizontal relationship with her husband, her vertical relationship with God also develops, ultimately it is understood that all horizontal relationships are temporary but that doesn’t mean that to be neglected or rejected, they are to be subordinated and harmonized with our vertical relationship and that was the principle in the art of Vedic family. Now the Vedic culture also describes some extraordinary situations where the horizontal relationship obstructs the vertical relationship, so we have the example of Prahlad Maharaj, his father was Hiranyakashipu, a demon and therefore he rejected Hiranyakashipu for the sake of his devotion to Lord Vishnu, similarly we have the example of Vibhishan whose brother was Ravana and he was a big demon, so Vibhishan rejected his brotherly relationship and what to speak of rejecting just one’s father or older brother who is like a representative of a father in Vedic culture, there is also the extreme example of Bali Maharaj rejecting his own priest Shukracharya, a priest is considered to be much closer to God, Shukracharya was not exactly the spiritual master he was a priest, so he rejected even the priest when Shukracharya stopped him from offering charity to Vishnu, so in principle the Vedic culture says that the vertical relationship is eternal, vertical relationship is primarily important and for the sake of vertical relationship the horizontal relationships can be sacrificed but that is only in extreme situations and in general for the wife-husband relationship things are more complex, the Vedic scripture offers the example of Mandodari, Mandodari she was a learned lady, she was a devoted lady and her speech after Ravana departs is filled with philosophical and devotional wisdom but it is still described that Mandodari keeps serving Ravana, although she knows that Ravana is not only not a devotee, not only not favourable to devotional service but he is actually antithetical he is opposed to devotion and he is opposed to the object of her devotion, the Lord Vishnu in his form as Ram but still she keeps serving her husband and at the same time she keeps continuing her devotion to Ram to Vishnu more specifically not Ram, so the point here is that there is no description that Ravana actively opposed Mandodari and whether he tormented or abused or anything, of course Mandodari was also very not provocative, she did not let her devotion to Vishnu and her service to Ravana interfere now when we come to our day to day life situation things become more subtle and complex because in general none of us live in a life, in a world that is filled with black and white characters even if the husband is not a devotee it would be very rash and premature and unfair to cast a husband in the mould of Ravana and it would be very wrong and presumptuous for oneself to claim that one is an exalted devotee and that one can sacrifice everything for the sake of Vishnu, in general when the wife is married she has service to her husband, she has a service to her children and things need to be intelligently and sensitively balanced so depending on the context of the situation, if the husband is following a live and let live policy that means the husband as long as the wife takes care of the household responsibilities allows the wife to practice her devotion then there might be some uneasiness in the relationship but things can go on even in material life where the husband wife are not devoted there is so much uneasiness because there is incompatibility in various other areas so but if the husband is abusive then even from the material point of view abusive relationships cannot be continued and the needful may have to be done but in general as devotees we understand that changing our circumstances is not really a solution to a problem we have to change our consciousness and so it is best if the wife and the husband can arrive at some agreement by which both the family atmosphere and the devotional purpose which the wife wants to pursue they can be both taken care of certainly the wife should not sacrifice her devotion to the lord for the sake of her service to her husband at the same time it is not a bad choice that the wife should actually do anything that is going to cause a disharmony or rupture in the family especially so things will have to be very intelligently balanced and some expert guidance from some senior devotees is important for this purpose and overall the principle is that if the horizontal relationship is not obstructing one’s vertical relationship then one need not do anything extreme in that relationship one should focus primarily on being sensitive and being caring and through that ensuring that one’s vertical relationship goes on unimpeded and at the same time one’s horizontal relationship also goes on as smoothly as possible so overall to summarize the broad principle it is that one should try one’s best to harmonize the situation so that one’s both material and spiritual responsibilities are taken care of