by Bimala dasi
I originally presented this paper to the leaders at the North American GBC meetings in 1996 in Alachua. I am feeling very optimistic today, because in reviewing it for today’s presentation, I had to cross out many of my skeptical comments because I can see that we are making progress. I am also seeing that this weekend we are changing our language.
Originally, the word “leaders” referred to a small elite group of men who, although not leading in the true sense of the word, had assumed the title. I am seeing now that by the word “leader” I am referring to each of us here in this room – and throughout the movement – as leaders. We are each – male and female – being called to assume the role and responsibilities the word entails.
I joined the movement in 1971 with my husband of four years. We had gone to college together, where I received a BA in English and psychology. We chose each other. We were religious and we felt that God had put us together. Once we joined the movement, we were taught that your wife cannot be your friend.
I am here speaking before you today not as myself but as a voice – a voice representing a growing number of women throughout our movement. This is the first annual ISKCON Women’s Conference. When I say women, I mean our daughters, our unmarried women, our wives, and our mothers – our Godsisters. But due to the tremendous difficulties the responsibilities of grhastha life impose and due to our 25-year emphasis on renunciation, we also have a growing category that is an anomaly in the Vedic literatures – it’s the single mother – the woman whose husband is absent.
To the women present here I am presenting this paper as a means of unification.
There is a vast difference in the lives of married women and single mothers. There’s an old North American Indian saying that You can’t fully understand a person until you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins.
I feel that many of you may never have an opportunity to experience these women’s lives, so I want to share with you a letter I have written. It addresses many women, your and my Godsisters, throughput our movement, many with whom I come into contact daily. I feel this letter is a bridge, for it will enable us better to understand and care for each other.
I should warn you, there is emotion in this letter. I know that can be scary for some of you. But, remember, this is not hysteria. This is neither exaggeration nor distortion. This is the truth. I live it, and many, many of my friends live it. This is my letter.
My dear Godsister,
So you tell me your husband has left and you are alone. He has renounced you, and his children.
He is now free to make spiritual advancement. He is giving classes and being adulated by his peers. He is a great devotee. He sits on the asana at the feet of Srila Prabhupada, and silent young brahmacaris bring him water and garland him. He folds his hands and speaks our philosophy.
He is doing big service. Other devotees ask his advice. He is absorbing himself in Srila Prabhupada’s books. He can quote all the Sanskrit verses. He travels around the world, on pilgrimage, on preaching missions. He is a big devotee. Women look at him and they look at you and they say, “Oh, you’re so lucky. He’s so advanced. He’s so Krishna conscious. You’re so fortunate.”
And who are you?
You are nobody. You have his one, two, or three children. You are the tiger, your children are little jackals. You’re unsubmissive, less intelligent, nine times lustier, and all you want to do is to control men.
[Of course, they’ll never know the names he called you, because the words are obscene and ugly in your mouth and shock the sensibilities when heard a loud. They won’t know’ where the bruises were, and they won’ t know how many times you left and came back, or how many tears you cried. Or perhaps, they won’t hear about the other women.]
And what is your reality today? Your little jackals are hungry. They need food. They need clothes, and they want toys. They have to be educated. You can’t afford gurukula. You don’t want to put them in public school. W you’ re lucky, you’re on welfare. You need a job, but if you find a job, who’ll take care of the kids? You’ll lose your medical benefits. You’ll lose your food stamps.
You get your job. You go out – you’re the father. In the evening you come home – you’re the mother. You cook supper, help with homework, throw in a load of clothes at the laundromat, try to wash a floor, run to the store because there’s no milk, hope they don’t turn off the electricity, bathe the kids, get them to bed, wonder if you heard them, wonder what kind of parent you are becoming, wonder why all you do is worry about money, wonder where your spiritual life went, wonder if you’ll ever be able to get up in the morning because you’re so tired you want to die, and yes, they did turn off the phone again, but maybe your parents will let you use their credit card just one more time.
And in your heart you remember how life used to be. You were young, new, and eager. You sewed for the Deities – silks and rhinestones, feathers and lace – polished Their silver and brass, cooked the devotees’ meals, made the offerings. You distributed Srila Prabhupada’s books in airports and malls and parking lots across America. You danced and danced in ecstatic kirtans before the radiant forms of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna, Lord Jagannatha, and Gaura-Nitai. You prayed to Them fervently for devotion, for service.
Now you wake in the middle of the night alone and worry that the food stamps don’t last the month, that the kids outgrow their clothes so fast, that you can’t pay your bills, that you don’t want to end up in a shelter – not again. And you pray to Srila Prabhupada, and you feel so very fallen.
I’m writing this to you because I’m your Godsister and it breaks my heart to see your plight. Please don’t leave the movement. Don’t feel driven away. Don’t be discouraged.
There are too few of Srila Prabhupada’s children. We need you. We need your strength, your resilience, your incredible determination against overwhelming odds. We need your example of unconditional love that you give your children. We need your compassion. We need your softness and your humor, your gentleness and your nurturing. ISKCON needs you.
I fall at your feet and beg for dust. It is the dust of yoxr feet that I am hungry for, your feet as you trudge to work, stalk the grocery aisles, as you sit with your toddler on your lap, showing him or her pictures of Krishna.
The uninitiated may read this and feel indignant, feel that I’m being melodramatic, that I’ve exaggerated, that I am speaking harshly. But yox know. You know who you are, and believe me, you have no idea how many of you there were and there are now. And you know that what I am saying is exactly true.
I pray to Srila Prabhupada, to Srimati Radharani, and to you, the leaders in our movement.
I am requesting our ISKCON leaders to please consider this letter. In Vedic times a man choosing renunciation left his wife and children in a village environment. She lived with his family, or she could live with her own parents, or relatives if need be. He didn’t leave his family to scavenge for welfare scraps as its daily maintenance, to be branded as social parasites’ of the government.
With the new welfare reform, in a matter of two years or less, all these women will no longer be eligible for welfare. Know for certain that in the near future we will see women and children living in the streets – and many of them will be ours. Solutions to this impending crisis (if not for most of you, certainly for them) are difficult. I wish I could stand up here and give solutions. But what I would like to believe, however, is that the male leaders would at least deal with the husbands and fathers involved. I would like to know that as they took their places on the asana you had asked, “Where is your wife? Where are your children? Who is taking care of them? Are they hungry?”
And for the women, well, kindly see them as Vaisnavas. Offer a little respect, a little dignity, a little kindness. Hear them.
So that is my plea. Some of you will be moved. Some of you will , to quote one GBC man, see this as “sentimental garbage.”
Those who study the behavior of animals have noted that in the face of danger cows will form a circle, the weaker ones and babies inside – and stand with their horns facing outward. Thus their calves and elder cows are protected. The Women’s Ministry has been established to form such a circle. It has been established to care for the women, to offer them a voice in our movement – a voice of concern and balance and compassion for the growth and welfare of all devotees, and for the growth of our movement.
Somehow or other we’ve come into contact with the highest, most sublime philosophy – the Absolute Truth. And we have been fortunate enough to be initiated into the Gaudiya sampradaya. How close we are to the goal! We have so much to do for Srila Prabhupada – and there are so few of us. And there are so many discouraged women.
The reality is that this life is but a flash – a brief moment, a few seconds – compared to the eternity that we’ve been here. And if we view our existence as a straight line back and forward, we will see that our human births have been male, female, male, female, male, femaie, back, back, back – and forward too. Why, when we are so fortunate, when we are so very near the end of it all, should we not just encourage each other?
I’d like to ask everyone here, how many of you think that at the end of this lifetime you will return back to Krishna, back to the Spiritual Sky? Let’s see a show of hands.
Okay. That’s nice.
Now, for the majority of you who think that you well may be returning to the material world, don’t you agree that you’ll probably take birth in this movement? Also, perhaps, isn’t there a good possibility that many of you men will be taking birth as women? That’s a pretty realistic scenario. So, I’m proposing that if this is the case, then you men had better start seeing that the women are taken care of – because it’s really your own futures that you’re preparing.
In closing, let’s remember that we are a spiritual movement. If we don’t have the spiritual vision to see that we are all spiritual beings, that we are all part and part of Krishna, that we are not our bodies but rather we are Vaisnavas – we are Srila Prabhupada’s servants – then can’t we just pretend?
Also, we may speak about protection of women, and it’s a vague and disturbing topic.
But the minimal protection is the right to perform devotional practices to the best of our abilities – as we did when Srila Prabhupada was physically present.
So, kindly, let us work together; or let us work together k:indly to fulfill Srila Prabhupada’s mission. I’m trying to teach my children this fact – Encouragement is free. It costs nothing to give. But it is so powerful and can do so much. So let’s cooperate with each other, let’s encourage each other, and let’s do the work that has to be done – each to his or her own best ability.
Thank you for your attention and your concern.
