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Garlic, Onions and the Liberated Women

• Subject: Garlic, Onions and the Liberated Women
• From: Darlyn R
• Date: Mon Jul 17 11:17:05 1995
• Message-Id: id600

Dear Darlyn

Hello. Hare Krishna!

You have mentioned the health benefits of garlic and onions and it has been shown
garlic is good for some things but Krishna doesn't eat it so we don't cook it for
Him. Because we only eat the remnants of Krishna's food we don't eat garlic. That
is the reason. It is in the mode of passion also, but the main thing is we can't
offer it to Krishna.


You have asked why sugar is not in the mode of passion and mentioned you know some
people addicted to chocolate. Chocolate is certainly addictave as in addition to
large quantities of sugar it contains caffene as well. Too much sugar is also not
good. We generally eat simple food and eating very sweet and oppulent food all the
time is not good. But Krishna likes it so we cook it for Him. Not that we have to
always eat the sweet preparations, there are plenty of other people who want to
eat them! We are satisfied with the simple preparations offered to Krishna: rice,
dhal, chapatis, vegetables, etc. But if someone wants to eat very nice opulent
food then they can eat Krishna's opulent prasadam also. It is spiritual and will
purify their hearts. I know I have eaten lots of opulent Krishna prasadam in my
time as a devotee and it has done me no harm. But too much of anything is not
good.

You have said there are problems with all foods. Even fruit and vegetables have
poisonous sprays used on them. It is true, all food has problems. Even vegetarian
food is not free from sinful reactions. But when nice vegetarian food is prepared
and offered to Krishna with love it is purified and becomes spiritual. It is has
no problems then. It is a little difficult to understand. Also the idea that
"fatty foods are bad" is not valid, particularly not for vegetarians. The western
meat-centered diet has many problems, one of them is meat is very fatty, but we
need some fat. Ghee, or purified butter, is a very healthy food. It is not an
ordinary thing. The Vedic diet based around milk products, grains, vegetables and
fruits is perfect but our western diet is far from perfect.

You have asked about milk, "Why is milk not in any of these modes" and you have
mentioned the vegan literature. There is nothing wrong with milk! Vegans have no
idea what they are talking about. The vegan diet is very difficult. They have to
be very careful to get a propper diet, but if you eat milk products and grains
(rice, flower, etc) you automatically get a perfectly balanced diet. The milk is
the blood of the cow transformed in a non-violent way. It contains everything you
can get from eating meat but not the violence. It is an amazing food. You can live
on milk. In the past in India great saints would travel and they would just visit
a householder at the time of milking the cows and ask for some milk. They would
just drink milk and remain perfectly healthy. Milk is a miracle food!

As far as the vegans, although many of them are sincere, the whole thing is
demoniac. The vegan diet is not sound. So they convince vegetarians to become
vegans and then they have so many problems with iron deficiency and B12 problems.
They visit the doctor and the doctors tell them to eat meat. It happens all the
time. But if they continue to take milk products it is a perfect diet. So the
vegan business is nonsense.

There are, of course, problems with the dairy industry, however, the answer is not
to stop drinking milk, but to fix the problems. We can start our own farms and
treat the cows properly, that would be the best thing. Milk is completely in the
mode of goodness and it develops the finer tissues in the brain that are required
to develop spiritual knowledge, a quality no other food has. Cows and men have
always lived side by side. It is natural. The cows need protection and need to be
taken to the places where there is good grass and feed and people need the milk.
So it is a very nice, natural arrangement.

We know what Krishna eats because He tells us in the Bhagavad-gita. Krishna was
also personally present on this planet 5,000 years ago and we have the historical
records, including what He likes to eat. So there is no question as to what He
eats. So that is the main business of the devotee, to please Krishna. It just so
happens that if we eat the remnants of Krishna's food we will be perfectly
healthy. It is the best diet in the world.

As far as the Deity in the temple the Deity is not a "model", He is Krishna.
Krishna appears in a form we can see and worship and serve with our  material
senses. You can't easily understand this without serving Him. Unless you serve Him
He will look like a statue to you, but just try serving Him and you will be
amazed. The first Deities I saw were Sri Sri Radha London Isvara, [it means the
controller of London!] and I thought, like you, they were marble statues, but I
couldn't understand what the devotees were doing to these "marble statues" because
each day they were becoming more and more beautiful. So this continued and I
realized it was me that was becoming purified enabling me to see Krishna more
clearly. He was never a marble statue. My eyes were covered, that's all.


As far as men and women are concerned, on the spiritual platform there is no
difference. But we are not all on the spiritual platform and materially there are
certainly many differences. It is natural that men and women have different roles
in society. Our westen "womans lib" society has failed, no one is happy. Women
should be protected otherwise so many problems are there.

You have mentioned a woman "being sold for a cow". But I have never heard such a
thing. It is not at all according to the Vedic system and I do not know where you
have got this idea from. As far as the half-naked women there are plenty here [in
Australia] in the summer. I don't know about where you live.

You say "I refuse to go into a life of servitude", but we are always in a life of
servitude. (BTW: I have just realized you are in a womans body now! I don't know
why I didn't realize before, Darlyn is clearly a womans name... Not that it makes
any difference. I would have said the same things had I known before.) We are all
serving someone. If you want to be an "independent' woman you still have to serve.
You have to serve your employer to get money, you have to serve the customers to
keep your job, and you have to serve your body to keep it satisfied. We just
transfer this same service mentality to Krishna. The result of material service is
frustration and the continuation of the cycle of birth and death, but the result
of serving Krishna is transcendental bliss and liberation from the material world,
going back home, back to Godhead.

You have gone on to explain your position as being more intelligent than many men
you know and so on. That is OK. But you have missed the point of the Vedic system.
The Vedic system protects and provides for the women and the women control the men
by their attractive womanly qualities. It is a little subtle, but the men in the
Vedic culture are generally controlled by the women. It is seen as a bad thing,
but still that is what tends to happen. It is very difficult to imagine how such a
culture could be implanted in the west. There is clearly a different mood. Srila
Prabhupada made many adjustments and in Krishna consciousness the women are not
treated as less important. They can do anything the men can do. Prabhupada was
criticized on both sides, by the womens libers who said he was too strict and by
his godbrothers in India who said he was too lax. It is a very difficult thing.
But completely unrestricted association between men and women is not good. It will
lead to the women being exploited. That is what is happening now. It is the men
who have been liberated, not the women. A man can now have sex with any woman
without considering the consequences. If she becomes pregnant that's her problem.
She will not get any support from him. It is a very difficult for such women. I
have a sister, Helen, who is very nice young lady> She got married to Peter and
they have three young children. She is working and also she was a very good wife
to Peter, but he got bored and decided to leave her. There is nothing stopping
him. He is free to just go off and leave Helen with the three children and forget
about them. It is a very difficult thing. Our society is always encouraging us to
search for the greener grass on the other side of the fence. We are never
satisfied. If there is some small argument then we separate and look for pleasure
elsewhere. But there are problems in every relationship. We should stick it out
and uphold our responsibilities to our partner and the children. But this feeling
has gone... It is a difficult time.

As far as western men's idea of women, they consider them as objects for sex
pleasure. That is encouraged by the western culture. The Vedic culture is quite
different. It has a very high regard for women and their protection is central to
the culture. The Vedic system is perfectly successful. You can go to India even
now [at least outside the big cities] and see so many happy women. They have
everything. Their husbands are working very hard and buying them nice houses,
clothes, jewelry and serving them in so many ways. They live in extended families
[the mother and father, all the sons and their wives and children in one big
house] So it's a whole social thing. It is a very good system. But in the west the
government wants everyone to live by themselves. If everyone has their own house,
their own car, their own carpet cleaner... it is good for the economy. But it is
hellish to live by yourself knowing no one cares about you, they are only
interested in your body and when your body is not nice any more they will leave
you to find someone else. This is not possible in the Vedic system but it is
encouraged by the western system.

As far as women and men reaching the same goal there is no difference. Although
women don't take sannyasa, still they can reach the same goal. It is not different
at all. The separation of the man and woman when a man takes sannyasa helps both
the man and the woman to surrender to Krishna and prepare to go back home back to
Godhead.

You have asked about mens and womens roles but I think it is clear. Men and women
are the same but if society is to go on there has to be recognition that the
bodies are different. It is insane to say there is no difference. But spiritually
they are not different. Srila Prabhupada saw no difference between his male and
female devotees. He sometimes said "Men are good and women are good -- but
together they are bad." So the problem is sex. It is a very strong urge and it is
awakened when men and women associate closely. Of course there is pleasure in sex
life, but it is temporary and it is a distraction from the real purpose of life.
The Vedic system attempts to minimize sex life and the western system wants to
maximize it. That is the difference.

I am pleased to hear that you sometimes chant Hare Krishna and can understand you
can't follow everything as you are not really convinced Krishna consciousness is
correct. That is intelligent. We have to be convinced otherwise we will not be
very serious about it. I hope I have not offended you and I don't consider you a
woman, I don't consider women inferior and it is my experience that there are so
many advanced devotees in womens bodies. We are not the body. we are the soul
within, and our business is to serve Krishna. There may be some need to play a
certain "role" while we are in a certain body for the sake of the smooth running
of society, but that is not the main thing, The main thing is to raise our
consciousness so that at the time of death we remember Krishna.

Thank you very much for your questions. This issue is perhaps the most difficult
one we are facing in trying to spread Krishna consciousness in the west. It is not
easy. So I value the discussion. We have to give everyone a chance to serve
Krishna but unrestricted mixing of men and women leads to problems... It is
something to do with the chemistry I think! So I would be interested in your ideas
on this point.

Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!


Madhudvisa dasa

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