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 are also serving their husbands of
course. 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!
Hare Krishna!
Your servant,
Madhudvisa dasa
(madhudvisa@krishna.org) /sudarsana
All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!
Sudarsana Home madhudvisa@krishna.org