Why do most of our spiritual communities fail?

The success or lack of success in most communities is directly connected with the attitude towards women. Communities where the women are well-treated thrive. Places where they are mistreated, wither.

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I’ve been following (or at least trying to follow) Krsna Consciousness since 1992. During this time, I had the opportunity to know some successful Vaiṣnava communities, as well as many unfortunate examples of communities that went terribly wrong.

One interesting point I notice now is that the success (or lack of success) of most communities is directly connected with the attitude towards women. Communities where the women are well-treated thrive, while communities where the women are neglected witter. One may not understand this relationship in the beginning (just as I also missed this many times in the past), but the correlation is too strong to be ignored.

This is quite easy to understand if we examine it from a psychological standpoint. Just as men, women can be very positive or very negative to any society. On the positive side, women are the best caregivers: they can take care not only of children but also of all members of the family or group. Such women form a support network that is essential for the well-being of society. Not only that, but they can do an outrageous amount of service when properly engaged. On the other hand, the negative side of the feminine nature is also well known: women can be envious, revengeful, quarrelsome, create intrigues, etc. In other words, women have the power to transform the lives of people around them for better or worse. They can create heaven or hell.

The central point is that when women are properly cared for and guided, they can naturally show their good side, but when they are oppressed, neglected, and abused, they can easily show their negative side, which creates a very difficult situation for all involved.

The central problem I notice in most failed communities is precisely that the women were not happy. As far as I can understand, that is almost always the determining factor. When the women are not well treated, they quarrel and influence their husbands to also quarrel. The whole community starts to fracture internally. An environment of anger and conflict is created, and the whole thing is destroyed.

On the other hand, when the women are happy, they can maintain and nourish the whole community. In such a situation, the children are happy, the husbands are happy, the families are strong, the members are productive, and conflicts are reduced to a minimum.

The reason we still don’t have many successful Vaiṣnava communities in our movement, in my understanding, is directly connected with the bad treatment we have historically given to women. Prabhupāda brought us an egalitarian philosophy that acknowledges the differences in terms of duties and nature, but at the same time upholds that everyone is equal on the spiritual platform. He even originally instituted that everyone should be called “Prabhu” (regardless of man or woman), teaching us to address the soul, and not the body. Later, during the 1980s, this was replaced by the “Prabhu” and “Mataji” form of address and all the stigma connected with it. Calling women “Mataji” is also offered in Prabhupada’s teachings, but it should be used as a respectful form of address, and not as a derogatory term.

This is just one example of how many components of Prabhupāda’s teachings were silently changed or replaced over the years.

In short, only when we are able to grasp these egalitarian teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda, learning to see the soul and not the body, treat everyone well, and give everyone equal chances of developing spiritually and serving Kṛṣṇa, while at the same time acknowledging practical bodily and psychological differences, will we be able to have more successful communities. Only from this point, we will be able to start talking about varnāśrama as a true spiritual system.

Before closing, here are a few verses from the Manu-saṁhitā that clearly show this connection between the treatment given to women and the success or failure of a society. This explains many of the historical failures of our movement, and is certainly a warning for the hardliners.

The Manu-saṁhitā is a scripture that contains basic material rules to regulate human life, both at the individual and collective levels. Most editions include many barbaric descriptions of punishments and practices, but these are mostly editions and additions that happened in the Middle Ages. There is currently no authentic edition of the Manu-saṁhitā (all have been adulterated to a greater or lesser extent), and one of the most popular editions is a heavily corrupted edition made by the Ārya Samāj, which was adulterated to fit the beliefs and goals of this particular sect. However, despite all these problems, we can see that some surviving passages still contain fragments of the original spirit.

3.55

pitṛbhir bhrātṛbhiścaitāḥ patibhir devaraistathā |
pūjyā bhūṣayitavyāś ca bahu-kalyāṇam-īpsubhiḥ ||

A father, brother, husband, or brother-in-law should keep their daughter, sister, wife, or sister-in-law happy and pleased through gentle words, respectful behavior, gifts, etc. Those who desire prosperity should ensure that women in their families are always happy and do not face miseries.

3.56

yatra nāryas tu pūjyante ramante tatra devatāḥ |
yatraitāstu na pūjyante sarvās tatrāphalāḥ kriyāḥ ||

A society that provides respect and dignity to women flourishes with nobility and prosperity. Conversely, a society where women are not honored has to face miseries and failures regardless of how many noble deeds they may perform otherwise.

3.57

śocanti jāmayo yatra vinaśyaty āśu tat kulam |
na śocanti tu yatraitā vardhate tad dhi sarvadā ||

A family where women remain unhappy due to the misdeeds of their men is bound to be destroyed. And a family where women are always happy is bound to prosper forever.

3.58

jāmayo yāni gehāni śapanty apratipūjitāḥ |
tāni kṛtyāhatānīva vinaśyanti samantataḥ ||

The houses and communities where women are not properly honored perish completely, as if cursed.

3.59

tasmād etāḥ sadā pūjyā bhūṣaṇācchādanāśanaiḥ |
bhūtikāmair narair nityaṃ satkāreṣūtsaveṣu ca ||

Thus, one desiring glory should ensure that he keeps women in the family by giving them respect and pleasing them with good ornaments, dresses, food, etc. Women should always be honored under all circumstances.

Here are a few points on these five verses:

a) Women are representatives of Laksmi Devi, who is in turn also the source of Durgā, the superintendent of the material energy. The attitude of man towards woman tells a lot about their general tendency towards the energy of the Lord. Some men respect the energy and try to engage it in the service of Kṛṣṇa, while others want to exploit it. Similarly, the proper attitude towards women is to offer respect and engage them in devotional service, giving up any exploitative mentality. This should be done according to one’s relationship, as a father, husband, spiritual or material leader, etc.

b) In the Fifth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, we have the passage with the prayers of Laksmi Devi. In this passage, it is revealed that Laksmi Devi gives blessings only to devotees, while Durgā gives material, short-lived blessings to others. Taking care of women in the material sense results in material prosperity, while properly engaging women in devotional service results in spiritual blessings and spiritual development. Ideally, both should come together. As the verses indicate, failure in achieving these goals results in both material and spiritual hardships.

c) As indicated in text 3.56, even other pious or spiritual deeds don’t replace proper conduct towards women. We can see that historically we performed many highly pious and spiritually potent deeds in our movement, such as distributing spiritual literature, worshiping the deity, distributing prasāda, and so on. However, without proper respect for women, we still face hardships and collapse.

d) Respect and dignity are the two key words. Most men struggle with attraction to the opposite sex, which leads to many unhealthy attitudes, especially in celibates. When we speak about caring and protecting women, one may bring up the topic of avoiding excessive intimacy and illicit relationships. This is, however, avoided when we develop an attitude of respect. When a man respects women, this automatically creates a protective barrier against improper intimacy, just as one would never think about having any improper relationship with one’s mother.

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