Many know about the famous dialog between Tulasi Devi and Sankhacuda, where she firmly rejects him. In this part of the dialog, many negative feminine qualities are stated, and therefore this part is usually popular amongst Brahmacharis. However, not everyone knows how the dialog ends.
The story is that Sankhacuda approached Tulasi with the purpose of marrying her. Tulasi was actually waiting for Sankhacuda and she had already decided to marry him. It’s described that Tulasi blushed and hid her face with her veil, secretly smiling at him.
The advances of Sankhacuda where thus not undesired as it may seem when on reads just the first part of the dialog. However, as an intelligent lady, she first wanted to test her future husband. The story goes like this:
In a previous article, I mentioned that the date for the creation of the Universe given in the Vedas is 13.819 billion years ago, which is staggering close to the calculation given by modern theories, which put the age of the Universe at 13.801 billion years. This is certainly impressive, but you could question how I came to this number. That’s what I wanted to explain in more detail today.
To reach this number it’s important to understand four important details about Vedic cosmology. Not many know these details, and without them, it’s not possible to come to the correct numbers.
One who reads attentively the pastime of Jaya and Vijaya “falling” from the spiritual world and becoming Ravana and Hiranyakashipu, Ravana and Kumbhakarna and Sisupala and Dantavakra, taking birth as demons for three lives before going back to Vaikunta can have a lot of questions.
1- First of all, how can Jaya and Vijaya become demons if no one falls from Vaikunta?
2- It’s narrated that they had to come as demons because Lord Vishnu wanted to fight. This appears to contradict statements about the affection of the Lord for His devotees.
3- We hear that demons who are killed by Krsna attain liberation. Why then they had to take birth as demons for three lives (and be killed by the Lord three times) before finally attaining liberation?
4- Lord Nrshihadeva, as well as Lord Varaha, Lord Rama, and Krsna Himself appear every day of Brahma. Does this mean that Vaya and Vijaya have to repeatedly be cursed and come to the material world as demons to fight with the Lord?
These questions are answered by Srila Rupa Goswami in the Laghu Bhagavatamrta.
Recently, I was speaking with a senior lady about second and third-generation devotees (who were already born from devotee parents inside our movement). She made the observation that generally speaking the girls are doing much better than the boys. She observes that girls get involved in different services or different preaching activities, or get settled in life and start their own Krsna Conscious families, while the boys are frequently confused, without finding their place in the world. Many get involved with drugs or other bad habits, and so on.
When we have a son we usually have great expectations for him, imagining that he will be a great preacher, a sannyasi, or at least a responsible householder. For girls, frequently, the expectations are lower, and often parents are less careful about their education, considering that they will probably just find a husband and get settled into family life. If anything, girls have usually fewer facilities than boys. Why thus they often do better?
Some may have a little trouble with the idea of worshiping Tulasi. Why are we worshiping a plant? It goes much deeper than that.
Tulasi Devi is the incarnation of Vrinda Devi, who is in turn the personification of the pastime potency of Krsna. She is the organizer of the pastimes between Radha and Krsna and is after her that Vrindavana is named. “Vrindavana” means the forest of Vrinda. Radharani is called Vrindavanesvari (the queen of Vrindavana), and Krsna is considered the king, but without the mercy of Vrinda Devi is not possible to enter their pastimes. Therefore, we worship her every day in the morning, chanting “ye tomara sarana loy tara vancha purna hoy krpa kori koro tare vrndavana-vasi“ (Whoever takes shelter of you, all his desires are fulfilled and by your mercy, he becomes a resident of Vrndavana.) She is actually a partial expansion of Srimati Radharani and one of her intimate associates. As a gopi, she has a molten golden complexion and uses blue garments, decorated with many ornaments, pearls, and flowers. At the same time, she appears as the plant Tulasi, who is very dear to Krsna.
Vrinda Devi also appears as Tulasi in the material world in order to facilitate the service of devotees to Krsna and help us attain His service. There is a whole pastime explaining her advent, which is narrated in the Brahma Vaivarta Purana. As in other pastimes narrated in the same book, this pastime is hard to understand, because it is narrated in a way that appeals to people influenced by the mode of passion. It is, therefore, full of curses and apparent conflict. These descriptions are of course not false, but to properly understand them one has to study them under the light of Vaishnava philosophy.
Nowadays homosexuality is a huge topic. There are men who are attracted to other men, and ladies who feel attracted to other ladies. One could discuss if this is good or bad, but the fact is that many who have this tendency become attracted to Krsna and try to follow devotional life, and of course, they often face a lot of challenges inside our movement. How can a sincere person surpass these obstacles and be able to practice and achieve success in spiritual life?
In this article, I’m not going to discuss if homosexuality is good or bad, nor enter into the institutional aspects of it. Instead, I will just focus on the individual and his potential challenges in his practice of Krsna Consciousness and how it may be surpassed.
July, August, and September is the period of rain in Mayapur. That’s the period of the monsoons, included in the four months of Caturmasya. When we speak about “monsoons”, some apocalyptic image comes to mind, but it is not as bad as it may seem. Nothing terrible happens, it just rains more.
I used to think that educating children was a very complicated thing. Later I learned however that it’s actually much simpler than I thought.
When we think about educating a child, we think about teaching a child to act like an adult. When we go on this path it can quickly become a complicated affair, because just like we have an ego, children also have their ego, and often this approach leads to a conflict between the two. Children who grow up in this way will also notice any kind of discrepancy between the rules imposed by the parents and the way they act, and such discrepancies lead to resentment. As a result, children often grow up averse to following authority, and this leads to more serious problems when they become teenagers. This also creates problems for them in accepting a spiritual master and practicing other aspects of devotional service.
There is however another approach, that is actually more in line with what the Vedas teach. What is it?
Instead of trying to teach the child to be an adult, we should act as adults ourselves!
It may sound obvious, but that’s actually quite different from what we often do. Frequently we are not able to control our emotions, we fight with our spouses and other people, we eat the wrong things, and at irregular times, we act in selfish ways, we are impolite with people, and so on. We do everything that we try to teach children not to do, and as a result, they become resistant and very quickly lose faith in us as authorities. When we try to force the children to do things we ourselves are not properly doing, it becomes a simple process of repression.
The definition of illicit sex is a kind of hot potato in our spiritual society. We all promise to our spiritual masters to not have ”illicit sex” after initiation but it seems that few can agree on what exactly it means.
This is a subject that was seriously abused in the past. It resulted in so many problems that it became some kind of hot topic. Some say that all sex is bad and therefore sex must be avoided even inside family life, while others go to the opposite extreme, saying that as long as one doesn’t jump the fence, anything goes. The right measure must be between these two extremes, but where?
First of all, to define what illicit sex is, we need to define what “legal sex” is. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krsna proclaims that “I am sex life which is not contrary to religious principles, O lord of the Bhāratas [Arjuna].” This makes clear that not all sex life is condemned, there is a type of sexual activity that is divine and is actually a representation of Krsna. In many passages, Srila Prabhupada explains that this is sex life with one’s legally married spouse, with the purpose of conceiving children who will be educated in Krsna Consciousness. I believe not many will disagree that we can accept this as the golden standard.
Armed with this information, we can try to analyze what “illicit sex” is. In most societies, sex outside of marriage is condemned, especially when one starts to casually have contact with multiple partners. Such type of behavior can destroy families, cause unwanted pregnancies, contribute to the spread of disease, and many other problems. I believe not many will disagree that this is negative and should be avoided.
However there is a gray area, that is sex inside family life, done without the explicit purpose of begetting children. This is the area where heated discussions frequently appear.
One important topic in the Bhagavad-Gita is the difference between Karma, Akarma, and Vikarma. This is a very important concept to grasp if we want to understand the message of the Bhagavad-Gita.
