It’s well known that Prabhupada allowed ladies to live in temples and be trained in spiritual principles, just like the men. Just as single, celibate men living in the temples were called “brahmacaris”, the single celibate ladies were called “brahmacarinis”. They practiced spiritual life under the same basic rules as the males and usually entered family life after a few years of practice, just like most men do.
It’s not clear if establishing the brahmacarini asrama was part of Srila Prabhupada’s original plan to establish Krsna Consciousness in the West, or if it was an adjustment born out of the necessity of giving shelter to the ladies who started coming to his movement, but it is a fact that he did it.
Nowadays, however, many argue that there is no such thing as a brahmacarini asrama in Vedic tradition. They argue that with few exceptions, all ladies get married when they attain a suitable age and that women were generally not allowed to live in temples, nor are encouraged to become renunciants.
It’s always difficult to discuss about things being “Vedic” or not because the fact is that we have very limited information about how people were living in previous ages. None of us were there personally, there is no known video footage from those times, and so on. We have some limited information transmitted through the scriptures, but the meaning is widely subject to interpretation. We thus generally accept as truth whatever is explained by pure devotees, and especially what they show by their personal example, understanding that pure devotees are the only ones who truly understand the Vedas.
When Srila Prabhupada established our movement in the West, he allowed unmarried ladies, as well as married couples to live in temples. He was seriously criticized in India because of this, but he never changed his decision. Later, he stated that was due to this decision that his movement was successful in the West. He even wrote a strong purport on CC Adi 7.31-32 restating his opinion on this matter:
“These jealous fools who criticize the intermingling of boys and girls will simply have to be satisfied with their own foolishness because they cannot think of how to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness by adopting ways and means that are favorable for this purpose. Their stereotyped methods will never help spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore, what we are doing is perfect by the grace of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, for it is He who proposed to invent a way to capture those who strayed from Kṛṣṇa consciousness.”
In this way, regardless of discussions about Vedic tradition, it’s undeniable that it was something established in our movement by Srila Prabhupada. Interestingly enough, brahmacarini asramas were also later established in some Gaudiya Maths as the Gangamathas project, which became moderately successful in some places.
My personal realization on this matter is that in Western societies there is a very strong culture of women first developing a career, gaining independence, and leaving marriage for later. This probably appeared as a reaction to the mistreatment of women in the past generations, but it’s a fact that it is now a very prominent cultural trace. Instead of just trying to brainwash the ladies to immediately become chaste wives (which is largely unattainable at this stage, especially considering the complete unpreparedness of most men to become protective husbands), it’s more rational to allow the ladies to engage this tendency positively in practicing spiritual life and spreading Krsna Consciousness. After a few years, when they become a little more experienced and their minds more settled, they naturally start thinking about family life, and at this point they can easily be trained to become good wives and mothers. We can see that the same goal is attained but in a more natural way. I believe this was probably Srila Prabhupada’s idea from the start. Another component is that ladies who have a tendency to remain celibates should also be given facilities to do so, instead of being pressed into family life. This was also foreseen by Srila Prabhupada, who spoke about the creation of “nunneries” for celibate ladies, that would operate without the involvement of men.
We can see that many ladies from the early days of our movement, whom Srila Prabhupada personally trained, became very serious devotees and very enthusiastic promoters of Krsna Consciousness, both in their brahmacarini years and later in family life. The problem is that later the system deteriorated, as the brahmacarinis were neglected. We can see that the problem was more with the implementation than with the original idea.
It may sound very revolutionary, but the truth is that the varnashrama institution is based on systematic training, not on dogmas and stereotypes. Nowadays boys and girls are hushed into family life in our Krsna-conscious society and we can see that in most cases they need to go through one or more failed marriages until they are finally capable of entering into a workable relationship. Apart from that, there are many relationships outside marriage, which are a problem on their own. I believe we can do better.
There were a few successful projects for training boys and girls in family life during the history of our movement. The problem is that these projects tend to be short-lived, working properly for some time, but going through difficulties later as the founders gradually leave and other people take charge. However, this is something we will somehow need to learn to do right if we want our movement to have a future.
Families are the fabric of all civilized societies since it’s inside the families that the culture and social values are transmitted to the next generations. Due to the lack of a proper Vaishnava culture, we still largely follow the regular Western culture, spiced with traces of other regional cultures and thus we tend to repeat the same mistakes as ordinary people, with all the divorces, child abuse, and other scandals as in ordinary society. Establishing a proper culture in our movement passes through establishing proper families, and this invariably passes through properly training the young devotees. Training the boys is the hardest part since the Vedic idea is that the husband should be spiritually advanced and thus be able to guide the family, and it’s much harder to train someone to be a proper leader than a follower.
I believe the establishment of the brahmacarini asrama by Srila Prabhupada was an attempt in this direction, creating a place where ladies who were coming into the movement could be helped in transitioning from the unregulated and selfish mentality of modern materialistic society into a mentality of Krsna Consciousness before entering into family life, just like the men. The problem however was that such training was never really established in most places, and both boys and girls were frequently just used for labor or money collection. However, I believe the system could still work as originally intended if the implementation was fixed.
Apart from training, counseling is also essential, since most of us become devotees already as adults when our mentality is already formed and we need help to be able to navigate all our mental issues to be able to become settled in life. Counseling however doesn’t work very well as an institutional structure. It has to be based on establishing relationships of trust with senior, more experienced devotees and from there asking questions and trying to learn from their experience. It’s not something we can demand, but rather something we need to pursue and value.
Our duty as devotees is to first learn how to apply the philosophy of Krsna Consciousness into our own lives, constituting peaceful and spiritually conducive families, and from there try to train our children, as well as others into the same spiritual culture. That’s possibly the biggest contribution we can give to the future of our movement.