One difficulty we often have in spiritual life, which causes problems both to ourselves and others, is to take just one side of a spiritual subject and try to apply it in a way that suits our misconceptions, instead of using it as a transformation tool. In this way, we change the philosophy to suit us, instead of changing ourselves to match the higher ideals of Krsna Consciousness.

One area where this is especially common is in family life. The main difficulty with men/woman relationships in this world is that relationships are often seen as a space to exercise our dominating tendencies. People, especially men, have a tendency to see their partner as someone who is there to serve them. This is something that often comes from lust since lust is the opposite of love. Love means to give, while lust means to take, to exploit.

There are different types of love according to their degree of purity. In this material world, love between men and women is generally quite low in the scale, because often this type of love is based on mutual satisfaction. I start a relationship with a person because I think he or she will bring me happiness, and I invest in the relationship to the proportion I expect to return. If at some point the relationship is not bringing me the happiness I expect, I break it and look for something else.

There are many great men described in the scriptures, such as Kardama Muni, the five Pandavas, and so on, who set the golden standard for the rest of us. One may of course not be like Kardama Muni or Yudhistira Maharaja, but we should at least try to follow in their footsteps.

Good qualities are essential especially when we speak about family life. One can’t demand to have a wife like Sita if he is not like Rama, and vice-versa. The scriptures explain that marriage and friendship should be made between equals, therefore the first step to get a good wife (of a good husband) is to develop our personal qualities. Once one has good personal qualities and is confident about the value of such qualities, one may be able to select a suitable spouse.

When we study the example of great men like Kardama Muni or Yudhistira Maharaja, we find that they have three main important qualities:

1- They know the goal of life.
2- They energetically strive in the direction of this goal, regardless of all obstacles and impediments.
3- They are kind and generous.

There are many other important qualities, such as being able to control one’s senses, being free from lust and greed, and so on, but all these other qualities derive from these three. These three central qualities are the engine that propels us in the direction of all other good qualities, we can say.

People who also have these qualities, or are at least striving to obtain them are attracted to others who have it, and this is the basis for the formation of sangas of advanced devotees, families of pure Vaishnavas, and so on. There are many foolish ladies, as well as many foolish men who don’t value such qualities, but if one understands their value one will be able to eventually find his peers.

As human beings, we strive for acceptance from others. When a devotee associates with materialistic people, this is something that works against us, since we will tend to lower our spiritual standards to be better accepted in the group. That’s why great personalities mentioned in the scriptures would normally renounce life in society at a certain point in their lives and go to live in the forests or mountains. Of course, this is not possible (nor recommended) in our age, but we can get an even greater benefit by associating with pure Vaishnavas.

When we speak about “pure Vaishnavas” we imagine that there is some group here or there where only pure Vaishnavas live, but it’s not really like that. Even spiritual communities contain a mixture of devotees in different levels of advancement, going from materialists who have just a slight devotional inclination, all the way to pure devotees. The point is that advanced devotees tend to form bounds between themselves, both in friendship and marriage. Therefore, one of the keys to finding such souls is to strive to develop these qualities ourselves.

When we speak about marriage, there is another point that comes into view: Lady devotees who cultivate these spiritual qualities feel attracted to men who have them. They feel automatically inclined to follow such a man, and therefore when such qualities are present in the man, all the ideas about chastity and other good feminine qualities become quite natural. If on the other hand, the man lacks such qualities, the marriage will always be full of problems, no matter how qualified the wife may be. There are also cases of abusive men, that can make the life of any woman miserable, regardless of her personal qualifications.

So, let’s try to best understand these three qualities.

To understand the goal of life means to have a sense of mission, have a greater goal, and strive for it. Naturally, the ultimate goal of life is Krsna Consciousness, but there are different paths that lead to this goal. Each devotee can find a particular service, or a particular project, develop it well, and thus offer some tangible contribution. There are also secondary goals, like maintaining one’s family, that can’t be neglected. If the man has a tangible goal and works energetically to achieve it, the wife automatically becomes inclined to assist him in his mission, and therefore cooperation becomes natural. Such a man will also be able to control his senses and act in a proper way, which will inspire natural admiration on the part of the wife.

If on the other hand, the man lacks a clear purpose in life, he will tend to be lazy and under the control of his mind and senses. He will be restless, frustrated, propense to become angry, etc. Women have great difficulty in following such a man. One may speak as much as he wants about Vedic culture, chastity, etc. but without good personal qualities, he will not have the respect of his wife. Ladies respect men who walk their talk.

Although desirable, these first two qualities are by themselves not sufficient. There are many who understand that the goal of life is to advance in Krsna Consciousness, have a sense of mission, and strive to improve their spiritual practice, but without simultaneously developing kindness and generosity become just dry ascetics. Kindness and generosity are some of the main symptoms that one is advancing in spiritual life since it shows one is developing the soft heart of a Vaishnava. Different from just mechanical activities, that can be imitated, these qualities are very difficult to fake.

The quality of being kind and generous applies not only to the wife and children but also to friends, relatives, fellow devotees, etc. A man who is generous will not quarrel about minor things in the house, he will guide by example instead of trying to control. He will put the well-being of others ahead of his personal comfort, he will solve problems, give attention and good advice, and donate his time and energy. He will be kind, patient, and wise. A man with such good qualities will naturally be admired by others, and this will inspire a great deal of trust and admiration in the wife.

Naturally, a marriage is made of two parts. The husband has to have good qualities, and the wife also has to have good qualities. Even the best man can face a failed marriage if he marries an unqualified lady, and the opposite is also true. My point here is that when a man cultivates good qualities in himself, instead of just demanding good qualities from the wife, everything works much better and more naturally. This is why much of the talk about chastity we see in our movement is so caustic: it fails to take into account the necessary qualities in men. It’s time for us to start changing that.

Srila Prabhupada spoke quite frequently about the necessity of performing Garbhadhana samskara for conceiving good children. This idea is frequently repeated by his disciples and grand disciples in lectures, seminars, and books. However, not so much is done to explain what “Garbhadhana samskara” is really about. As a result, most of us are quite lost in this regard. We understand that “Garbhadhana samskara” is important, but we don’t really know what it is.

There are many different injunctions in different scriptures, and some of the rituals don’t seem to make much sense in the context, like eating a certain type of dhal. Is it sufficient to just chant 50 rounds, or there is more? This article contains some conclusions I reached after researching the subject. You are free to comment adding whatever other information you have on this topic.

First of all, what is Garbhadhana samskara? It happens that children are not tabula rasas, but bring their previous impressions, personal traits, and desires from past lives. The upbringing and the education a child receives from the parents and tutors play a great role in who he or she is going to become, but a great deal is brought from his previous life. A highly enlightened soul will be able to ascend to the highest level of spiritual practice with just a little help, while a soul at a lower level of spirtual development may struggle to follow basic moral principles even with the best education.

The whole idea of Garbadhana samskara is based on attracting an enlightened soul to take shelter in the new body that is being created during conception. Considering how an important part of our lives our children are, the choice of the soul who will come into our family is quite important.

Many men in our society have the opinion that ladies should not receive an academic education, being instead trained to be good mothers and wives.

Indeed, when we examine the history of Vedic societies, this seemed to be the norm. Ladies would not have to work independently, being instead protected by their parents at a younger age, by their husbands in adult life, and by the grown-up children in older age. Men in such societies would be responsible, and even the worst demons like Ravana or Hiranyakashipu would properly protect their wives. There were no known cases of divorce, and even women who would lose their husbands untimely due to wars or other causes would be taken care of by surviving members of the family, or by some arrangement by the king. There were no cases of helpless women having to fight alone for survival. Srila Prabhupada mentions this in several places.

If it would be somehow possible to re-establish such a society, it would be hard to argue that it would not be a better arrangement than modern societies, where the ladies have to compete with the men in the work market, fighting for survival.

The problem is that we don’t have such a structure in any place in the world nowadays. Men usually don’t properly protect their wives, and grow-up sons abandon their mothers after they leave the house. The safety net previously offered by the extended families is not in place, and there are no saintly kings to protect vulnerable members of society. Marriage nowadays is a gamble at best, where very few ladies can count on receiving support from their husbands for all their lives. Even if we examine only inside our own movement, the situation is not much better. How many old ladies can you remember that are still being properly taken care of by their husbands? You will probably be hard-pressed to make a list with 10 names. Divorces are now the rule, not the exception, and abuse is rampant inside families. In most cases the husbands leave after a few years, giving little or no support for the previous wife. In many cases, the woman is left with small children and has to somehow find ways to provide not only for herself but also for the children. And these are the lucky ones who can at least get married, many ladies don’t even have such a chance, being just exploited by different men at different stages of their lives.

The history of the pregnancy of Diti in the evening, narrated in the 3rd canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, happened relatively recently, in the 6th Manvantara. Diti is one of the daughters of Daksa in his new birth during the reign of Caksusa Manu, who was given in marriage to Kasyapa Muni to increase the population of the universe. Diti became the mother of the demons, who (although a generally unpleasant group) are also a significant part of the population of the universe, just like the demigods and others, begotten by the other daughters of Daksa.

By the time Hiranyaksa and Hiranyakashipu were born, there were demons existing in the universe for many generations, but because their descendants enormously increased their population, Diti is considered the mother of the demons, just like Aditi is considered the mother of the demigods, even though there were demigods before. Different from sages from Maharloka and upwards, who live for extremely long periods of time, both demons and demigods have relatively short lifespans (living up to a Manvantara) and their populations can greatly increase or decrease due to different circumstances. At the end of each Manvantara, for example, the population of both demons and demigods is drastically reduced, allowing a new generation to come in.

The story of Diti and Aditi describes the creation of the populations of demons and demigods during the 6th Manvantara, long after the events from the reign of Swaymbuva Manu, like the pastime of Kardama Muni and Devahuti, the saga of Dhruva Maharaja and so on. However, because in the Srimad Bhagavatam, the pastimes are organized according to topics and not chronologically, the description of this pastime appears in the third canto, after the description of the first appearance of Lord Varaha during the reign of Svayambhuva Manu. This happens because the two appearances of Lord Varaha are amalgamated in a single description, and thus, when the pastime of Lord Varaha lifting Bhu-Mandala at the beginning of the day of Brahma was described, Vidura wanted to hear about the killing of Hiranyaksa and started inquiring from Maitreya Muni about it, which led to the description of the pregnancy of Diti and the birth of the demon and his fight with Lord Varaha in his second advent in the 6th Manvantara. This, of course, makes understanding the chronological order of the pastimes a little challenging, but when we consider that the main goal of the Srimad Bhagavatam is to glorify the Lord, this order makes perfect sense.

One problem we have in our movement (and in modern society in general) is that it is difficult for women to find a proper husband and become settled in family life. There are of course many men interested in associating with ladies, but when it comes the time to accept responsibilities, most of them shy away. We see that even qualified ladies frequently find it difficult to get married. Another problem is that getting married is also not a guarantee of anything, since divorces are also very common. Even if a lady does find a husband, there is no guarantee that this man will stay her whole life with her.

In traditional societies, association with ladies is conditioned to marriage. If a man wants a lady, he has to get a wife and accept responsibility for maintaining a family. In modern societies, however, boys and girls just associate freely, and this reduces the number of people interested in entering into a stable relationship. As Prabhupada explains, one will not want to maintain a cow if he can just get milk from the market.

Theoretically, we are supposed to be traditional in our movement, with marriage being the only acceptable way of having a loving relationship, but we can see that in practice we more or less follow the general culture, with people dating and entering into relationships without necessarily having the intention of getting married. In this way, the problem ends up affecting us in the same way it affects people from the outside.

Another problem is that nowadays we have more ladies than men coming to our movement. In some countries, the proportion may still be more or less the same, but when we take it globally, especially in countries like China and Russia, there are definitely more women than men. Ideally, devotees should marry devotees, and a lady should try to marry a man who is more mature, and more spiritually advanced than herself, who can guide her on the path back to Godhead. However, we can see that nowadays this is quite rare. Most ladies have to choose between marrying whatever men are available, marrying someone from the outside, or risking remaining single.

In such a situation, many ladies end up marrying men who are not devotees. I used to think of this as a terrible thing, but over the years I saw a few cases that changed my opinion to a certain extent.

This is perhaps not an issue for you, but somehow or other this topic keeps coming back to the discussion in certain circles, and this idea can become quite problematic if it gains traction.

Some enthusiastically speak about introducing polygamy in Iskcon, quoting from a purport on Srimad Bhagavatam, where Prabhupada defends the practice. If it is mentioned in the Vedas, it must be good, right? Why not establish it in our Vaishnava society?

I would not be so quick.

It’s true that Prabhupada defends the use of polygamy in a few passages, but this is done in the context of ordinary society, as a solution for men having affairs with many women. Polygamy was accepted in different societies throughout history. There are many mentions of it in the Puranas and the Mahabharata, for example. However, there is another side: Polygamy can be extremely problematic.

We can see that in the story of Druma Maharaja the whole problem started because Druva’s father had more than one wife. One wife became jealous of the other, creating the whole situation. Similarly, kind Dasharatha had more than one wife, and the whole intrigue that led to Lord Rama being exiled started from one wife being jealous of the other. It’s important to notice that the pastime of Dhruva Maharaja happened in Satya-Yuga, and Lord Rama came in Treta-Yuga. If even in Satya and Treta-Yuga polygamy created this sort of problem, one can only imagine what kind of problems it would cause in our current society. Our movement is not formed by perfect sages or even by pious Ksatriyas. We are a movement created by ex-mlecchas who are coming from extremely sinful backgrounds. We are struggling to reform ourselves through the chanting of the holy names, but most of us are not there yet.

One important factor that every husband (devotee or not) should understand to be able to have a harmonious family life is about spheres of influence for the couple. This is a topic extensively described in the common-sense Purana.

It happens that every soul has a propensity for controlling. That’s why in the Bhagavad-Gita Krsna refers to us, the conditioned souls as “Purusha”, although in reality, He is the only real Purusha. Although constitutionally the soul is Prakriti, the energy of Krsna when the soul comes to this material world, it plays the role of an enjoyer or Purusha, and the most noticeable facet of this cosplay is our tendency to control.

What does it have to do with family life?

It happens that both men and women are souls, and except in very special couples, both are still conditioned. That’s usually what makes us get married in the first place.

Being both souls and both conditioned, both husband and wife have a tendency, to control, and we can practically see that in most couples this doesn’t go very well. Two persons living in the same house, both wanting to be the boss is a recipe for conflict. How can we avoid that?

We all understand that we are the soul and not the body. Still, feeling and acting like a soul is not as easy as one may think. Going from a conditioned life to a completely liberated platform, where we completely stop caring about the body, is actually a long way.

Amongst different material activities, there are four that are very difficult to give up: eating tasty foods, sleeping, defending ourselves and our social position, and having sex life.

The first two are kind of straightforward in Krsna Consciousness: although there is a general recommendation we should try to reduce our eating and sleeping, there is no prohibition. One may very well eat as much prasadam as he wants, and sleep as much as necessary to keep his mind in order.

We also understand that excessive defense is counterproductive to spiritual life and that we should as far as possible depend on Krsna, but again there is no prohibition: one may also defend himself as he sees fit, just avoiding excesses.

In this way, we can see that there is no great difficulty harmonizing these three activities with Krsna Consciousness. We understand that the goal is to gradually minimize these propensities, but one may do this at his own pace, progressing during his or her life.

The greatest problem is sex life. Not only it’s the hardest to give up, but also the point where there are the most serious restrictions. This combination of strong desire and restrictions historically led to many problems, including celibates getting involved in sexual scandals, married men and women getting involved in extramarital affairs, divorces, and so on.