In 2019 the GBC approved a resolution opening the doors to Vaishnavas in female bodies to also start acting as diksa gurus, just as their male counterparts. In one sense, this question seems to be easy enough: the relationship between guru and disciple is spiritual and not material, therefore it is a relationship between two souls and not between two bodies. The soul in a female body is not different from a soul in a male body, therefore it should not be a big question.

It may look simple in theory, but the implementation revealed much more polemical and divisive than perhaps originally thought. Although the resolution was passed almost five years ago, the topic is far from settled. There is a lot of opposition to it, especially in India, and there are even groups that want to separate from ISKCON due to it.

What makes this question so difficult, it that it mixes actually three separate factors:

The first is the philosophical discussion, if it is correct or not according to the sastras and the instructions of our acaryas. This discussion is not so simple, because the sastras deal with different principles that are applicable to different circumstances and such principles are often very difficult to reconcile. The fact that many tend to debate based on isolated quotes also does not help.

Who is Maha-Vishnu? Who is Saṅkarṣaṇa? Who is Narayana? Who are Karanarnavasayi Vishnu, Garbhodakasayi Vishnu and Ksirodakasayi Vishnu? What is the difference and the relationship between them? Who is Sadha-Shiva? What is the difference between him and the Shiva present in our universe?

Everything starts with Krsna. Krsna is the original, Supreme Personality of Godhead. Krsna is just like a candle that ignites other candles. All candles may provide a similar illumination, but still, there is a candle that ignited all the others and is thus the origin of the illumination. Similarly, there are many forms of Vishnu and they are all powerful, but still, Krsna is the original, Supreme Personality of Godhead. kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam

Krsna expands Himself into Balalarama, who is the original Servitor God. Krsna is the Supreme God, and Balarama is the Servitor God. Both are God, and both are equally worshipable, but between them, Krsna is served, and Balarama is the servitor. Balarama expands himself into all forms of paraphernalia used by Krsna, and even most of His associates, facilitating Krsna’s pastimes. Balarama also appears to us in the form of the spiritual master to teach us how to serve Krsna.

From Balarama comes the first Saṅkarṣaṇa, who is the origin of all the different Vishnu forms. From the first Sankarsana comes Nārāyaṇa, the Lord of Vaikunta, and from Narayana comes the second Saṅkarṣaṇa, who is the origin of all the Purusa avataras, the expansions of the Lord who take charge of the creation and maintenance of the material universes.

Who are these Purusha avataras?

Vyasadeva did a monumental work in compiling the Vedic literature. All the Vedic texts we have today, including all the Puranas, Upanishads, and so on are estimated to be just 7% of all the verses compiled by Vyasadeva that survived the passage of time. Originally he wrote much more.

Vyasadeva originally divided the original Veda into four and passed each division to one of his disciples. They in turn subdivided the knowledge amongst their different disciples, giving birth to all different branches of knowledge:

Our spirtual process starts with hearing. After we become eager to hear, the cleaning of the material desires from the heart starts and as we become free from material desires we become progressively happier. However, it’s a long way back to Godhead. There is a very special verse in the Srimad Bhagavatam that explains how to make this process faster:

“By regular attendance in classes on the Bhāgavatam and by rendering of service to the pure devotee, all that is troublesome to the heart is almost completely destroyed, and loving service unto the Personality of Godhead, who is praised with transcendental songs, is established as an irrevocable fact.” (SB 1.2.18)

The verse mentions “nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā” (regularly serving the Bhāgavata). Srila Prabhupada explains that there are two Bhāgavatas: the book bhāgavata and the devotee Bhāgavata. As he explains: “A devotee Bhāgavata is as good as the book Bhāgavata because the devotee Bhāgavata leads his life in terms of the book Bhāgavata and the book Bhāgavata is full of information about the Personality of Godhead and His pure devotees, who are also Bhāgavatas. Bhāgavata book and person are identical.”

When Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu started His sankirtan movement, he very quickly filled Navadwipa with love of Godhead, which quickly overflowed and submerged the whole of India. At the time, not only the direct associates of Mahaprabhu were pure devotees, but also the distant associates, people who came into contact with them, the family members of the people who would come in contact with them, and even people who would come in contact with people who came in contact with them. In this way, Prema spread like a powerful virus, quickly taking over India.

However, just a few hundred years later, Vaishnavism had already degenerated into a conglomerate of sects that had little to do with the original movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Baulas were living degraded lives and chanting fold songs, just like hippies, Ativadis were worshipping Lord Jagannatha with the goal of becoming one with Him, Saki Bekis were dressing in saris and pretending to be Gopis while at the same time doing the most immoral things, and so on.

How could the original movement, where practically everyone was not only a pure devotee at the level of Prema degenerate so badly? And if it went so wrong the first time, what is the possibility of transforming the current materialistic society into a society of pure devotees, starting the Golden Age that is predicted in the scriptures?

Krsna has three main energies: The spiritual energy (or internal potency), the material energy (or external potency), and the marginal energy (the individual souls, who can choose between staying under the internal energy, or the external energy).

The internal potency composes all the spiritual planets and everything else that exists there. There everything is eternal, composed of eternity, knowledge, and bliss. It equals 75% or more of the creation, and 90% or more of all souls live there. All souls come originally from this spiritual potency and thus are eternally connected with Krsna with a bound of love. This love for Krsna, or Prema, is already inside the soul. More specifically, it is part of the soul, and can’t be separated or lost. As Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu explains:

nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa-prema ‘sādhya’ kabhu naya
śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya

“Pure love for Kṛṣṇa is eternally established in the hearts of the living entities. It is not something to be gained from another source. When the heart is purified by hearing and chanting, this love naturally awakens.” (CC Madhya 22.108)

One facet of our movement that bothers some is the frequent comments that women are Maya. This is the source of much exasperation since it leads to all kinds of negative interactions.

It’s easy to understand that this is prevalent amongst neophytes and that as devotees advance they gradually learn to have a more balanced approach to human relationships. However, why do we have to wait? Is there not a way to fix things from the start, so devotees from all devotional levels can just relate between themselves as normal human beings, without having to go through these different phases?

While this is possible, it can be difficult. The problem is that as long as a person is affected by passion and ignorance, his vision will always be clouded by duality, which will manifest as attachment and aversion. Nowadays, 99% of the world’s population is in this situation, and almost all new devotees come from it. As a result, practically all of us start from this platform of passion and ignorance, and we have to work hard from there to gradually progress into goodness.

Krsna appears in the material world in numerous incarnations. These incarnations are compared to many rivers flowing from an unlimited source of water. Ultimately, all great powerful beings, including the ṛṣis, Manus, demigods, descendants of Manu, and so on are plenary portions or portions of the plenary portions or are empowered by the Lord. All these different incarnations manifest from Lord Kisirodakasayi Vishnu.

However, Krsna is different. Although Suta Goswami initially includes them in the list of 22 incarnations given in the third chapter of the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, in verse 28 he reveals that Krsna is in a different category:

ete cāṁśa-kalāḥ puṁsaḥ
kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam
indrāri-vyākulaṁ lokaṁ
mṛḍayanti yuge yuge

“All of the above-mentioned incarnations are either plenary portions or portions of the plenary portions of the Lord, but Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the original Personality of Godhead. All of them appear on planets whenever there is a disturbance created by the atheists. The Lord incarnates to protect the theists.”

This is a very important verse. Srila Jiva Goswami identified it as the paribhasa-sutra of Srimad Bhagavatam. According to him, each book in Vedic literature has one or a few verses that bring the conclusion of the book. That’s the paribhasa-sutra. All the other verses must be studied in the context of the paribhasa-sutra if one wants to properly understand the text.