I hadn't visited the Odessa temple for three years - the devotees had repeatedly requested me to come and offer a seminar, and now I had found an opportunity to accept their invitation.....
I arrived on Sunday morning - just in time to give the Sunday feast lecture. It gave me a good opportunity to meet everyone and advertise the seminar on "Family Life as an Ashram", which we conducted during the following evenings.
I immediately understood that many new people had come here to Krishna consciousness, and I could perceive a nice and lively mood. Later I heard that they have formed various 'clubs' - a Women's Club, a Men's Club, a Vegetarian Club, etc, which is a great way to reach out to people and gradually cultivate them until they are ready to come to the temple and start chanting.
I was also here for Balarama's appearance and offered the main lecture in the evening. The program was well attended, even though the temple is far outside of the city, and the event fell on a working day. I was especially impressed by the well cooked feast - remarkable for this part of the world: with traditional preparations!
I immediately understood that many new people had come here to Krishna consciousness, and I could perceive a nice and lively mood. Later I heard that they have formed various 'clubs' - a Women's Club, a Men's Club, a Vegetarian Club, etc, which is a great way to reach out to people and gradually cultivate them until they are ready to come to the temple and start chanting.
I was also here for Balarama's appearance and offered the main lecture in the evening. The program was well attended, even though the temple is far outside of the city, and the event fell on a working day. I was especially impressed by the well cooked feast - remarkable for this part of the world: with traditional preparations!
In our seminar on "Family Life as an Ashram" we spent considerable time discussing how to enter marriage according to Krishna's recommendation. Srila Prabhupada explains this very nicely in the purport to SB, 3.21.27: "The selection of a good husband for a good girl was always entrusted to the parents. Here it is clearly stated that Manu and his wife were coming to see Kardama Muni to offer their daughter because the daughter was well qualified and the parents were searching out a similarly qualified man. This is the duty of parents. Girls are never thrown into the public street to search out their husband, for when girls are grown up and are searching after a boy, they forget to consider whether the boy they select is actually suitable for them. Out of the urge of sex desire, a girl may accept anyone, but if the husband is chosen by the parents, they can consider who is to be selected and who is not. According to the Vedic system, therefore, the girl is given over to a suitable boy by the parents; she is never allowed to select her own husband independently."
Of course, these principles are not only there for the girl, but also for the boy: unless receiving the guidance and advice of seniors, he may also accept an unsuitable girl as a wife - out of the urge of sex desire.
Today, our parents may not be devotees and thus they may not be able to help us find a suitable partner. However, we can extract the principle: a well-wishing friend or mentor should search for a possible candidate, and in this way we can minimize the risk of getting emotionally and sensually attached to a person who is not compatible on deeper levels. If we have the help of a trusted and capable matchmaker, a preliminary sifting process and pre-selection can already be done, and thus it will take much less time for the two persons involved to determine whether they will be a good team for married life.
Of course, these principles are not only there for the girl, but also for the boy: unless receiving the guidance and advice of seniors, he may also accept an unsuitable girl as a wife - out of the urge of sex desire.
Today, our parents may not be devotees and thus they may not be able to help us find a suitable partner. However, we can extract the principle: a well-wishing friend or mentor should search for a possible candidate, and in this way we can minimize the risk of getting emotionally and sensually attached to a person who is not compatible on deeper levels. If we have the help of a trusted and capable matchmaker, a preliminary sifting process and pre-selection can already be done, and thus it will take much less time for the two persons involved to determine whether they will be a good team for married life.
This is Krishna's recommendation in entering the grihastha ashram: that we don't find our own partner but accept the help of a trusted person. Then the period of association can be rather short - not much more than a few weeks. However, if we find our own partner, then we may have to wait for one or two years until the infatuation has faded away in order to see more deeply and with a cool head, whether we really have similar expectations and visions of our future family life. A long period of association has several strong disadvantages:
* We get more and more attached and emotionally entangled. If we don't end up marrying, we may suffer a broken-heart experience and get hurt, which makes it more difficult to once again be open to another candidate.
* It may become very difficult to control the senses and not engage in any physical exchanges before getting married.
* The social pressure increases, and the community members may expect those devotees to marry, even though they have not even decided yet. If they don't marry, there will be great embarrassment and shame.
It is becoming more and more common in our ISKCON society, that devotees live already together before they are married - legally or through a ceremony in the temple. They want to try each other out how much fun and satisfaction it will give before signing the marriage contract. It almost seems devotees forget, that such practice means they break their initiation vow of 'no illicit sex life'. Of course, a materialist considers it to be so normal to live together before getting married - in fact, he cannot even imagine to marry a person who he has not lived together! It is unheard of! And thus we easily take this attitude into our spiritual life - the power of materialistic conditioning.
Traditionally, the first physical touch between a husband and wife should take place in the vivaha yajna: when he covers her head with her sari and applies the bindi and sindhu to her forehead. Then such physical exchange becomes very deep and meaningful, almost electrifying - something which we want to experience only with one person in our life. Krishna's culture makes everything so special, extraordinary and deep, whereas materialistic culture makes everything very ordinary and shallow - chewing the chewed....
On the 18th of August I flew on to Kharkov/Ukraine....
Your servant, Devaki dd
* We get more and more attached and emotionally entangled. If we don't end up marrying, we may suffer a broken-heart experience and get hurt, which makes it more difficult to once again be open to another candidate.
* It may become very difficult to control the senses and not engage in any physical exchanges before getting married.
* The social pressure increases, and the community members may expect those devotees to marry, even though they have not even decided yet. If they don't marry, there will be great embarrassment and shame.
It is becoming more and more common in our ISKCON society, that devotees live already together before they are married - legally or through a ceremony in the temple. They want to try each other out how much fun and satisfaction it will give before signing the marriage contract. It almost seems devotees forget, that such practice means they break their initiation vow of 'no illicit sex life'. Of course, a materialist considers it to be so normal to live together before getting married - in fact, he cannot even imagine to marry a person who he has not lived together! It is unheard of! And thus we easily take this attitude into our spiritual life - the power of materialistic conditioning.
Traditionally, the first physical touch between a husband and wife should take place in the vivaha yajna: when he covers her head with her sari and applies the bindi and sindhu to her forehead. Then such physical exchange becomes very deep and meaningful, almost electrifying - something which we want to experience only with one person in our life. Krishna's culture makes everything so special, extraordinary and deep, whereas materialistic culture makes everything very ordinary and shallow - chewing the chewed....
On the 18th of August I flew on to Kharkov/Ukraine....
Your servant, Devaki dd
RSS Feed
