Clear DayHare Krishna, I Thought These Answers and Questions Very
Interesting,So I am sending them to you,For Discussion,

your servant,,,,,,,, Jaya Kesava Dasa
Srila Prabhupada’s Answers- Part 2, (Vedic Culture: Varnasrama-dharma)

Bob: I've asked devotees about how they feel towards sex in their relations,
and I see the way they feel, but I can't see myself acting the same way. See,
I'll be getting married at the end of this summer.

Srila Prabhupada: Hm-m?

Bob: I'll be getting married at the end of this summer, in September or August
when I return to America. And the devotees say that the householders only have
sex to conceive a child, and I cannot picture myself at all in such a position,
and--What kind of sex life can one lead, living in the material world?

Srila Prabhupada: The Vedic principle is that one should avoid sex life
altogether. The whole Vedic principle is to get liberation from material
bondage. There are different attachments for material enjoyment, of which sex
life is the topmost enjoyment. The Bhagavatam says that this material world...

pumsah striya mithuni-bhavam etam

( Man is attached to woman, and woman is attached to man. Not only in human
society--in animal society also. That attachment is the basic principle of
material life. So, a woman is hankering or seeking after the association of a
man, and a man is hankering or seeking for the association of a woman. All the
fiction novels, dramas, cinema and even ordinary advertisements that you see
simply depict the attachment between man and woman. Even in the tailor's shop
you will find in the window some woman and some man.)

pravrttir esa bhutanam

nivrttis tu mahaphalam

So this attachment is already there.

Bob: Attachment between man and woman?

Srila Prabhupada: Man and woman. So if you want to get liberation from this
material world, then that attachment should be reduced to nil. Otherwise, simply
further attachment--You will have to take rebirth, either as a human being or as
a demigod or as an animal, as a serpent, as a bird, as a beast. You will have to
take birth. So, this basic principle of increasing attachment is not our
business, although it is the general tendency. Grha, ksetra, suta [home, land,
sons]. But if one can reduce and stop it, that is first class. Therefore our
Vedic system is to first of all train a boy as a brahmacari--no sex life. The
Vedic principle is to reduce attachment, not to increase it. Therefore the whole
system is called varnasrama-dharma. The Indian system calls for varna and
asrama--four social orders and four spiritual orders. Brahmacarya [celibate
student life], grhastha [married life], vanaprastha [retired life] and sannyasa
[renounced life]--these are the spiritual orders. And the social orders consist
of brahmanas [intellectuals], ksatriyas [administrators], vaisyas [merchants and
farmers] and sudras [ordinary workers]. So under this system, the regulative
principles are so nice that

even if one has the tendency to enjoy material life, he is so nicely molded
that at last he achieves liberation and goes back home, back to Godhead. This is
the process. So sex life is not required, but because we are attached to it,
therefore there are some regulative principles under which it is maintained.

[chanting starts somewhere in the background, with exotic mrdanga drumbeats
amidst laughing and the loud blowing of horns.]

It is said in Srimad-Bhagavatam that --

pumsah striya mithuni-bhavam etam

tayor mitho hrdaya-granthim ahuh

ato grha-ksetra-sutapta-vittair

janasya moho 'yam aham mameti

(Bhag. 5.5.8)

This sex life is the basic principle of material life--attachment for man or
woman. And when they are united, when a man and woman are united, that
attachment becomes increased, and that increased attachment will induce one to
accumulate grha (a home), ksetra (land), suta (children), apta (friendship or
society) and vitta. Vita means money. In this
way--grha-ksetra-sutapta-vittaih--he becomes entangled. janasya moho 'yam: this
is the illusion. And by this illusion he thinks, aham mameti: "I am this body,
and anything in relationship with this body is mine."

Bob: What is that again?

Srila Prabhupada: This attachment increases. The material attachment involves
thinking, "I am this body, and because I have this body in a particular place,
that is my country." And that is going on: "I am American, I am Indian, I am
German, I am this, I am that--this body. This is my country. I shall sacrifice
everything for my country and society." So in this way, the illusion increases.
And under this illusion, when he dies he gets another body. That may be a
superior body or inferior body, according to his karma. So if he gets a superior
body, then that is also an entanglement, even if he goes to the heavenly
planets. But if he becomes a cat or dog, then his life is lost. Or a tree--there
is every chance of it. So this science is not known in the world--how the soul
is transmigrating from one body to another, and how he is being entrapped! in
different types of bodies. This science is unknown. Therefore when Arjuna was
speaking--"If I kill my brother, if I kill my grandfather on the other
side..."--he was simply thinking on the basis of the bodily concept of life. But
when his problems could not be solved, he surrendered to Krishna and accepted
Him as spiritual master. And when Krishna became his spiritual master, He
chastised Arjuna in the beginning:

asocyan anvasocas tvam

prajna-vadams ca bhasase

gatasun agatasums ca

nanusocanti panditah

( "You are talking like a learned man, but you are fool number one because you
are talking about the bodily concept of life." )

So this sex life increases the bodily concept of life. Therefore, the whole
process is to reduce it to nil.

Bob: To reduce it over the stages of your life?

Srila Prabhupada: Yes. Reduce it. A boy is trained as a student up to
twenty-five years, restricting sex life. Brahmacari. So, some of the boys remain
naisthika-brahmacari [celibate for life]. Because they are given education and
they become fully conversant with spiritual knowledge, they don't want to marry.
That is also restricted--he cannot have sex life without being married.
Therefore in human society there is marriage, not in animal society.

But people are gradually descending from human society to animal society.
They are forgetting marriage. That is also predicted in the sastras. Dampatye
'bhirucir hetuh: in the Kali-yuga [the present age of quarrel], eventually there
will be no marriage performances; the boy and the girl will simply agree to live
together, and their relationship will exist on sexual power. If the man or the
woman is deficient in sex life, then there is divorce. So, for this philosophy
there are many Western philosophers like Freud and others who have written so
many books. But according to Vedic culture, we are interested in sex only for
begetting children, that's all. Not to study the psychology of sex life. There
is already natural psychology for that. Even if one does not read any
philosophy, he is sexually inclined. N! obody is taught it in the schools and
colleges. Everyone already knows how to do it. [He laughs.] That is the general
tendency. But education should be given to stop it. That is real education.
[There is a long pause, filled with the sound of bicycle horns, children
playing, and throngs of people calling to one another]

Bob: Presently, in America, that's a radical concept.

Srila Prabhupada: Well, in America there are so many things that require
reformation, and this Krishna consciousness movement will bring that. I went to
your country and saw that the boys and girls were living like friends, so I said
to my students, "You cannot live together as friends; you must get you! rselves
married."

Bob: Many people see that even marriage is not sacred, so they find no desire to
marry. Because people get married, and if things are not proper, they get a
divorce so very easily--

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, that also.

Bob:-- that some people feel that to get married is not meaningful.

Srila Prabhupada: No, their idea is that marriage is for legalized prostitution.
They think like that, but that is not marriage. Even that Christian paper--what
is that? Watch--?

Syamasundara: Watchtower?

Srila Prabhupada: Watchtower. It has criticized that one priest has allowed a
marriage between two men--homosexuality. So these things are all going on. They
take it purely for prostitution, that's all. So therefore people are thinking,
"What is the use of keeping a regular prostitute at such heavy expenditure?
Better not to have this."

Syamasundara: You use that example of the cow and the market.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes--when the milk is available in the marketplace, what is
the use of keeping a cow? [Everyone laughs.] It is a very abominable condition
in the Western countries--I have seen it. Here also in India, gradually it is
coming. Therefore we have started this Krishna consciousness movement! to
educate people in the essential principles of spiritual life. It is not a
sectarian religious movement. It is a cultural movement for everyone's benefit.

Please Chant :


Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare


And Be Happy.

Brahmatirtha dasa Adhikari

(Bob Cohen)

Houston, Texas

(To be Continued)……..




NB – ‘Excerpts of Hare Krishna Literature’


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