The pitfalls of Yugal Bhajan, Part I

One of the verses that struck me when reading the Haṭha-yoga-pradīpikā was the following

tatra vastu-dvayaṁ vakṣye durlabhaṁ yasya kasyacit |
kṣīraṁ caikaṁ dvitīyaṁ tu nārī ca vaśavartinī ||

I will now tell you of two things that are very rare for anyone in this world. One is milk. The other is an cooperative woman. (HYP 3.84)

I found the verse a little troublesome, first of all because milk does not seem all that hard to find, not like a spiritual partner for bhajan, and also because this word vaśa-vartinī seems to indicate a kind of patriarchal model of male-female relations, which I as a worshiper of the female deity, Radharani, i.e., as a worshiper of the Divine Feminine, Shakti, felt was philosophically incompatible. After all, Radharani is known as the one who controls Krishna through bhakti, indicating a primacy of the feminine.

My position has always been that of the spiritual complementarity of the sexes, a position that is closer to the Shakta philosophy than to the renunciate schools of Indian spirituality, whether those of the jñāna path or those of bhakti. I still do not think, like many on both sides of this debate, that this is a zero-sum power game.

I have preached openly the concept of mutual guruship, and I still believe in this idea for those who would attempt Yugal Bhajan, but if one understands the idea of mutuality here, one will see that it does not mean that there is a constant power struggle going on as to who is the boss of whom. In fact I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in emphasizing the guru-role rather than that of the disciple, so I should have used the expression "mutual discipleship." Service is fundamental to bhakti. Even the guru is doing nothing more than serving through wisdom and charity; he does not do so out of a desire for personal benefit:

bhaktiḥ sevā bhagavato muktis tat-pada-laṅghanam
ko mūḍho dāsatāṁ prāpya prābhavaṁ padam icchati
bhava-bandha-cchide tasyai spṛhayāmi na muktaye
bhavān prabhur ahaṁ dāsa iti yatra vilupyate

Devotion means service to the Lord.
Liberation means the transgression of His lotus feet.
What fool who has attained the position of a servant
would seek to become Lord and Master?
I aspire not to liberation, which would cut the bonds of material life,
but where the awareness that I am servant and You are Lord would be lost.

The spirit of service is the sine qua non of bhakti. Any sādhanā that loses sight of this is not bhakti and will certainly not lead to prema.

I intend to reflect on this subject for the next few articles.

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One of the chapters I love in the Bhāgavatam 11.14 where some of the most ecstatic utterances found in this great scripture are enjoined. Including this verse, which I have quoted before on this blog,

vāg gadgadā dravate yasya cittaṁ
rudaty abhīkṣṇaṁ hasati kvacic ca
vilajja udgāyati nṛtyate ca
mad-bhakti-yukto bhuvanaṁ punāti

He whose voice is broken with emotion,
whose mind melts and who cries constantly,
who sometimes laughs, shamelessly sings aloud and dances,
such a person endowed with devotion to me
purifies the entire world. (11.14.24)

However, at the end of this section, Krishna concludes with a few well-known verses that stand as a direct contrast to what has gone before, a warning as it were:

viṣayān dhyāyataś cittaṁ viṣayeṣu viṣajjate |
mām anusmarataś cittaṁ mayy eva pravilīyate ||
tasmād asad-abhidhyānaṁ yathā svapna-manoratham |
hitvā mayi samādhatsva mano mad-bhāva-bhāvitam ||

The mind that dwells on sense objects becomes attached to sense objects. The mind that constantly remembers me becomes absorbed in me. Therefore, give up meditation on the impermanent, which is like the flight of fancy in a dream, and fix your mind on me in samādhi, keeping it always inundated with love for me. (SB 11.14.26-27)

And then, from the general into the specific:

strīṇāṁ strī-saṅgināṁ saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dūrata ātmavān |
kṣeme vivikta āsīnaś cintayen mām atandritaḥ ||
na tathāsya bhavet kleśo bandhaś cānya-prasaṅgataḥ |
yoṣit-saṅgād yathā puṁso yathā tat-saṅgi-saṅgataḥ ||

One who is in possession of himself should keep far from the company of women or those who keep the company of women. Sitting in a secluded and peaceful place, he should meditate on me without lassitude. There is no greater distress or bondage arising from any other association than that of woman or those who are attached to the company of women. (11.14.28-29)

Vishwanath precedes his brief remarks here with the sentence: viśeṣato vātsyāyanādy-uktāḥ kāma-mārgās tyājyāḥ. "In particular, the Kāma-śāstra as taught by Vatsyayana and others is to be rejected."

The dangers of womanly association are not minced with in the Bhāgavatam or the Charitamrita. The last of these verses are actually a repetition of an earlier verse found in the teachings of Kapila.

From the time that I was preparing to take sannyasa, and long before I was "infected" by the Sahajiya virus, these were some of my favorite verses in the Bhāgavatam, which inspired me to attempt for this ideal of complete isolation from womanhood.

I had been married and there was a time in Iskcon when the matrimonial state was considered an honorable one, but by 1975, when I came to India, the pendulum swing to sannyasa had reached at its apogee. When I started reading Bengali, in particular the Chaitanya Bhagavata, I was very impressed by the multiple page commentary by Siddhanta Saraswati coming near the very beginning of the text, which quoted numerous verses in the same vein as these:

satyaṁ śaucaṁ dayā maunaṁ buddhiḥ śrīr hrīr yaśaḥ kṣamā |
śamo damo bhagaś ceti yat-saṅgād yāti saṅkṣayam ||
teṣv aśānteṣu mūḍheṣu khaṇḍitātmasv asādhuṣu |
saṅgaṁ na kuryāc chocyeṣu yoṣit-krīḍā-mṛgeṣu ca || na tathāsya bhaven moho bandhaś cānya-prasaṅgataḥ |
yoṣit-saṅgād yathā puṁso yathā tat-saṅgi-saṅgataḥ ||

One should avoid at all costs association with those lamentable creatures who have become the playthings of women. They are lacking in peace, are constantly bewildered, and their concept of self is fragmented. Indeed there is no enchantment more powerful, no bondage for a man surer than that which comes through the association of women and through that of the womanizer. By keeping such company, one loses one's quality of truthfulness, cleanliness, mercy, gravity, intelligence, modesty, beauty, reputation, forgiveness, control of the mind and senses and good fortune. (SB 3.31.34-36)

[3.31.36 is the same as above-quoted 11.14.29.]

prajāpatiḥ svāṁ duhitaraṁ dṛṣṭvā tad-rūpa-dharṣitaḥ |
rohid-bhūtāṁ so'nvadhāvad ṛkṣa-rūpī hata-trapaḥ ||
tat-sṛṣṭa-sṛṣṭa-sṛṣṭeṣu ko nv akhaṇḍita-dhīḥ pumān |
ṛṣiṁ nārāyaṇam ṛte yoṣin-mayyeha māyayā ||

Lord Brahma himself was overcome by the beauty of his own daughter and shamelessly ran after her, taking the form of a stag when she took that of a doe. If this could happen to Lord Brahma, then what man in the universe created by him and his agents -- other than Narayana Rishi -- would not have his intelligence disturbed by the illusory potency in the form of woman?

balaṁ me paśya māyāyāḥ strī-mayyā jayino diśām |
yā karoti padākrāntān bhrū-vijṛmbheṇa kevalam ||

Just behold the power of my Maya in the form of woman, who places the conquerors of all the directions under her feet with the mere movement of her eyebrows.

Vishwanath here gives an example of how a woman is able to control even the powerful man. The king who is returning from an adventure conquering an empire comes into the chambers of his queen is chastised. She says in  a fit of jealous anger, "You only go off on these adventures in order to sleep with women of another country. Shame on you." And before long she has even him under her heel.

This verse has a parallel in the writing of Bhartrihari, who puts it this way:

nūnaṁ hi te kavi-varā viparīta-vāco
ye nityam āhur abalā iti kāminīs tāḥ |
yābhir vilolitara-tāraka-dṛṣṭi-pātaiḥ
śakrādayo'pi vijitās tv abalāḥ kathaṁ tāḥ |

Surely the poets are confused when they call woman the "weaker sex," for even the king of the gods is overcome when the playful pupils of a woman's eye turn to them. How then can they be called weak? (Śṛṅgāra-śataka 10)

Now bringing the issue more directly into line with the transcendentalist's motives.

saṅgaṁ na kuryāt pramadāsu jātu
yogasya pāraṁ param ārurukṣuḥ |
mat-sevayā pratilabdhātma-lābho
vadanti yā niraya-dvāram asya ||

One who wishes to attain the highest rungs of the yoga ladder or one who has attained the Self through service to me should keep out of the intoxicating company of woman, which is said to be the door to hell.

And Kavi Karnapura's calque of this verse, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu refusing to see King Prataparudra--

niṣkiñcanasya bhagavad-bhajanonmukasya
pāraṁ paraṁ jigamiṣor bhava-sāgarasya |
sandarśanaṁ viṣayiṇām atha yoṣitāṁ ca
hā hanta hanta viṣa-bhakṣaṇato py asādhu ||

For a renounced person who has made attaining the Supreme Lord the goal of his life and wishes to traverse to the other side of the ocean of material being, to simply see a sensual man or a woman is, alas alas, worse than drinking poison. (CCN 8.24, CC 2.11.8)

The theme of woman being the "door to hell" is also stated elsewhere in the Bhāgavatam:

mahat-sevāṁ dvāram āhur vimuktes
tamo-dvāraṁ yoṣitāṁ saṅgi-saṅgam
mahāntas te sama-cittāḥ praśāntā
vimanyavaḥ suhṛdaḥ sādhavo ye

It is said that the gateway to liberation is service to the great souls or Mahats, while the door to darkness and ignorance is the association of those who are overly attached to sex. The great souls are equanimous, peaceful, free from pride and anger, friends and all round good people. (SB 5.5.2)

Vishwanath here mentions that the word woman here includes one's own wife (pramadāsu svīyāsu) and also points out that this instruction is for jnanis and bhaktas, omitting the karmis. So it is not a problem for them, and indeed the next chapter (3.32) is about grihastha life, which is associated with varnashram dharma, i.e., as something that has to be ultimately given up, either for knowledge or bhakti. From this it appears the according to the Bhāgavatam, grihastha life indicates that one has eligibility for karma.

yopayāti śanair māyā yoṣid deva-vinirmitā |
tām īkṣetātmano mṛtyuṁ tṛṇaiḥ kūpam ivāvṛtam ||

Maya in the form of woman was created by the Lord, but as she slowly approaches a man, he should look upon her as his own death, as dangerous as a blind well covered with grass.(SB 3.31.40)

Vishwanath here describes the woman "coming slowly." She approaches the man whom she knows to be disinterested and pretends to be free of desire herself, offering to perform different kinds of service with an air of piety. The well covered with grass does not announce itself or perhaps even think of its purpose being to entrap a forest creature, and is perhaps completely indifferent to whether anyone comes there or not, similarly a woman might be a devotee, knowledgeable and renounced, but even a woman who is unconscious or sleeping or even dead, should be kept at a distance.

Then the shoe is put on the other foot, in case someone should say this is only about men fearing women:

yāṁ manyate patiṁ mohān man-māyām ṛṣabhāyatīm |
strītvaṁ strī-saṅgataḥ prāpto vittāpatya-gṛha-pradam ||
tām ātmano vijānīyāt paty-apatya-gṛhātmakam |
daivopasāditaṁ mṛtyuṁ mṛgayor gāyanaṁ yathā ||

A man becomes a woman in his next life due to his attachment to woman, and then Maya takes the male form for her as the husband who gives her wealth, children and home. This woman should also know that Maya in the form of husband, children and home is her own death, just like the enchanting song of the hunter attracts the deer to its capture and slaughter. (3.31.41-42)

So in these verses, though details are somewhat sparse, make it clear that woman has power over a man, manipulating him through her sexuality, her service and her jealousy. She in turn sees him as the source of her protection, her wealth and influence, and material enjoyment.

These verses are hated by feminists and indeed, most male interpreters will immediately admit that it is not really women who are the problem. It is man's susceptibility to woman that is problematic and this is what the Bhägavatam is warning against. If the man gives her a chance, if he allows himself to be controlled by a woman through the manipulative tools she has at her disposal, any self-discipline that he had for spiritual life will be lost and with that, all the other good qualities that arise as a part of that discipline.

There may be cases where the woman's spiritual acumen is greater than a man's. Indeed it may often be the case that this is so. How then can the statements be so strong and slanted against the women? Indeed, it is significant that women are mentioned repeatedly as having the eligibility for bhakti. Bhakti is not closed off to women, so a basic acceptance of humanity itself as the qualification for bhakti, which is universal, is an important basic principle of this practice.

Nevertheless, let us say that the social situation of that time did not give women the right to express their spirituality through renunciation in the way that men did. Though early Buddhists had their Theris and there were women sadhvis in Jainism also, it would appear that the experiment was not considered a success and with the receding of these heterodox religions from the Indian scene, nuns and convents also disappeared. Perhaps it is time to revive them.

But whatever the case may be, whether it was nature that dictated the terms or whether it was evil patriarchy, let us say that spiritual leadership in Hinduism was always dominated by males, even where female leadership may occasionally have been exceptionally present.