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Imported quote 14438

The word pramada-sahga-dūsitaḥ indicates that apart from all other contamination, if one simply remains attached to a woman, that single contamination will be sufficient to prolong one's miserable material existence. Consequently, in Vedic civilization one is trained from the beginning to give up attachment for women. The first stage of life is brahmacari, the second stage grhastha, the third stage vanaprastha, and the fourth stage sannyasa. All these stages are devised to enable one to detach himself from the association of women. (More...)

Imported quote 14909

How a beautiful woman's movements and gestures, her hair and the structure of her breasts, hips and other bodily features attract the minds not only of men but of demigods also is very finely described in this statement. The words divija and manuja specifically emphasize that the attraction of feminine gestures is powerful everywhere within this material world, both on this planet and in the higher planetary systems. It is said that the standard of living in the higher planetary systems is thousands and thousands of times higher than the standard of living on this planet. Therefore the beautiful bodily features of the women there are also thousands and thousands of times more attractive than the features of the women on earth. The creator has constructed women in such a way that their beautiful voices and movements and the beautiful features of their hips, their breasts, and the other parts of their bodies attract the members of the opposite sex, both on earth and on other planets, and awaken their lusty desires. When one is controlled by Cupid or the beauty of women, he becomes stunned like matter such as stone. Captivated by the material movements of women, he wants to remain in this material world. Thus one's promotion to the spiritual world is checked simply by seeing the beautiful bodily structure and movements of women. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has therefore warned all devotees to beware of the attraction of beautiful women and materialistic civilization. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu even refused to see Prataparudra Maharaja because he was a very opulent person in the material world. Lord Caitanya said in this connection, niskincanasya bhagavad-bhajanonmukhasya: those who are engaged in the devotional service of the Lord because they are very serious about going back home, back to Godhead, should be very careful to avoid seeing the beautiful gestures of women and should also avoid seeing persons who are very rich. (More...)

Imported quote 15195

Thus there is a spiritual nature beyond this material world, and that spiritual nature exists eternally. Spiritual advancement means stopping material activities and entering into spiritual activities. This is the process of bhakti-yoga. In the material world, the via media for sense gratification is mainly a woman. One who is seriously interested in spiritual life should strictly avoid women. A sannyasi should never see a man or a woman for material benefit. In addition, talks with materialistic men and women are also dangerous, and they are compared to drinking poison. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu was very strict on this point. He therefore refused to see King Prataparudra, who was naturally always engaged in political and economic affairs. The Lord even refused to see the King despite the request of a personality like Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya, who was the Lord's intimate friend and devotee. (More...)

The infatuation and bondage which accrue to a man from attachment to any other object is not as complete as that resulting from attachment to a woman or to the fellowship of men who are fond of women.

Attachment to women is so contaminating that one becomes attached to the condition of material life not only by the association of women but by the contaminated association of persons who are too attached to them. There are many reasons for our conditional life in the material world, but the topmost of all such causes is the association of women, as will be confirmed in the following stanzas. (More...)

In Kali-yuga, association with women is very strong. In every step of life, there is association with women. If a person goes to purchase something, the advertisements are full of pictures of women. The physiological attraction for women is very great, and therefore people are very slack in spiritual understanding. The Vedic civilization, being based on spiritual understanding, arranges association with women very cautiously. Out of the four social divisions, the members of the first order, namely brahmacarya, the third order, vanaprastha, and the fourth order, sannyasa, are strictly prohibited from female association. Only in one order, the householder, is there license to mix with women under restricted conditions. In other words, attraction for woman's association is the cause of the material conditional life, and anyone interested in being freed from this conditional life must detach himself from the association of women. (More...)

Woman is the real binding force in material existence. If one wants to get freedom from the material bondage of conditional life, he must get free from the attraction for the form of woman.

The Lord, being the source of everything that be, is the origin of all austerities and penances also. Great vows of austerity are undertaken by sages to achieve success in self-realization. Human life is meant for such tapasya, with the great vow of celibacy or brahmacarya. In the rigid life of tapasya, there is no place for the association of woman. And because human life is meant for tapasya, for self-realization, factual human civilization, as conceived by the system of sanatana-dharma or the school of four castes and four orders of life, prescribes rigid dissociation from woman in three stages of life. In the order of gradual cultural development, one's life may be divided in four divisions: celibacy, household life, retirement, and renunciation. During the first stage of life, up to twenty-five years of age, a man may be trained as a brahmacari under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master just to understand that woman is the real binding force in the material existence. If anyone wants to get freedom from the material bondage of conditional life, he must get free from the attraction for the form of woman. Woman, or the fair sex, is the enchanting principle for the living entities, and the male form, especially of the human being, is meant for self-realization. The whole world is moving under the spell of womanly attraction, and as soon as a man becomes united with a woman, he at once becomes a victim of material bondage under a tight knot. The desires for lording it over the material world, under the intoxication of a false sense of lordship, specifically begin just after the man's unification with a woman. The desires for acquiring a house, possessing land, having children and becoming prominent in society, the affection for community and the place of birth, and the hankering for wealth, which are all like the phantasmagoria or illusory dreams of life, encumber a human being, and he is thus impeded in his progress toward self-realization, the real aim of life. The brahmacari, or a boy from the age of five years, especially from the higher castes, namely from the scholarly parents (the brahmanas), the administrative parents (the ksatriyas), or the mercantile or productive parents (the vaisyas), is trained until twenty-five years of age under the care of a bona fide guru or teacher, and under strict observance of discipline he comes to understand the values of life along with taking specific training for livelihood. The brahmacari is then allowed to go home and enter householder life and get married to a suitable woman. But there are many brahmacaris who do not go home to become householders but continue the life of naisthika-brahmacaris, without any connection with women. They accept the order of sannyasa, or the renounced order of life, knowing well that combination with women is an unnecessary burden that checks self-realization. Since sex desire is very strong at a certain stage of life, the guru may allow the brahmacari to marry; this license is given to a brahmacari who is unable to continue the way of naisthika-brahmacarya, and such discriminations are possible for the bona fide guru. A program of so-called family planning is needed. The householder who associates with woman under scriptural restrictions, after a thorough training of brahmacarya, cannot be a householder like cats and dogs. Such a householder, after fifty years of age, would retire from the association of woman as a vanaprastha to be trained up to live alone without the association of woman. When the practice is complete, the same retired householder becomes a sannyasi, strictly separate from woman, even from his married wife. Studying the whole scheme of disassociation from women, it appears that a woman is a stumbling block for self-realization, and the Lord appeared as Narayana to teach the principle of womanly disassociation with a vow in life. The demigods, being envious of the austere life of the rigid brahmacaris, would try to cause them to break their vows by dispatching soldiers of Cupid. But in the case of the Lord, it became an unsuccessful attempt when the celestial beauties saw that the Lord can produce innumerable such beauties by His mystic internal potency, so there was no need to be attracted by others externally. There is a common proverb that a confectioner is never attracted by sweetmeats. The confectioner, who is always manufacturing sweetmeats, has very little desire to eat them; similarly, the Lord, by His pleasure potential powers, can produce innumerable spiritual beauties and not be the least attracted by the false beauties of material creation. One who does not know, foolishly alleges that Lord Krsna enjoyed women in His rasa-lila in Vrndavana, or with His sixteen thousand married wives at Dvaraka. (More...)

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