In this lecture Prasad Raval, speaking on behalf of Gopal Krishna Goswami, argues that close association between men and women is a major obstacle to spiritual advancement. He identifies lust (kāma) as the "all‑devouring enemy" of the living entity, citing the Bhagavad‑Gītā and Śrīmad‑Bhāgavatam. The talk outlines the Vedic framework of four varṇas and four āśramas—brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha, and sannyāsa—explaining the duties and restrictions of each stage, especially the strict celibacy required of brahmacharis and the limited, procreative purpose of sex in the grihastha stage. Raval contrasts this disciplined approach with the permissive philosophy of Bhagavan Rajneesh, describing the latter as materialistic and contrary to true spirituality. He illustrates the destructive power of desire through stories of King Yāyati, the “lusty goat” analogy, and the steadfastness of Haridās Thākura against sexual temptation. Animal analogies (fish, deer, elephant, bee) are used to show how sense‑driven beings become trapped. The lecture concludes with a practical prescription: regular chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra, adherence to the regulative principles, and avoidance of the ten offenses, promising that devotional service yields far greater pleasure than any material sense gratification.
Chapters
Prasad Raaval. Last night in Moscow, as I finished the lecture, somebody said, "Why don't you lecture on the importance of the separation between men and women?" In spiritual life, association with the opposite sex should be minimized. This may come as a surprise to one whose meditation is sense gratification. When Kṛṣṇa was asked by Arjuna, "How is one compelled to engage in sinful acts even unwillingly?" Arjuna wanted to know, "Still one is forced into sinful acts. How does that happen?" So Kṛṣṇa replied, "It is lust only which is the all-devouring enemy of the living entity." which is always burning and is never satisfied. So lust is the all-devouring enemy of the living entity. It is always burning like fire and it is never satisfied. The only way you can satisfy or control lust is by taking advantage of the spiritual knowledge. In the scriptures it is said that just like when there is fire and you may keep butter next to it, the butter will definitely melt. You cannot say this butter is special, it will not melt in front of the fire. When you have this unrestricted association of female and male, then, ah, this spiritual life will be ruined. Just like the butter melts, our spiritual life will melt in this association. So when we are discussing this topic today, none of you should feel that we are being critical of either the men or the women. If this was not an important topic for spiritual advancement, then Kṛṣṇa Himself would not discuss it again and again in the Bhāgavatam. The very reason why this is discussed in the Vedic scriptures is because the scriptures are telling us what the enemies of spiritual life are. So lust is our enemy. Just like when you are fighting a war, the— when you're fighting a war, each side wants to know what are the strategic locations on the other side that it should attack. So similarly, in spiritual life also, we must know how our spiritual life can be ruined so that we can take all precautions. So in the Kṛṣṇa conscious way of life, there are four varṇas and there are four āśramas. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhāgavad-gītā, "Cāturu varṇa-māyāśṛṣṭham guna-karma-vivāgasaḥ." So there is the brahmachari, grihastha, varṇaprāṣadha, sannyāsa. These are the four āśramas. And there are different duties for each of these āśramas. Let's take for example the brahmachari or the brahmacharini. In the 6th canto of the Bhāgavatam, there is a verse which goes as follows: tapasa brahmacharīnā samenā ca dhamenā ca priyagenā satyaśo ca bhyaṁ yamena niamena vā. The translation of this verse is: To concentrate the mind, one must observe a life of celibacy and not fall down. One must undergo the austerity of voluntarily giving up sense enjoyment. One must control the mind and senses, give charity, be truthful, clean, and nonviolent, follow the regulative principles, and regularly chant the holy name of the Lord. Actually, these principles are frankly for everybody who wants to succeed on the spiritual path. The brahmachari lives a simple life. He begs for the spiritual master. And in the brahmachari stage, association with the opposite sex is strictly forbidden. One should not think of women. One should not meditate on sense of sex life. One should not speak about sex life. One should not look lustfully at women. One should actually use the mind in thinking of Kṛṣṇa. So the brahmacharya must receive very strict training. And after one has had thorough brahmachari training, if one wants to get married, one can approach a spiritual master and seek permission. So association with the opposite sex must be avoided by the brahmacharya. We should only speak with the opposite sex when it is necessary for some important duty. Even when the ladies and the men sit in one room in our temples all over the world, the arrangement is that the ladies sit on one side and the men sit on the other side. Even for our programs in future, I think we should follow this system. The grihasta has a very limited license for sense enjoyment. But the intelligent grihāsta is one who doesn't misuse the license he gets. So in grihāsta life, one has to work to maintain himself, and he also has to help in the propagation of the mission of the Lord. So it is not that grihāsta life is a license for unrestricted sex life. We must understand one thing, that spiritual life is based on the principle of tapasya. Tapasya means voluntarily giving up sense enjoyment. You may have the facility for sense enjoyment, but you do not take advantage of it because you know that by engaging in sense enjoyment, your spiritual life will be ruined. Our philosophy is not like the philosophy of so-called Bhagavan Rajneesh. Have you heard of Bhagavan Rajneesh? You know why Bhagavan Rajneesh is known all over the world? You can go to any corner of the world, people know him. Because he encourages sex life and sense enjoyment. And that is what everybody wants. So our philosophy is not like the Rajneesh philosophy which says, "Have as much sense enjoyment as you want and one day you'll get tired and then you will practice austerity." We have had the occasion of going in front of Rajneesh's ashram in Poona. Pune is about 4 hours from Bombay. And you see all the boys and girls embracing each other, walking hand in hand in saffron clothes inside the ashram. And this rascal calls his disciples sannyasis and sannyasinis. And the biggest sin is that he calls himself Bhagavan. The word Bhagavan can only be applied to Krishna. So our philosophy is that we have had enough of sense enjoyment in all these previous lives. Material society is based on the principle of sex life and sense enjoyment. The materialists are very, very proud, working hard just so that they can get little extra sense enjoyment. They forget that the pigeons and the monkeys, they have sex up to 50 to 100 times a day. So the pigeons and the monkeys are more advanced than the so-called human beings. So even in the Krihastha Ashram, One should not misuse this facility for sense enjoyment. Therefore we have a terminology called grihastha brahmacharya. So in the grihastha life one leads a life of austerity also. What we are speaking will come as a shock to those who are addicted to sense enjoyment. But the truth has to be spoken because it is spoken in the Shāstras. You have the newspaper Pravṛda, huh? They call Pravṛda the truth. The real Prabhada is the Bhāgavatam. Tell them you have your Prabhada, we have our Prabhada. So our Prabhada is the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So in the grihastha-āśrama, as I've explained, there is license for limited sense enjoyment, but the intelligent grihastha does not want to misuse that license. And therefore in the grihastha-āśrama, sex life is used only for procreation. In Bhāgavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa says, "I'm also sex life that is not contrary to religious principles." Then is the vanaprāṣṭha stage. Generally one is recommended that one be in the brahmachari ashram at least till the age of 25. Then the Vedic system is 25 to 50 you can be krihastāt. And then starts the vanaprāṣṭha stage at 50. We must understand that the Vedic way of life is designed to gradually increase your surrender towards Kṛṣṇa so that you can achieve the mission of human life. So in the, in the vana-prastha stage, in the vana-prastha stage, the husband and wife, they don't have any relationship, and they— physical relationship, and they gradually begin to practice detachment. Then comes the sannyāsa order. Generally one takes sannyāsa at the age of 60, but that doesn't mean all of ISKCON sannyāsis are over 60. Most of our sannyasis are well below 60. So in the sannyas order, the regulations are very, very strict. The sannyasi carries a danda. It is known as a tree danda, which symbolizes that the man has control over body, mind, and senses. The only reason you don't see my danda is because I was told not to bring the danda here. So in the sannyasa ashram, One travels and preaches. And in the sannyāsa ashram, one is totally fearless. He depends only on Kṛṣṇa for his survival. He doesn't keep a bank balance like the karmīs do for his survival. Rākhe Kṛṣṇa mare ke, mare Kṛṣṇa rākhe ke. Who Kṛṣṇa wants to protect, nobody can annihilate. Who Kṛṣṇa wants to annihilate, nobody can protect. So the sannyāsī is dependent strictly upon the mercy of Kṛṣṇa. A sannyāsī is considered to be socially dead. He cannot have any relationship with women at all. Otherwise his sannyāsa ashram will be finished. A sannyāsī must be very austere. So these are, briefly speaking, the varṇas, the ashramas. Now, as all of you can guess, The key point that we are getting at is that sex life is our enemy in spiritual life. This is our biggest enemy. Just like the policeman, I'm sure in Russia also when the policeman catch a criminal so that he may not run away. So we are all handcuffed to this material world by the sex desire. This is known as maitunyagana. Because as long as you have this sex desire, There's no question of making spiritual advancement or going back to God. Therefore, we must control our senses. We should not foolishly think that if we engage in this activity, eventually we will be satisfied and then there'll be no further desire. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, there's a very nice story of a king called King Yāyati. Do you know that story? So King Yāyati, was a very lusty king. So one day, one day King Airyati fell down with a maidservant of his wife. So he was cursed by his father-in-law Śukrācārya. It is not that the old man has no desire for sense gratification, but unfortunately the different parts of his body do not cooperate and he remains— and he gets frustrated. So the King Ayati was cursed to become an old man, but he was given the benediction that if he gets somebody who can exchange his old body for youthful body, then he can become a young man again. So King Ayati approached his older sons and requested them, dear son, please, why don't you take on an old body and let me have your youthful body? But the two older sons said, father, no, it's time for us to enjoy, we can't give up on you. But the youngest son agreed to exchange his body with the father. So King Yadhi became a young man again and he engaged in unrestricted sense enjoyment. But in the end there was no satisfaction. And he got frustrated and he told his wife that we are just like lusty goats. Prabhupada used to often give the example of the lusty goat. The lusty goat is standing in front of the slaughterhouse and it engages in sex life.. It doesn't know that in few minutes it is going to be slaughtered. So that is exactly the position of the materialist. Exactly the position of the materialist who considers that sex life is the goal of human life. So now you may present a question to me, Swamiji, what you are saying is fine in theory, but how do we practically save our material lusty desires? So we have the example of Haridas Thakur. Haridas Thakur was very, very popular because he used to chant the holy names of Krishna. He used to chant 300,000 times every day. And from far, people would come to have his darshan. So the Muslim ruler was very jealous of him. He was thinking, this man is getting more respect than me. And being born as a Muslim, he's chanting a Hindu name. So he arranged to send a very beautiful, attractive prostitute to seduce him. The prostitute came to the hut of Haridas Thakur, and Haridas Thakur told her, "Don't worry, I will satisfy you." Of course, it became late in the night, and Haridas said, "Okay, tomorrow I promise I'll satisfy you." Next day again, he was just chanting the Holy Name. He told the prostitute to wait, and again told her, "Okay, come tomorrow." Of course, this prostitute had the fortune of listening to the chanting of this pure devotee. So instead of, instead of tempting him, she got tempted to his purity and she became a devotee and a spiritual leader in her own way. On another occasion, Maya Devi incarnated as the most beautiful woman and she came in front of Haridas Thakur And she made many attractive poses, but Haridas Thakur was totally unmoved by her attractive poses, and she failed in her attempt. So practically speaking, we can save ourselves from the effect of, from the temptation of Maya if we take all precautions. Just like now in Leningrad, it is so cold, huh? Minus 20 maybe, or minus 10. And if you want to save yourself from falling sick, then when you go out, you have to cover your head, you have to cover your legs, you have to cover your body, you have to cover everything. If any part of your body is left uncovered, then through that part of the body, the cold will enter into the whole body. So if all our senses are not engaged in service to the Lord, then our senses will pull us towards sense enjoyment and our spiritual life will be ruined. You know, with the, with the human animal, all the senses in their body are competing for attention. In the animals, however, it is usually just one sense that is most predominant. For example, with the fish, the fish wants to just eat. So when the fisherman goes fishing, what does he do? He puts that food on the bottom of the bait and the fish sees it and says, 'Oh, something more for me to eat.' And the fish goes towards the bait and it gets trapped. The deer is a very difficult animal to capture, but the deer has one weakness. It likes listening to a particular melody. So when the hunter goes hunting, he tracks the deer to that melody, and while the deer is listening to the latest disco music, it gets shot to death. Then you have the he elephant who again is very difficult to capture, but his weakness is sex life. So the he elephant is made to follow the she elephant. The she elephant is completely trained up, just like the prostitutes are trained up how to rob a rich man of his money. So the he elephant follows the she elephant, and he falls in the ditch which is covered by grass. In that ditch, there is a ditch and it's covered by grass. He steps on the ditch and then you have the bee, very fond of satisfying its nose, and after going through many flowers, it finally finds a lotus flower, and in the evening the lotus flower closes, isn't it? You have lotus flowers in Russia? I am sure in Russia also they close in the evening. Closes, the bee gets trapped to death, and then it dies. How different animals, when they pursue sense enjoyment, how they get trapped to death. Say, we also pursue sense enjoyment, then our fate is going to be the same. So all those who come to Krishna consciousness, we tell them, please don't be scared when you hear about these principles of restriction that we have, because when a person man just walks into the Hare Krishna temple and he hears about these rules, he says, "Oh no, how am I going to live without these things?" But he doesn't understand that Hare Krishna mantra and Krishna bhakti can give you 1,000 times more pleasure than sex life or any other sense. So therefore, one who is sincerely practicing the rules and regulations— Rupa Gosvāmī has very nicely stated Kāmadhīnam khalitā patitā dūrṇī deśa. I have been trying to satisfy my senses for such a long time. They are never satisfied. They are always saying, "Little more, please. Little more." They are always saying, "What you have given me is okay, but little more I want. Then I will be satisfied." But they are always cheating you. Just like when you have a skin disease and then you scratch on it. What happens? I'm sure all of you have experienced. The skin disease attacks everyone. The disease gets worse. So that is exactly what happens when you pursue sense enjoyment. So we must chant the Hare Krishna mantra sincerely, avoid the 10 offenses which we are going to discuss tomorrow, and with faith in the words of Guru and Krishna, we should go on with our devotional service. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.
