So that she also can attain perfection and self-realization ending all reactions to fruitive activities. Thus she also will be freed from all material fear.
Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda kī jaya!
Kardama Muni was anxious about his good wife, Devahūti, while leaving home. And so the worthy son promised that not only would Kardama Muni be freed from the material entanglement, but Devahūti would also be freed by receiving instructions from her son.
A very good example is set here. The husband goes away, taking the sannyās order for self-realization, but his representative, the son, who is equally educated, remains at home to deliver the mother.
A sannyāsi is not supposed to take his wife with him. At the vānaprastha stage of retired life, or the stage midway between household life and renounced life, one may keep his wife as an assistant without sex relations. But in the sannyāsa order of life, one cannot keep his wife with him. Otherwise, a person like Kardama Muni could have kept his wife with him, and there would have been no hindrance to his prosecution of self-realization.
Kardama Muni followed the Vedic injunction that no one in sannyāsa life can have any kind of relationship with women.
But what is the position of a woman who is left by her husband? She is entrusted to the son, and thus the son promises that he will deliver his mother from entanglement.
A woman is not supposed to take sannyāsa . So-called spiritual societies concocted in modern times give sannyāsa even to women, although there is no sanction in the Vedic literature for a woman's accepting sannyāsa . Otherwise, if it were sanctioned, Kardama Muni could have taken his wife and given her sannyāsa . The woman must remain at home. She has only three stages of life: dependency on the father in childhood, dependency on the husband in youth, and in old age dependency on the grown-up son, such as Kapila.
In old age, the progress of woman depends on the grown-up son. The ideal son, Kapila Muni, is assuring his father of the deliverance of his mother, so that his father may go peacefully, without anxiety for his good wife.
Jaya.
mātrā hy ādhyātmikīṁ vidyāṁ śāmanīṁ sarva-karmaṇām
vitarisyamy ahaṁ cāsau bhayaṁ cāpi tarisyati
I shall also describe this sublime knowledge, which is the door to spiritual life to my mother, so that she can attain perfection and self-realization, ending all reaction to fruitive activities. Thus she also will be freed from all material fear.
oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmilitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
śrī-caitanya-mano-'bhīṣṭaṁ sthāpitaṁ yena bhū-tale
svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ dadāti sva-padāntikam
vande 'haṁ śrī-guroḥ śrī-yuta-pada-kamalaṁ śrī-gurūn vaiṣṇavāṁś ca
śrī-rūpaṁ sāgrajātaṁ saha-gaṇa-raghunāthānvitaṁ taṁ sa-jīvam
sādvaitaṁ sāvadhūtaṁ parijana-sahitaṁ kṛṣṇa-caitanya-devam
śrī-rādhā-kṛṣṇa-pādān saha-gaṇa-lalitā-śrī-viśākhānvitāṁś ca
he kṛṣṇa karuṇā-sindho dīna-bandho jagat-pate
gopeśa gopikā-kānta rādhā-kānta namo 'stu te
tapta-kāñcana-gauraṅgi rādhe vṛndāvaneśvarī
vṛṣabhānu-sute devī praṇamāmi hari-priye
vāñchā-kalpa-tarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca
patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ
jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda
hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare
hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare
So I ask the permission and blessings from all the Vaiṣṇavas to try to speak something on this verse. I'm not very well prepared to try to say something.
We see here that Kardama Muni he's just about to leave. He has been offering prayers to Kapila there, his son, and expressed his desire that he actually wants to leave. Leave home and take sannyāsa and just completely renounce and absorb himself in thoughts of the Supreme Lord.
And Kapiladeva has sanctioned his wish.
And but Kardama Muni was a little bit anxious of his wife, his dear wife Devahūti, because she was of course she did so much for him, as we heard in the beginning of this story how she served him very selflessly when they were married. She was actually a princess and she was used to a very comfortable royal life in the palace. But she was attracted to this muni in the forest, Kardama Muni because of his spiritual qualities. And so she came and and served him just like a menial servant and she just completely neglected herself and her her health, her dress, everything. She became like an ascetic with matted hairs and emaciated and all of this we heard before. So she sacrificed so much for Kardama Muni to assist him in his spiritual life so that he could peacefully practice his meditation and and like that. And she just assisted him very selflessly.
So naturally Kardama Muni now when he walks away, he's concerned that Devahūti will also be very nicely taken care of and not neglected in any way.
Just like Dhruva Mahārāja also when he went back to Godhead after ruling this earth for 36,000 years, finally Dhruva Mahārāja he went to the forest to and he renounced his kingdom and he went to I think Himalayas or something. And he again absorbed himself in yogic practice just like when he was a small child. He practiced severe austerities and yoga and actually within six months he got darśan of the Supreme Lord. So now again he took up this practice that he had learned in his childhood and he went and when he became perfect again, when he became absorbed in in thing in deep meditation on the Supreme Lord, then this Viṣṇudūtas came, the airplane came to to bring him to Vaikuṇṭha. And then it's described that he stepped while boarding the airplane, he stepped on the head of death personified. And then he boarded this airplane. But then just when the airplane was about to take off, he he remembered his mother, his poor mother Sunīti, who had suffered so much. And she was actually the one who who was the key or the who gave him the clue to perfection, because she had instructed him that he was so frustrated being insulted by his father and and he wanted revenge. And she actually told him, "Don't don't think like this. Don't wish for the for anything bad for for others. Only wish good for others. But if you really want to this the only one who can help you is the Supreme Lord. And he is in the forest and you can you should go to the forest to worship the Supreme Lord." So she gave him the path to perfection. So she was his vartmāna-pradarśaka-guru, the guru who gives the the way so to say, who points out the way.
So then naturally he remembered his mother when he was now everything was perfect, he was in the Vaikuṇṭha airplane. He thought of her and he wished that she also be delivered like him. And then the Viṣṇudūtas just pointed, "Just see there, there is another airplane and your mother is also going."
So by the grace of her son, she also was elevated to the highest perfection.
So this is gratitude, when someone has done something for us, naturally a person would feel grateful. And there's this interesting Sanskrit word for gratitude is kṛtajña. Jña means to know and kṛta means to do or to what has been done. So kṛtajña means to know what has been done. So that is the that is gratitude. Gratitude is comes from that you know what has been done for you.
So So he felt very grateful to Devahūti, Kardama Muni, and Kapila Dev, of course, he is here. The Supreme Lord is playing the role of a perfect son. So Kṛṣṇa when he comes to this material world, he always sets the example, like Kṛṣṇa lived in Dvārakā with his 16,108 queens. And each queen had a palace of his own, and he was performing he was playing the role of a perfect husband. He was caring for these queens, and he had with so many children with each queen, and he was like the perfect husband, the perfect father, everything perfect. So Kṛṣṇa is always setting the example, the ideal example for us to followers, and in that case he was the example the example of the ideal householder husband. And in this case, now he has taken the role of a son to Devahūti, his devotee Kardama Devahūti. And he is playing the role of a perfect son. So Prabhupāda says that the system is that a woman is never independent. She's always under the protection of in a childhood of her of her father, then of her husband, and finally she's protected by the son.
So protection as we see in this story doesn't mean just physical protection, to give a nice place to stay and maybe emotional protection and like that, but real protection is also spiritual. So here Kardama Muni Kapila Dev is promising his father, so that he can just give go peacefully and have no worries. So he's promising that he will take perfect care of Devahūti and also enlighten her in spiritual knowledge, so that she can achieve perfection just like Kardama Muni. And this is what we will see now in the rest of the story, how he how he enlightens his mother in in devotional service.
Um so Prabhupāda speaks here about saṁnyās. Saṁnyās is a woman cannot take saṁnyās. This is the Vedic system that the woman would always remain at home because a woman's body is not meant for severe austerities and woman is always meant to be protected. Because she she's weaker and she can easily be exploited. So that doesn't mean of course that woman cannot attain perfection just like a man. It's just a different way how woman and man in the varṇāśrama system attain perfection. So real saṁnyās is of course internal. It's a state of consciousness, it's not just a dress and a color of the cloth and like that. That's just external. But real saṁnyās means to become completely detached from the material existence and completely attached to Kṛṣṇa. And to develop love for Kṛṣṇa. That's the essence of saṁnyās.
And this is of course not dependent actually on on dress or on social position or man or woman or anything like that. Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad Gītā,
ye ’pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ striyo vaiśyās tathā śūdrās te ’pi yānti parāṁ gatim
So anyone, doesn't matter if you are vaiśya, śūdra, brāhmaṇa or woman or whatever. Anyone can who surrenders to Kṛṣṇa can obtain the the ultimate perfection. That's the essence of the translation.
So even though a lady doesn't take saṁnyās, of course this is not it doesn't mean that she's not eligible for perfection. And so a lady of course can be equally renounced. Gṛhe thāko vāne thāko sadā hari bolo thāko. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says, it doesn't matter if you are in the gṛhastha āśrama or if you are living in the forest, the essence is to always remember Kṛṣṇa's holy name. Gṛhe thāko vāne thāko sadā hari bolo ḍāko.
We know for example when Lord Caitanya when he took saṁnyās at the age of 24, his his wife, she was only Viṣṇupriyā was her name, she was only 16 years. So she was just a young girl. Um but she became very renounced. She just completely dedicated herself to the worship of a deity, which she was given, I think Mahāprabhu gave her this deity. And she worshipped this deity and she every day she just chanted and chanted the holy name. She just absorbed herself in chanting. And for each round she put aside one grain of rice. And at the end of the day, as many rounds as she had chanted, as many grains of rice she would cook for for her meal. So I mean if if this is not sannyāsa, then I don't know what is sannyāsa.
So we we see there are so many renounced personalities in our tradition, like Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura for example, we celebrated his disappearance the other day. He was living with a family and 10 children, but he was totally renounced. Just 24 hours a day engaged in the in the service of the Lord, day and night.
So but it's just different external expressions in the varṇāśrama system of how this renunciation is done. Um so this is maybe for modern ladies who are taught that we should be independent, it's a little challenging to hear that a woman should never be independent. Usually before you understand this knowledge, you don't like as a woman maybe you don't like this this statements. It sounds like woman is less or something or inferior to man, but it's actually not like that. It it doesn't mean that she's inferior. It's just it's just a practical actually consideration because our body is just like that. We have we are the ones who bear the children. We have to get pregnant. And being pregnant means you are in a very vulnerable position. You can't work hard, you can't maintain yourself in and like that. And when you have a small child, a similar situation. So you are in need of protection. It's just a fact.
And of course a modern woman will say that I can I I have my money, I have my my föräldrapänning, I have this and that. But that as Prabhupāda points out, that just means you're protected by the state. So somehow or rather you need protection. And the Vedic system is that a man should protect a woman and care for her and like that. So in modern days, because women have been exploited so much, they think that the the the solution is to become independent of these rascal men who have exploited us so much. Um but so it's 180 degrees different actually from the Vedic perspective. But the real solution is that the the woman should be protected by qualified men. So the man has to be qualified. He has to be understand his duty as a as a guide and protector. That he's actually protector means not that you exploit, but that you actually care for and protect and wish the best for that person that you are protecting.
So in that system, if the men the men are trained as brahmacārīs to be very spiritually elevated, very qualified, very learned, and if you know the Vedas, if you have studied them, then and if you are spiritually advanced, then naturally you will be able to protect very nicely and enlighten and care for and not exploit. So this is the perfect system how both men and woman together can obtain. The woman then helps the man in his Vedic in his spiritual life, and the man gives protection to the woman. And thus they mutually they help each other to obtain the the perfection of life.
So there is this I just thought of this wonderful story that from Rāmānujācārya, just to this point that it doesn't matter if you are a householder or if you are whatever you are, ultimately. Jai Śrī Śrī Pāñca-tattva!
Ultimately renunciation is not in the external situation, but in an internal state of mind. So there was this person, Rāmānujācārya, once when he was he was in a procession. There was a festival in Śrīraṅgam where he was living, and they were taking the deity out for a procession like you do sometimes. And when they were going in the streets and singing and chanting and worshipping the deity, everyone was completely in a joyous, festive mood, and they were chanting and dancing. And then Rāmānujācārya he spotted one man. And this man, he was just with a lady, and he was holding an umbrella over her head, and he was just transfixed. He was just oblivious to everything was going on around, going on around him. And he was just he had his eyes on this lady, and he couldn't take his eyes from this beautiful lady. And he didn't look at the deities or anything else. So Rāmānujācārya he naturally thought that what is this, what he he felt compassion for this man who was so engrossed in this lady. So he sent one of his servants to this man, and he said that, "I want to talk with you." So the disciple of Rāmānujācārya came to this man and he said that the great ācārya Rāmānujācārya, he wants to talk with you. Please come. So he came over, and he asked this man, whose name was Dāmodara, that "What is it, how is it that you are so absorbed in this lady? Don't you see everything else going on here, the Kṛṣṇa is coming out of the temple, and everyone is happy worshipping him, and you are just absorbed in this lady. What's what's going on?" So then this Dāmodara he said that, "Well, this lady, her eyes, they are so beautiful, and I have never in my life, I have seen anything more beautiful than the eyes of this wonderful Himāmbā," was her name. She was actually a courtesan, that means some kind of a prostitute. Uh so he was just absorbed. And then but then Rāmānujācārya said that, "If I show you something even more beautiful, someone who has even more beautiful eyes than your Himāmbā, would you then look at this person?" And he said, "Yes, of course, I will." And he then Rāmānujācārya said, "Then please come with me in the evening, and I will show you something even more beautiful." So Dāmodara he got curious. And then in the evening he came to Rāmānujācārya, and together they went to to see the deity in the temple, Śrī Raṅganāth. So they came there in the in the evening, and the evening ārati was going on, and it was all dark in the temple. And the only light came from the ghī lamps, and the pujārī was offering ārati and offering ghī lamps. And then because of this association with Rāmānujācārya, this Dāmodara, although he was a very simple man, he was not he was a kind of a from a lower caste and whatever. By the association of this great devotee Rāmānujācārya, he could actually see the beauty of the deity. So he just saw, suddenly he saw this lotus eyes of the deity, which was lit up by this beautiful candle light. And suddenly he just realized that this is just this Himāmbā and her eyes is just nothing compared to this transcendental beauty of the Supreme Lord. And he became just overwhelmed by this transcendental vision he had. And he just started to tremble and tears came to his eyes, and he cried. And he just fell down and offered obeisances to Rāmānujācārya. And and he was crying and he just said that, "Thank you so much. You have showed me the real the beauty of the Supreme Lord. And now I realize what a fool I was." "I was absorbed in this materialistic beauty, but it's it's actually nothing." "This is the real beauty."
So this is actually described that sometimes even a neophyte person or a materialistic person, when they they see the deity in the in the temple, they by the mercy of a great devotee, they can develop symptoms of bhāva. So this is the power of this five processes. One is to to worship the deity in the temple, and it's so powerful that even a very simple person can can experience bhāva, especially in the presence of a pure devotee. So then he became a disciple, he surrendered, and he was so grateful to Rāmānujācārya. So he became his disciple. And then this prostitute, she also, she actually she she felt like the wife of this, although they were not married, she was very attached to this man, and when she heard that he surrendered, she became very happy, because at heart she was also a devotee, although she had a not so nice profession. Uh and so so they both surrendered, and then Rāmānujācārya, he got them married, and he said that, "Now you live as a nice householder couple, husband and wife, and you just engage in the service, and I will I will teach you." So they became very dear disciples of Rāmānujācārya. And Dāmodara, he had a very humble attitude. He was always very respectful, and very serving his gurumahārāja with life and heart and soul. So he became very dear to to to his guru. But then the other disciples of Rāmānujācārya, the brahmacārīs, who were they were like very nice from brāhmaṇical families, and very elevated so to say in varṇāśrama position. They became envious, because they thought that why is our gurumahārāja giving so much attention to this lower caste gṛhastha? So they became envious, and they didn't like this. And Rāmānuja he could immediately see what was going on in their minds. So then he wanted to teach them a lesson. So one night when they were sleeping, he went to the āśrama, and he took all the dhotīs were hanging there from the brahmacārīs, and he took a little piece of dhotī from each one of their dhotīs, like he ripped a small piece of cloth. And then in the morning when they woke up, they just all of them were very upset, and they started arguing and accusing each other, "You have ripped my dhotī! You have done this! Why have you done this?" And they had a big fight there. All the brahmacārīs were very upset with each other.
They were actually not very renounced. So so then one evening Rāmānujācārya, he met them, and he told them that, "I have observed that this Dāmodara, you know, my householder disciple, he's too much attached to his wife. And I think that it's now time that we should re-expose his attachment to his wife. So I have a plan." "So today in the evening, he will come here to for the for my to associate with me, and I will detain him a little bit longer than usual. And in the in the meantime you should go to his home, where his wife is sleeping, and while she is sleeping, you should take the ornaments, when she's sleeping she will not notice, you can take some ornaments from her her her golden ornaments, and then let's see what what will happen, how they react." So the brahmacārīs were all fired up, and they thought, "Oh, this is wonderful! Now finally gurumahārāja has understood the real situation of this fallen gṛhastha." So they went there in the evening, and when they came to the house, she was lying on the bed, she was actually not asleep, she was just lying down and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Uh but when they came into the house, she was closing her eyes and pretending that she was sleeping, so they thought she was sleeping, so they silently went there, and they started she was lying on the side, so they took the ornaments of her her half of her face off. And then they thought then she thought that, "Oh, she wanted to give them the other also the other sides." So she just pretended to turn in the sleep, so that they could also take the ornaments on the other side. But then they got scared. They thought that, "Now she's waking up!" So they ran out, and and they went back. And then they went back to to the guru to to Rāmānujācārya. And then he told them that, "Oh yes, very good." "So now you just go back, and Dāmodara, he's now on his way home, so you go back, and you you watch outside the house. You hide yourself and you see how how he reacts now when he comes back and sees that his the the ornaments of his wife are stolen." So they hid, and then Dāmodara comes back, and he comes into the room, and his wife is sitting there, and she looks a little funny with half the ornaments gone. And she's asking he's asking her, "What happened to you? What where are your ornaments?" And then she says that, "Oh, all these poor brāhmaṇas, they came here, and they must be very poor. They they had to act like thieves. They they they took all my ornaments. And then I wanted to turn to give them everything, but but then they got scared and and they ran away. So I I only managed to give them half of my ornaments." And then this Dāmodara he started to chastise his wife, and he said, "Oh you foolish lady, why did you turn and scare them away? You could have given them anything. Because you think you are you are the owner of these ornaments. You these ornament belong to you. You are not free of illusion. And that's why you you scared them away because you wanted to give them away." So and then she said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, I'm I'm so fallen. I'm not free from illusion. I I could have I we we could have given everything to these poor brāhmaṇas. That would have been our good fortune."
So then of course and then and then the brahmacārīs realized that this is actually they were much more, how elevated these devotees were, and how they were internally completely detached, renounced, although living as gṛhasthas, and the wife had golden ornaments and so on. So they went back to Rāmānujācārya, and they told him what happened, shamefully, they hang their heads. And then Rāmānuja preached to them and said, "Yeah, just see, when I took a small piece of your dhotī, you were all upset, and you started arguing with each other. And fighting even for one little small piece of cloth, but this Dāmodara and his wife, they are totally detached from whatever they have, and they see everything as as Kṛṣṇa's."
So in this way, renunciation is not an external thing. It doesn't matter where you are, in what āśrama or like that. But it's in our internal state of consciousness, how much we are attached to Kṛṣṇa, how much we are absorbed in serving Kṛṣṇa, and how much we are detached from this material existence, and that is the real saṁnyās.
Uh so Kardama Muni he went off to the forest and just completely renounced, and completely absorbed himself, although Kṛṣṇa had come as his son in his home. So he he renounced even that. I mean that was the ultimate the ultimate perfection for a devotee to have the personal association of the Lord. That's what we all are longing for. That's what this whole process is about, to actually bring us eye to eye or what do you say, face to face with the Lord. That's what we are yearning for. And he had that. But because he knew that even higher than to serve Kṛṣṇa personally is to carry out the instructions of of the Supreme Lord as given in the Vedas. So the Vedic instruction is that you should go, that you should at one point in life you should leave your home, you should renounce this this family life and you should take saṁnyās. So he followed that instruction. He renounced his his opportunity to have personal darśan or personal association with the Lord. And he went off to to to give set an example for an ideal gṛhastha.
And her his wife Devahūti, she actually was more fortunate. She got the association of Kapila Dev for a long time. He instructed her or more fortunate, they were both equally fortunate, but she she then had Kapila Dev instructing her in this science of self-realization, sāṅkhya-yoga. And in that way she also attained perfection.
And it all ended very gloriously for both of them. So much so that we are reading of it now for thousands of years. We will still read about these two devotees and their glorious household life and their glorious perfection in devotional service.
Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hari Kṛṣṇa.
So maybe there is something we can discuss or some reflections about this topic.
Yes. What is the spiritual protection of a man giving to a woman mean? Like what does it imply? Spiritual spiritual protection? Well, it gives it's on all levels then, yeah, we spoke of physical, emotional, and spiritual is to give support to to support in the spiritual in like like in in previous times it was more like the man was like the guru for the wife and gave her enlightenment and spiritual knowledge. Nowadays it's a little different because we are both men and women are initiated and taking the instructions and learning the science of so it's not it's different nowadays. Uh so in in previous times, the the woman didn't go to the education like that, so so as far as I understand. But nowadays we are both taking initiation, we are both chanting 16 rounds, we are both reading Śrīla Prabhupāda's books, and becoming educated like that. So but nowadays it's more like we support each other, I guess. And sometimes it's the woman also that supports the man. Sometimes we see it's other way around in Kali Yuga, it's not always like it used to be. Sometimes the woman is the stronger person also. It's so But basically if the husband is more advanced or more learned, then then then he also gives in that way guidance to the wife in spiritual. That's the ideal that the man is more advanced and can can guide and protect his wife also spiritually like that.
Is that answer?
Oh yeah. Is there any descriptions what happened to the wives of the Kṛṣṇa's wives the queens in Dvārakā? Were they all liberated, all did they go back to Godhead directly or you know, they were Kṛṣṇa's wives. Kṛṣṇa's wives in Dvārakā. Yeah, they were married with Kṛṣṇa, and in the end Kṛṣṇa left and how is the story? The wives Dvārakā disappeared, but the wives were taken away from Dvārakā before, and there is a special story regarding this which I don't know now I don't remember exactly. Wasn't it the coward some coward man attacked Arjuna when he was he was appointed to take away Kṛṣṇa's wives from Dvārakā, and then he was attacked by coward some cowards, and he couldn't protect because Kṛṣṇa had taken away Arjuna's powers, and he realized that he was just an instrument to just to also give Arjuna this realization that it was all Kṛṣṇa's gift that he he was that powerful warrior, who world famous archer. And then what happened to the the wives then? They were taken away by some coward men. I don't remember the story. Of course they went back to Godhead. And their sons and children. Yeah. I mean this was this is just this like disappearance pastime of Kṛṣṇa, like Kṛṣṇa disappeared in a very very interesting way also, very inconceivable way. Just to bewilder the atheist basically. He was shot in the foot and like that. But it's actually just a līlā pastime. And similarly there was a pastime how his wife disappeared from this earth also. Of course they just went back to their eternal positions as you know, their eternal associates of the Lord. So. As Gopis or. Um um I don't know exactly what the wives if they are what exactly they are. They are eternal associates is dvārakī nāma. Yeah, that is dvārakī nāma exactly in the spiritual world. So they are queens there perhaps. I'm I don't know exactly. I'm not so learned in these things. In these things. What you call what you call these coward men they went back to Kṛṣṇa. Oh, they were actually Kṛṣṇa. Yeah. Yeah. It's all written in the Bhāgavatam. It's in in the purport somewhere, but now I don't it's hard to remember all the details. In 11th canto. Probably in the 11th canto, probably yeah.
Yeah, it was all transcendental anyway. On the material from a material point of view it looks funny, but it's all transcendental. That's for sure. Thank you. That was much more than I knew. Yeah, we with the help of the devotees.
All right. Any other addition. The other day we were also reading this statement about that a lady should not take sannyās. This is also in Kali Yuga there is a saying, no one should take saṁnyās. Actually. That was in the purport the other day, Madhavapuriy was reading to a purport, you know. The saṁnyās that is kind of awarded now within Iskcon, I think it's maybe it's not so it's not very similar to the saṁnyās that's spoken of in the Bhāgavatam. It is was introduced by Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī simply for the sake of preaching because when someone takes saṁnyās, especially within India, you get a very highly respectable position. Similarly Caitanya His saṅkīrtana movement, he felt was not taken seriously enough when he was just a householder, but when he took saṁnyās, that's, you know, an admiration from the from the public. So saṁnyās take is not even also not taken by you know anyone actually to. No, actually, that's true. Five things are forbidden in Kali Yuga, right? And one of them is taking saṁnyās. Yes, so it's a special saṁnyās only for the only purpose is for preaching. Otherwise we don't take this uh like wander away in the forest. That was the usual system, you just completely disconnect from everything, and you just wander away and you become a socially dead. But that's not how the saṁnyās is. They are actually very much engaged with they marry like Prabhupāda said, "I have to marry my female disciples also because that's good for that's for their spiritual benefit." So Prabhupāda even performed marriages, and that's that's very unusual for a saṁnyāsī. A saṁnyāsī would never do that. But Prabhupāda was this was yukta-vairāgya. He did whatever was needed for the spiritual upliftment of of both his boys and girls, because the girls also came to him. And he accepted them and facilitated them, and invented the brahmacāriṇī āśrama and everything. And then he also had to marry them, and even put showed them how to put on the sārīs. So Prabhupāda was extremely renounced. That's real renunciation, when you are not when you're so renounced that you can be completely in the presence of all the sense objects. That's real renunciation, not you just walk away from them, that's an inferior type of renunciation, but when you can be in the midst of all the sense objects and be totally detached. So that was Prabhupāda.
Ultimately on the topic of protection, is Kṛṣṇa. When somebody's eligible for protection, Kṛṣṇa will provide instruments to do that. Whether it's the wife and the husband. And for those who haven't heard that story. It's a very interesting illustration where the way I remember it is very, very religious priests, at least he thought so of himself. So he wanted to tell me of God, and then there was a heavy disaster in the category of adhidaivika kleśa, big flood. So everybody had to flee up on the roof, not to be drowned, and the water was raising higher and higher and higher. People were praying. And then the priest says, "God will save me." "Just because, you know." And then there came some people in boats and started to pick up and rescue people. And when they came to take him, that's fine. "God will save me." "Oh, come up. You want to get in the boat?" "No." Then came another boat, same thing. And the water was raising, raising. He said, "Oh," he said. And then came a helicopter. "Come. Grab on, and we'll pull you up." "God will save me." And then ultimately, he drowned, because the water became so high. And then he came to heaven because he was very religious. And then he met with God and was a bit annoyed and he said, "I've been a religious man my whole life, and why didn't you save me? I died!" And God says, "Come on, I sent two boats and one helicopter! You didn't want to come!" So, protection. God's instruments.
Thank you. Very nice point. Yeah, it's just a system, it's just ultimately we're all dependent. We're all prakṛti, and Kṛṣṇa is puruṣa. So both men and women, we are dependent. We are no one is really the protector in this world. Only Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate protector. So, uh we just have to but he has his system how he protects us in this world. So as as ladies we take the protection of a husband or or we can also of course live renounced and take protection of the temple and the temple like in in the āśrama. But somehow or rather we we need protection. And somehow or rather everyone needs protection and needs to to admit that we are all dependent in this world. And no one can protect oneself.
Like woman in old age living in a home, says she's protected by spiritual knowledge. Yes. He became he became. Yeah, ultimately Kṛṣṇa is our protector, and we can also of course there are so many ladies who in old age just take complete protection of of Kṛṣṇa. If they don't have a son, for example, then they just take protection of of Kṛṣṇa. Living in the temple, serving Kṛṣṇa like that. But if she protected by Kṛṣṇa, why there's probably nothing to worry about these children. Well, that's the that's the varṇāśrama system. Not everyone is just able to take full protection like just completely depend on Kṛṣṇa. But this is the social system that is there so that every lady will be protected.
Ultimately it's as been pointed out, ultimately it's Kṛṣṇa protecting us through his different agents. So the more we understand that it's actually Kṛṣṇa, the more we can just directly depend on Kṛṣṇa also. Like that. Okay, it's 9:00, we should end. Grantha-rāja Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam kī jaya! Thank you very much.