A man is also a woman

39.00 to 57.40

All of a sudden there is a verse about perils of maya and he describes woman as the perils of maya because he is a man. He is in a male form. Prabhodananda Saraswati. He is a brahmana from South India. So as a sadhaka there is still some gender upadi. We are not mukta jivas. Mukta jivas are beyond the gender. He may be beyond; he may be atmarama and aptakama. sarvopädhi-vinirmuktaà...He may be vinirmuktaà,  exceptionally, vi, visesa mukti, having developed an exceptional form of mukti. Iit is called bhakti mukti. Bhakti mukti is when one is fixed in his siddha deha. He is completely fixed and realized in his siddha deha and there is no way to be enchanted by Menaka or some heavenly damsel of the mundane realm. Whereas the greatest rsis and sages...It may be apparently indriya mukti or even jagad mukti. They may be liberated from their senses or liberated from the impulses of the material world – vaco vegam manasah krodha-vegam jihva-vegam udaropastha-vegam. They may be free from all these pushings and demands of the senses. So indriya mukti, like Visvamrta muni, sixty thousand years, no demands of the tongue or genital or anything, but he is not fixed, so it is a type of mukti but then Menaka, the heavenly dancing girl came from Indra's court to seduce him and make him fall from his yoga, yoga bhrasta.
But the bhakti mukti, sarva updai vinir muktam tat partvena nirmalam, he becomes liberated from all the designations, like a yogi. But sarvopädhi-vinirmuktaà tat-paratvena nirmalam håñékeëa håñékeçasevanaà bhaktir ucyate...This is bhakti, sevanam bhakti, bhakti seva. He is absorbed in devotional service to Rädhä and kåñëa and realizes his siddha deha. So this is visesa mukti. He is free from all the designations, sarvopädhi-vinirmuktaà tat-paratvena nirmalam. Nirmala, he has no dirt, any kind of dirt, gross dirt in his brain or mind or subtle dirt, and how so, because he is connected to the master of the mind and senses. You may be master of your senses, but you can't master your mind. Only God can master your mind. So when the mind becomes a friend, becomes a servant, when the mind accepts the servitude of the master Kåñëa. So this is what works with the devotees, whereas the yogi becomes the master of his senses, he is called gosvami, he is the master of his senses.  This yogi, gosvami, it says, there is a name, jitendriya, jita and indra, victory over his senses. But what about his mind? canchal hi mana kåñëa...
Sixty thousand years of controlling your mind. Thinking you are controlling your senses and thinking you are controlling your mind, then “jing jing jing jing” and you are finished. Sixty thousand years of self control gets dissolved in six seconds. Amazing power, prabhava of ankle bell, six seconds' of ankle bells “jing jing jing jing jing jing jing jing”
“O! Hi! Where are you from?”
“I am from Svarga.”
And that was that and Shakuntala was the result. So he is warning that this is the dangerous thing for anyone who is not fully liberated from all designations and fixed in bhava bhakti, bhakta seva, absorbed in the service of Hrsikesa.
So for the male sadhaka, that embodiment of maya or illusion is woman. But we discussed some points yesterday, which I don't think we were on the internet but we were recorded. That oftentimes women in the audience, which is generally the majority in any religious gathering, be it ISKCON or Catholic Church or anywhere. The Jews or the Catholics or the Hindus or anyone. Art of dying or whatever these courses they have. All the members are primarily ladies. Because they are suffering or at least they think, they are suffering more than men.  And men think they are suffering less, that's maya's nice trick. But actually everyone is suffering equally. Men have the illusion they are in control, but maya is in control of the men and the women. But the illusion is like that.
So when they hear discussions of this, because literally there are hundred verses or more in this book (Våndävana Mahimarta) about the perils of women which are icebergs on the ocean of devotion for a male sadhaka, so why is the rasika jana, this rasika Vaisnava, Prabhodananda Sarawati, discussing this, because this book is all about amrta of Våndävana.
Våndävana is nothing but amrta, but that's nitya Våndävana, prakata Våndävana, where Rädhä and kåñëa and Their parishads reside eternally in bliss of rasa. But that time Prabhodananda Sarawati is living in aprakata Våndävana. Five hundred years ago, in Kaliya daha, Våndävana. And he is aware the affect of kali-yuga in Våndävana. This is not prakata Våndävana, Rädhä and kåñëa are not visible here in this bhauma Våndävana, They are on some other universe, visible. So is very much, there is a Mayic covering on Våndävana. So that means there is some danger, there is maya here. Some mahamaya, it is not all yogamaya.
When kåñëa is here, yogamaya is running the show in Våndävana. But now yogamaya is in background of Våndävana and mahamaya is in the foreground. Murders, rapes, drugs, prostitution, everything going on, drug trafficking, cheating, gambling. You see! It's not too hard to see. There is liquor store right there in Chattikara. In Goverdhana, four, five liquor stores, in dana ghati. That's yogamaya? Thats maha mahamaya. And they are not selling to the Punjabis from Delhi, they come for parikrama, they don't come here to drink. They come here to get punya, to get purified, to get attached to Rädhä and kåñëa. It's the locals. The quote unquote ‘Vrajavasis'.
So therefore there are some dangers for the sadhaka in Våndävana which are a type of visha, a type of poison. And if one takes poison then he will die and he can't experience amrta. So to experience the amrta of Våndävana one has to live in Våndävana consciousness, in devotional consciousness. So one must be savadhana Vaisnava. Be careful. Savadhana. Be careful.
And as I mentioned, when women hear these discussions, “O! These are chauvinistic sadhus” The writers of sastra. And now I thought Prabhodananda Sarawati was an exception, because he wrote Radha Rasa Sudha Nidhi, which is all the sweet, sudha. Radha Rasa Sudha Nidhi, it is an ocean of sudha, nectar about Rädhäräëé and the sakhis and manjaris and their sevas and blissful pastimes of Rädhä and kåñëa in Våndävana. And he wrote Navadvipa Sataka, beautiful book about the glories of Navadvipa. And he wrote Sangita Madhava, beautiful description of the rasa-lila, so much musical ragas described there and beautiful rendition of the pastimes. Sangita Madhava. Very topmost rasika author, Prabhodananda Sarawati. And now he is writing Våndävana Mahimarta and I thought, maybe I should just ignore these verses because it is a controversial subject. When you stop talking about the nectar, when you start talking about reality, then people, “Hey wait a minute man, I want the nectar” Nectar hounds. “Hooow hooow! Give me the nectar”
Well I am certainly an advocate of distributing Våndävana amrta. But we have to careful because mixed in this Våndävana amrta, there is some poison. You can't call Våndävana, poison. It's called maya visha. Maya visha means the poison bite, poison fangs of maya. And that cobra of maya can bite anyone.
So he is talking about women. Now let's look a more seriously about this.  For a man maya is the form of woman. For a woman the form of man is maya. But now let's look at this word, as I mentioned yesterday after the internet.
That the word woman in Sanskrit means stri. Stri means to expand. So we gave a definition of a woman - woman means anyone who expands the field of sense gratification. Anyone who expands the field of material sense gratification is a woman.
So a man is also a woman. A man who is materially attached. Because the word woman, stri means female, stri means prakriti. Stri – female, woman. So prakriti means the material energy. Purusa prakriti. Purusa means male. Prakriti means female. Prakriti means this jagad prakriti, asta prakriti, the external energy, the maya sakti, His bahiranga sakti, the maya, the material world. The material world means maya. But maya doesn't mean woman. Maya means the material world, prakriti. There is also apara prakriti. Para prakriti and apara prakriti. So when we talk about maya, we talk about prakriti. And prakriti means female, female means woman and woman means stri. So stri means anyone who expands the field of prakriti or increases one's attachment and interest in prakriti, which means anyone who expands or increases one's interest in material world or material sense gratification is a woman. So a man can also be a woman by this definition. 
For example, a very renounced and pious and pure hearted woman may marry a ‘man', a purusa, who is a total hedonist and carnal sense enjoyer. He drinks. He is non-veg. He eats meat. He likes to gamble. He likes to go to parties. He likes to do all non-devotional activities. No interest in devotion. No interest in visiting holy dhamas or doing tirtha yatras. No interest in sadhu sanga. No interest in charity or dana – ana dana, sastra dana or any type of charity for the benefit of others. Simply interested in eat, drink and be merry and be happy with your family. There are so many men like this. And there are so many pious religious women that are interested in devotion and they want to live a simple God-centered life. And practice devotion and associate with sadhus and worship deities in their house and offer Them food and live a sanctified life and seeking moksa. They understand that the purpose of life is dharma, artha, kama and moksa. Their husbands, when they bring out the subject. They can't bring out the subject. The husband says, “Shut up. I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about death and moksa. Forget. That's somewhat old. Let's enjoy. Why are you talking all this non-sense. We are young and healthy. We are handsome and beautiful. Let's enjoy.” So that man is a woman.
So I would like to say that when sastras are warning about the perils of woman, one should say that that's any human being who is interested in material sense gratification. And attached to the material world and attached to staying here and exploiting and squeezing and getting as much pleasure as that living entity can out of the material world. Be they in male form or female form. This is what the acaryas and the writers of sastras mean when they talk about women.
But generally men are writing the sastras, so they are saying maya means woman. And that means may for a man is woman's form. Unless, woman is not woman and she is not maya and she is a pure devotee. She is your mukta, she is your mukti sparsa mani. She is your touchstone of liberation. If a sinful man marries a pious woman, he gets so much advantage, he gets so much punya sukriti, knowingly and unknowingly. Knowingly she may say, “I want to go to the temple, please take me.” “Alright, I will take you, but we have to go to the club afterwards.” So he goes to the temple and he goes and has darsana with his wife. Then she drags him to the temple and he gets agyata sukriti or knowingly. Then he drags her to the club and she tolerates and chants in her mind or remembers the Lord. So in this way, he gets so much benefit. So that's why we are pausing in our sailing across the ocean of nectar over last few weeks and we will continue to sail unless our boats go down, hit that iceberg and get sunk. But we hope to continue and sail. We are examining these icebergs for several days and considering what they mean.
So as we discuss these verses about ‘woman', I would like to ask all the pure souls that are inhabiting female gender, bodies, to not take offence or take this as anything personal of Prabhodananda Saraswati.
It is simply a warning to be careful of maya and maya is everywhere in this material world. She is the ruling queen, Durga. Material world is called Devi dhama. And it is not Våndädevi dhama.  We know Våndädevi and we know Rädhädevi. But this is maya devi. Maya devi means durga devi. It is called devi dhama and then there is Hari dhama. So this is the devi dhama and she is the queen, queen Durga and those kings of this world; even kings worship a queen. Very funny! The powerful Indian kings with hundreds of their wives. King Dasaratha had 365 wives in treta yuga. Generally they have lots of wives and they are very powerful, wealthy, influential and strong. Ksatriya people, maharathis and fighters, they have the power and potency to influence somehow such a large harem of queens. “I am the ruling King, Jaisaingh, and these are my queens.”
But actually even the kings of India were all ruled by the queens, because all the kings from India got their power and blessings from Durga. Every single king of India is a worshipper, practically speaking, without exception, primarily, although secondarily may worship Visnu or Ganesa. But primarily they are all Durga worshippers. Because when you worship Durga, you get power. And being a king it is all about power. Physical power.
As a king you want to conquer kingdoms and raid them and loot them, loot their princess and daughters and wealth, then you have to be powerful. And certainly the kings of yore were extremely powerful. It was Durga prasad, all blessings of Durga. Durga Prasad singh, the king of Mewar. Sometimes they were named that. So they all had to worship the queen.
So we are hearing all these verses. This is chapter 9 verse 95.
The bottom line here is, nothing personal, because persons are atmas, spirit souls. We falsely identify with this body. And we think, “O this is personal”. What is personal? The body is personal? The body is a lump of chemicals and bones! The persona is the atma. Jivatma is the person, not the body.
“Hey, you are getting personal. Why are you talking about women. That's personal. I am a woman!”
You are not a ‘personal' woman, you are personal atma, single atma. “Hey, why are you talking about men, it is getting personal.” Nobody in this world ever gets personal.
Then somebody asks you some questions about your family, “Hey, why are you getting personal.” That's not personal. Personal means the atma. Hari katha. That's personal. Atma tattva jnana that is personal subjects, personal discussions, personal questions.
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