Hare Krsna Dear Maharaja and ASA team,
Please accept my humble and obeissances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Here I present my summary:
SBG PRESENTATION SUMMARY 3.22.10-11 Monday, January 24, 2022
The marriage between Kardama Muni and Devahuti
Topic: Process of how a lady accepts a husband.
Introduction:
Svayambhuva Manu has come before Kardama Muni to offer his daughter Princess Devahuti in marriage and here he presents the reasons why Kardama Muni should accept his daughter as his wife.
In these 2 verses the information we receive is brief and concise, and from Srila Prabhupada's side we can see more details and topics.
Within the topics that we find 6 in total there are 3 topics that call our attention:
1.-The Recommendation: applies both for a lady to accept a candidate as a future husband as well as for a lady to be accepted as a wife.
The recommendation is made by authorities, based on hearing and is issued by an authority in this case who recommends Kardama to Devahuti is Narada Muni and who recommends Devahuti to Kardama is another authority Svayambhuva Manu.
Here there is a contrast to the current era where we give more value to direct experience even when choosing the future husband, we want to see him, meet him, hear him even fall in love and then see the subject of marriage (this is something dangerous for a lady considering that not always a relationship leads to marriage).
On the other hand, the recommendation is something still used today, if we want to hire the services of a person who has to work in our homes, we ask for a recommendation or for an acquaintance or friend to recommend it to us, it is interesting how we ask for a recommendation for someone who would come to work in our house but not for someone who would come into our life.
2.-Requirements to accept a husband:
In text 10 the values or requirements that Devahuti consider to choose Kardama Muni are mentioned and they are:
-Noble character, erudition, good looks, youth, virtues.
And based on the requirements that one considers most important one can distinguish whether one is a grhamedhi or a grhastha, if for example one values beauty, fame and/or youth more then you are more on the side of a grhamedhi.
Srila Prabhupada mentions in the text 11 very deep reflections on the grhastha ashrama, briefly explains the difference between a grhamedhi and a grhastha and makes us notice that the grhastha ashrama is a spiritual order and not an option to indulge the senses, it must be understood that a practitioner of a spiritual process should gradually decrease sense gratification and that the entire Varna ashrama focuses on this, therefore the grhastha ashrama is a spiritual order whose aim is to advance spiritually together with the family. Ashrama that allows you to advance more gradually than other ashramas.
One must enter the grhastha ashrama prepared and one must cultivate qualities and values such as these 5 requirements, in order to contribute within the ashrama and also request them from her future husband.
In fact important details also to consider are:
- The ideals of a husband that one has (this comes from culture, family, from the time we live in etc) that many times we insert into our consciousness of krsna and we have our own perception of what a devotee with sadhana and devotion is .
Ejm: We can call a sadhanero a devotee who faithfully worships the deity but does not read or who reads every day and does not complete his chant of japa or in any case chant his rounds, takes care of the rituals but does not get up early.
Also see the tastes and preferences, the devotee may be of a very social trend that loves festivals, sports, being fashionable or only certain areas of service and the devotee (she) thinks: oh I can change it! As there are no common points, communication is lost
Case: Devotee marries a devotee who is highly appreciated by the community, has a good reputation, is a very good donor and cares about the deities, he is noted to be very devoted to the deities and when they get married the devotee gets up very early but to doing exercises, listening to bhajan all day but not finishing the rounds. She believed that he was devotional and sadhanero, she now doubts it and for him what he does is fine.
-Another detail is to understand that maturity between men and women is different both in time and in concept, and there is also spiritual maturity.
It is natural for a woman to accept an older man because men mature psychologically more slowly and there are different understandings of what maturity is: for men, maturity is working and being independent, and for women, maturity is accepting a long-term commitment.
And spiritual maturity begins when we understand that Krsna is the supreme controller, and the supreme enjoyer, very difficult to enter grhastha when these concepts are not clear.
In most cases we enter marriage immaturely because we are taught that the child, the young should enjoy and only the old should mature, maturity is not understood as a process that is cultivated from an early age.
This is why it is a challenge for Krsna Consciousness to break this misconception and teach its members from early childhood to embrace austerity as part of their maturing process.
-Age and misconceptions, it's not the same whether a 20-year-old lady who is expecting a charming prince marries, or a 30-year-old who usually already wants children, or a 40-year-old who mainly wants a partner, they have different perspectives what they expect from marriage. Within the Vedic culture, importance was given to age due to the issue of spiritual objectives to be developed. It was taken care to marry at an early age because it takes a lot of energy to be able to take care and guide the children and also when the father of the family took sannyas he could still have energy to travel and give all the experience he has obtained in his life as a brahmacari and grhastha. .
Practitioners of a spiritual process must be careful not to have misconceptions of what marriage is and our role if we choose to enter this Ashram. We are not princesses and even though Devahuti was a princess, it was clear to her that her role was to serve her husband and family.
Point to keep in mind is that marriage is not to please the senses, it is an austerity, which is why today many people in Europe and other places reject it or divorce shortly after marriage, even couples who get married do not want to have children because they consider that it is a lot of sacrifice and it is true that marriage is austerity and sacrifice and the devotees accept it as an austerity for Krsna since the grhastha ashrama is where the future brahmacaris, sannyasis, leaders etc. come out.
3.-Dharma of a father regarding his daughters.
In this aspect we quote Canakya pandit who mentions: "You should never marry your daughter with a sick, poor, infamous and uneducated"
"Accept a wife, if she is good even if she comes from a lower class family."
This leads us to reflection: What do you want for your daughter? What does your daughter want for herself?
The duty of a father is to see these aspects and above all to cultivate the character of the daughter, so that she develops skills and qualities so that she is suitable for a good husband or so that she makes good decisions and always seeks her spiritual advancement.
Ejm: The pastime of the deity of Saksi Gopal and the 2 brahmanas illustrates this for us, the elder brahmana found a young and highly qualified brahmana though poor, and saw an opportunity to give his daughter a good husband and win a good member for him family.
CONCLUSION
We can say that the marriage itself tends to fail because if you are a grhamedhi who seeks to please the senses, then you will separate because to please yourself you will seek the variety of couples. And if you are a person who seeks spiritual advancement for a grhastha and you see that your partner does not advance or does not want to advance, then you will also separate.
So why do we get married?
Basically in most cases for 2 reasons:
1.-To have children: Success consists in having good children. In Vedic culture it is mentioned that good sons will save you from the cycle of reincarnation.
2.- Feel complete: biologically, psychologically we need someone to share and relate to.
Let's remember:
The grhastha ashrama is very important and we can take as a reference the life of Sri Caitanya who was married twice and gave us his example of the ideal devotee and how his whole life is focused on service and both his mother and his wives supported from their position the Sri Chaitanya's mission.
This ashrama is an essential part of the spiritual process. Most are getting married and we must enter seriously prepared, as when one prepares to take both the first and second initiations. Vows are also made and commitments are made.
Both must be qualified, husband and wife, we cannot expect only the husband to be advanced. Princess Devahuti was of the same qualification as Kardama Muni and both husband and wife attend to different aspects within the family and must be prepared to assume these responsibilities.
Always remember that the grhastha ashram has a mission both individually and collectively, individually a grhastha devotee must advance and collectively this ashram has a duty within ISKCON. Search How do I contribute as a grhastha? How do I help in Srila Prabhupada's mission? These are constant questions that one must ask. And this also helps us to see how to focus and not lose track of our spiritual development.
Thans a lot for sharing your achievements whit us
jay Nrsimhadeva Bhagavan Jay Sita Ram Laksmana Hanuman!
whit affection
ys Isvari R dd
HpS - ASA - AGTSP paoho. We read the first part of this summary and it seems as fine as the audio presentation, which we could not fully appreciate because of the language barrier. We will try to appreciate it more later!
Thank you very much.
Hearing, understanding and taking to heart the pastimes in Srimad Bhagavatam will lift us to become preachers on the same level as Narada Muni.
