Grhasta asrama……..why?

In 1972, I joined a movement consisting mainly of brahmacaries and brahmacarinis. I rejoiced in the association of those who dedicated their lives entirely to the mission of Srila Prabhupada.

Even reading and hearing about the possibility to change one's asrama and still remain in Krsna Consciousness, such an alternative seemed to be inpractical in comparison to the simple and blissful life of a brahmacary or brahmacarini. Managing brahmacarinis even in the early stages of my participation in the Srila Prabhupadas mission only enhanced my determination to stay celibacy munk and taste the bliss of sankirtan book distribution forever.

Forever?

In simple words, after seventeen years of my brahmacary bliss, I faced a decision to be made, a decision some before me and many after me had to make as well: am I going to grow into an old frustrated munk or will I pay my price dictated by the varna of my body and change my asrama? After all, only brahminical people have the choice to stay celibate or to accept the intimate association of a female in whatever Krsna Conscious fashion. Everybody else must get married.
The challenge was on, and the fight was long to finally come to a clear understanding that, due to my past, resulting acceptance of this body, I do have to make a clear decision and “do the needful.”

As extreme as my story was, I still didn't accept that getting married meant starting a family, but I insisted on staying in the preaching regime even after being married; preaching along with an amazing, childless wife who seemed to share the same conviction was simply wonderful. But time came where we still had to make another decision: to have a child or not to have a child.

Children change everything, and they bring the true purification that Grhasta ashrama offers.
To stay single or without a child still offers plenty of opportunities to conduct one's life on one's own terms, to become a self-instaled transcendentalist, or to imagine being what one is not. After all, as stated in the sastra, in one sense, a marrying brahmacary “departs” from his spiritual master in a direct sense of leadership, as a guru is not a marriage counsellor in a day-to-day regime. But it is supposed to give only firm, sastric direction in regards to one's return back home back to Godhead. Those sannyas gurus who went further and became „part of the family“ often paid the highest price, the price of sacrificing their own spiritual life, or at best they followed the example of their disciples and got married as well.

And so, as evident in Srila Prabhupadas life, grhasta srama is some sort of isolated state where the domestic issues to be dealt with are more of a private nature. It is an immense help to create communities of grhastas who, under remote higher spiritual brahminical leadership share the challenges grhasta asrama offers. Whoever thinks that grhasta ashrama is going to expand his scope of enjoyment must be a masochist and is entirely missing the point. The only word Srila Prabhupada used when advocating grhasta asrama was RESPONSIBILITY. Grhasta asrama is meant to REGULATE one's dormant senti-mental conditioning, as this very same sentimentality proves to be deadly if not regulated to ONE female and ONE male, sharing intimacy to the point of producing a child. There are fathers who follow the call of their bodies to have many children, and there are women who ALWAYS follow the call of their bodies for the same reason. Those who don't and are not yet purified from such desires suffer immensly, as if not being some sort of Mirabai copy, the body they acquired will turn into the body of an old angry frustrated woman.
To die in such a state of mind is most inauspicious, as whatever we did not address and purify in terms of our conditioning in this life, we will have to address in the next. The material nature is uncompromising.

And so grhasta ashram is a TEMPORARY state of purification for those who are gradually turning into angry, dissatisfied munks and nuns, and it teaches us the temporarity and final futility of such an ashram. The word futility may imply frustration, but it doesn't have to be this way if both men and women mature into the stage of natural vanaprastha, where they mutually support each other after the departure of their offspring to cultivate again in intensified Krsna Consciousness.

Such mature vanaprastha couples are a wonderful example not only for the upcoming young grhastas but also for all those who still hope that “grhasta happiness” is forever.
Those women who lived through their family ordeals surely know the austerities such life implies, and those men who had to live with the unpredictable minds of their wives surely carry deep realisations about the nature of their own and other bodies.
When reaching this final stage of realisation, they sincerely strive for a higher spiritual regime. The words and examples of such dignified vanaprasthas become truly convincing.

Only those who went through such a three-dimensional seminary of grhasta asrama can speak in a truly convincing manner about grhasta issues, as those few wonderful sannyasis, if never practiced, can still remain shastrically correct teachers of theory.
In general, in Vedic society, sannyas follows the grhasta vanaprastha life of a man, so the problem with “theoretical sannyasis” hardly exists.
The presence of a real sannyasi is for a sincere grhasta most inspiring, but it is more in the visionary sense than in the practical day-to-day sense of grhasta survival.
A spiritual master is not a marriage counsellor but a guide to go back home back to Godhead.
The realisations that grhasta asrama brings may be occasionally painful, but they are priceless. Realisations take place in the heart and not in the brain, which serves only as data storage. Grhasta asrama, if practiced sincerely, brings vijnana, realised knowledge, while purely sastric studies bring jnana, theoretical knowledge. The final proof of vijnana is the absence of activated material desire, and so those “who had it all” and, due to acquiring a higher taste, never return to the place where the lower taste can be found are the true renounciates.

Maya is so strong that it can convince lonely brahmacaries in their desperation to illuminate many lonely women, sannyasis in their bitterness of frustrated female association to become feroucious fanatical "rennounciates,” and asocial autistic desperados to become councelers of others. As a hungry man talks about food only and an agitated man talks about love and peace in society only, a man of unfulfilled material desires will preach about the way of renouncing them only.
The final verdict will be once again spoken by material energy, which will reveal who is who when the time comes.

True grhasta avoids such hypocrisy and accepts the challenges this asrama offers in a dignified way. “Like a gentelman,” Srila Prabhupada often commented.
Grhasta ashrama means to simplify and finally purify one's material desires, and the presence of a wife and children surely ensures the minimal privacy of such a sincere devotee. If acted out properly, a wife can be a wonderful help to a husband, and a husband can be a wonderful help to a wife. As rare as such examples can be seen in today's deranged society, those few grhastas who are determined to act in this way are inspiring examples for others to follow.

Once I met on the street a misserable young man who was pushing a trolley with a small child. When offering him the Bhagavad Gita, he seemed to know this book already, and looking helplessly, he said, “Yeah, I know this book, but I cannot buy it.”
Pointing to the trolly, he said laconically, “This little one will eat me up.”

Being still a brahmacary and enjoying my celibacy, I smiled and told him, “Do you know that this book will improve your family life immensely?”
He laughed and said, “This mystical book of India? Impossible! What has this to do with my family life?”
I told him, “Just imagine that after reading this book, you will understand that there is no chance you are in this situation, and your wife and your child are part of God, not just the bodies you struggle to maintain. What a new vision you will have!
Just imagine what you learn from this book about the temporarity of things and the ways material nature is constantly changing and manipulating us. Wouldn't such realisations make you more tolerant of whatever is going on right now? Maybe your wife and your children would appreciate it when you were more tolerant, understanding that they may not be here as members of your family forever. After all, we have to die on our own; our family members will not die for us.”

The young man had obviously some sort of idea about spiritual life, and he laughed: “I never saw it in this way,” he said, and for a reduced price, he bought the Bhagavad Gita.

Such are the realisations of a grhasta. When I was an eighteen-year-old boy standing on the street with the Bhagavad Gita, people used to laugh at me, wondering what I meant when I said that the life of a grhasta is a temporary one. Now, when doing the same while living in my seventy-year-old body, nobody laughs. What happened? I went through grhasta asrama, and by Srila Prabhupadas mercy came out as vanaprastha. I was enriched by the realisation that life is not about what we want but about what we have to do.

It was not only the entirely transcendental nature of Srila Prabhupadas as a paramahamsa of the highest order that made him so convincing in his preaching, but it was also his grhasta asrama that became the past and enriched his preaching in the presence so he could reach out to so many and save so many lives. What was not visible when he was sitting in his pharmacy in Prayag became very visible when he was dealing with his grhasta disciples. They were amazed and deeply impressed by how much instant understanding he had for their ordeals while simultaneously showing them how to minimise, tolerate, and finally overcome them in a spiritual sense.

The ways to renounce in his presentation were real, and grhasta asrama was another way to true renunciation. It was for this reason that he introduced it, and it was for this reason that he advocated for it whenever the need arose. He wanted a movement of true renunciates, not a movement of self-instaled hypocrites. Whenever he saw his followers regulating their lives in a dignified manner, he extended only respect to them. 
Whenever he saw hypocrisy becoming the modus operanti, his displeasure was evident.

And so grhasta asrama offers a dignified way to deal with our conditioning as responsible men and responsible women. It gives us a dignified and respectable appearance, even in the eyes of still-remaining sane members of human society.

As Srila Prabhupada wrote on January 7, 1977:

“...And this kind of hypocrisy—they have taken sannyāsa and mixing with woman. This is not to be allowed. If you want woman you get yourself married, live respectfully. We have no objection. But this hypocrisy should be stopped. There have been so many fallen down. First of all there will be no sannyāsī anymore. I have got very bad experience. And at least, we are not going to create new sannyāsīs. And those who have fallen down, let them marry, live like respectable gentlemen. I have no objection. After all, young man, fallen down—that's all right. It is by nature's way. But marry that girl. That I am insisting from the very beginning, that no friendly liaison. If you want, get one nice... They are, all of them qualified. Get one wife and live like a gentleman. Similarly woman. Live with one husband fastidiously, with children. What is the wrong there? We have so many gṛhastha devotees. You have got children. Pradyumna has got child. Gopāla has... Live with husband, wife. There is no restriction for husband and wife. But what is this nonsense that you take sannyāsa and make relation with...? This should be completely stopped...”