Question: In the Bhagavad-gītā we read that we are not the body, we are the soul. Can two people of the same gender be together and offer their service to Kṛṣṇa? Is it wrong to have same sex relations?
Author: Devotee
Date: 2024-05-13
Jayapatākā Swami: Of course, he or she is saying that we are not the body.
But the question is being asked simply about the body.
So, the man woman relation is specially meant to produce children.
People of the same gender are not able to produce children.
In America they have stores that sell men’s semen.
The hatches ladies they purchase male semen and have children.
In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, it is said that husband and wife if they have a relation, it is considered celibacy.
Till today, I have read that people of the same gender if they have a relation that is still illicit sex.
Related Questions
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2023-09-06
Jayapatākā Swami: If you take my initiation, they are supposed to take vows not to eat meat, fish, egg, onion and garlic.
If someone accidentally takes that is another thing.
One time I heard that Śrīla Prabhupāda was a guest in some house.
They said they would prepare without onion and garlic,
but some devotee, said, Śrīla Prabhupāda, there is onions here.
But he did not say anything, he just kept the onion aside and ate it.
He wanted to be a good guest it seems.
But we should avoid certain things. In India they say, āmiṣa āhāra niṣedha.
Āmiṣa also included on and garlic, red masoor dal and other things.
Category: [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles]
An initiated neophyte has vowed to follow the regulative principles, chant daily 16 rounds and to help you and help Śrīla Prabhupāda in spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness all around the world. Say, such a neophyte has broken this vow in an attempt to meet the demands of his competitive world due to his past bad karma, how can such a person be attractive and inspiring to the common man plus come back to the spiritual life and resume to his guru’s pleasure?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2024-02-19
Jayapatākā Swami: You see that is why taking first initiation
it is described as taking a new birth.
Naturally when you are taking birth as a baby,
a toddler,
you may fall down a few times.
Then gradually you learn to walk.
So at your first initiation
it is expected that
there may be a few mistakes.
And one should pick up and continue to practice,
in this way they can progress.
When one takes the second initiation,
they should be more considered like 9 or 12 years old.
If at that time they are sleeping in the lap of the mother
and passing stool or something,
then something is wrong!
A little baby it is expected.
But not in a 9 or 12-year-old boy!
Category: [Anarthās], [Guru (Spiritual Master)], [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles], [Sādhanā / Sevā]
Questioner: Saṅgītamayī Gopī devī dāsī
Date: 2022-09-02
Jayapatākā Swami: That is why we read in the pastimes of Lord Caitanya
when Lord Caitanya was in Vṛndāvana,
one gṛhastha approached Him
and he said, I am a very very fallen gṛhastha.
So like that he got the mercy from Lord Caitanya.
Now Śrīla Prabhupāda said as gṛhasthas we should try to keep our goal higher.
But as you said, maybe we are not able to achieve that right away.
But we try.
That is why the śāstra gives us different vratās, different systems that we can follow.
Like the Bhīṣma Pañcaka is optional.
So there are many things which are optional.
If you think you need more purification, you can do these optional vratās.
A brahmacārī may consider, these are not for me, I don’t have any problem.
But they can also preach to the gṛhasthas.
And if they do, no harm.
I asked Śrīla Prabhupāda what should we do in the Dāmodara month?
He said, this is especially for the new customers!
Like a store has a sale.
To encourage new customers,
but you are a regular customer.
All the months, all the days, whether sale or not sale, you are a regular customer.
So this is the answer Śrīla Prabhupāda gave me.
Questioner: Sukamala Nityānanda dāsa [Bangladesh]
Date: 2022-09-10
Jayapatākā Swami: I just said that
we should pray to Kṛṣṇa
that whatever we do, we do service in a Kṛṣṇa conscious way.
Firstly, you have to get married,
and then the two should pray that you have Kṛṣṇa conscious children.
Hare Kṛṣṇa!
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2023-12-05
Some people their weakness is desire for sex life.
So, that can be solved by staying in the āśrama where sex life is permitted.
But that may also be if you are satisfied and happy anyway
then they don’t have any appeal.
So the point is if you have weakness of heart, don’t be weak!
Be strong, build up your strength.
You see, people work out at the gym.
That is not the kind of strength we need.
If it is for Kṛṣṇa’s service, you can do it.
But we need Balarāma’s strength,
the strength of spiritual life.
That you get by good japa, attending morning program,
reading, spiritual things.
And one thing is not having weakness of heart, being strong.
When we are attracted by certain desires we may be situated in an āśrama appropriate for those desires.
Questioner: IYF Māyāpur
Date: 2022-08-03
Jayapatākā Swami: Arjuna asked a similar question
and Kṛṣṇa said that by the sword of knowledge
he should cut the knots of illusion.
So there are different ways to overcome –
one is knowledge.
We have to have knowledge.
Like in Gajendra Mokṣa līlā, the elephant king and the crocodile king were fighting with each other
and they were in the water.
So the elephant realized he was a land animal and the crocodile was a water animal and the crocodile was winning.
Then he prayed to Lord Viṣṇu,
he could remember in his previous life he was a human being,
he was saved by Viṣṇu.
But in the purport Śrīla Prabhupāda says that
we should see which place we are stronger to fight māyā.
Even though we may have knowledge and wisdom,
maybe our nature is such that we should be gṛhastha
but if we can control our lust by knowledge and by engaging in service,
keep the mind off from the object of lust,
then maybe that is sufficient.
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2022-10-15
Jayapatākā Swami: We maintain our enthusiasm
when we have a taste for spiritual life.
Like in different stages of devotional service like bhajana-kriyā, anartha-nivṛtti, niṣṭhā, ruci,
ruci means taste.
You have a taste, you want to do more and more service.
And one time, in Montreal, mother and father came to see the son. Put their arm around him talked to him nicely.
But when they got to the doorway, they grabbed him and told him to go home.
Then he held on the door
and they were pulling his feet and Śrīla Prabhupāda when he heard he said he is attached.
After ruci comes āsakti, attachment.
You have to be attached to resist your parents like that.
So anyway, by devotional service we gradually get taste, we get attached
and in this way we desire to render devotional service more and more.
I was reading the section of marriage of Kardama Muni and Devahūti and was feeling sexually agitated by reading the description of their union to procreate children. I was thinking that by reading Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam I am supposed to rise above the sex desire, but here it is happening otherwise. Why is it so and how can I get rid of this problem?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2023-10-29
Most people even if they take sannyāsa, they don’t do the karma-sannyāsa.
We stay in āśrama, we live in the association of devotees.
Not like in previous ages when sannyāsīs went to the forest.
But must people, they are recommended to get married.
Then gradually get free from materialistic desires.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, he said one should get married to one who is more spiritually advanced.
So, Kardama Muni, he told his wife to stay in the gṛhastha-āśrama and he gave her a child,
and then he would take sannyāsa.
Devahūti, she was the daughter of Manu.
And they experienced material pleasure;
but, then she told her husband, you promised me a son.
And then he gave her a son.
That son was the incarnation of Lord Viṣṇu.
He is still being worshiped in Gaṅgā-sāgara.
And Devahūti, her husband took sannyāsa, but she received the instructions from her son.
So that is the subject of the third canto.
The Śāṅkhya-yoga by Kapila Muni.
I was wondering that in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta we find that there is lot of stress on separation between men and women and there is lot of criticism of any kind of intermixing between men and women? How much of what we hear in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam regarding separation between men and women today is applicable at the present moment?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2023-09-02
Jayapatākā Swami: If one is in one of the renounced orders then it is imperative that one show a good example.
That is why in this Age of Kali sannyāsa is generally prohibited,
and we see that Lord Caitanya is very positive to the gṛhasthas.
Like, it is said that gṛhe thāko vane thāko, sadā hari bole ḍāko -
wherever you are, in the home or in the renounced order everyone should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.
So in fact, Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying that all the members of the Pañca-tattva were one time gṛhasthas.
So the gṛhastha-āśrama is more applicable for today’s situation.
If someone is in the renounced order, then they have to follow these rules.
In the Gajendra-mokṣa, 8th canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,
Śrīla Prabhupāda said that in the fight between the elephant and the crocodile,
the elephant was the land animal, but he was in the water.
And that the crocodile was a water animal and he was in his element.
So Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying that we have to have strong senses and mind, to fight against Māyā.
We have declared war on material illusion.
Therefore, the situation at the present time that people they are mainly gṛhasthas
and, I told this before, Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying that he wants all his gṛhastha followers to be paramahaṁsas,
and he said that Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura was a gṛhastha guru
and he had a son who was an ācārya.
So he said that he hoped that all his gṛhasthas would have ācāryas as children.
I am encouraging people to read Śrīla Prabhupāda books. Lord Caitanya said kibā vipra, kibā nyāsī, śūdra kene naya yei kṛṣṇa-tattva-vettā, sei ‘guru’ haya (Cc. Madhya 8.128).
So we want everybody should know the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2023-01-05
Jayapatākā Swami: It is said that if you hear with faith if you hear and not be agitated,
then you can cure the lust in your heart.
If you speculate lusty things when you hear, then you are not hearing with faith.
Category: [Anarthās], [Emotions / Lust], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles]
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2023-01-05
Jayapatākā Swami: It is said that if you hear with faith if you hear and not be agitated,
then you can cure the lust in your heart.
If you speculate lusty things when you hear, then you are not hearing with faith.
Category: [Anarthās], [Emotions / Lust], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles]
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2022-12-22
Jayapatākā Swami: Especially meeting with a married woman in a private place,
that was prohibited by Lord Caitanya.
Sometimes I will be in a room, and there would be a man and woman and the man walks out!
Then I would ask the lady to go out or tell the man not leave or I would go out myself.
Sometimes a vairāgī says they just want to experiment.
You see, checking or experimenting should be done before you become a vairāgī!
If you are a gṛhastha, do all the experimenting with your wife.
If you take the vairāgī path, then at least you should follow the vows of renunciant life, at least for a sannyāsī.
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2022-12-09
How did I become?!
How did I become?
Well,
material desires are always there,
they are coming in the mind.
I don’t allow any time to address those.
I keep busy.
Who can say that they have no desire comes?
Desires may come in the mind.
So we go back to Kṛṣṇa and we have the material body desire may come,
but that desire we dovetail it in Kṛṣṇa’s service so we reject it.
Even Prabhupāda one time someone said,
"I have no lust,
Srila Prabhupāda,
I have no material desire." So,
Prabhupāda said,
"really!
what’s wrong with you!
(devotees laugh) I have material lust but I have no time to address that.
I have no time for that.
I am too busy in Kṛṣṇa’s service." You see,
the point is that it's already,
nobody can say that in the material world,
even if they were desireless,
they shouldn’t say that.
Because that would give,
even if someone was a nitya-siddha,
they have no desire,
which is very unlikely to find such souls in this world.
But even if that were the case,
they should,
supposed to take the role as a conditioned soul to teach by example others.
Even if one has some desire comes in the mind,
the desire is either dovetailed,
seen if that can be used for any Kṛṣṇa conscious purpose.
If it is totally material,
then it’s rejected with appropriate disgust,
according to the nature of that particular thought.
We stay so occupied in Kṛṣṇa’s service that there is no chance for Māyā to come in.
That is the secret.
Category: [Emotions / Lust], [Emotions / Greed], [Anarthās], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Sādhanā], [Material World / Kali yuga]
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2022-08-30
Jayapatākā Swami: What Prabhupāda said is that, if a person follows the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness
then he may not have to take birth again in the material world.
Now
how free we are from things like offenses may dictate how I will go up in the spiritual world,
whether we get a place in Vaikuṇṭha, or whether we get a place in Goloka Vṛndāvana, how I am able to go.
Or
I mean, if a person, I had one person who approached me in India, he had a very strange character.
He said, “I have been chanting 32, 20 or 16 rounds for 26 years,
but he never gave up eating fish.” In His neutral position we were discussing today, He simply reciprocates with the person so perfectly.
There is someone who would do something like that because of their offenses while chanting the Holy name,
that they don’t actually make advancement towards pure love for Kṛṣṇa. They are getting some benefit from chanting,
but at the same time, their material desires are not going,
due to being absorbed in sense gratification like that. So I advised him that,
“you should chant the names of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu,
and by His mercy you may be able to overcome this desire of eating fish.”
And sure enough, after chanting Lord Caitanya’s name for some period of time,
he got some spiritual intelligence. He stopped eating fish.
Even though 26 years he was on his weird practice,
where he although chanting he never tried to avoid breaking that, you know, stopping breaking of regulative principle.
So if a person I mean if he is determined, you know although he would have chanted the 16 rounds
and followed the regulative principles, but if they take things in an attitude that I’m determined not to give up my material attachments,
then that is an anachronism. From our side it should be not just externals,
but it should be internal, we are trying to follow the process.
We are trying from our part to give up our attachments.
If we have the proper attitude , we are trying to give up our attachments, we are trying to avoid,
even if we are not fully successful, Prabhupāda said that there is,
that Kṛṣṇa is so merciful, Lord Caitanya is so merciful, even though we may not,
at the point of death, have done it a hundred percent successful,
we can still get delivered.
In fact, I was, (aside - How long should I go on?) I was in Montreal,
and Prabhupāda is giving a lecture. That time we had a Vyasāsana for him, it was very high.
I mean very- it was like when we would stand up we would just be facing Prabhupāda eye to eye,
or he will still be even a little higher than that.
It was a very high Vyasāsana.
You had to kind of crawl up, it had steps going up and it was more or less kind of a pulpit.
So he would be up there, he would sit and he would even take prasāda there.
In a feast, they would bring a big plate of prasāda and we would all be sitting down,
and he would take Prasāda from there, and sometimes he would give prasāda out from there.
So one day he was giving his lecture from up there
actually and at this point he was just preaching very hard,
we have to be a hundred percent Kṛṣṇa conscious.
We have to try; we have to be a hundred percent Kṛṣṇa conscious. We have to try for that.
We have to become. If we are hundred percent Kṛṣṇa conscious, then we can get pure love for Kṛṣṇa,
then our life will be completely successful. He was just hammering this point.
Now the devotees were thinking, a hundred percent, you know, their heads gradually started hanging down,
they became very thoughtful.
The hundred percent was like such an objective that it never seemed that is ever possible;
even you know to get very close to a hundred percent.
But Prabhupāda was very emphatic on this point.
The devotees were very thoughtful at that time. Then Prabhupāda, he ended the class.
There was just a heavy silence. No questions. That is it.
He ended the class and said, “Become cent percent Kṛṣṇa conscious.”
It was just like a death place; I mean, just like… He saw silence that he could swim through it.
Now Prabhupāda was sitting there on his raised Vyāsāsana
and said, “Even if you are ninety percent Kṛṣṇa conscious, Kṛṣṇa is so kind,
that you may still be delivered.” Then he started to get down and when he was about half way down,
just as he was getting off the Vyāsāsana he turned to the devotees and said, ”Even ninety percent, you can be delivered.”
He started walking out, then he turned and his chaddar fell off, I remember it was such a dramatic,
almost like you see in those movies Julius Caeser like that, his chaddar flew like that and said, “Even seventy percent.”
He took his chaddar and threw it over his shoulder and raised his head and walked away.
(Devotees laughing)
Śrīla Prabhupāda Ki
Devotees: Jaya!
Category: [Vaiṣṇava Dealings / Association (Sādhu-saṅga)], [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles], [Sādhanā / Chanting (Japa)], [Material Sufferings / Death], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Spiritual World / Dhāma], [Karma / Desires]
Questioner: Misha Kasmagar, Russia
Date: 2022-10-05
Jayapatākā Swami: Why they don’t want you to be vegetarian?
Maybe if you can prove to them that the proteins and the vitamins that you need
from different vegetarian items.
Category: [Day-to-day Life / Children], [Day-to-day Life / Food], [Day-to-day Life / Parents], [Emotions / Stress/Anxiety], [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles]
Parīkṣit Mahārāja was able to fully concentrate on each and every word of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam being his last seven days and so able to remember Kṛṣṇa at the time of death. But being in gṛhastha-āśrama even after reading every day, still we have material thoughts like what will happen to our family and close ones if we leave this world. Please suggest Guru Mahārāja how we can act in this situation?
Questioner: Ānandinī Sītā devī dāsī
Date: 2022-12-22
Jayapatākā Swami: Parīkṣit Mahārāja, he was a gṛhastha.
He had children, he had a kingdom.
But when he heard that he was going to die in seven days, he gave up everything.
So, actually what can you do anyway for your children, for your pet dog cat?
Some people in the last minute, they are thinking, oh my dog, who will take care of my dog? Who will give him food?
Then they may birth as a dog in his next life.
When we leave we leave everything to Kṛṣṇa.
And at the last minute what can we do in any case?
All these things should be given in your will.
When you leave your body you only think about the Lord.
Questioner: Nandakumāra Kṛṣṇa dāsa, USA
Date: 2023-07-10
Jayapatākā Swami: In a very respectful way, you can always ask the devotee
how, what they are doing can be accepted.
And if they have a good answer,
then that is alright.
If they say, it is my mistake,
then they stand corrected.
But we should not jump
to conclude that they are wrong.
First we ask them,
why they are doing that
and see what they say.
Questioner: Rakshita Varadarajan
Date: 2022-10-04
Jayapatākā Swami: One can be in whichever āśrama they want to.
Whichever they feel more comfortable.
If they feel that gṛhastha-āśrama is more appropriate for you,
that allows certain license for sex life.
Kṛṣṇa has made machines –
male and female form.
So they can reproduce each other.
So the scientists they are not able to make a machine
that could reproduce itself.
Ha! We shouldn’t think that Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes
with the queens or the gopīs, are material.
He is transcendental.
And in Vṛndāvana,
His pastimes are understood by the liberated souls.
One has to read all the previous nine cantos,
then you can understand how the position of Kṛṣṇa is transcendental.
Once when I was a new devotee,
I asked a question about Rādhārāṇī.
Śrīla Prabhupāda chastised me.
Who are you to ask about Rādhārāṇī?
Since I was a new devotee,
I didn’t understand much, so I accepted that.
Category: [Emotions / Confusion], [Emotions / Lust], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead)], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Pastimes], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Sādhanā / Preaching], [Youth]
You talked about the four regulative principles. During initiation we vow to follow these regulative principles. My question is after initiation if a disciple breaks any one of these regulative principles, what is the method of atonement and please tell the way out so that one does not make the same mistake again.
Questioner: Saṅkīrtana Priya Nitāi dāsa
Date: 2022-12-06
Jayapatākā Swami: We should beg for forgiveness from guru and Kṛṣṇa.
Then we should perform devotional service directly.
There is no higher atonement than bhakti-yoga.
Category: [Anarthās], [Aparādha (Offenses)], [Sādhanā / Regulative Principles], [Sādhanā / Technicalities]
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