Page 59 - M&M - Eng
P. 59
Comments on Previous Editions 277
submissive rather than when I try to be the one in charge.
Due to my upbringing, which was aimed at making me into
a modern-day, career-oriented woman, I was far away from
the standards of strī-dharma, but I consider this book as my
guidebook and a source of inspiration to strive to achieve the
goal of being a chaste wife and a loving mother for the benefit
of my family and myself.
Gauracandrānanā Devī Dāsī (BVKS)
Graduate Librarian, Teacher and Mother, Kranj, Slovenia
I thank Mahārāja for taking the time and effort to write this
book for the benefit of all the members of ISKCON who want to
follow Śrīla Prabhupāda’s teachings and make them the only
goal of their lives.
I welcome the publication of Women: Masters or Mothers? by
His Holiness Bhakti Vikāsa Swami. Being categorized as an
‘educated Western woman’ and being thus conditioned in that
way, I was not even aware that for years I was unconsciously
competing with men and acting contrary to my dharma
(according to the guidelines for society that Kṛṣṇa Himself had
set). I was asked to be engaged in several preaching projects,
sometimes even in leadership positions, and I gladly accepted
them. After getting married I encountered several difficulties
by not understanding that varṇāśrama roles for men and
women complement the male and female psychology and
are meant to bring peace and prosperity into a marriage and
society at large.
Even after theoretically accepting the position of women in
society as described by Śrīla Prabhupāda in his books, it took
me more than 20 years to actually start taking up that mood,
not because I was supposed to but because of the benefits it