Page 59 - M&M - Eng
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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
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