Wednesday, December 4th, 2013

Two Wings

Toronto, Ontario

I had with me two companions on my night trek and one of them asked about polarity and how to deal with it.  More specifically, he expressed a dichotomy involving two people in his life whom he really respects over the fact that they have opposite opinions on a particular subject.

“What is the subject?” I questioned.

“It’s the topic of female gurus, one person is for and the other one is against.”  One of the two people he was referring to was myself.  I’ve made my position clear to him in the past, I’m for both male and female gurus (spiritual teachers) as long as they qualify.  My logic behind this conclusion is that there’s a great need and demand.  Teachers are small in number, the growth of people in this service description is very slow, while you have an expanding society of bhakti yogis.  So, I support the increase of gurus because there are many qualified, even senior women.

The position of the other person with the opposing view is my companion’s own guru who takes a more conservative and perhaps, traditional stance.  Mind you, in June of ’76, just two blocks away from where the three of us were walking, the founder of our movement, Srila Prabhupada, was asked this question about female gurus.  It was Professor Joseph T. O’Connell who was making the query.  At the ISKCON Centre, the answer given by Prabhupada at the time was that in our gaudiya lineage of Krishna Consciousness, the wife of luminary, Nityananda, whose name is Jahnavi, accepted many students confirming female guruship.   The dilemma my companion was going through was who was right and how can there be differing opinions?  To this, I responded that there is no dispute that the guru principal is essential in aiding the spiritual student towards spiritual progress.  We all agree with that.  For many issues such as this one, you have a right and left wing circumstance.  Without two wings a bird can’t fly.  Let the two positions be deliberated upon and something fairly satisfactory should be the outcome.  The exercise of intelligence should carry on.  After some flying in the air, the bird usually comes in for a landing.

May the Source be with you!

7 KM