Philosophy: Separation of Men and Women Renunciation and Social interactions

Yes, I have seen sometimes a bit too much disfunctionality in man/women relationships within our movement.

One thing is the mutual respect and distance we owe to renunciants and mothers; another is the inner fear caused by our own frailties that makes some devotees "hate" or dismiss the opposite sex as dangerous and evil.

Usually the only "evil" is our own fragility in the matter, our own unbalanced and immature consciousness and that makes the things even worse for us and our fellow devotees.

I have seen renunciates that truly do not hate women and that is caused by their inner true joy, they are not renouncing for whatever reason else than because it is natural for them.

On the other hand I have seen hateful brahmacaries etc ... making derogatory statements about women, matajis, etc. Usually they are the ones that marry sooner and many times with a "sergeant" type of women. :)

As for the women, the other side of the pendulum here would be the ones that adore sannyasis in an improper way.

I will explain now. Attraction between different sexes is the same drive, but happens for different reasons.

As we all know men are attracted mainly to external features of women. The same attraction women have is for different reasons and the main is women seek intelligent men, leaders of the pack, to put it bluntly.

What are sannyasis but leaders of varnashrama society, so here we go.... That is why is so important to make arrangements to protect the renunciates and on the other hand keep the atmosphere free of women hate for the sake of it.

If we fail to understand these psychological aspects, men devotees could end hating women or women elaborate on worshiping sannyasis in a shameful non vaishnava way.

Please try to understand that I speak of atraction in general terms.

Of course not all people is summed up with my examples and there are myriads of other things to consider.

I used the not so subtle points to try to illustrate a problem that undoubtely is affecting us.

Problem is when we mix the spiritual and the material concepts. On one hand sometimes we seem capable of seeing the spirit soul through the covering, on the other we are still materially affected and that is why there must be some limitations and rules on gender association.

The point I was tryng to make is the deep disfunctionality we find too often in temple enviroments and it´s possible mend. With those immaturity problems would be almost impossible to find all the shelter we are looking for.

Lionheart:

Here is a scriptural statement regarding restricting association between women and renunciates:

The Vedic civilization, being based on spiritual understanding, arranges association with women very cautiously. Out of the four social divisions, the members of the first order (namely brahmacarya), the third order (vänaprastha) and the fourth order (sannyäsa) are strictly prohibited from female association. Only in one order, the householder, is there license to mix with women under restricted conditions.
-Srila Prabhupada, Srimad-Bhagavatam, 3.31.35 Purport

Now, should anyone misunderstand my position and start slurring me with labels such as "fanatic", "extremist", "woman-hater", etc, I'd like to repeat the above point that I made earlier:

Now, we should not confuse the two-
1. Understanding the importance of separation of men and women
2. Blind fanatical hatred towards women

There is quite a lot of difference between the above two points. They should not be confused with one another. To understand the difference requires a little bit of maturity, as well as proper discrimination (which seems to be in short supply these days).