This course is part of Sastra-Caksus, Year 2 and consists of 25 lectures, available on:

http://seminary.bhaktivedantaacademy.com/classes/noi-thematic/

Given in Bhaktivedanta Academy, Sridham Mayapur November-December 2011

The following are lecture notes briefly delineating its contents

• One should not be excessively attached to association with women, even with one's own wife.
• Improper association is given up. If man and woman are associating based on material enjoyment, that is to be given up.

• Interaction with one's wife is for the purpose of becoming Krishna conscious.
• One can never get the full benefit of association between man and woman, unless one follows the shastra.
• Oriental culture seem archaic to the Westerners, but at least Oriental couples stay together.
• The one sentence that one should only associate with one's own wife and not with other women, says it all.
• For a Krishna conscious householder interaction with with wife and children is secondary to transcendence.
• Many devotees think that no association of women means to not interact with the wife and kids. But why is one married if one is all spiritual?
• We have a tendency to call irresponsibility spiritual, because we do not understand what is primary and what is secondary.
• Men want the women to think the way men do, and women want to externally do whatever the men do; but both of them have missed the point.
• One who does not want to interact with woman should not get married at all.
• In Kali yuga people simply do not want to follow the Lord's laws, not that they could not if they wanted.
• For men, the topic is important, for women it's about the quality of interaction.
• One of the major reasons of women getting upset with men is that men follow the advises of their friends of how to deal with women.
• In nature all women are similar, but in detail everyone is different, so one should not take details of how to deal with them from one's friends.
• Kashyapa and Diti have been together since the beginning of the Universe.
• Most men who are not dealing properly with their wife do so due to aversion, not detachment.
• When it is all about us, this is feminine; when it is about others, it is masculine.
• Men think that the wife will be like his mother. But mother is in a feminine position to the son.
• Every man has the potential to deal properly with women, but it only happens if he applies the masculine mentality towards the woman.
• There need not be new and new success books in the Vedic culture; everything is already written.
• Woman does not have to be trained to be a woman - she only has to be trained to be a good woman. But those in man's bodies don't have a clue about masculinity unless they are trained. Woman being dealt with in a proper way responds immediately.
• Men generally function on the level of artha, women - on dharma. Dharma can become the common platform for them to interact.
• Artha and moksha are only the intermediate stages. Artha creates the environment for dharma, moksha creates the environment for bhakti.
• When charts match nicely, the couple still has to put effort to have a proper interaction.
• Devotee householder performs his devotional duties and lives with whatever artha is obtained from that.
• People who always have money understand the nature of money.
• In the Vedic culture nobody is actually 'associating with women' because they don't deal in the mood of attachment.