Category:Women and Wealth
Theme Analysis
The philosophical essence of this category examines the fundamental traps of the material world: the deeply ingrained desires for women and wealth. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the pursuit of these two allurements is the primary symptom of living entities conditioned by the modes of passion and ignorance. This relentless hankering binds the soul tighter to the miseries of material existence, causing degradation, loss of intelligence, and continued imprisonment in the cycle of birth and death. To achieve true spiritual liberation, one must follow the ideal standard set by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in His Śikṣāṣṭaka prayers, explicitly rejecting the desires for wealth, women, and followers in favor of unalloyed devotional service. By strictly adhering to the regulative principles and constantly remembering Lord Viṣṇu, even those deeply habituated to these material allurements can be purified and saved from falldown.
- The Allurement of Material Existence: The defining characteristic of material life is the intense attachment to wealth and women. These desires are driven by the modes of passion and ignorance, compelling people to waste their human lives in the pursuit of temporary sense gratification.
- The Cause of Degradation and Bondage: Increasing one's material opulence without spiritual education leads directly to degradation. Falsely puffed up by wealth, individuals inevitably squander their riches on wine, women, and gambling, thereby ensuring further imprisonment in the material world.
- Lord Caitanya's Perfect Prayer: Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu established the supreme standard of pure devotion in His Śikṣāṣṭaka, teaching the conditioned souls to pray exclusively for causeless devotional service while completely rejecting any desire to accumulate wealth or enjoy beautiful women.
- Protection Through Devotional Service: Because the attachment to women and wealth has existed since time immemorial, it is very difficult to overcome. However, by engaging sincerely in devotional practices like chanting, reading, and performing saṅkīrtana, a devotee is protected by the Lord Himself from falling victim to these powerful allurements.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Women and Wealth Are The Twin Allurements of Material Life.
Pages in category "Women and Wealth"
The following 24 pages are in this category, out of 24 total.
A
- A yogi can attain miraculous successes in material achievements, such as anima and laghima, by which one can become more minute than the minutest or lighter than the lightest, or one may achieve material benedictions in the shape of wealth and women
- As Sri Caitanya teaches: "O almighty Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor do I desire beautiful women, nor do I want any number of followers. I only want Your causeless devotional service birth after birth." - Cc. Antya 20.29, Siksastaka 4
M
- Many stalwarts in the devotional line fell victim to these allurements (for women & wealth) & thus retreated from the path of liberation. But when one is helped by the Lord Himself, the whole process becomes as easy as anything by the divine grace of God
- Material life means attachment for women, children, friends, countrymen, position, wealth, and good name. In the Srimad-Bhagavatam material existence is compare to a forest full of plunderers, dacoits, jackals, tigers and other ferocious animals
- More wealth, more women and false aristocracy are some of the demands of the materially disposed man because he has no information of the benefit derived from Visnu worship
O
- O Almighty Lord! I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor have I any desire to enjoy beautiful women, nor do I want any number of followers. I only want Your causeless devotional service in my life, birth after birth
- One has to follow the rules and regulations of a particular status of life in order to purify his existence. For a sannyasi, intimate relations with women and possessions of wealth for sense gratification are strictly forbidden. BG 1972 purports
- One is warned against such allurements (wealth and women) because entanglement again in illusory pleasure means degradation of the self and further imprisonment in the material world. By this warning, one should follow one's vigilant intelligence only
S
- Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu teaches us in His Siksastaka: O almighty Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor do I desire beautiful women, nor do I want any number of followers. I only want Your causeless devotional service, birth after birth
- Sri Caitanya prayed - O Almighty Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor to enjoy beautiful women. Nor do I want any number of followers. What I want only is the causeless mercy of Your devotional service in my life, birth after birth. BG 1972 p
- Sry-aisvarya-prajepsavah. Sri, beauty, beautiful women. Sri, aisvarya, wealth, and praja. Praja means many children. They are spending their whole time earning money, amass money, huge bank balance
T
- The spiritual quality of serving the Lord out of transcendental affinity will be pervertedly reflected as love for wine, women, and wealth in different forms
- This (chanting, reading my books, going on sankirtana, following the regulative principles and worshiping the deity) is the simple process and if we follow it we will become ideal. Otherwise, they will become victims of women and wealth
- Those who are in the modes of passion and ignorance worship the forefathers, other living beings and the demigods who are in charge of cosmic activities, for they are urged by a desire to be materially benefited with women, wealth, power and progeny
- Those who are too much after wealth and women can rectify their leanings only by constant remembrance of Visnu in His potential impersonal feature
- To accept more material enjoyment means to bind oneself more and more to the miseries of material existence. More wealth, more women and false aristocracy are some of the demands of the materially disposed man
- To become restless in the contact of women and wealth is not an astonishment, because every living being is associated with such things from remote time, practically immemorial, and it takes time to recover from this foreign nature
W
- We can actually see, especially in this age, that those who have unnecessary riches simply try to enjoy these three things (wine, women & wealth). In Western civilization, these three things are very prominent because of an unnecessary increase of wealth
- When one is uneducated but falsely puffed up by wealth, the result is that one engages his wealth in enjoying wine, women and gambling - SB 10.10.8