Text 6] Scheduled Incarnations with Specific Functions
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attraction for the form of woman. Woman, or the fair sex, is the enchanting principle for the living entities, and the male form, especially of the human being, is meant for self-realization. The whole world is moving under the spell of womanly attraction, and as soon as a man becomes united with a woman, he at once becomes a victim of material bondage under a tight knot. The desires for lording it over the material world, under the intoxication of a false sense of lordship, specifically begin just after the man's unification with a woman. The desires for acquiring a house, possessing land, having children and becoming prominent in society, the affection for community and the place of birth, and the hankering for wealth, which are all like the phantasmagoria or illusory dreams of life, encumber a human being, and he is thus impeded in his progress toward self-realization, the real aim of life. The  brahmacārī , or a boy from the age of five years, especially from the higher castes, namely from the scholarly parents (the  brāhmaṇas ), the administrative parents (the  kṣatriyas ), or the mercantile or productive parents (the  vaiśyas ), is trained until twenty-five years of age under the care of a bona fide  guru  or teacher, and under strict observance of discipline he comes to understand the values of life along with taking specific training for livelihood. The  brahmacārī  is then allowed to go home and enter householder life and get married to a suitable woman. But there are many  brahmacārīs  who do not go home to become householders but continue the life of  naiṣṭhika-brahmacārīs , without any connection with women. They accept the order of  sannyāsa , or the renounced order of life, knowing well that combination with women is an unnecessary burden that checks self-realization. Since sex desire is very strong at a certain stage of life, the  guru  may allow the  brahmacārī  to marry; this license is given to a  brahmacārī  who is unable to continue the way of  naiṣṭhika-brahmacarya , and such discriminations are possible for the bona fide  guru . A program of so-called family planning is needed. The householder who associates with woman under scriptural restrictions, after a thorough training of  brahmacarya , cannot be a householder like cats and dogs. Such a householder, after fifty years of age, would retire from the association of woman as a  vānaprastha  to be trained up to live alone without the association of woman. When the practice is complete, the same retired householder becomes a  sannyāsī , strictly separate from woman, even from his married wife. Studying the whole scheme of disassociation from women, it appears that a woman is a stumbling block for self-realization, and the Lord appeared as  Nārāyaṇa  to teach the principle of womanly disassociation with a vow in life. The demigods, being envious of the austere life of the rigid  brahmacārīs , would try to cause them to break their vows by dis-