Women and Wealth Are The Twin Allurements of Material Life
Śrīla Prabhupāda consistently warns that the entire material world runs on the engine of sense gratification, with the primary fuel being the desire for women and wealth. These two powerful allurements keep the conditioned soul tightly bound to the cycle of birth and death. To attain true spiritual freedom, one must recognize the danger of these material attachments and adopt the supreme standard of pure devotion established by Lord Caitanya.
The Allurement of Material Existence
The pursuit of material opulence and beautiful companions is the hallmark of a life conditioned by the lower modes of nature. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the entire focus of worldly people, driven by passion and ignorance, is to amass massive bank balances and enjoy family life, completely ignoring the spiritual purpose of human existence.
- 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.
- Effects of the modes of passion and ignorance are manifested by too much hankering after wealth and women.
- 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.
- 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.
The Cause of Degradation and Bondage
Material opulence without spiritual guidance is a direct path to self-destruction. Śrīla Prabhupāda notes that when uneducated individuals acquire unnecessary wealth, they inevitably squander it on sinful activities like intoxication and illicit sex, binding themselves further to the miseries of material life.
- 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.
- We can actually see, especially in this age, that those who have unnecessary riches simply try to enjoy these three things (wine, women and 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.
- 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.
Lord Caitanya's Perfect Prayer
To protect His devotees, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu personally demonstrated the consciousness of a pure Vaiṣṇava. Śrīla Prabhupāda frequently quotes the Śikṣāṣṭaka, wherein Lord Caitanya explicitly rejects the deeply ingrained desires for wealth, women, and worldly followers, asking only for unmotivated devotional service.
Protection Through Devotional Service
Overcoming the conditioning of millions of lifetimes is not an easy task. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that even great stalwarts can become restless and fall victim to the allurements of women and wealth. The only guaranteed protection is to strictly follow the regulative principles and remain fully absorbed in practical devotional service.
- 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.
- Many stalwarts in the devotional line fell victim to these allurements (for women and wealth) and 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.
- 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 too much after wealth and women can rectify their leanings only by constant remembrance of Visnu in His potential impersonal feature.
Conclusion
Śrīla Prabhupāda thoroughly exposes the false promises of material enjoyment, identifying the relentless pursuit of women and wealth as the root cause of the soul's entanglement. While the modes of passion and ignorance trick the living entity into believing that amassing bank balances and seeking out beautiful companions will bring happiness, these very things act as a dangerous forest of predators, ultimately degrading the self. Because these habits have been cultivated since time immemorial, overcoming them requires immense spiritual strength. Śrīla Prabhupāda teaches that by absorbing the mind in Lord Viṣṇu through chanting, reading, and performing saṅkīrtana, a devotee earns the direct protection of the Lord. Ultimately, by sincerely echoing Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's prayer to reject wealth and women in favor of pure, unmotivated service, the conditioned soul is permanently rescued from the miseries of material existence.
Dive Deeper into Śrīla Prabhupāda's Vani
Śrīla Prabhupāda lives within his instructions. This article is a summary of the profound truths found in the Vaniquotes category Women and Wealth. We invite you to visit this link to study the complete compilation and experience Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings in their direct, verbatim form.