EDITORIAL POLICY
We welcome all articles that could be interesting and relevant to women/girls/female practitioners of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. To submit your article, please send it to maids.of.bhagavatam[at]gmail.com . You are also welcome to suggest lectures and articles published elsewhere by other devotees that could be relevant to re-publish on our site. By submitting your article you give us the rights to publish and display it on our site, but otherwise you, the author, retain the copyrights to your article and may publish or use it elsewhere as you wish.
All articles must accept the Vedic scriptures, as explained through the teachings of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Svāmī Prabhupāda (Śrīla Prabhupāda), as their highest authority. This may seem dogmatic to the outsiders, and even to some members of ISKCON who are excessively proud of their mundane education. However, we here at Maids of Bhāgavatam are convinced that without full faith in Śrīla Prabhupāda and his teachings we have no hope of achieving the mercy of Kṛṣṇa and any true knowledge, whether material or spiritual. It is natural for a student and practitioner of Kṛṣṇa consciousness to encounter doubts and uncertainties about how something that Śrīla Prabhupāda said applies to us or in our modern age – that is a sign of intelligence. As Śrīla Prabhupāda puts it,
“[I]n order to cultivate intelligence, one should be doubtful in the beginning. But doubting is not very favorable when information is received from the proper source. In Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says that doubting the words of the authority is the cause of destruction.” (Purport to Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.26.30)
So while using our intelligence to question and doubt when we are searching out the best ways to practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness in our present life situations, we should not fall in the trap of doubting the knowledge received from the proper sources – the scriptures and the purports of Śrīla Prabhupāda.
So, in your articles you may question and explore HOW and WHY something that Śrīla Prabhupāda and scriptures say is true and relevant for the practice of our Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the modern age, but not WHETHER it is true and relevant. For example, you may analyze what exactly did Śrīla Prabhupāda mean when he stated that women are less intelligent and how this applies in the modern world where we see so many very intelligent, university-educated and professionally successful women? You may then share how through the teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda and the scriptures you discovered the true meaning of intelligence – deciding to engage our senses in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and how a person of any gender may acquire such true intelligence. But the idea that Śrīla Prabhupāda was wrong and outdated when he described the characteristics of women and their traditional roles, and therefore we should introduce some new modern views on gender roles, and that would supposedly improve our spiritual practice, indicates a lack of faith in Guru, sādhu and śāstra, the kind of doubting that is “the cause of destruction”. Since the purpose of our site is to educate and elevate, we won’t accept such articles that promote destruction.
You may submit articles in your real/initiated name, or under a pseudonym, provided your pseudonym matches your gender and position. E.g. a Bhaktin Anne may submit an article under the pseudonym of “Bhaktin Christine”, but not that of “Kṛṣṇa Dāsa”. A Tulasī Dāsī may submit an article under the pseudonym of “Vrinda Dāsī,” but not that of “Viśvambhara Svāmī”. Or, a Kṛṣṇa Dāsa may submit an article under the pseudonym of “Govinda Dāsa,” but not that of “Bhaktin Anne” or “Viśvambhara Svāmī”. One pseudonym is allowed per person, but you may submit articles with both your real/initiated name and your pseudonym.