Grihamedhi: Better than Nothing

At times the standards of our "grihasthas" are so low and disfunctional (ethically, spiritually, economically, etc.) that I am thinking of starting a campaign to promote grihamedhi consciousness, in the spirit of “something is better than nothing."

In ISKCON's pshyche the word grihamedhi represents (and with reason) an unacceptable social stereotype. "The grhastha means he is making the best use of a bad bargain. And the grhamedhi means he is animal. " Srila Prabhupada said in a Gita lecture in London, on 20 August 1973. Such references have created an impression of the grihamedhi as an unspeakably corrupted being, a detestable individual functioning on a level of debasement to which devotees could never possibly plunge?

Many people seem to (wrongly) assume that a married person is either a grihastha or a grihamedhi. Actually there are many lower forms. One could, for instance, be an adulterous, irresponsible, uncivilized and restless barbarian—and this is a style of existence some of our devotees might be more closely identifiable with. “But you just quoted Srila Prabhupada as saying that grihamedhis are animals,” someone may retort. Yes, But animals are often much less sexually pruriginous and much less socially disruptive. And some animals are lifelong monogamists.

There are religious civically-integrated grihamedhis that would shun standards of existence that devotee sometimes enthusiastically embrace.

Let's take for instance another quote from Srila Prabhupada: "Grhamedhi means that he does not know anything else than to support the wife and children and live very comfortably" (Paris, 9 June 1974). Some devotees unfortunately have developed neither this sense of responsibility nor the capacity of living "very comfortably." These devotees struggle, internally and externally, in accepting the basic obligations that come with married life. This tendency was noted, with surprise and concern, by Srila Prabhupada: “Householder life means wife, children, home, these things are understood by everyone, why our devotees have taken it as something different? They simply have some sex desire, get themselves married, and when the matter does not fulfill their expectations, immediately there is separation—these things are just like material activities, prostitution” (letter to Madhukara, 4 January 1973).

Therefore I say that is better to be a bit grihamedhish, a bit overattached to one’s one and only wife and to one’s legitimately procreated children, while conserving a sense of religious duty and a commitment to charity, than to jump around like a monkey, destroying in the process one’s own and others’ chance for peaceful spiritual life.

“So grhamedhi means center is home, and he goes round. Throughout the whole life. They are called grhamedhis. . . . So actually round the wife. Grhamedhi. Round the wife.”

Mayapur, 5 March 1974). I wish to see more devotees sticking “round their wives,” their legally and religiously married wives (or husbands, as the case may be), and not jumping from one wife to another, or an affair to another. “Round the wife,” not round all sorts of illegal and/or interchangeable relations.

At times we even see the tendency to take Krishna consciousness as the excuse for our exuberant promiscuity; we think that the service of Krishna is the important thing, and civilized life is a discardable optional. But Srila Prabhupada clarifies in the letter quoted above (to Madhukara, 4 January 1973). “Once it is adopted, the grhastha life, even it may be troublesome at times, it must be fulfilled as my occupational duty. . . . devotional service is what is important, not my occupational duty. But it does not mean that because occupation duty is not the real consideration, that I should give it up and do something else, thinking that devotional service may be carried on under whatever circumstances which I may whimsically decide.” A culture of family attachment would do good to this movement.

I wish to see many over-attached couples act religiously and charitably, at least for assuring an improved mundane future and for giving their children (to which they are hopefully over-attached) a good example of stability, balance and responsibility.