Training Females in Ashtanga Yoga Practice
Srila Yogeshwarananda visited on the morning of Aug 19th, 2015. He began to smile and spoke about the practice of yoga by female ascetics. His view was that overall it is not possible to train females. He said that was due to their different emotional needs and bodily energy content.
This might be supported by the fact that yoga was originally developed by male ascetics who used the male psyche as their tool for doing practice. The ancient yogis hardly considered the existential situation of females and did not design processes for females. Hence most of the information we have in books like the Yoga Sutras, even the Bhagavad Gita and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, targets males and their possibility for liberation. In the Bhagavad Gita for instance when Krishna displayed his Universal Form to Arjuna, every one of the persons in the form were males. There is no listing there about females.
There were a few yoginis listed in the Puranas but in contrast to the listing about yogis, the yoginis are few and far-in-between.
As he discussed this with me and requested, I gave my opinion. I told him this:
In the life of Buddha, we hear that he did not want to instruct females or enlist any of them into the association of monks which he founded. In fact his aunt who was his wet nurse was turned away by him. Later one of his disciplines, a junior relative of his, Ananda, begged for women to be introduced to Buddha’s methods. Subsequently, Buddha relented.
Consider this Guruji:
Why did Buddha refuse?
What was his plan for females anyway?
Did he feel that they could be liberated without performing the austerities which were mandatory for males?
The fact that he yielded to the influence of Ananda and his wet nurse aunt, veils a more important issue which is that a person as great as Buddha could not successfully evade females. They are an essential part of this existence.
If we will encounter females wherever we may go in existence, whether we use obvious bodies or not, then the issue of their liberation has to faced square on.
One possible explanation is that Buddha felt he would liberate some females even if they did not perform austerities and that his monks could do so as well in a lesser degree with fewer women being liberated by them according to their power and austerities.
Buddha described the presence of females in the Tushita heaven. He said that his mother descended from and ascended to that place hereafter. According to his information that one female, Queen Mayadevi (maai-ah-day-vee), went to the heavenly place on the basis of something other than her austerities.
How did she do that if she did not perform austerities?
Did Buddha facilitate that for her or not?
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I know for a fact that many of the angelic women who reside in some higher dimensions cannot do the austerities. Even when they are told about these austerities that yogis perform on the earth, just by hearing the descriptions, their skins bruise. They come to tears. Yogis who venture into the dimensions and astral lands where these females abound do not spook them about the austerities because there is the possibility that a curse might be issued to such yogis if they bring these angelic women to tears. For such women even if they imagine themselves having to fetch a bucket of water or having to cook food over a burning fire causes anguish which brings them to emotional pains.
