For progressive human beings, the classic Vedic social and occupational system designates at least the first part of a man's life for training as a celibate student, a monk in training, a brahmachari. When human society still had some notion of virtue, integrity, and sense-control, the social advantages for the entire human population were quite obvious. Srila Prabhupada gives a succinct overview in a Bhagavatam purport:
"The main purpose of ashrama-dharma is to awaken knowledge and detachment. The brahmachari asrama is the training ground for the prospective candidates. In this ashrama it is instructed that this material world is not actually the home of the living being. The conditioned souls under material bondage are prisoners of matter, and therefore self-realization is the ultimate aim of life. The whole system of ashrama-dharma is a means to detachment. One who fails to assimilate this spirit of detachment is allowed to enter into family life with the same spirit of detachment. Therefore, one who attains detachment may at once adopt the fourth order, namely, renounced, and thus live on charity only, not to accumulate wealth, but just to keep body and soul together for ultimate realization. Household life is for one who is attached, and the vanaprastha and sannyasa orders of life are for those who are detached from material life. The brahmachari-asrama is especially meant for training both the attached and detached." (S. bhag. 1:9:26)
In Part 2 we'll get back to that last statement, about the best training for all men, but for now let's think about the Wild West, where civilization would be a good idea. Is brahmachari life possible, outside of India? Is a concentrated program for men's walking the talk that the material world is not our home feasible in this century? Looking at the number of real brahmachari ashrams in Western ISKCON, one certainly has grounds for doubts. I'm not speaking of temples where a young man happens along who gets it in his head to "move in" or "join up," and then immediately he's clad in saffron, assigned a spot somewhere in the building, where he can fend for himself--until he becomes frustrated and leaves, to the wider congregation, or to marry, or to go away entirely.
For example, in all of the USA and Canada, where ISKCON has been established from its beginning in the sixties, now you can easily count the number of serious, dedicated brahmachari operations on just one hand. Down-under, where the distances are huge and the population small, you'd find two. Indeed, outside of India, brahmacharis in ISKCON have made it onto the list of endangered species. The social environment of the West during the past decades didn't help. Consider the intense careerism and the drive for money--that is, before the Great Recession hit--and the tsunami of wanton sensuality, especially the destructive lifestyles of the party, club, and drug scene so essential to contemporary urban life. Combine these woes with the reality that most ISKCON temples in the West have been unable to offer genuine brahmachari training for quite some time, and you can see the result at Sunday gatherings: a speck of saffron at best, amidst a sea of white kurtas, multi-colored saris, and conventional western attire.
Let us recall the original purpose of the classic Vedic social and occupational system. Revisiting the same Bhagavatam purport, we may note: "to accelerate transcendental qualities of the individual person so that he may gradually realize his spiritual identity and thus act accordingly to get free from material bondage, or conditional life." Brahmachari life is a highly focused career-calling, an accelerated intensive for attaining freedom from material existence. Unimpeded by the normal material priorities, pursuits, and ambitions, it offers a substantial swim in the endless ocean of selfless devotional service. Chop out of life that aim, to escape material bondage and climb aboard the spiritual plane, and I agree--entering brahmachari life makes no sense. Hence, to many Western eyes, it is incomprehensible. Last week in New Zealand a media controversy arose about a popular mega-church. At the top of the news articles, the prime controversies were paraded: a pastor pushy about getting money and who--God forbid--arranged, among his congregation, meetings for only men . . .
Sometimes even our own ISKCON devotees have difficulty grasping the contemporary importance of brahmachari life. That's understandable, I think, owing to the lack of serious, "purpose built and purpose driven" men's ashrams. Honestly, I do believe it better men live a lifestyle in the wider congregation, as an upstanding bachelor or householder, than they enter into a pseudo brahmachari situation, where--minus the critical elements of leadership, camaraderie, facility, and training--only the dye in the cloth is there to give support.