Women: Masters or Mothers? is refreshingly dif ferent in that it makes us halt and review the direction our movement is taking and the path that we, its individual members, are treading.

His Holiness Bhakti Vikāsa Swami appears to have delved deep into the recesses of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mind and instructions before coming up with a searchlight to show us the way ahead.

This book draws attention to the danger for ISKCON in assimilating ideas wholesale from mainstream society, in the course of preaching.

It makes an urgent appeal to members to practise Kṛṣṇa consciousness without striking compromises with materialistic society. It shows how such compromises harm, hamper, and slow us down and how it could even eventually derail our movement.

While containing a wealth of advice on how female members of our movement might make their lives successful, the relevance of this book is by no means restricted to Vaiṣṇavīs alone.

This book has answered questions that troubled me and put to rest a growing sense of disquiet that I had been experiencing as a result of what I observed around me.

I urge those who are wary of picking up Women: Masters or Mothers?   to disabuse their minds of prejudice and preconceived notions, and to take a good, hard look at what it proposes.