Shloka : 40

उत्सवाहेषु नित्यं च कृष्णमन्दिरमागतै: ।

पुम्भि: स्पृश्या न वनितास्तत्र तामिश्च पूरु़षा: ॥ 40 ॥

અને ઉત્સવના દિવસને વિષે તથા નિત્યપ્રત્યે, શ્રીકૃષ્ણના મંદિરમાં આવ્યા એવા જે સત્સંગી પુરુષ, તેમણે તે મંદિરને વિષે સ્ત્રીઓનો સ્પર્શ ન કરવો તથા સ્ત્રીઓ તેમણે પુરુષનો સ્પર્શ ન કરવો; અને મંદિરમાંથી નીસર્યા પછી પોતપોતાની રીતે વર્તવું. ॥ 40 ॥

And on festival days as well as everyday the male devotees should not touch the female devotees and the female devotees should not touch the male devotees in the temple of Shri Krishna and after leaving the temple they should follow proper code of conduct. || 40 ||

Commentary

Everyday as well as on festival days, the householder devotees visiting the temple of Shri Swaminarayan Mahaprabhu, should not touch the women devotees. The festival days are Shri Hari Jayan­ti, Janmashtami, Ramnavmi etc. birthdays of Supreme God Shri Swaminarayan Bhagwan or His incarnations, Ekadashi, annual or centenary celebration days, the days on which Chhappan Bhog is offered to Shri Hari, celebration of Annakoot, various ceremony days like a series of lectures, performing the religious rites, idol installation ceremony etc.. Here by the term 'women', those married ladies are indicated whose respective husbands are still alive. The touch of a widow is forbidden everywhere, in the temple as well as at any other place. Similarly, the ladies, visiting the temple, should not touch the men. If men and women touch each other, their mind gets distracted, therefore it is forbid­den, particularly in the temple of God. And one should avoid the restlessness of speech as well as that of hands, legs and eyes. Because a miscreant, with the distracted mind who touches the bodyparts of other women in the temple and who is attracted towards the women frequently, definitely gets destroyed i.e. dis­tracted from the path of salvation. Therefore, the urges of sexual desires and that of stomach should be conquered. Hands and legs should be controlled through eyes, eyes and ears should be controlled through mind, mind and speech should be controlled through knowledge, i.e. one should contemplate Shri Hari and think about self-realization as described in the scriptures. One should listen to the narratives of God and devotional songs and control one’s mind and speech as instructed by God.

Here, festival days are mentioned separately, becuase on festival days a lot of people gather. Therefore, there is a possibility of touching the women and getting distracted.