People refer to various duties, rights and obligations, but these are
not the basic Sathyadharma; they are only means and methods of regulating the
complications of living. They are not fundamental. All these moral codes and
approved behaviour are prompted by the need to cater to two types of creatures
and two types of natures - viz., masculine and feminine.
They connote Prakrithi and Paramathma, gross and subtle, inert and
conscious, the all-pervading duet. All this creation came about by the
inter-relation of the Inert and the Conscious, did it not? So too, all the
various mores have emerged on account of this bifurcation. All this
ramification and elaboration of Dharma is due to this: the Masculine and
Feminine.
Therefore, the chief Dharma for the practical progress of the world is
the moral conduct and behaviour of these two; whatever any great teacher might
teach it cannot go beyond these two distinct natures.
The Purushadharma for the male and the Stridharma for the female are
important applications of the Sathyadharma mentioned above. Other codes and
disciplines are but accessories, tributaries like the streams that meet the
Godavari when it is coursing forward. They are related to the various
circumstances, situations and statuses that are temporary; you have to pay
attention to the main river and not the tributaries. Similarly, take the major
Masculine and Feminine Dharma as the chief guides of living and do not give the
minor accessory dharmas any decisive place in the scheme of living.
Stridharma: The Feminine Principle is spoken of as the illusion imposed
upon Himself by the Lord, as the Energy with which He equipped Himself out of
His own will. This is the Maya, the Feminine Form. This is the reason why Woman
is considered as Parasakthi Swarupa. She is the faithful companion of Man, his
Fortune; since she is the concretisation of the Will of the Lord, she is
Mystery, Wonder, the representative of the protective Principle; the Queen of
his home, his beneficence, the Illumination of the house. Women who are
repositories of the Sakthiswarupa are in no way inferior; how full of
fortitude, patience and prema is their nature! Their self-control is seldom
equaled by men. They are the exemplars and leaders for men to tread the
spiritual path. Pure self-less love is inborn in women. Women who are full of
knowledge, who are cultured, who are bound by love and who are keen on
discriminating whether their words and deeds are in conformity with Dharma -
such women are like the Goddess Lakshmi, bringing joy and good fortune to the
home. That home, where the husband and the wife are bound together by holy
love, where every day both are engaged in the reading of books that feed the soul,
where the Name of the Lord is sung and His Glory remembered, that home is
really the Home of the Lord, Vaikunta! The woman who is attached to her husband
by means of Love is indeed a flower radiating rare perfume; she is a precious
gem, shedding luster in the family, a wife endowed with virtue is really a
brilliant jewel.
Chastity is the ideal for womankind. By the strength derived from that
virtue, they can achieve anything. Savithri was able, through that power, to
win back the life of her husband; she actually fought with the Lord of Death.
Anasuya, the wife of the Sage Athri and the mother of Dattatreya, was able to
transform even the Trinity into infants. Nalayani, who was devoted to her leper
husband, could by the mysterious force of her chastity stop the sun in its
course! Chastity is the crown jewel of women. That is the virtue for which she
has to be most extolled. Its beneficent consequences defy description. It is
the very breath of life. By means of her chastity and the power it grants, she can
save her husband from calamity. She saves herself by her virtue and wins,
without doubt, even heaven, through her chastity. Damayanthi burnt into ashes a
hunter who attempted to molest her, by the power of her "word". She
bore all the travails of lonely life in the jungle, when her husband, King Nala
deserted her, all of a sudden becoming the victim of cruel Fate.
Modesty is essential for women; it is her priceless jewel. It is against
Dharma for a woman to overstep the limits of modesty; crossing the limits
brings about many calamities. Why, the very glory of womanhood will be
destroyed. Without modesty, woman is devoid of beauty and culture. Humility,
purity of thought and manners, meekness, surrender to high ideals, sensitivity,
sweetness of temper - the peculiar blend of all these qualities is modesty. It
is the most invaluable of all jewels for women.
The modest woman will ever keep within limits, through her innate sense
of propriety. She becomes automatically aware which behaviour is proper and
which is improper. She will stick only to virtuous deeds and behaviour. Modesty
is the test of a woman's grandeur. If a woman has no modesty she is injuring
the interests of womanhood itself, besides undermining her own personality. She
is like a fragranceless flower, which the world does not cherish or honour, or
even approve. The absence of modesty makes life, for a woman, however rich in
other accomplishments, a waste and a vacuum. Modesty lifts her to the heights
of sublime holiness. The modest woman wields authority in the home and outside,
in the community as well as in the world.
Some might interrupt and ask: "But, women who have swallowed all
the compunctions of modesty are being honoured today! They strut about with
heads erect and the world honours them not a whit less." I have no need to
acquaint myself with these activities of the present-day world. I do not
concern myself with them. They may be receiving honour and respect of a sort,
but the respect is not authorised or deserved. When honour is offered to the
undeserving, it is tantamount to insult; to accept it when offered is to demean
the very gift. It is not honour, but flattery that is cast on the immodest by
the selfish and the greedy. It is like spittle dirty and unpleasant.
Of course, the modest woman will not crave for honour or praise. Her
attention will always be on the limits which she would not transgress. Honour
and praise come to her unasked and unnoticed. The honey in the flower or lotus
does not crave for bees; they do not plead with the bees to come. Since they
have tasted the sweetness, they themselves search for the flowers and rush in.
They come because of the attachment between themselves and sweetness. So, too,
is the relationship between the woman who knows the limits and the respect she
evokes.
If a frog sits on a lotus and proclaims that fact to the world, does it
mean that it knows the value of the beauty or the sweetness of that flower? Has
it tasted any of these? It may flatter the lotus but, has it at least
recognised what it contains? The honour and respect given to woman today is of
this type, rendered by people who do not know what to appreciate and how. They
do not know the standards of judgement, they have no faith in the ultimate
values, they do not respect the really good and great; how can we call the
thing they offer as "honour" or "respect"? It can only be
called "a disease" or at best, "etiquette", that is all.
The principles of Atmadharma will not allow the term "woman"
to be applied to "a woman without modesty". If respect and honour are
heaped upon a person who does not follow Atmadharma, it is like heaping
decorations on a body that has no life in it. The soul that has left the body
cannot enjoy the respect shown to the corpse. So too, if a person who is unaware
of the Reality, who has not experienced the purpose of the Atma's embodiment,
is crowned with fame and glory, who derives joy therefrom?
The modest woman will not care for such meaning-less trash and tinsel;
she will rather seek self-respect, which is much more satisfying. That is the
characteristic which makes her the Lakshmi of the Home. That is why the wife is
referred to as Grihalakshmi. If the wife has no such mark the home becomes an
abode of ugliness.
The woman is the prop of the home and of religion. She plants and
fosters religious faith or dries up and up-roots it. Women have natural
aptitude for faith and spiritual endeavour. Women with devotion, faith, and
meekness can lead men on the Godward path and the practice of holy virtues.
They will get up early, before dawn, clean the home and after finishing bath
etc., sit for a while engaged in Japam and Dhyanam. They will have in their
homes one small room set apart for the worship of the Lord. They will place
their images of the Lord as well as pictures of holy sages and of gurus and
guides. They will consider the room specially sacred and fill the atmosphere
with their prayers both morning and evening, as well as on holy days and
festivals. A woman who is steadfastly doing these will be able to transmute
even her atheist husband, persuading him to join the prayers or engage in some
good activity or some scheme of social service marked by the attitude of
Dedication to the Lord. Indeed, it is the woman who maintains the home; that is
her mission. She is truly the representative of Sakthi.
On the other hand, if the wife tries to pull the husband away from the
Godward path, from the spiritual to the level of the sensual, or if the husband
treats the wife who is disposed to seek joy from her spiritual endeavour as a
person following the wrong track and tries to drag her away from it, the home
of such a couple is unworthy of that name; it is not a home; it is inferno,
where ghosts and evil spirits revel.
Really, woman should strive to achieve the knowledge of the Soul and
live every moment in the consciousness of her being only the Atman; she must
evince always a desire to become one with the Divine Consciousness. The home
where the woman is such and where the husband and wife are leading their lives
in the shade of great ideals, where they together sing the glory of the Name of
the Lord and spend themselves in good deeds, where there reigns Truth, Peace
and Love, where regular reading is done of holy books, where the senses are
under control and where there is equal treatment for all creation prompted by
the knowledge of the basic unity of all creation, such a Home is certainly
Heaven on Earth.
A wife with such a nature is a wife worth the name. She must have real
love towards the husband, then only can she be called housewife or Grihini.
Then only is she Dharmapathni, the Bhaarya, the Instrument and Companion for
Dharma, Artha and Kama. She who knows the mind of the husband and speaks soft
and sweet, is the real friend. Why, sometimes, when the wife has to point out
the path of Dharma to the husband, she takes on the role even of a Father! When
the husband is down with illness she is the Mother.
Woman must accord first place to the service of her husband; that is
True Worship, for her. Her prayers and worship and puja can wait. Without
serving the husband she cannot attain Bliss in worship or meditation.
As a matter of fact, the Lord must be welcomed as represented by the
husband and all service rendered to him must be elevated to the level of
worship; that is the path of genuine duty. If every act is done as if it is for
the sake of the Atma and its merger with Paramathma, then activity becomes
dedicated to the Lord. All such acts save; they do not bind.
It does not matter, how bad or low the husband is, the wife must,
through love, bring him round and correct him, and help him gain the blessings
of the Lord. It is not correct to feel that her progress alone matters and she
has no concern in his improvement or uplift. She must feel, on the other hand,
that the welfare of the husband, the joy of the husband, the wishes of the
husband, the salvation of the husband, these are the panacea for her also. Such
a woman will receive the Grace of the Lord automatically, without special
effort; it will be showered upon her; the Lord will always be by her side and
be kind to her in all ways. By her virtue, she will ensure the salvation of her
husband.
Dharma Vahini chapter IVBhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
