Chapter IV

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.