Dharma Vahini, Chapter 4 - By Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

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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.

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.

http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/askbaba/dharmavahini/dharma15.html

Sathya Sai Baba Dharma VahiniTranslated from the Original TeluguPublished by Sri

Sathya Sai Books and Publications TrustIndex:

http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/askbaba/dharmavahini/index.html

 

 

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