The Role of Women in the New Age

[Guest guest]

Sairam to every one,

 

Hope the following a speech by a Sai Sister will be useful for all the

Sisters in our group.

 

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In June 2001 Connie Shaw, a long-time Sai devotee and the author of the

book 'Wake Up Laughing - My miraculous life with Sai Baba', came to

Vancouver from her home in Colorado to talk about some of her

experiences. She talked at length about many topics but one, about the

role of women in the New Age, caught our attention. We reproduce it here

with her kind permission.

 

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN THE NEW AGE

 

 

In order to attain inner peace that will be reflected in all aspects of

society, all of us, boys and girls, men and women, are going to need to

focus on three things. These three things are -:

 

1. New vision, a new vision for ourselves, for society and for the

planet.

2. New values, new values that have to do with the eternal timeless

values that sustain life on the Earth - Love, Peace, Truth,

Right-conduct and Non-violence.

3. New strategies, new strategies to change societies all over the

world.

 

What do we mean when we talk about a New Vision? New vision means that

all people and all species must be respected, that in order to initiate

and maintain peace in relationships, homes and places, communities and

nations, we must end the exploitation of the elderly, the poor, the

illiterate, the unemployed, the minorities and children and women. If we

continue to foul the air, the water and the soil, we are rapidly

committing planetary suicide. Time is running out.

 

What about New Values? New values must be used as the template for every

new invention that we make, for every plan, for every implementation of

every idea. We must ask, "Will this harm ourselves, will it harm our

children, will it harm the Earth or any other species, will it harm our

grandchildren?"

 

What about New Strategies? New strategies absolutely must involve grass

roots, inter-faith, multi-cultural and interdisciplinary co-operation

between all people in all sectors of society. There is a gigantic

leadership vacuum in the world today at both local and national levels.

If our leaders knew how to do things better they would be doing them

better by now. If we knew how to live our lives better we would be doing

that better by now. We need to get greater clarity, greater insight and

greater guidance in our lives.

 

The restoration of sacred living is up to all of us, but Sai Baba tells

us that women are now coming into leadership roles in this regard. So

what is this spiritual agreement that can catapult women everywhere into

action, to inspire men, boys, girls and women to lead noble lives? I

would like to suggest some key principles if we are going to be

successful in this regard.

 

l. We women must be ruthless with ourselves, as women, in seeing clearly

our ego minds, the creations of our ego minds and our shadow selves and

in transcending the ego.

 

2. While being rigorous with ourselves, we must be compassionate and

high-minded and creative in leading our families, our neighbors and our

colleagues. We must lead by example.

 

3. We must reintroduce and involve in both eastern and western society a

deep and compelling knowledge of respect for and faith in the divine

feminine aspect of God and in ourselves.

 

To restate the principles again then. Firstly, we women have to walk our

talk. It just won't work, if we only talk about it. Secondly, we must

lead freshly, skillfully and modestly. Thirdly, we must honour the

feminine intuitive aspects of ourselves and we must encourage that in

our boys and men and help them to know and to understand fully that

there is power in intuition, that there is power in sensitivity, that

there is power in kindness. We must teach them that they need not be

afraid to take responsibility for their emotions, for their

communications and for their relationships with us, that we all have to

be equally responsible for our loving and our living, being neither

afraid to live nor afraid to die, nor afraid to relate. We all have to

grow up and that is okay. Whether this process is fun or not is up to

us.

 

Now how do we walk our talk? Simply by not nagging, by not brow beating,

by not controlling and by not manipulating. Let's face it ladies, we

have tried all of these and they have not worked. Nobody likes the fact

that men are not listening, that they are not paying attention; moreover

it's not very fair to them. All right then, how are we going to do this?

By being enthusiastic, subtle, supportive, mentors and managers of a

household of gifted people. You happen to live in a household of gifted

people and they need to be treated that way, they need to be

acknowledged, they need to be encouraged, they need true leadership. Our

job is to encourage the gifts and leadership of everyone around us. When

they succeed, we succeed. This is our job, this is everybody on Earth's

job, but we must behave like brilliant field marshals, very

compassionately, very sharply. We should study more about communication,

about time management, about leadership. There is a wonderful book by

Lt. General Dr. M.L.Chibber entitled Sai Baba's Mahavakya on Leadership,

which provides much good information on leadership. It is very, very

good. In Toronto there are over twenty Sai Centres, with thousands of

Sai devotees and many of them are reading that book. Young people, in

particular, are studying it.

 

We all need to exhibit the qualities of serenity, capability, humour and

wisdom. We can study the great lives of our heroes and saints. Let's

face it, the lives of most celebrities and sports heroes and political

leaders today are actually not very inspiring. In fact I find it rather

disappointing to hear about their love lives of desolation, when we have

thousands of saints and heroes whose lives are chronicled in the

libraries of the world. If we read about them, we can find out about

their moments of trial, their difficulties, their challenges, their

moments of despondency, their very human stories. We can all relate to

them because we have all suffered in similar fashion, we know what it

feels like, we are intimately familiar with pain, but suffering is

optional. We all know how to suffer, but do we recognise that we don't

have to. The good news is that with Sathya Baba being on the Earth at

this time, you do not have to suffer, you can give that all up if you

would like to, but no one is going to force you to do this. You have to

do it yourself.

 

Mothers, it is important that you teach your daughters to be partners,

not dependent cling-ones. I heard some Indian women recently talking

about the fact that as Sai women they have decided to re-examine the

practice of giving dowries and its effect on society when compared to

the values of love, non-violence and compassion. Here in the West we

women can re-examine how we have become tools of advertising and are

enslaved by products which we really don't need. We should consider

whether or not we really want to break our addiction of constantly

trying to get other people's attention, recognition, praise, love and

approval through acting in certain ways, dressing in certain ways,

behaving in certain ways, giving away all of our power in the hope, a

demeaning hope, that somehow this will provide the right answer to what

it is that we are seeking. Has it ever occurred to you that we are all

looking for the things from other people that we can only get from God?

If you want love, give it to yourself; it is there in plenty. If you

want respect, give it to yourself. If you want time or attention, give

it to yourself. Teach your sons to do their own laundry, to iron their

own shirts, to cook their own simple meals, so that they can manage for

themselves. You know, when your sons grow up, perhaps they won't marry,

perhaps they will divorce, perish the thought, any number of things

could happen to them, and then, how will they cope? Don't make your

husbands and children dependent upon you. This raises cripples. You are

not doing them a favor and you have got a bigger job to do. Our lives

are not being lived for the few; our lives are being lived for the many.

 

 

When you faithfully steward that which is given to you, then, your arena

of service will expand. You don't even have to ask for it. It will

expand and expand. I never in my life thought I would be traveling all

around the world speaking to audiences like you on topics like this. I

had no idea of how I would be used as an instrument, but I have learned

not to say "No" to God. It is not my business to question what He has in

mind for me. Similarly, it is not your business if He is going to turn

you into a speaker or a teacher or a healer, or if He is going to use

you in some other way. Just be willing to say "God, if you are looking

at me and you think that I can do it, then, you are going to have to

help me a lot, because I don't think I can do it." God will say "Well

that is alright, because I am the doer, you are not the doer, so just

pay attention to Me and follow My directions please."

 

When people enter into unsatisfactory relationships with other people,

just for income security or meals or laundry service or because they are

lonely, it can end up by being very costly. You really don't need to do

that. So, mothers, you must teach your kids to take care of themselves

and then they won't have to get into a relationship just to have some

semblance of security that will turn out to involve pain and suffering.

It is amazing that we human beings chose to do this. So, ladies, we all

have to grow up, if we are going to inaugurate and sustain the Golden

Age that is to come. This need not be painful. It can be an enormously

liberating process full of fun and joy.

 

I would now like to talk to you very briefly about freedom from thought

addictions. One thought addiction is complaining. One thing you can all

do in your families right now and in your work places is to institute

the five-minute complaint forum. This means that every person at home or

at work gets five minutes every day to complain, and no more. If they

have already complained for five minutes in the morning, then they have

to wait twenty-four hours before they can complain again. If they choose

to complain for a whole five minutes about the same thing every day,

after a while it begins to sound ridiculous. They get absolutely sick of

it, as does everybody else, and then they begin to realise what their

friends and family have had to put up with all this time! My mother

called me recently and said "Honey, I have just realised something about

myself. I like to complain, I really like to complain." I replied "I

know Mom, I realised that about myself too, but then I became so

disgusted with myself that I decided to change. I realised that I simply

had not been paying attention to what I had been saying." My poor

friends and family had been putting up with all my complaining simply

because I had not been noticing what was coming out of my mouth. So I

had been inflicting my constant complaints on everyone around me. I was

just unaware. There are no bad people, only confused people. We are

trying to do the best we can, but we are confused.

 

All people who suffer are blessed with God's Grace. Why do they suffer?

It is because it is only through suffering that they will be persuaded

to turn inward and to make enquiry. Who is it that is suffering? It is

only the ego. I can tell you that your happiness is not dependent upon

your circumstances. Whether you are sick or well, whether you are single

or married, whether you are employed or unemployed, whether you are rich

or poor, it is possible, in fact, essential, to learn to be deeply

peaceful and happy. I spent a large part of the last year in a

wheelchair, when I broke my leg and ankle and had a metal plate and nine

screws put in my leg to hold the foot onto the leg. During this

experience I was deeply peaceful and remained so. During my life I have

been rich and poor, employed and unemployed, single and married, and I

have had to learn to be peaceful and happy and to relinquish and

surrender all my circumstances, because they have nothing to do with

what I am or who you are. We are perfect, unblemished and powerful

beings of spirit who live forever, who are untouched by the

circumstances around us. Don't be fooled by relating to the

circumstances.

 

Sai Baba says,

 

"Take one step towards me and I will take a hundred towards you. Shed

just one tear and I will wipe a hundred from your eyes. For the

protection of the virtuous, for the destruction of evil and for the

establishment of righteousness on a firm footing, I incarnate from Age

to Age."

 

He also says,

 

"Many people hesitate to believe that the things on this Earth are going

to improve, that life will be happy and full of joy and that the Golden

Age will, in fact, recur. Let me assure you that this divine body has

not come in vain. It will succeed in averting the great crisis which has

come upon Humanity."

 

Someone once asked Mahatma Gandhi "Sir, in three words, can you tell us

the essence of your teachings." Without batting an eyelid Gandhi said

"In three words?" The questioner said, "Yes." Gandhi responded "Renounce

and rejoice." So what is it that you and I are renouncing? We are

renouncing, through God's grace and with the help of the teachings of

Sai Baba and using our tiny bit of willingness, selfishness. We are

renouncing despair, isolation, self-pity and are rejoicing in useful

acts of selfless service. We are letting go of addictions and we are

celebrating sobriety. We are dropping gossip and are cherishing true

friendship. We are offering ourselves as God's instruments and we are

marvelling at His miracles. Finally, through courage and through wisdom,

we are renouncing control and manipulation and we are rejoicing in

peace.

 

Jai Sairam