Book
Prayer Book
19. Our Women
- The Goddess Herself lives in the house of virtuous men as Lakshmi.
- In the Vedas and the Upanishads, women taught the highest truths and received the same veneration as men.
- The uplift of the women, the awakening of the masses must come first, and then only can any real good come about for the country, for India. It is only in the homes of educated and pious mothers that great men are born.
- If you do not raise the women, who are the living embodiment of the Divine Mother, don't think that you have any other way to rise. The ideal of womanhood in India is motherhood - that marvellous, unselfish, all suffering, ever forgiving mother.
- Sita, purer than purity itself, all patience and all suffering. She who suffered that live of suffering without a murmur, she the ever-chaste and ever-pure wife, she the ideal of the people, the ideal of the Gods, the great Sita, our national God she must always remain.
- Mark my words: Sita has gone into the very vitals of our race. She is there in the blood of every Hindu man and woman; we are all children of Sita. Any attempt to modernise our women, if it tries to take our women away from that ideal of Sita, is immediately a failure, as we see every day.The women of India must grow and develop in the footprints of Sita, and that is the only way.
- Gods bless those families where women are happy and well treated. Daughters should be supported and educated with as much care and attention as the sons. There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on only one wing.
- Our women are not so learned but, they are more pure. To every woman, every man, except her husband, should be as her son. To every man, every woman, except his own wife, should be as his mother. Women must be put in a position to solve their problems in their own way. No one can or ought to do this for them. And our Indian women are as capable of doing it as any in the world.
- Along with other things, our women should acquire that spirit of valour and heroism. In the present day, it has become necessary for them also to learn self-defence. See, how grand was the Queen of Jhansi! Who are you to solve women's problems? Are you the Lord God that you should rule over every widow and every woman? Hands off! They will solve their own problems.
- Any attempt to modernize our women, if it tries to take our women away from that ideal of Sita, is immediately a failure, as we see every day. The women of India must grow and develop in the footprints of Sita, and that is the only way.