Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1996

by Swami Krishnananda

30. Women in India

(Darshan given in May 1996)

A visitor: An Indian woman must always be prepared to sacrifice her own welfare for her husband, her children and her in-laws.

Swamiji: Do you mean to say that Indian women will not be blessed if they don't marry?

Visitor: No, I mean that even marriage is a similar form of sadhana as…

Swamiji: Now you are saying another thing. Firstly you said it is a kind of sacrifice of personal independence, which is not a good thing. But you say if it is a sadhana, it is up to each woman to find out why it is a sadhana. Why?

Visitor: Because renunciation is also a form of sacrifice.

Swamiji: What is she renouncing? Renouncing what?

Visitor: Her own desire or her own ego.

Swamiji: No, she cannot renounce her desire. It is not possible. Every woman has desires.

Visitor: She does not renounce it, but she must moderate.

Swamiji: How? What is the method?

Visitor: In marriage a woman must be serving always. She must serve her husband as a god.

Swamiji: Do you think that a woman who serves her husband has made a spiritual renunciation? Do you think like that?

Visitor: It is part of the path.

Swamiji: No, she is not considering it as a spiritual sadhana. I don't think any woman will say that. She is obliged by certain…

Visitor: No, I disagree.

Swamiji: There is no freedom for the married woman. She is bound by the rules of married life. It is so in India. It may not be like that in Europe. In Europe, no lady considers herself… There may be some people, of course, who follow the ancient tradition. In modern times women do not consider their husband as a god under any condition. Such people are very rare. There are some primitive types, uneducated, who may consider their husband… They are taught by their family that they must consider the husband as a god. If that concept is going to bless her and she feels satisfied, you cannot say anything about her because her happiness is the primary concern. And if she says she is bound, then it is not sadhana. But if she feels, “I am perfectly free, I am okay,” then of course it is sadhana. The condition is that she must feel happy. You cannot impose some idea on her. Does she feel happy and liberated? “Oh, I am doing a wonderful thing. I am blessed.”

Visitor: Liberation is not always an immediate thing. It is a process.

Swamiji: No, the moment a woman marries, her husband is a god, so why are you wanting another freedom? How is it possible? What is the freedom beyond serving her husband?

Visitor: You may consciously, or maybe from reading or maybe from teaching, have learned that the husband is a god…

Swamiji: I am not saying that. You are telling that it is right from the beginning. If you say he is not a god, then see what the reaction is. If you tell the wife her husband is not a god, then what will happen to her? She will feel miserable. So you mean to say that marriage makes a person miserable?

Visitor: No.

Swamiji: Then what? Then why should she marry? You keep quiet, without marrying. There is one thing there which pulls you in one direction, and another thing pulls you in another direction, so married life is always a conflict, though it need not be. Nobody understands the situation so intelligently and logically as to make a clear distinction between bondage in one thing and liberation in the same thing. Ask any woman, “Are you a free soul?” Instead of asking me, ask any woman, “Are you a free and happy person?” She will cry before you, “No, I am not. Many problems I have got.”

Visitor: When you ask somebody who has taken renunciation and you say…

Swamiji: I am not a woman. Why are you asking me this question? You ask a woman.

Visitor: You said yesterday that people who wear orange cloth are renunciates.

Swamiji: This cloth has no benefit unless your mind is already mature. Anybody can put on a cloth, but renunciation is a mental operation; it is not in the cloth. This cloth is only an indication that the mental operation has taken place. But it is not obligatory. You can be a great genius of spiritual life minus this cloth. The cloth is not a necessity; it is only a kind of indication, like a policeman putting on a badge, because if the cloth of policeman is not there, nobody can recognise that he is a policeman. So in order to make people know that he is a renunciate and may not get mixed up with the ordinary public, they put on the cloth. Spiritually speaking, this cloth has no significance, but socially it has a significance because it demarcates the person from the ordinary crowd. So it has some meaning in one sense.

Visitor: What does it demarcate the person as?

Swamiji: He is distinguished from the ordinary public.

Visitor: And what is the difference?

Swamiji: The difference is, the others have not renounced, but he has renounced.

Visitor: They have renounced householder life; this is what it is signifying?

Swamiji: Mostly they have renounced nothing. Merely renouncing some mountain or a building does not mean renunciation. Actually, spiritual renunciation means the renunciation of the concept of there being anything outside Consciousness. That cannot be achieved ordinarily. It is not a renunciation of things. It is the renunciation of the idea that there is something external to Consciousness. Consciousness is universal, and we cannot have anything external to it. So the purpose is that the idea of there being some physical thing external to Consciousness is a bondage. If that limitation can be removed and if you feel the Absolute Being everywhere, you are liberated. But if that is not possible, you put on a cloth. It is a satisfaction socially, but spiritually it means not much. Each one's heart will say what it is.

This problem is not of women; it is of men also, because they are also human beings like women. So in spirituality there is no distinction between a man and a woman. They think in the same way.

Visitor: Why in the scriptures are usually women and gold reviled as being negative?

Swamiji: This is something said by a man. What can I do? If it is a woman writing the scripture, she will say the man is a bondage.

Visitor: In Anandamayi's ashram, if there was some problem between a man and a woman, she would send away the woman; she would not send away the man.

Swamiji: Why should she send anyone away? What is the objection? They are not doing harm to anybody.

Visitor: Sometimes in the ashram there would be problems between men and women, misconduct.

Swamiji: If you believe that men and women sitting together will cause problems, then your answer is in your own hands. Then how will you live in the world? You can have one world for men, and another world for women. God has created both. It doesn't mean that one should be in America and the other one in India. All the Americans are men, and the Indians are women [laughter]. You must understand the situations prevailing in the universe and adjust yourself with existing conditions.

Visitor: So why did Sankaracharya say that women should not take sannyas?

Swamiji: I don't agree with him.

A visitor: In India, men can become sadhus but women cannot become sadhus.

Swamiji: There was a lady sannyasin in ancient times who was greater than a highly realised king. I will tell you the story. There was a great, saintly king called Janaka. The name comes in the Mahabharata, a great scripture of India. He was Self-realised. One lady sannyasin came to him with shaven head. She was called Sulabha. This king was not willing to talk to her. He didn't say anything. What she did was, with her concentration of mind, she entered him. Her mind entered him so that he may give up that feeling of not wanting to talk to her. But as he was also a great man, he understood this. He said, “You are a woman. Is it proper for you to enter me?” Then she said, “I never knew that you are a man. I thought you are a Self-realised, Universal Being. If you are a man, I will not talk to you. I am going.” This lady was superior to Janaka. Then he said, “Please sit down.” Then there was a long conversation between them. She said, “You are a man, so I don't want to talk to you. I thought you are a Universal Being. A Universal Being is not a man, not a woman, and you are saying that a woman entered you. How has this idea come to you? No. I am going.” He was humiliated, and then there was a long conversation on Self-realisation.

There was another lady during Upanishadic times. She was a wife of a great master called Yajnavalkya. Her name was Maitreyi. He had two wives. One was spiritually inclined; the other was an ordinary lady. He said, “Now I am retiring. I divide my wealth between both of you. Be comfortable.” Maitreyi said, “You are giving me your wealth? Please tell me if the wealth that you are giving me will make me immortal.” “Never,” he said. “Wealth cannot make you immortal.” “Tell me then that thing which will make me immortal.” Then he gave a long discourse, which I cannot repeat here. You must read it in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. It is a marvellous talk.

A third great lady was a queen called Madalasa. Her name comes in the Markandeya Purana. She was born a Self-realised person. She had some children. Whenever a child was born, she kept it in the cradle and sang to it. She sang the song of the Absolute. She did not say anything else. “Thou art the immortal Universal, my child. You are the Immortal, Deathless Being.” She would go on telling like this, and finally it entered the child so much that the child also became a great saint. Every child she converted like that. Then she converted the husband also, by her power.

So there were some great ladies, but you cannot see them unless you enter the higher realm and see them there. Can you enter that? Try. It is possible. You can also do it. What is possible for one is possible for another also, provided you pass through the same discipline. So I'm giving good news to you.