W
hen India’s Minister for Women and Child Development, Krishna Tirath recently proposed a bill that would require husbands to legally compensate their wives for house work, he probably had the best intentions in mind. He is quoted in the Indian media as having said, “The socially accepted behaviour (of women doing household chores) becomes a tragedy when a woman gets divorced or widowed and she is left with nothing for survival.” While it does make sense that women with no income of their own must be well provided for by their husbands, does this need to be mandated by law?
Ever since the news of this bill was reported, it has faced criticism from several quarters of the Indian society, women included. An article in a popular online newspaper questioned how one could put a price tag on household work. “Does she get paid extra for cooking up an elaborate birthday dinner, as opposed to dishing up the usual dal chawal?” Activist Maya John provides a different solution in her opinion piece in The Hindu, “Instead of asking a man to pay his wife for her domestic work, the state must create jobs for women outside the home in order to truly empower them.”
When the topic was brought forward during Sadhguru’s Darshan at the Isha Yoga Center, he was quick to provide his insights on the issue. Below is an excerpt from his talk.
Sadhguru:
The most basic structure of the social unit is the family. Fortunately so far, the government has had the wisdom to stay away, keep their hands off the family, because they know they will mess it up. But it looks like now they want to enter your family in the guise of giving justice to women. You need to understand one thing, if a woman is paid for the chores that she does at home, she can also be fired. No divorce is needed. She is not cooking properly, fire her tomorrow morning. The next day you can hire somebody else. The sanctity of what it means to be a family will disappear. Not just the husband, even the children will ask, “Well, you are being paid, why are you not doing this?” The sanctity of being a wife, the sanctity of being a mother, the sanctity of being a feminine presence in the family, all this will be ruined and she will be reduced to a paid-for maid. The worst possible vocabulary could be used in this scenario. It is nobody’s business to enter a family and say how it should be run. The laws are on the street and not inside one’s home. That is a place where nobody should meddle except the people who live there.
Let’s look at this fundamentally. During the time of the caveman, men took care of food and shelter, the basic survival process. Women took care of cooking, nurturing and creating a better ambience for life. So the man fuelled the survival process and the woman fuelled that which makes living worthwhile. Without the woman’s contribution, when a caveman got up in the morning he would wonder, “Should I go out hunting today?” Because he had a wife and a child, there was a reason for him to go out and do something.
These are the two aspects fulfilled by masculine and feminine. From here on, when I say masculine and feminine, I want you to disengage these from being male and female. The natural tendency of the masculine is outgoing, it wants to take care of the survival process, it wants to take care of somebody. It doesn’t feel fulfilled unless it takes care of something. The natural tendency of the feminine is not like that; the feminine is absorbing, it creates an ambience of a certain beauty, love and gentleness.
There is a shift in today’s society. A woman may seek a career, but it is not just about that anymore. In today’s society, masculine ideals are becoming the most important. The tendencies of the masculine have become universal. Only masculine is power, or the right way to be, is a wrong perception that has seeped into society. Even women have started to understand it this way. So should a woman not be the caretaker? Yes, she can. But if the feminine was absent from the world, everybody would wonder, “Why are we here?” We would all be very successful, we would have a lot of food, a lot of money, but we would wonder, “Why are we here?” I’m not talking about male or female, I’m talking about masculine and feminine qualities.
Feminine is not weak; it is just fulfilling a different aspect of life…
A systematic obliteration of the feminine has happened in recent times. One of the reasons is that the world is driven by the economic engine. When economy becomes the only important thing on the planet, the survival process is automatically being put into a divine position. The masculine is bound to be dominant and in this system, women will suffer. Women will be mauled, not by a stranger. You may make laws for their protection, but the very system will maul them.
I think a lot of women are going through this and some of them are trying to find a balance between the two. The conflict is not happening because they are pursuing a career, but because the survival process has become the ideal. This is fundamentally a wrong way to structure a society. If aesthetics, love, music, dance, art and craft were as important as money, business and the stock market, you would see that the feminine would naturally play a significant role in the world.
Unfortunately, today there is very little role for the feminine. Even if a woman comes out of the house, she has to act like a man and only then she is successful. If she acts like a woman, she is considered weak. We need to see that feminine is not weak; it is just fulfilling a different aspect of life. Without that aspect, life is not complete. The day feminine is completely banished from this planet, life will not seem worth living anymore in spite of every convenience. Without the ambience of the feminine, masculine will feel meaningless.
Right now, a woman is trying to fit into the man’s world; this is not a good thing. She should not fit into a man’s world. Half the world should anyway be hers. Rather than trying to create a man’s world and fit a woman into it, which would twist her out of shape, it is best that we understand what is needed – a society where both masculine and feminine have equal roles to play. For that, our values of what is important in life have to change and our minds need to grow beyond the survival process. If spirituality became the most significant part of society, you would see that the feminine would be more dominant than the masculine.
Navaratri is dedicated to the feminine nature of the Divine. Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati are symbols of three dimensions of the feminine. They also represent the three basic qualities of existence – tamas, rajas, and sattva. Tamas means inertia. Rajas means activity, passion. Sattva, in a way, is the breaking of boundaries, dissolution, melting and merging. Among the three celestial objects, with which the very making of our bodies is very deeply connected – the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon. Mother Earth is considered tamas, the Sun is rajas, the Moon is sattva.
Those who aspire for power, for immortality, for strength, will worship those forms of the feminine which are referred to as tamas, like Kali or Mother Earth. Those who aspire for wealth, for passion, for life and various other gifts that the material world has to offer, naturally aspire towards that form of the feminine which is referred to as Lakshmi or the Sun. Those who aspire for knowledge, knowing, and transcending the limitations of the mortal body, will aspire for that aspect of the feminine which is referred to as sattva – Saraswati is the representative of that – or the Moon.
Tamas is the nature of the Earth, and she is the one who gives birth. The gestation period that we spend in the womb is tamas; it is a state which is almost like hibernation, but we are growing. So tamas is the nature of the Earth and of your birth. You are sitting on the earth; you must just learn to simply be one with her. You are anyway a part of her. Only when she wishes she throws you out; when she wishes she sucks you back.
Enjoy the Navaratri and make use of it. Because those of you who are on certain type of sadhana like brahmacharis and a few others, what day it is, it doesn’t matter. But for all others it will matter. Making use of little-little supports that nature offers is good to make use of. Going on your own steam is not impossible, not many people made it, that’s all. So make use of these nine days. You should spend some time with the Devi; it’ll be very good to do that in these nine days.
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