When Women Rule

“Women are superior to men in the spiritual aspect of existence. Men have an advantage in the material aspect, but at spiritual gatherings you will almost always find more women in attendance. Spirituality is about the heart—and women have greater empathy, sympathy, service and spiritual aspirations,” proclaims Dada Vaswani, whilst reminding us of the words of a holy man, ‘Man must first become a woman before he can hope to enter the kingdom of God’.

Dada Vaswani recounts his spiritual mentor Sadhu Vaswani’s thoughts, “Women fashion the soul of a nation. It is a woman’s soul that will lead us upward on”. Man has had his chance and he has bungled up and blundered—building a civilisation bathed in hatred and strife, war and conflict.
If a new civilisation of harmony and peace has to be built, it will be built by a woman’s soul.

Mother Dearest
The single most important woman in my life is my mother. She was a brave woman who brought up seven children after my father passed away, when we were quite young. She had to be both, mother and father to us, whilst earning a living to look after our family. She led by example, teaching us to speak the truth at any cost, to never lose our patience and to be charitable. These three qualities formed the foundation of our lives.

My mother was my icon until I met my guru, Sadhu Vaswani, my father’s brother. I wanted to take to the spiritual path, but my mother had dreams of me in a great job, living a comfortable, worldly life.
So, I went back to her; but on our fourth day together, seeing the change in my personality, she sent me back to my uncle with a letter saying “ I permit my son Jashan (my name then) to be in your service.” Only a mother can do that. And that’s where I spent the rest of my life—in service of my guru and of the spiritual path.

It is said that God could not make himself visible everywhere, so he created mothers. Mothers tend to want their children and husbands to be successful, more than they want anything
for themselves.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Behind every successful man, is a woman.” It’s true.

Some of the greatest people on earth have achieved greatness due to their mothers and their early upbringing.

Dutiful Daughters
Daughters tend to be  more faithful to their parents than sons, after marriage.

They literally come to the rescue of aged parents, when sons are silent observers. I know of daughters who don’t marry, so that they can look after their parents. It’s not that I recommend it, but everyone must do their duty. The Bhagvad Gita, one of the greatest scriptures of our country, repeats the word ‘Swadharma’ a number of times. This means duty—nowhere, have I seen the word ‘rights’ mentioned. But the fact remains, when you do your duty, your rights automatically come to you.

The Ideal Wife
An ideal wife is not too different from an ideal husband. “If you want to be happy, never ever should the two of you lose your tempers, at the same time!”, is my advice to couples on the verge of matrimony. It usually works very well. A husband and wife I know, both of whom were extremely short-tempered, followed it; they recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.

Scientist Albert Einstein mentioned something similar when he celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary. He said that he hadn’t quarrelled even once with his wife, in all their time together.
The reason was that his wife took all the minor decisions in the family and he, all the major ones.
“In these 50 years, I have had no occasion to reach a major decision,” laughed Einstein.

Perhaps then, a world in which women took all the ‘minor’ decisions, would be a world filled with peace, harmony and love.