Friday, July 25, 2008

Compassion and Nourishment




I have been meditating on a very deep principle that is practiced in Vedic culture. THis principle is: a man must see every woman, with the exception of his wife, as mother. This principle can produce essays and voluminous books, but because I have not the intelligence to go as deep as others, I will make a humble attempt to elaborate.
In Vedic culture, there are seven mothers: the birth mother, the guru's wife, the king's wife, the nurse, the Earth, the cow, and the brahmana's wife. Why are they specifically designated as the seven mothers? Because each of them in their own way nourish and bring about compassion in the society. This is something men have a hard time understanding. Nourishment and compassion are the two most important features for women.
The society must then respect and protect women as one's own mother if they want to make any advancement. Today our society often creates objects out of women. If you look at the television (please don't), movies, magazines, etc., women are objects that attract the male ego. When women are seen as objects then men want to exploit and abuse them. Looking at the world, ask yourself: if men properly respected all women as their mothers, would there be so much rape, abuse, sexual harassment, prostitution and many other vices that degrade the civilization?
A woman's heart is very soft. We can see that because of this softness, women have many abilities that men do not. Women often are psychic, spiritual and act as teachers. The setback is their judgement can often times be swayed. Another problem is their hearts are often dismantled due to a lack of having a proper father figure. Women then search for that love they never received leading them to degradation. Vedic culture therefore states, that a woman should always be protected in her life. At the beginning her father is the protector. He maintains the family and sees that she is properly married off. Then her husband is the protector. He gives her security and sees that she has everything she needs to live comfortably. Then, she is finally protected by the son. The son also has a natural inclination take care of the mother. Women give nourishment and compassion. Men offer protection and security.
Man and woman come together to balance their lives out. Masculine meets feminine. Yin meets Yang. Shiva and shakti. This is natural. A family unit is born. The family unit can strengthen the community as well as weaken the community. Children raised in proper family settings go on to spread love and joy to the rest of the community. In this Kali-yuga the population is mostly consisted of varna-sankara, or unwanted population. The male and female while engaging in sexual intercourse must do so in such a way to bring about good population. Vedic culture teaches this science known as Garbhadhana-samskara. Through different practices, the child is born with such a consciousness, that that child will bring about spiritual and material revolution around them.
Lastly, I wanted to touch upon the phenomena that is happening more and more. In our modern society, women are attempting to take on more and more male roles. In businesses and even the army, women are trying to be equal with men. What happens is that they artificially transform into male personas leaving behind the nourishing and and compassionate qualities that the world desperately needs. Men aren't equal with women physically and women aren't equal with men physically. Spiritually we are all the same. We are not these material designations, but we have these bodies. A man has different hormones than a woman and therefore will act differently.
Respect, protect and serve women so we can fill the world with compassion and love. Forget what Freud said..........

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