Nari Aur Kranti #2

In response to the question that was asked—“We are restless; how can we be peaceful?”—this is what I want to say: Reflect, look at the way you view life. And it is in your hands: if it becomes clear that my way of looking at life is wrong, that with my own hands I keep sowing the seeds of restlessness, and that with my own hands, where there are both flowers and thorns, I see only the thorns and not the flowers—then what can anyone else do? If this thought arises, changing life is in your hands. Because no human being wants to be unhappy. Who wants to be unhappy? No one wants to be unhappy.
If it becomes clearly understood that my suffering lies in my vision, then being free of that vision is not difficult. The moment the awareness dawns that my way of seeing is wrong, change begins in life. The very moment it is known that the causes of unrest are hidden in my way of seeing, the way of seeing begins to change. Nothing else is needed; what is needed is to awaken rightly to the truth that my restlessness is hidden in my outlook on life.
As long as we keep searching for the causes of our unrest in others… if a wife keeps thinking she is restless because of her husband, she is mistaken. If a mother keeps thinking she is restless because of her children, she is mistaken. If a sister thinks she is restless because of her relatives, she is mistaken. Whoever thinks they are restless because of someone else is absolutely wrong. And by thinking in this way, peace can never be possible in one’s life. This very thinking gives birth to unrest.
It is necessary to change the way of thinking. That can happen only when we properly analyze our personality, truly reflect on and understand ourselves, and see whether there is some error in my vision, in my way of seeing—whether there is some fundamental error.
And I understand that each one of us has enough intelligence that, if we use it, we can see the error in our vision. And once it is seen—once it is realized—a revolution begins in life. The days will be the same, the nights the same; the husband the same, the children the same, the family the same, the world the same; but with the change of vision, where there was hell, the arrival of heaven begins.
Heaven and hell are not geographical locations that you will find by searching in geography. Heaven and hell are psychological—states of the human mind. The person who becomes capable of seeing life rightly enters heaven here and now, and the one who sees wrongly enters hell.
A couple of other questions have been asked as well.

First of all, instead of thinking about how to make children a certain way, always think about how to make yourself. We are forever busy thinking how to shape others. And let me also tell you: the one who asks how to shape others is the very one who has failed to shape himself rightly. If one’s own personality has been rightly formed—if, through certain principles, he has found peace, discovered a direction toward himself, found the music of life—then those same principles, on the strength of which he has shaped himself, become, without any effort, an opportunity for the shaping of others.

Yet we ask: How are children to be made?

Understand first that this very question betrays a weakness in your own formation. And also understand that to shape another directly is impossible. Whatever we can do for others happens very indirectly, by a back door—never from the front.

A mother may wish to make her child a certain way—to make him inward-looking, truthful, of character, to lead him toward the divine—but never fall into the illusion that she can take the child directly toward the divine. Because whenever we try to lead a person in some direction, his ego—even if he is a small child—rises up against us. No one in the world likes to be dragged along; not even a little child. The moment we start taking him somewhere, trying to make him into something, his I-ness, his ego, his pride stands in opposition. He begins to resist fiercely. It feels to him aggressive, like an attack—and he resists attack. Being small, he resists in whatever manner he can. Whatever is forbidden is exactly what he becomes eager to do. Whatever is prohibited is exactly where he goes. The very paths on which obstacles are placed become attractive to him.

Freud, a great psychologist, once went strolling in a park with his wife and child. At dusk, when they turned back and darkness had gathered, they saw the child was nowhere to be found. Freud’s wife panicked: “The child isn’t with us—where has he gone? It’s a vast park, miles long. Where will we find him now at night?”

What did Freud say?

He asked, “Did you forbid him to go anywhere? Tell him not to go someplace?”

His wife said, “Yes, I told him, ‘Don’t go to the fountain.’”

Freud said, “Then let’s first go to the fountain. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred he will be there; only one chance he’ll be elsewhere.”

His wife fell silent. They went—and there he was, sitting with his legs dangling over the fountain. She asked, “How did you know?”

He said, “It’s simple arithmetic. Whatever parents forbid becomes attractive. The child is filled with curiosity to go there. Toward whatever the parents try to lead him, his curiosity evaporates, his ego awakens, he resists—he doesn’t want to go.”

You may be surprised to know that nothing has harmed human society as much as this simple fact. Parents try to lead children toward good things; the child’s ego turns against the good. Parents forbid bad things; the child’s curiosity moves toward the bad. In this way parents prove, by their own hands, to be their children’s enemies.

Perhaps it has never occurred to you that very good families do not produce very good children—almost never. The children of great men often prove utterly inept. The son of someone as great as Gandhi drank alcohol, ate meat, even changed his religion. Astonishing! What happened? Gandhi tried very hard to make him good; that very effort became enmity.

So understand this: whenever the thought of transforming someone arises, first your own life must be transformed in that direction. Then the shadow of your life, your very presence, influences the child in a way unknown to you. Not your words, not your sermons. The shadow of your life influences the child indirectly and becomes the foundation for transformation in his life.

And secondly, never try—by pressure, by insistence—to lead a child toward any “good” direction. That very thing will become the biggest wall against going in a good direction. It may happen that while he is small he obeys you—because he is weak and you are strong; you can frighten him, threaten him, even do violence to him. And never imagine that parents cannot be violent with their children! Parents have committed such immeasurable violence against children. It simply doesn’t look like violence. Whenever we press someone down, we are being violent. The child’s ego is wounded. But being weak, he bears it. Today or tomorrow, when he grows up and power comes to his hands, by then you will be old and weak—and he will take revenge. The mistreatment of elderly parents by their children has its cause in the parents themselves. What they did to the child in his childhood, the child will do to them in their old age.

Therefore, never—by mistake even—apply pressure; never force; never be violent. With great love, through the transformation of your own life, very peacefully and simply, offer suggestions to the child. Do not give orders; do not say, “Do this.” Because whenever someone says, “Do this!” the listener feels an inner response arise: “I won’t.” It is quite natural. Do not say, “Do this.” Say only this: “I did this and found joy. If you want to know joy, consider this direction.” Explain to him, offer suggestions—not orders, not sermons. Precepts and commands prove very dangerous; they prove deeply insulting.

Respect the small child greatly. Only the one whom we respect can we draw close to our heart. This may seem surprising. We expect small children to respect elders—how are we to respect them! But if we want children to respect their parents, respect must first be given. It is impossible that parents give disrespect and yet receive respect—it is impossible. It is necessary to give children respect, and to give it in abundance. They are sprouting shoots, a rising sun. We have become spent; we are nearly finished. In them life is yet to blossom. Existence has sent a new person; he is emerging. Toward him, great regard and great respect are necessary. Respectfully, lovingly, and through the transformation of your own personality, the life of the child too can be transformed.
You have asked how to help someone become inward. One can turn inward only when the sound of bliss begins to echo within. The mind goes wherever there is joy. Right now I am speaking here. If someone over there were to start playing a veena and singing, you would not have to take your mind there—it would go by itself. You would suddenly find your mind is no longer listening to me; it has started listening to the veena. The mind goes where there is pleasure, where there is music, where there is flavor—the rasa.
Children become outward-going because they see their parents running toward the outside. They see a mother running after fine clothes, after jewelry, after big houses—always running outward. The lives of those children also become extroverted.

If they were to see a mother with eyes closed, bliss streaming across her face; if they were to see a mother filled with love, cheerful and joyous even in a small house; if sometimes they saw that the mother closes her eyes and goes into some realm of joy—they would ask, What is this? Where do you go? If they were to see the mother in meditation and in prayer, if they saw her immersed in deep absorption, if they saw her in very deep love, they would want to know: Where do you go? From where does this happiness come? From where does this peace in the eyes arise? From where does this radiance on the face come? This beauty, this life—where is it coming from?

They will ask, they will want to know. And in that very knowing, that very questioning, that very curiosity, a path can be given to them.

So the first need is to learn to be inward yourself. To be inward means: for an hour or two in the twenty-four hours, become utterly still, utterly silent. Let bliss arise from within; let peace well up from within. Sit for an hour or two completely quiet and calm.

Parents who do not sit silently for even an hour or two in the day—their children’s lives cannot know silence. Parents who do not become absorbed in prayer at home for an hour or two, who do not move into meditation—how will their children become inward?

Children see parents quarreling, in conflict, struggling, fighting, using harsh words. Children see no deep bond of love between mother and father; they see no peace, no joy—only sadness, boredom, agitation, anxiety. In just the same way, that becomes the direction of their lives.

If you want to change the children, it is necessary to change yourself. If you love the children, then it is absolutely necessary to change yourself. Until you had no child, there was no responsibility. After a child is born, an astonishing responsibility falls upon you. A whole life will be made or marred—and it has become dependent on you. Now whatever you do, its result will fall upon that child.

If that child goes astray, goes in wrong directions, goes into sorrow and pain—upon whom will the sin fall? To give birth to a child is easy, but to be a mother in the true sense is very difficult. To produce a child is very easy—animals and birds do it, humans do it; the crowd goes on increasing in the world. But there is no solution in this crowd. To be a mother is very difficult.

If even a few women in the world could truly be mothers, the whole world could be different. To be a mother means: to take the responsibility that the life to which I have given birth, it is now my duty to lead that life to the highest levels—up to the divine. And in the shadow of this duty I will have to change myself. Because whoever wants to change another has no way except to change oneself.

Many sisters keep asking me this continually; it is a question in many women’s lives. But perhaps it has never been considered what the rise of a strong sexual urge in the husband actually indicates. It is evidence that the husband is not receiving love.

Hearing this may surprise you. The more love a wife can give her husband, the less sexual desire there will be in his life. Perhaps this never occurred to you. The less love there is in people’s lives, the greater their lust and sexuality. The more love there is in a person’s life, the less sex remains there; sex gradually withers away.

So there is a remarkable duty upon the wife—upon the husband too. If a wife feels that the husband is very lustful, afflicted with sexual craving, and takes her into such an act where her mind is hurt, finds no peace, suffers, and disturbance, even panic, arises—then she should understand that her love for the husband is incomplete. She should give him deeper love, give so much love that love itself quiets the husband. When a husband does not receive love, unrest thickens within him. And for the release of that unrest, nothing remains but sex. As love decreases in the world, sexuality increases; arousal increases. If the wife gives the husband complete love...

A very ancient rishi once said something wonderful. He was invited to a home where a newly married girl was about to depart for her husband’s house. The rishi blessed her, saying, “I bless you that you may have ten sons, and in the end may your husband become your eleventh son.”

The woman was startled, her loved ones were startled—what was this the rishi had said! They asked for the meaning. He said, “Love your husband so much, so much, that the purity of your love, the prayerfulness of your love, dissolves sex within him, and one day he becomes like your son. The true fulfillment of life and the perfect fruition of marriage is when the wife ultimately finds that the husband too has become her child, and she has become his mother.”

Gandhi had gone to Lanka. Someone there, by mistake—Ba was with him—introduced him and said, “Gandhi has come, and it is our great good fortune that his mother, Ba, has also come.”

Ba was flustered, Gandhi’s companions were all worried that a mistake had been made; they should have corrected it first. But Gandhi was already seated to speak, so there was no way to fix it.

What did Gandhi say? He said, “In introducing me, a friend mistakenly spoke the truth. Ba was first my wife; for the last ten years she has become my mother.”

The wife who cannot ultimately become her husband’s mother—know that her life has gone in vain.

The more dense and deep love becomes, the purer it grows; to that extent sex dissolves. That is one point.
A second thing... this will happen through a long process... but what has been asked is: if the husband uses force, then it cannot happen today—so what about today? What can happen in this very moment? If the husband uses force and takes her into sexual intercourse, what should the woman do?
My view is—try this, understand it, and reflect—that if the husband drags you into sexual intercourse by force, then at the very moment of sexual intercourse, at the very moment of the act, offer a complete prayer in your mind that peace come into the husband’s life, that love come into the husband’s life. Pray in your mind at that very moment. In that moment the souls of wife and husband are extremely close, extremely close. In that moment whatever arises in the wife’s mind gets transmitted to the husband’s mind. If at that moment this prayer is made—that peace and love come into the husband’s life, that sex be attenuated, that sexual excitation diminish, that the disorders of his mind fall away—if the wife makes this very loving prayer—the results will begin to appear immediately. For in that moment husband and wife are only two bodies; their souls come extremely close. And whatever feelings are present then enter into one another.

I say this for the immediate. But in the long flow of life I say: give so much love that love generates such purity that the very idea of sex gradually becomes feeble and dissolves.

What I have said to you is not with the idea that you should accept it as it is. I am not a guru, I am not a preacher, I am not a propagandist, and I have no desire that anyone should believe what I say. Then why do I speak? I speak only for this small reason: that someone may think about, reflect upon, what I have said.

So there is no need to accept what I have said. Think about it, reflect on it, try it a little in life. And if from that experiment, from that thinking and reflection, some thread, some principle, emerges, then that principle becomes yours. Then it is no longer mine. Then it will become your philosophy of life, it will become a basis for your life. Then it is no longer mine; then I can be forgotten and life can be set in motion according to that principle.

I have said something with the idea that it will become an inspiration for thinking within you—not your belief, but an inspiration for thought. I have said something; it will become an opportunity for you to think and contemplate upon it. The more you contemplate, the more you dig into life and reflect, the more wealth begins to come.

Much is hidden in life. The one who takes up the spade of thought and begins to dig becomes the possessor of great treasure. Then he no longer remains poor, no longer remains lowly. It may be that he does not have grand clothes, nor grand houses, but he has a spiritual wealth before which no other wealth stands. And such wealth is hidden within everyone: whoever seeks finds it, and whoever just sits loses it.

I am deeply grateful that you have listened to these words with such love and peace. I bow to the Divine seated within all. Please accept my salutations.