Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Spirituality as Panacea for Misplaced Feminism

It is my submission that the empowerment of women, like all forms of empowerment, can be achieved only through spiritual awakening. God has no gender, the soul has no sex and salvation has no form.

More than five decades back, when we made that famous 'tryst with destiny', the better half of the Indian population thought and were rather convinced that they had put their best foot forward. The wise men and women who wrote the constitution were thoughtful. Women were given equal rights and privileges in every sphere of life. They just were not to be faulted on a single count. But in everyday life this equality in law was hardly implemented and women remained as they were, neglected and exploited.

After a lapse of a few decades, a lot of retrospection was initiated by the lawmakers, spiritual leaders, politicians, social theorists, activists and innumerable women's groups on the poor condition of women. The outcome of this intense deliberation was baffling; no two groups could agree on a single point. Economic independence and freedom to make choices had not made a lasting impact, and on the top of it the feminism we borrowed from outside was costly, cosmetic and detrimental to our spiritual strength.

In 1971, Germaine Greer wrote The Female Eunuch which raised an intellectual storm in the western world. She had argued that women have to change the way they think about themselves. Their bodies require a more intimate approval of their minds. She emphasized that feminism would have to fight not only the structure of patriarchy, but also the images it created of female form. The movement no doubt changed the perception of women in the west. The lives of women in some sense have got better. They can walk out of unhappy marriages more easily now and no one can really force them to have children against their will. Three decades later the same Germaine Greer came out with another book, The Whole Woman, in which she writes, 'As more and more women work outside the home, as more and more women walk out of the oppressive marriages, we might expect the female malaise to diminish. The evidence seems to be, it is getting worse.' Greer identifies the forces responsible for the sidetracking of the feminist movement from its role of liberation. It is again patriarchy with its renewed efforts to shape the definition of feminine, which she probes in The Whole Woman. Multinational corporations are not only selling beauty products, but are also telling them that their bodies are defective, they need forever hide their defects, beat their flesh to submit to the construction of the feminine by the market forces.

The second force which has diminished the goal of the feminist movement is that of the liberation movement, which has, incidentally, come from a section of the feminists themselves who have exchanged the goal of liberation for equality. The trend in feminism over the past few years, spearheaded by Natasha Walter's new feminism, has been to say that relationships and sexuality are not the issues of great importance to feminists now. All that matters is equal pay, equal opportunities and good child care. Germaine Greer and the feminists of the older school decry this as simple minded equality with men which is diluting the meaning of the movement.

The shadow of western feminism loomed large over the Indian subcontinent. By the seventies a formidable middle class had emerged on the national scene whose women were educated and acutely conscious of the plight of their less privileged sisters. The educated women of independent India did not fare that badly compared to their counterparts in the west. Universal suffrage, equal pay for equal work, maternity benefits were all guaranteed to them in the constitution without the wars that the women in Europe and America waged in the latter part of 19th and the early part of 20th century. Nor were they compelled to act and behave as glamour dolls, getting inane secretarial and receptionist jobs and being discriminated against for serious decisive work.

In spite of these constitutional guarantees, the condition of women remained as oppressive as ever. The oppression is manifested in conditions like widespread malnutrition, poor shelters, ill-health, degrading labour, sex-exploitation, caste repression, communal violence and gross mistreatment at home.

When the Indian women woke up to the feminist storm raised by their western sisters they committed the grave folly of following those glamorous leaders without giving enough thought to its relevance to their own culture and the problems which are of a very different nature.

The ball which Raja Rammohan Roy set rolling for women's welfare is still in motion with innumerable reformers and activists after it. Concerted measures to stall child marriages, sustained measures to spread literacy among women, declaring dowry illegal, mother and child care drives, legislation against misbehaviour at work place, stringent punishment for dowry deaths and harassment at home--and yet the deprived womanhood still stares at us. So what is the alternative?

As stated in the opening paragraph, the alternative to the grave situation is to seek help and guidance from our own cultural heritage which is founded on the strong spiritual bedrock. We have witnessed various spiritual revolutions to restore society back to its moral grounds. The Jain and Buddhist philosophers attempted it against the oppression of Brahminism. Kabir and Nanak tried to free religion from rituals and superstitions. At present, we find a reform movement headed by the Swadhyay Group of Pandurang Shastri Atawale in the coastal regions of Gujarat and Saurashtra against social evils. These are some examples to show that in India, if any power can change the hearts of men and women in general, it is only through spiritual revival by well-meaning spiritual leaders. We should start thinking in this direction with intensity, commitment and a strong will. Women have to realise that they will get empowerment by spiritual awakening only, as it is spirituality that strengthens the inner self. The constitutional provisions are external to the self and fail to give inner strength or real empowerment.

The Vedas and Upanishads clearly state that men and women at the spiritual level are alike, they are pure conscious beings--Satchidananda. The difference is only external or physical, which is made of corporeal substance and which is a product of Maya. No sooner women become aware of this spiritual aspect of their real Self, they will become empowered on their own. To be active, is the essence of conscious substance. It does not require an external force to produce motion. Likewise, women are also conscious beings. Why then would they need an external power to uplift or guide them? They have their own luminous inner spiritual strength to guide them. The day they realise this they will be emancipated from all the shackles of society and its oppressive traditions. No feudal power could hold Meera back once she realised her true self.

'Prera koe nahi rokanhar, magana mira chali' i.e. 'None can stop me; intoxicated with God, Mira moves on.'

So women have to have faith in their inner spiritual strength. But it is definitely like walking on a razor's edge, as said in the Kathopanishad. Awake, arise! Strive for the highest and be in the light. Sages say the path is narrow and difficult to tread, as the edge of a razor. But, if we women, desire this strengthening of inner self through spiritual awakening, we have scriptures and spiritual leaders in our own culture to show us the way. We had enlightened woman sages like Maitreyi and Gargi in the past.

The pivot of invincible strength of womanhood is Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who paid the highest honour to women in general and whom he considered the manifestation of the Divine Mother he adored. He portrayed the Godhead 'in the form of motherhood'. He preferred to address God by the loving name 'Mother'. And even after attaining unity with supreme nondual reality, the Brahman, at the height of vedantic realization, he continued to remain a child of the Divine Mother and till the end addressed God as 'Mother'. All his teachings complement his personal behaviour which lay like an open book for the world to read. He exhorted women to find and build up their inner strength from their spiritual self.

With Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi the nun-wife of Sri Ramakrishna, a new era dominated by motherhood has been ushered in. She demonstrated through her own life the power and love of the motherhood in a human body. Motherhood is women's unparalleled strength. By the strength of her motherhood and power of her love, woman is invincible. For women, the Holy Mother has a special message to give. She says as it were: Let it be reminded again and again that the acme of development for woman is motherhood. It is only by manifesting motherhood that she can win over the masculine of the raceand not by competing with them. Children all over the world, already deprived of love, do not want another imperfect 'father'. Mother is infallible because learning may fail but love never fails.

But woman must extend her motherhood beyond the narrow bounds of her children to encompass all the children of the world, as the Holy Mother Sarada Devi did. Through her power of love Ma Sarada emerged as an embodiment of universal motherhood--as the real mother of all saints and sinners, high and low, poor and rich. Not only of all men and women but even of animals, birds and insects; she said 'I am the real mother'. One can understand the love, sacrifice and benevolence of a mother towards her children, to whom she has given birth. But one seldom comes across the unique example of the manifestation of Universal Motherhood, the 'Mother of all', as we see in Sri Ma Sarada. Her physical frame looked emaciated but she always radiated motherly compassion and was ready to sweep away the cares and maladies of her troubled devotees. In the social context the advent of Holy Mother has signalled the birth of a new social order based on love, forgiveness, tolerance and service. Ma Sarada is not a personality but the very principle of universal motherhood.

Swami Vivekananda was the most illustrious disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. He too preached in the same vein as his guru but with a distinct contemporary tone so as to appeal to the intellectual segment. He traversed the length and breadth of the country exhorting his followers to dispel the ignorance about women. To women he will ever remain a powerful guardian of their rights and interests. He was of the firm belief that only through concerted efforts towards the upliftment of women the nation could again make strides towards spiritual and material progress.

He laid special emphasis on women's education with a positive stress on its spiritual side. He was also incisive in his advocacy of equal opportunities for women in education, at par with men, to the extent of asserting that women may become ascetics for pursuing greater spiritual goals. He was the first monk in the history to affirm and defend without reservation the rights and liberties of women, and to spiritually uplift women in order to manifest the Brahman within them. He favoured the Sarada Math for women parallel to the Ramakrishna Math for men, so as to give women spiritual rights equal to those of men. He was of the firm conviction that our duty is only to educate them and leave them alone thereafter to solve their own problems. 'Who are you to solve women's problem? Are you the Lord God that you should rule over every widow and every woman? Hands off! They will solve their own problems.'(CW, Vol III, p.246)

By their spiritual awakening if even one amongst the women became a knower of Brahman, then by the radiance of her personality thousands of women would be inspired and awakened to the truth and great well-being of the country and society would ensue. He said to his disciple, 'In the highest reality of Parabrahman, there is no distinction of sex. We notice this only in the relative plane. And more the mind becomes introspective, the more that idea of differences vanishes. Ultimately, when the mind is wholly merged in the homogeneous and undifferentiated Brahman such ideas as this is a man or that is a woman do not remain at all.' (CW, 6.219)

We have seen this actually in the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Therefore I do say that though outwardly there is a difference between men and women, in their real nature there is none. If a man can be a knower of Brahmam, why cannot a woman attain the same? All that is required is to establish maths to give them back their spiritual rights which were withdrawn from them by smritis which bound them with hard rules. Men had turned women into manufacturing machines. If you do not raise the lot of women, who are the living embodiment of the Divine Mother, don't think you have any other way to rise. So to empower women Swamiji proposed Sarada Math and gave them equal spiritual rights which were withdrawn from them by orthodox Hinduism.

Vinoba Bhave took Swami Vivekananda's challenge to its logical conclusion by suggesting that the need of the hour is for women to emerge as thinking creative forces in the garb of a Sankaracharya.

On the basis of his unflinching faith in the underlying female strength, he established an institution at Pawnar called Brahmavadini Ashram to empower women to cultivate inner spiritual strength, attain liberation in woman form and climb the ladder of Brahmavadini. This right was not given to women in Hinduism. He inspired mumukshu women to achieve this inner strength from their own power and feminine sensitivity.

Acharya Bhave had an entirely unique hypothesis to propagate in this regard. He endorsed the need to strengthen the spiritual powers of women for a sustained struggle to root out evils against them. Apart from legislative measures, vociferous reform movements, judicial support, women need the fountainhead of an everflowing spiritual strength to make a difference to their lives. Vinoba Bhave pointed out that women look to the scriptures written by men with underlined masculine slant for spiritual guidance. The perception of learned men might be sympathetic to the female position but a complete identification with their dilemma is missing. To fill this void, some of the ascetic women have to meditate, think, analyse, discuss and evolve a set of scriptures to infuse the faltering womanhood with a refreshing and vibrant strength. A woman Shankaracharya with an indepth learning, a sympathetic perception and an unprejudiced alignment with the weaker half of humanity could deliver the goods. A mere spiritual enlightenment and an unhindered ascetic existence of Meera and Mukta won't do. Nothing short of an innovative set of scriptures conceived and created by women Brahmavadinis will change their plight. Before concluding I would like to stress that women need a woman Shankaracharya, a woman Vivekananda, a woman Gandhi and a woman Vinoba Bhave to empower them.

When I was being raised by my parents, they did not educate me in the concept of renunciation (Sri Ramakrishna); of mother love (Ma Sarada); or enlightenment through knowledge and education (Vivekananda) to raise my spirituality. But they did emphasize the universality of spirituality through truth, love, peace, righteousness and non-violence and that these do not have a gender bias. My parents left to me whether I wished to have knowledge of the world or to have the experience of God, but they made it clear that God has no gender. And that was my first step towards empowerment including women empowerment.