Motherhood: Choice or Compulsion, Autonomy or Anatomy?
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. My question is how can women maintain autonomy over their life choices when even educated independent women are also following the same conventional path defined for women, like getting married and having children. Motherhood is such a sacred event that even questioning it feels wrong. So, how can I free myself from those life choices without feeling guilty and being judged?
I also read a quote from your book: “True feminism begins when a woman is liberated from the physical and social compulsion to take her body as her primary identity.”
Acharya Prashant: This intrigues me, it also saddens me when a young person says, “How not to feel pressurized or afraid?” Were we born like this? Is this the way we took birth? Please, please tell me. Not that we are particularly enlightened at birth, but it is revealing if even that little kid is, in many ways, better placed than us. If we have brought down to a position where even the little kid appears superior, it is quite revealing.
Will the kid have all these psychological blocks and barriers? Please tell me. So surely this came to you from somewhere during your journey. You didn’t start off like this. You absorbed it at some place, some point, or continuously kept absorbing it, whatever. Right? So that’s what you need to see. It’s not your own. And what’s not your own can be disowned. It can be disowned.
You say, “How can a woman have autonomy?” I’m asking, why will the woman not have autonomy? You must first come up with the reasons that make you feel indebted or enslaved. Please tell me, why will you not have autonomy?
Questioner: Because whenever I discuss it with my friends or family, then they are like, “No, this is how it is going to be. You get your education, job, and then finally get married and have children.” So that’s why I always question myself. If I want to go against everyone, then I’m in guilt, like I feel guilty of my own choices.
Acharya Prashant: So again, you have to go within. Why are your friends like that? It’s a choice, right? Friends are a choice. Maybe parents are not, but friends are, right? So why did you pick friends that way? First thing. Secondly, why must you allow them to dominate you? They can say whatever they may. That’s their sovereignty. But why must you allow their words to mean so much to you? That’s a choice that you have. Why don’t you exercise that choice? I mean, how can your friends dictate whether or not you will have kids?
Questioner: Yeah. But it’s like everyone is following the same path. So, I’m talking about educated women even at the higher position.
Acharya Prashant: They are all looking in the same direction. I am not. They are all looking this (behind) way. I’m looking that (ahead) way. So I must be tremendously guilty of that. Must I be? I know what I’m doing. They too know what they are doing. So they will not try to dominate me, and I’ll not try to follow them. Simply know what you are doing. Why must anybody have any say in your life?
Yes, if you want to understand something, you go to a proper source. You ask questions, you seek advice, or you read a great book. That is fine. But peer pressure is something altogether different.
You read a great work, somebody’s book, on what it means to be a parent and where this psychological, biological instinct to breed comes from. Did you feel like having kids when you were 14? No. But when you are 24, all these thoughts and feelings start arising. Where do they come from? Are they really your own? Or is it just chemistry, biochemistry?
I mean, why not read about it from someone who has bothered to research? Why must you talk of all these important things with people who are maybe more ignorant than you are, or as ignorant as you are? It becomes an echo chamber, and not just an echo chamber, a dark echo chamber. You’re hearing just what you are saying, and you don’t even know who is reflecting it back to you. Are you getting it?
When you say, “How not to get pressurized?” I’m asking you, how do you get pressurized? Have you ever seen the mechanics of that? How do you get pressurized? You get pressurized because your very sense of self, you have allowed it to depend on others. Because you do not know who you are, therefore, you let others define you. In that way, you make those others your masters, and then they will control you in the ugliest way possible.
Yes, we must have company, definitely, but we must have the company of those who liberate, not those who dominate. Yes, obviously, carrying a female body, at some point you might want male company. All that is fine. All that has been happening in prakriti for billions of years. So all that is fine, but why must you do that in a dark way? Why must you do that in ignorance when it can be done in understanding and love?
Why is there this great fear of others? And those others are not necessarily your paymasters, your commanders. We are afraid even of our friends. Is that not pitiable? Somebody says, “I’m afraid of my commander. I’m afraid of my boss. I’m afraid of that minister.” And here we are saying, “I’m afraid of my friends.” And yes, that’s true. And that’s the ugly fact of our relationships. We are the most afraid of those who are closest to us.
The wife is afraid of the husband, and the husband is afraid of the wife. Go and ask them. The son is afraid of the father. The mother is afraid of the son. Go and ask them. You’ll be afraid because they are the ones nearest to you, therefore having the greatest power over you. And when somebody has power over you, you will obviously be afraid. How can you be afraid of someone you don’t even know? That fellow has no power over you. But somebody you eat with, sit with, sleep with, that fellow is so proximate. That fellow can wield a lot of power, and therefore there is great fear in relationships.
We will not admit that. But look at all these things. Look at the honor killings. Look at the dowry deaths. Look at marital rapes. Where is all that coming from? Why would JEE aspirants commit suicides in Kota? Where is that fear coming from? The reason is simple, and it is not about others. It is about the fact that we lack inner clarity. Therefore, we allow others to command us.
I don’t know what to do in life, so somebody tells me, “Write the JEE.” So I enlist in some coaching, and then I don’t perform there, and then I’m mortally afraid. I don’t know what to do in life, so somebody tells me, “Go get a good job.” And if I can’t get a good job, I’m afraid. The ugly thing is, even if I get a good job, I’ll still be afraid.
I don’t know what to do in life, but I’m 28, so somebody tells me, “Oh, you must have a kid now.” So I become a mother. The thing is, the emptiness, the incompleteness, remains even after you become a parent. Life is still much the same. You are still as hollow within, just that now you have diapers in life.
Do you get this?
Relate to the other in your fulfillment. Friends should not be crutches. Friends should not be shoulders to cry on. A friend cannot be a support to lean on. You are friends with someone because both of you, I mean, it’s like walking up these stairs. I want to ascend. You too want to ascend. I want to understand. You too want to understand. And our journeys up these stairs will become smoother, easier, sweeter if we are together. So let’s be together.
We are together not for the sake of each other, but for the sake of our individual respective journeys. You will aid my journey. I will aid your journey. And that’s love.
I am with you so that I can assist you in your journey. Mind you, I’m not asking you to change your tracks. I’m not dominating you. I’m not saying, “Live as I tell you to.” I understand you are on a very purposeful, meaningful journey. I’m with you because I love the way you love your journey. I love the way you love your life, your work, your mission. I love that.
I love your dedication, for example, to your research project. That’s why I have fallen in love with you. I love you not because you love me. I love you because you love your work. That’s what I love about you.
So, when I’m in your life, I’m not there to command your work. I’m there maybe to be a mirror so that you can look at yourself better through me, and vice versa. You are going up these tracks, and these are my tracks. Do you get this? That must be the nature of a relationship. That’s how you pick friends. That’s how you pick partners. Why is somebody present in your life if that person is a problem?
Questioner: So yeah, but at the same time everyone will call me selfish. So I just have the fear of why I should not be called selfish or just named or maybe…
Acharya Prashant: Okay, call me selfish. Call me selfish.
Questioner: Selfish.
Acharya Prashant: Wow! So, can you do that once again, please? Do you see this? Enjoy.
Questioner: Selfish.
Acharya Prashant: There is this beautiful one by Baba Bulleh Shah, I suppose. Why am I missing the exact words? *“Aashiq hoya Rabb da,” Does somebody remember? Please, please, please come.
Questioner: “Tainu kafir kafir akhde, tu aho aho akhda.”
Acharya Prashant: “Tainu kafir kafir akhde, tu…” “Aho” means yes. And they are saying “kafir,” infidel. And how should you respond? “Aho.” So that’s what, when you fall in love with the Truth, “aashiq hoya Rabb da,” and then the world is bound to abuse you. The world is bound to abuse you. Let them abuse you. You have your own inner clarity, right? And so he’s actually having fun. What is he saying? The more they tell you “kafir, kafir,” the more you must say, “Aho, aho.”
Say “selfish.”
Your response must be “Aho.” Do you get this?
But this kind of certainty is possible only when you are continuously doing your own inner work. Only when the homework is complete can you be certain in the classroom. The world is the classroom.
Just that, in our institutions, the bell rings and the class is over. In life, the classroom and the homework must progress parallelly, concurrently. The inner work is to continue at all times because the classroom too is continuing at all times.
On the outside there is always the class, the world full of others, full of others. There is no respite. There is no closing bell. Continuously there are others. Continuously there are others. And therefore the inner work too must be continuous. You must be continuously seeing what is happening in your life. You must be continuously rejecting fear. But fear cannot be rejected if you are not clear. That inner clarity is needed.
I can see what is happening. It’s a matter of honesty. I can see what is happening in the garb of friendship. This fellow is able to dominate me. Now, this is not friendship. This is not a relationship. No, no, no, sir. No, sir. You’re not my husband. You’re not my wife. You’re just being an oppressor right now. No, you’re not slapping me, but this is psychological aggression, sir, No. No, sir. No.
And I don’t blame you. I’m not a victim. I allowed it to happen. I must blame myself. I allowed it to happen. And I allowed it to happen by being lazy within. I’m not doing my homework. What’s my homework? To know the nature of my relationships. To know why I am with this book. To know why I make these choices. Everything must be clear. It cannot happen out of inertia. Because it has been happening this way, so it will again happen this way today. No. Everything must be put to question, everything. And when that is the case, love is possible. Do you see this? “Aho.”
Questioner: Thank you.
