(From Radio Interview 1983 Oct 01, Santa Cruz USA)
Interviewer: What is the role of woman in this world, the role of the feminine principle?
Shri Mataji: I would say … I don’t say that women as women who are born as women only have the role, even the men have, everyone has because everyone has Kundalini within them. But the women must know that if they are women, they have a greater responsibility. Not that they should sit at home and only look after children and brood and then nag the husbands when they come home. [laughter] That’s not their role. The role is such that they have to be forbearing. Any person who is the mother has to be like the Mother Earth – how much She is forbearing, how much She suffers! We dig Her out, we torture Her life. Still, She is giving all the time; She is soothing, forgiving, bearing it out. We are doing so many sinful things, I mean, She should explode real with anger, the way it is but She does not. She is very careful. She slowly, slowly informs that “Now get out of this place, it’s rumbling.” She is so kind, you see – that all should come to us.
So, it’s not that it is only the women who should settle down with these qualities, but the time has come that men have to have these qualities. Otherwise, there will be always an imbalance. So, now the men have to become extremely kind, affectionate, compassionate. Give up that competitive spirit, that fighting spirit like Napoleon had – all those ideas are outdated. Now, whom do you respect? People like Mahatma Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln. Everyone, an American should think of Abraham Lincoln.