To bring up a child as a security for old age is the worst reason to have children. It is like a long-term investment to have an old-age caregiver. To have children to transfer inheritance is a most selfish reason. It is like finding a treasurer to safeguard the wealth. To have children because one likes them is a very unconscious ‘reason’ for bringing a child into the world. It is like getting a toy to keep oneself amused and entertained, to make life less burdensome.
Basically, maternity is an instinct implanted by nature for her inferior purposes of prolonging a species. Human beings simply try to give a reason for it where there are none.
Yet if one must bring a child into the world, it should be to help the world become a better place, to help mankind move towards a happier and diviner future. But for that, it is not enough to bring a child into the world, but to bring him up with high values, noble ideals and plant in him the urge to progress towards great goals and high aims. The Mother reminds us.
‘Maternity is considered as the principal role of woman. But this is true only so long as we understand what is meant by the word maternity. For to bring children into the world as rabbits do their young—instinctively, ignorantly, machine-like, that certainly cannot be called maternity! True maternity begins with the conscious creation of a being, with the willed shaping of a soul coming to develop and utilise a new body. The true domain of women is the spiritual. We forget it but too often.
To bear a child and construct his body almost subconsciously is not enough. The work really commences when, by the power of thought and will, we conceive and create a character capable of manifesting an ideal…..
The superman shall be born of woman, this is a big unquestionable truth; but it is not enough to be proud of this truth, we must clearly understand what it means, become aware of the responsibility it creates, and learn to face earnestly the task which is put before us. This task is precisely our most important share in the present world-wide work.
For that, we must first understand—at least in their broad lines—what are the means by which the present chaos and obscurity can be transformed into light and harmony.
Many means have been suggested: political, social, ethical, even religious…. Indeed, none of these seem sufficient to face with any reliable success the magnitude of the task to be done. Only a new spiritual influx, creating in man a new consciousness, can overcome the enormous mass of difficulties barring the way of the workers. A new spiritual light, a manifestation upon earth of some divine force unknown until now, a Thought of God, new for us, descending into this world and taking a new form here.
And here we come back to our starting point, to our duty of true maternity. For this form meant to manifest the spiritual force capable of transforming the earth’s present conditions, this new form, who is to construct it if not the women?
Thus we see that at this critical period of the world’s life it is no longer sufficient to give birth to a being in whom our highest personal ideal is manifested; we must strive to find out what is the future type, whose advent Nature is planning. It is no longer sufficient to form a man similar to the greatest men we have heard of or known, or even greater, more accomplished and gifted than they; we must strive to come in touch mentally, by the constant aspiration of our thought and will, with the supreme possibility which, exceeding all human measures and features, will give birth to the superman.’
Affectionately,
Alok Da
