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Anil Kumar Questions and
Answers
Question 25
What is
the primordial factor that decides one’s gender in this birth? Why
are you a man? How can you afford to be a woman? (Laughter) So the
question here is what decides the gender in each life. Is it
because of our past lives? (15.12.2002)
The answer is
simple, my friends. I quote from Sai literature. The real Self,
the reality, is neither a man nor a woman. The man or the woman —
the difference in the identity lies in the body, not in the
spirit.
If someone knocks
at the door and you ask, “Who are you?” they will answer, “I am
so-and-so.” No one would say, “I, the man, am talking to you” or
“I, the woman, am here”. Nobody would say that. ‘I’ is common to
both men and women.
The second point
is that Bhagavan has said, “All are women.” Hari Om Tat Sat.
(Laughter) My friends, do not mistake me. Try to settle any
scores later. (Laughter) All are women. So you don’t need
to feel inferior. We have no reason to feel superior. Why? The
spirit in you is purusha or man. The Atma is
masculine, purusha, while the body is prakrithi or
nature, which is feminine. But the masculinity is of the spirit
and not of the body.
Thirdly, He gave
an example: If you go to the women’s college at Anantapur on the
annual college day, when they are staging a drama, you’ll find a
girl in the role of a king. You’ll find another girl in the role
of a soldier and another girl in the role of a servant. Because of
their costumes, they appear to be men; but in reality, they are
women. Similarly, all are women. Some may look like men (Laughter),
but basically all are feminine. I mean the body principle is
feminine, prakrithi, meaning it is inert matter. This is
feminine, while the life principle is masculine.
I am very
grateful to have these questions because it helps me to go back in
my memory to what Bhagavan has said over the years. Here is
another example. You must have heard of a great lady named Meera,
who was a great devotee. Meera wanted to meet the King. She came
into the palace.
A soldier said, “Sorry, you cannot
go in.”
She asked, “Why?”
The man said,
“Women are not permitted to go in. Women are prohibited from going
into the palace.”
Then Meera said,
“Where are the men here? I don’t see any men here.”
The soldier was
surprised and must have been thinking, “Is something wrong with me
or with her?” (Laughter)
This is the
truth. The body is feminine, inert matter, only. But the life
force is masculine. So all of us are a combination of both. When
you ask, “What decides the gender?” I say, “Why worry about it?”
Whether the sugar candy is in the shape of a rat or an elephant,
the child eats it, right? Similarly, a chocolate may be circular
or rectangular or hexagonal; but after all, a chocolate is a
chocolate. Biscuits may be quadrangular or circular. Whatever it
may be, a biscuit is a biscuit.
So similarly,
life is life, whether you are a man or woman. It is only external.
So let’s not question what it is that decides our gender. There is
nothing wrong. Men
and women suffer equally. (Laughter). Oh, that’s right --
we blame each other!
© Anil Kumar Kamaraju 2004 - Here
reproduced for personal use of the devotees for the purpose of
seva.
Anil Kumar website:
http://www.internety.com/anilkhome/ -
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