Los Angeles herald., 1906-11-19
BABA BHARATI
TALKS OF WOMAN
QUALITIES THE SAME, EAST OR
WEST
She Is the Center and Presiding
Genius Of the Home, Which
Is Not Complete With
out Her

Baba Bharati delivered his sermon
last night i'm the Krishna Tempe, tak-
ing for his subject, "Woman-Bast ana
West" He said in part:
After about five years stay ana
study of men and manners IN the west
/ have arrived at the unaVoloaple con-
blusion that woman. east or west, is
The same in inherent qualities of real
xvomanhood. Woman is essentially
spiritual. Spirituality Is her cardinal
quality and this cardinal quality no
force in the world can wholly destroy.
An unspiritual-se woman Is of
mans making, for woman are what
men make them. Wife and home are
SYNONYMOUS terms in India. The San
skirt word griha' means both wife and
home. The word woman in English
is the corruption of the word wife
man. There is no wife without a
home and ought to be no home without
a wife.
Woman Is Home
"woman. therefore, is the home. She
is the center and the presiding deity
of the home. She is the complement
of q man as man is the complement
of woman. Man is a positive force
of life woman the negative. Man and
woman, therefore, Joined by holy we'd
lock make up harmonized whole. But
the wedlock must be holy and that
holiness of relation must be kept up
throughout the conjugal life. The
holiness of the wedlock is derived
from the recognition of an affinity to
each others soul. for marriage is q
soul-union, the union of two soul-lov-
ing souls. The word marriage is desc
Grated when it is applied to the union
of two body-loving bodies. Married
life is meant as a means of soul-cul-
ture and home is the school of that
culture. Hence, a Hindoo wife is called
saba -dharmini'-copartner of man in
religion.
Man represents the positive intel
1ect, woman the negative heart. The
intellect thinks, the heart feels. Man
is made of predominant intellect; wo-
man Is made of predominant heart
The intellect is reflective; the heart is
intuitive. Hence, man is more reflec-
tive and less intuitive, while woman
is more intuitive and less reflective
than man. The heart is the door of the
subjective mind. the intellect is the
active principle of the objective mind
Woman, through the hearts intuition,
grasps truths which mans intellect
misses at most times. Woman has in
tellect, too, but she functions it by
her heart, by the light of her subjec-
tive mind. The subjective mind is the
outer realm of the soul, with which
woman has natural negative communi-
cation. Hence. woman is essentially
soulful, essentially spiritual.
Understands Through Heart -r---
,"Woman should, therefore. be edu-
Gated through her heart which is the
natural medium of her undertaking.
which is the channel of her intel
her intellect alone, you destroy her
natural instincts the instinct of intui-
tion, the quality in which she sur
passes man. Her education, therefore
must be spiritual education. Her soul
must be developed from childhood, so
that her heart, the, door of the soul
and the interior chamber of the mind,
may be flooded. when she ripens into
womanhood with the soul light. You
may give her as many books as you
like Of the intellectual sort, but the
foundation of her education must be
spiritual. Her heart must be fed
during her childhood and girlhood with
spiritual thoughts. Then she will
grasp their intellectual ideas and con-
cepts in a twinkling-much more
quickly than you can do, Mr.. Man.
'Woman in the east is still the pro-
duct of this old worlds philosophy Of
life Woman in the modern west is a
reflex of an unnatural evolution of
thought which has revolutionized that
old world philosophy. The old philoso-
ply of life is founded on science, upon
the science of life's inner laws. The
new mode of life which the matter
mad mind of the modern west has
evolved is detrimental to the healthy
growth of womanhood's natural vir-
tues. The arbitrary mixing up of the
distinctive qualities and spheres of In
fluence of the sexes which the new west
is revelling in and boasting of is MAX
ing 1t pay dearly for 1t, although 1t is
generally unconscious to the havoc, so
mad it is with that revel and that
boast. The result is that the intel
lectually developed woman in the west
is trying to do all that man can do and
is fast forgetting her own distinctive
qualities, her own spheres of work and
burying her divine instincts of the
heart under the rubbish of purely in
tellectual attachments. You may say
there are bright woman authors and
writer's whose works betray qualities
both of heart and head. That shows
that they have succeeded in retaining
their heart individuality.
I'm the east this heart education
through religion from childhood has
developed the allround womanly wo-
man through all the ages. The degra-
dation of woman in the east is a myth
born of the VESTS profound ignorance
attributable to the misrepresentation
by that amiable friend of ours, the
Christion missionary. Speaking for
India, can boldly say that the Hin
doc women enjoy a higher status and
regard from men than women do in
this country. If women are worship
ed in any country with a sincere wor-
ship 1t Is in India. The reason of her
worship is her well developed qualities
Of soul and heart. She is regarded as
divinity because of her essentially
spiritual nature. She Is loved, not for
her physical charms, but for her soul
She is the queen of her husbands home
and heart
1.-THE worship of women I'm the west
generally, of which so much fuss and
boast rs made. Is mostly insincere and
unnatural. 1t is a homage paid to her
physical self May l ask why a man
should respect woman more than a
woman respects man? Why should
there not be an equality of respect {?
Why should a man serve a woman
with services which that woman ac-
cepts from him as legitimate homage
due her and never dreams of render
ing TO him the same service or any
part thereof? These questions are