Never called women mataji

[Guest guest]

> I think if you look carefully you will find that these are all references

> to elderly Indian women. I have searched and cannot find any reference

> where Srila Prabhupada uses "Mataji" with any of his disciples.

 

Prabhupada, being from Bengal, perhaps would not have used the term 'Mataji'

in a general way for any woman as indicated above. Reason being that

Bengalis generally do not use 'ji', they consider it a bit undignified since

it belongs in the diction of the Hindi speaking people. I am speculating

that because all his spiritual daughters definately saw him as their father,

he was not about to break that bubble by complicating things calling them

Mataji or Ma but he used the word Prabhu in a generic way in order to

encourage amongst all his new, young disciples, the habit of seeing every

other devotee as master which was the more important lesson to grasp.

 

Now that we have learned that lesson (hopefully), is it not a step forward

in the right direction that Prabhupada wanted for all of us men to call all

women mother or mataji and see ourselves as the son of every woman? This

habit of seeing woman as mother and addressing her as such definately

signifies an acceptance of the Vedic norm. And, if women want to call each

other Prabhu amongst themselves, what is the harm, why should the men be

concerned about what women call each other?

 

'Mother' is not inferior in any way to 'Prabhu'. After all, Narayan is

always addressed as Prabhu, and Lakshmi, His eternal Consort, is always

addressed as Mother, or Ma Lakshmi (if you are Bengali), Lakshmi Mata (if

you are from north India). In spite of the fact that the Supreme Lord is

both the original father and mother, Laksmi is never addressed as Prabhu and

Narayan is never addressed as Mother!

 

YS PD