1. Bhagavat-priya Devi Dāsi (MVS), Civil Engineer, Indian Army, Jamnagar, India

    I read the book, Women: Masters or Mothers? and really appreciate Mahārāja producing such a publication. Śrīla Bhakti Vikāsa Swami has presented a realistic view of todays culture through his divine and realized knowledge. He made the point in the book that everyone should respect women and also gave the way for women to be respected in society.

    In the modern age women suffer due to the cruelty and brutality of some of the members of society. This is really shameful and creates a dangerous future. One of the most important points I saw in this book is that nowadays women are completely unprotected due to the phenomenon of feminism created by the present society. Feminism states that women are equal to men. This is socially incorrect because when women are working as housewives even after getting a good material education they can make their home into heaven but when mothers work outside the home for money they cannot instill proper culture and values in their children and cannot properly serve their husbands and other family members. As a result of this there is disastisfaction among family members.

    Mothers are known as the first guru of the child. Mahārāja clearly and directly explained in this book that men and women are naturally created differently by God so we should not try to challenge nature. Women should be great mothers and not servants of low paying businessmen. If we minimize our material necessities and follow the motto of simple living and high thinking, all money problems will automatically be solved. In our Indian culture every woman deserves the same respect as a goddess but this motto of simple living and high thinking is gradually vanishing and this will create a dangerous social condition for the world in the future.

    Mahārāja has reflected that nowadays mothers are studying but they do not know how to cook which is the basic skill required for a mother! So every devotee should enlighten themself about the important roles of women in society as this is the only way for universal social harmony. If we want to save our sanātana-dharma and Vedic culture every young mother should read this book and follow the points herein. We should come out of the mentality of trying to promote equality between men and women.