Prostitute

Who calls you a prostitute, Mother? Who spits at you? Perhaps you were suckled by someone as chaste as Seeta. You may not be chaste, yet you are one of the family of all our mothers and sisters. Your sons are like any of us sons, as capable of achieving fame and honor as any of us, as capable of entering heaven. The great hero Drona was the son of Ghritachi, a prostitute in heaven. Krishna-Daipayan, who was universally respected, was the son of an unmarried girl. Karna the Benevolent Was born of a maiden. Ganga, expelled from heaven, was married to Shiva. King Shantanu, too, offered her his love. Their son was the immortal Bheeshma, to whom Krishna paid homage! The Sage Satyakama was the illegitimate son of Jabala. The conception of the great lover of humanity, Jesus, remains a mystery. None is,stained with sin here, none is an object of hatred. Millions of beautiful lilies blossom in the lake of lust! Listen to this message of humanity: After birth, all human beings are free of all impurities. Because I have once committed a sin, have I no right to return to virtue? Hundreds of sinful acts did not take away the divineness of the gods. If Ahalya was freed of sin, if Mary was canonized, truthfully, why shouldn't you, too, be worthy of worship? Who are the bigots who condescendingly label your son as an 'illegitimate' child? To them I simply ask these questions. How many of the 1,500 million children of this world were born purely out of the purpose of procreation, and not out of lust? How many are pure and chaste? For whose sin do millions of sucklings die in the cradle? Purely from carnal urge do men and women unite. We are children born of that lust. Yet how proud we are! So, listen, religious leaders: There's no difference between 'illegitimate' and 'legitimate' children! And if the son of an unchaste mother is 'illegitimate,' so is the son of an unchaste father. [Translation: Sajed Kamal]