Gau Mata in words: the truth of dharma and of life

Gau Mata's suffering today is not the path dharma laid down, nor the voice of the Vedas. This is not the life the shastras taught us to live. This is the pain of a memory erased, a memory in which service was held to be sadhana and compassion was held to be worship. When the rishis called the cow Mother, it was not for the sake of a claim, but for the sake of a duty. To call her Mother meant this: with her to the end, her protection in every condition. We too called her Mother, with full faith and full pride. In temples, from stages, on posters and in slogans. But when that same Mother stood hungry at the roadside, when her eyes searched for support, our reverence was busy elsewhere. We took up dharma in the saying of it, not in the living of it. And this is the most uncomfortable truth: we called her Mother again and again, yet the sadhana of becoming a son and sitting at his mother's feet to the very end slipped away from us. The question today is not whether the cow is a mother. The question is whether we are still sons worthy of that mother. Because in a society where the mother is worshipped in words and neglected in life, the problem is not the cow's. The problem there is the feeling dying inside us.