People are under an inescapable obligation to shape their activities and attitudes in consonance with those of others amidst whom they are placed. One is given parents to revere and obey; brothers and sisters to love and learn with; playmates to mix and move with; society to be changed by and to change. One’s affections and attachments are attracted by others, and one’s reactions are determined by others. The family is essential for the blossoming of the human personality – how can a helpless baby grow and learn, talk and develop without the home? The home needs the community around it to keep it safe and happy. We have to expand our knowledge, our emotions, our sympathies, our love. Expansion is life. Expansion is love. When the community or the safe-guarding, sustaining society is rendered weak, the family too tends to disintegrate and the individual suffers.

-Divine Discourse, 4th Feb 1973.