Everyone must consider it their foremost duty today to revere one’s own mother as divine and serve her, regardless of country or circumstance. If you cannot respect and serve your mother who bore you for nine months, brought you into the world and reared you over the years, who else are you likely to respect? Lord Sri Rama Himself declared that one's mother and motherland are greater than even heaven. Maternal love is akin to that of the Creator who protects this infinite cosmos in countless ways. The Navaratri festival teaches this profound truth. One must remember that reverence to one's own mother is one's paramount duty. If one's mother is unhappy, all the expenditure one incurs and all the worship one offers in the name of Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati during the Navaratri festival will yield no fruit.

- Divine Discourse, Oct 14, 1988.