Q: Guruji, is there any significance or purpose of giving birth to a child, or life to a soul for a woman except for my personal feelings of becoming a mother or that of giving my parents the joy of becoming grandparents?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: I think your question has no relevance. If you want to be a mother, then that is your choice. Now instead of being a mother, if you want to be a godmother for many children, then that too is your choice. Motherliness is inevitable, and everybody has it. The same holds for fatherhood as well. Whether you become a father to a child or not, you have that element, that fatherliness already present inside you. It is present in your DNA, and that is how it is for everyone.
Whether you are single or married, you have the DNAs of both mother and father present in you. So it is natural that you will unconditionally help and support someone. This is something which you cannot avoid, and there is no need to avoid it also. In Karnataka, the saints used to be called 'Appa' which means 'Father’.
Even in the church, the priests are all celibate; they are unmarried bachelors, yet they are referred to as ‘Father’, is it not so? The nuns are called ‘Mother’, though they have never given birth to a child. Do you know, Mahatma Gandhi was addressed as ‘Bapu’ by everyone in our country, which also means ‘Father’! So this is something that is inherent in our DNA. You do not need to necessarily be a biological parent to be a parent to someone. And even if you are a biological parent, you cannot restrict your parenthood to just those two, three or four children. Your parenthood should expand beyond that. Even God is also called 'Parampita' (Supreme Father). The Mother Divine is called as Jagat Janani (meaning one who has given birth to the entire creation), or Jaganmata (mother of the entire creation). So God is both our father and our mother. It is because divinity is present in every one of us, that the qualities of motherliness and fatherliness are also present within us.