Parents Beware!

Seeing this Rally and listening to the Marching Song, and witnessing the other items you presented, I can now say that what happened this morning is not the rise of the sun, but, it is in fact the rise of ananda (divine bliss). People are talking about the glory of India’s past; they go on praising endlessly about the reign of Rama, or in recent times of Ashoka, or Krishnadevaraya. They try in vain to assess the present in terms of the past; they close their eyes to the dismal present and dream about the past. If children are put into the right path, and guided along the path that you are now treading, Ramarajyam can again be established in this land. Every child of this land has four debts to discharge—reverence to mother, respect to the father, obedience to the teacher, and adoration to God. Besides these, every child must learn to live in peace and love with other children and other families. The idea that one can live for oneself and that one need not worry about the wants and weaknesses of others has to be removed quite early in life, by the Balvikas gurus. Encourage the child to cultivate the pleasure of ‘togetherness.’ They will enjoy it, and you will be sowing the seeds of social peace. The seeds will grow into universal peace and universal bliss.

Share With Others The Good Things You Are Given

Life is like a train journey. You, young children, have a long way to go; but, the elders have to alight from the train pretty soon. You must learn to make your journey comfortable and happy. Do not carry heavy unwanted luggage with you. That will make the journey miserable. Do not indulge in faultfinding and in picking quarrels with others. Don’t desire to have the best things for yourselves only. Share with others around you the good things you are given. Anger, hatred, envy, jealousy, these are the heavy luggage I asked you to avoid taking with you in the journey.

I must give the elders, the parents who are here in large numbers some advice. Do not set bad examples for these children to follow. If you are truthful, just, be calm under provocation and full of love in all your dealings with others, these children too will grow up in sathya (truth), dharma (righteousness), shanti (peace), and prema (love). If you tell your son, when you are actually at home, to speak through the telephone, when someone is calling, to reply that father is not at home, you are sowing a poisonous seed, which will become a huge tree.

Parents Should Be Good Examples To Children

Let me tell you a story to illustrate the danger of such small beginnings. A mother carried her son on her shoulder when she went to the market. A woman with a basket of fruits passed by her, the child lifted a banana from that basket and started eating it. The mother noticed it, and when she was told that he had cleverly lifted it from the basket of a passing fruit seller, she complimented the son on its smartness. This made the child indulge in petty thieving and picking pockets, as it grew into a boy and in actual housebreaking and dacoity. Once during a dacoity, he committed even murder, and when he was caught and jailed, he expressed a wish to see his mother before being hanged. The wailing weeping desperate mother was brought before him. She was sobbing at her son’s fate. The son asked her to come closer to him; suddenly he tried to strangle her, and the guards separated them. The son said, "She deserves the punishment; for, it was she who brought me to this doom. Had she reprimanded me when I stole a banana when I was a child of two years instead of complimenting me, I would not have fallen into this evil way."

Parents set bad examples by uttering falsehood, scandalizing others, gambling, drinking, behaving violently, inflicting injury, becoming addicted to nightclubs, pictures and drinking parties, quarrelling at home after arriving home past midnight. How can children used to such low sights and sounds learn to become bright fresh fragrant flowers of the Sanatana garden of India?

Many such parents do not allow their children to join the Balvikas classes, or to attend bhajans and satsangs. If the children clamour at home that they may be permitted, they shout at them, and call them mad. They say that religion and God are only for idlers or old senile people, and that the path will lead them to sanyasa (mendicancy), which is a calamity to be avoided! They reverse the very values of life. Parents must correct themselves before they try to correct their children.

Children! Learn the best teaching of all faiths, put them into practice. Chant the name of God with your whole being. Imbibe the noble qualities that those names represent. Purify yourselves and purify the world. That is my blessing.

Dharmakshethra, 6-1-1975