How can we ensure that our children follow our culture?

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How can we ensure that our children when they go into teenage, they still stay connected with Krishna? There was an American author who said, when I was 15, my father was a fool.
Now I’m 25 and I’m amazed how much the old guy has learned in 10 years. So, the teenage is the time when the children are discovering their identity. So, before the teenage, they’re identified primarily as this person’s son or this person’s daughter.
Their identity is very much locked to their parents identity. When they go into adults, at that time, they will have their career, they will have their job, they’ll have a position, so they’ll have their own identity. But in the teenage, they are too old to be satisfied with their parents identity, connection with the parent, and they’re too young to have found their own identity.
So, it’s a very turbulent phase. And at that time, it is even if somebody’s not necessarily practicing spirituality or religion, still the turbulence comes up. So, what we can do broadly speaking is that one soul can influence another soul only in three ways.
As I said, in the childhood, there is that talk about love that guards and the love that guides. So, in the childhood, love that guards, we protect our children, keep them in a protected environment. But as they grow up, we can’t keep them in a protected environment all the time.
So, we can guide them in broadly three ways. One soul can influence the other soul only in three ways. Provide knowledge, provide inspiration, and provide facility.
You could put this as three is enlightenment, encouragement, and engagement. Enlightenment means, if you do this, this will happen. If you do this, this will happen.
Don’t just give rules. This is a lecture of Prabhupada where he is talking to devotees and he says, if this devotee is going to go to colleges and present Krishna consciousness. Prabhupada says, the worst thing that you can do in college programs is present Krishna consciousness as a set of rules.
He said that the worst thing, youth are never interested in rules. He says that I was at an interfaith conference and there was a Christian, he was joking. He said, we did a survey among youth, random youth.
What is their conception of a priest? So, he says, a priest is someone who is constantly worried that someone somewhere is having some fun. So, their conception is that priests are meant to spoil all our fun. So, we present too many rules.
Do this, don’t do this, do this, do this, don’t do this. It just becomes too restrictive and repressive for them. There is a big difference between most of us who came to Krishna consciousness by our choice in our adulthood and our children who are more or less born in Krishna consciousness or grow up in Krishna consciousness.
For most of us, we might have had some culture before, but the Krishna conscious principles and practices are much stricter than the broad pious culture. So, for us, first came the philosophy. Oh, I am not the body, I am the soul.
And when the philosophy was understood, then after that, all the rules and regulations started making sense. And then we chose to follow them. But for what happens for our children is, first, the rules and regulations come.
Do this, don’t do this. And somehow, we have our schools where we tell some Krishna stories and we memorize some shlokas. But I have seen that I was in America and there is a devotee, the father is a very good preacher, the mother is like a counselor for the congregation.
And the son was talking with me and the son said that, is there any evidence that God exists? Not that he doubted, but he said, I have never seen any evidence, any convincing evidence. And then he was a skeptic. So, we had some discussions.
He said, the standard design argument, it doesn’t make sense to me. So, we had some discussions. The point was that he had never had any forum where he could have the intellectual pathway to Krishna consciousness.
How it intellectually fits in place, how it makes sense. That’s why enlightenment. That’s the point I’m making.
We have to not just give rules, but tell, why are we doing this? And what is the harm of not? Why should we not do this? Why should we do this? So, that kind of rational spirituality, not just cultural spirituality, that is very important to present at the right time. So, and the teenage is not necessarily the right time, but it is the beginning of the right time. So, first is enlightenment, give knowledge of what is like, this is the path which will take you here, this is the path will take you here.
And the second is engagement. Engagement means that kids like to hang out with kids of their own age. And they need to be presented bhakti, presented engagements in bhakti in a way that feels comfortable for them.
If you ask them to come to the temple and attend classes for adults, it’s not going to work. So, many, most, almost all kids like kirtans, like to come for kirtans and participate in kirtans. And there was one temple in America I had gone and they said that they’re trying to get their kids to come, teenage and little older than teenage kids.
Most of them are not ready to come. And then they decided that we want to make our temple green. And they called the kids and said, can you become in charge of making the temple green? So, then the kids started coming to the Sunday program, not to attend a Sunday class, but to make sure that everything is green.
So, many times, especially this generation, there is a desire to be some kind of an activist, to do something tangible, not just worship. So, engagement means we have to find out creatively how best that we can connect what they are doing with Krishna, how we can engage their energy in Krishna’s service. That has to be individually seen according to each person’s situation.
Now, Prabhupada gives a very innovative explanation of this Prabhupada says that this means it is the responsibility of the spiritual master to find ways and means by which the disciples can fix the mind on Krishna. And as Prabhupada says, this whole Krishna consciousness movement is practically invented by me. Prabhupada at one time he said that I have not changed one word, I have just given what my spiritual master has given.
But Prabhupada here says that the whole idea of Rath Yatra, dancing on the streets in western countries, is Prabhupada thought about. That’s the way the devotees could fix their mind on Krishna. So, we have to sometimes stretch our brain a little bit to find out ways and means by which we can, I mean, they can be engaged in a forum that they feel comfortable.
And third is encouragement. Encouragement means that often, say, we tend to catch our children doing wrong instead of catching them doing right. Even, why are you not doing this? Why are you not doing this? Why are you not doing this? And even if they do right.
So, I was in Dubai and the devotee and the children were talking with me. So, this devotee’s daughter was saying that my parents are never satisfied with me. So, I said, what happened? He said that I started chanting four rounds.
I told my mother I chanted four rounds. Yes. So, when are you starting 16 now? So, instead of appreciating me chanting four, he said, when are you starting 16? I felt so discouraged by that.
So, at whatever level they are practicing, appreciate that. It’s very difficult. And many devotees have seen that if the parents stay, maintain a nice relationship, even if the children don’t practice bhakti, once they grow through that, go through adolescence, once they start settling down in life, then they start realizing the value of bhakti.
So, even if they go away temporarily, don’t get too worried about it. They will go, but they will come back. They have got the bhakti impressions.
Just don’t make it like an ego issue or a personal prestige issue. Oh, my child, how can my child not be a devotee? I am a devotee. My child should be a devotee.
Don’t see it as a personal failure. It is just that every soul has his or her own journey to go through and they will come at their place. So, our children should never feel that our love for them is conditional to their practice in bhakti.
Whether they practice bhakti or not, our love for them should be there. There are love and there are expectations. So, every parent will have expectations for their children.
Natural, that’s natural. But the love should not be conditional to the expectation. If you do this, that’s wonderful.
But even if you don’t do this, it’s still love. So, when they see it that way, they won’t feel pressured to practice it, but rather they will choose to practice it. Over a period of time, that will happen.