Is parents wanting their children to become Krishna conscious a sign of dependence, independence or interdependence?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, if parents want their kids to be Krishna conscious, where does this fall in the hierarchy of dependence, independence, interdependence? Generally, dependence, if you consider in every relationship, there is some contribution and there is some expectation.
And if only contribution is given or expected, but there is no expectation that will be fulfilled, then that relationship tends to become strained. So, in some relationships, it’s just by nature that the contribution is more and the expectation at least at that phase is not much. Say, when the parents have a newborn child, for the child, child doesn’t do much for the parents.
It’s the parents who do everything for the child. So, we all have relationships in which we contribute more and we can’t expect much from them. And then we all have relationships where we contribute little but we expect a lot or sometimes there is a lot of reciprocation even if we don’t pay much attention or there is not much expectation.
So, the other person does a lot for us. So, when we talk about dependence, what it means is that in a particular relationship the expectation of reciprocation is so high that it not being fulfilled completely disorients us. It depresses us.
It can even devastate us. So, especially in a relationship where we are guides for someone, there is definitely a responsibility to inspire and mold others behavior in particular ways. So, parents just have that responsibility of shaping their children.
At the same time, it’s important to recognize that they are also souls with their free will. So, every soul is at a particular stage in its spiritual evolution. And one thing which we sometimes don’t recognize is that some people may just need time to evolve spiritually.
Just not at that level right now. It may be that some souls have practiced in this previous life, some souls may not have practiced in this previous life, whatever. So, there is a natural expectation of reciprocation in every relationship.
But, if that expectation is not fulfilled, how are we able to negotiate that reality? That means that if I see my child is not becoming spiritual, that’s a disappointment. But if we see it as a personal failure, that means it’s good to think that maybe I could have done something better by which the child would have been more inspired. But if that becomes something which we constantly beat ourselves up with, then often we try to mold the child to become spiritual not because being spiritual is good for that child, but because we want to fight off that sense of failure we have.
And when that happens, then the child also becomes very resentful. And we are forced to do this. So, if we karmanye vadhika raste ma phaleshu gadachan, as we say, that if we don’t be attached to the results means that we do our part and then we don’t put an overbearing pressure on the child.
So, if we put an overbearing pressure, then that will go to the level of dependence. But if we help the child to grow, the child feels like choked. If I don’t do this, my parents won’t love me at all, my parents won’t care for me at all.
And the child should not feel that my parents love for me is conditional to my practicing bhakti. Because if they feel like that then somehow they will start resenting bhakti. There was one teenage girl, she met me and she said that little old English, she said that her mother became a devotee when she was like 3 or 4. And she said after that I started growing a feeling that whenever my mother, I wanted my time, I wanted my mother’s time, she had to go to the temple for some program and this and that.
I grew a feeling that Krishna, that I had to compete with Krishna to get my mother’s love. And that actually created like, she started developing resentment not only towards her mother but even towards Krishna. So her mother was very happy if she would go to the temple.
If not, her mother would be so cross with her. She started feeling very negative about that. Naturally, we will, because bhakti is important for us, then if they are practicing bhakti, we will be naturally happier.
No doubt. But we need to give them the assurance that we love and care for them irrespective of whether they practice bhakti or not. And over a period of time, so now they are dependent in terms of, they are financially dependent on us, socially dependent on us.
But they will grow towards becoming independent that way. And if by their independent choice in their teenage or in their youth, then they take up bhakti. Then that relationship will go towards the interdependent.
So there is dependence from their side on us but there should not be dependence on our side on them. That means, not just the expectation but in terms of the self-definition that if my child doesn’t become a devotee then I am a failure. It’s an important service, no doubt, but parenting is also a service.
Sometimes we may do a book distribution and no books are distributed. Sometimes we do a preaching program and hardly anyone comes. That’s a setback.
That’s a failure. But still, it’s a service. Sometimes services work well sometimes they don’t work well.
Still we move on in our life.