Religion and parenting – A Hindu perspective

[Talk at Conference organized by Hindu Council for Australia]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
abilities, use our new intelligence in our… So, I’m grateful to be here amongst all of you.
And as all of you, we are discussing on the topic of religion and parenting. So, I will speak broadly on this theme of from deserving to serving. So, how today we have an entitlement generation rising, where the children feel that they deserve everything, and when they don’t get it, they go wild.
So, many of you are from India, this idea of deserving is not just the children feel it, even the parents feel it, both ways. So, I will speak three main points. First is how parenting is a part of the ongoing spiritual evolution of the child.
Second is how the essential gift that the parent can give to the child is a strong will. And the last point will be how three principles for empowering a child to make good choices. One of the most prominent Indian epics is the Mahabharata.
So, I’m speaking the first point now, how parenting is a part of the ongoing spiritual evolution of the child. So, in the Mahabharata, there are two sets of children who grow up, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. And the Kauravas grow up to be villainous, the Pandavas grow up to be virtuous.
And in one sense, the Kauravas, in their growth, they have all the facilities, their head is Duryodhana, he grows up in royalty, his father is the caretaker king at that time. On the other hand, the Pandavas, for them, their father dies when they are still very small, and their mother is a single mother who has to take care of them. And yet, despite having all the advantages, the Kauravas, especially their head Duryodhana, grows up to be a vicious person.
So, what exactly went wrong? The broad Dharmic tradition explains that how we behave, ultimately parenting is about training our children to behave wonderfully so that they can become responsible, worthwhile human beings. So, how we behave is determined by five broad factors. So, I use a sentence to describe this, please understand and appreciate the world of God.
So, P, A, U, W and G. So, how do we behave? P, first factor is the past life karma. I have written a book on reincarnation and there I discuss elaborately about a phenomena called monozygotic twins. Normally, we think that each child has the genetic characteristics, which is true, but monozygotic twins are children who are identical, not just genetically similar, but identical.
And yet, when I was in London, I was speaking on this topic, and the audience were two identical twins. And they told me that since our childhood, we have been different. I am an introvert, he is an extrovert.
I like art, he likes music. Very different tastes. And we just could not figure out why.
The same parents, the same gene, the same upbringing. So, every child brings its past from the previous life. Now, all children cry.
But some children, when they cry, they bring the whole house down. This is the difference. Each child is different because every child is influenced from their previous lives.
The child is a soul, an atma. And each soul carries a baggage of good and bad from the previous lives. So, this is something which we cannot change.
So, I am going to talk about five factors over here. Please understand, appreciate the world of God. So, P is past life karma.
U is the understand, that is upbringing. That is where the parents can play the most fundamental and decisive role. We all get impelled by our past to behave in particular ways.
But during the upbringing of the child, the child learns a lot. And a child learns more by catching than by teaching. That means that what the parents tell the child to do, the child may or may not do.
But what the parents do, the child will do. So, children learn more by catching, they catch it, than by teaching. So, this is during the upbringing, the way the parents live, the way the parents conduct themselves, the way the parents deal with each other and with the child.
All this creates deep impressions on the child. And third is association. I will do the overview of the factors and then I will come back to the parental role.
Association, please understand, appreciate the world of God. So, appreciate, sorry, A is association. Children may be grown up in virtues families, but if they go into colleges and a whole world of impiety is open to them.
And in that association, they may get spoilt. Now, beyond these three, these three forces, we can say are pushers. They are not forces.
They push us to act in particular ways. But W, the world of God, W is willpower. Our past may push us, our past life karma, our upbringing, our association, all these may push us.
But we have the capacity to counter push. We are products of our past, but we are not prisoners of our past. So, willpower is where, despite being pushed to act in a particular way, we can choose to act differently.
And that is why I said the essential gift that, that is the second point I will be talking is, the essential gift that the parents can give is the strength of will. Now, the last factor is grace. Grace, the world of God, please understand, appreciate the world of God, G is grace.
But when grace of the divine enters into the picture, a dramatic change can take place. So, the past may be pushing us in a particular way. The past life karma, the upbringing, the association, it may be pushing us in a particular way.
And our capacity to push might be very weak. The will might be weak. But when grace comes in, the grace strengthens the will and weakens the past, everything that is there.
So, this is the broad dynamic is given the dharmic texts about how we behave, why we do what we do. So, Duryodhana, the Mahabharata describes, he came from a dark past. He had a demoniac background.
And during his upbringing, he had a very weak father, who was very attached to him and pampered him in every way. So, when we are attached to someone, we are more concerned about what they think of us, than of them. We are more concerned that this person think nicely about me, than what is good for that person.
And in that upbringing, so he got some negativity from the past. And his upbringing facilitated that negativity, only empowered it. And he got into bad association of people like Shakuni.
And he became a complete monster. In contrast, the Pandavas, they had a good past. Their upbringing was virtuous, they were born in the forest, they associated with the sages, and they learned to be gentle, culture.
And when they were living in the forest, they had, although they were born in royalty, royal dynasty, but somehow circumstantial, they were born in the forest. So, they didn’t have anyone to serve them. They had to take care of everything.
So, they developed that culture of serving. On the other hand, Duryodhana, he had the idea of deserving. I am the prince, I deserve everything.
And because of that, when anything he felt that he deserved, he did not get it. He became wild. The test of character is seen primarily, not in whether we get what we want.
Sometimes, strong character, you work very hard, you get what we want. That is good. But the real test of character is not seen in whether we get what we want.
But it is seen in how we react when we do not get what we want. When life does not go our way, how we react is the real test of our character. If children are spoiled, then when they do not get something, they throw a total tantrum.
And in some ways, the violence, the gun shooting unfortunately happened in Christchurch. I have been traveling in America for the last several years. America has constant fear in the schools of children, of gun shooters coming in.
So, ultimately, there could be many specific sociological causes. But today, with guns easily available, basically, the temper tantrums of a spoiled child take the form of violent gun shootings. So, our real character is seen in how we respond when we do not get what we want.
And unfortunately, Duryodhana, he never could learn this lesson. So, now, so these are the broad factors by which our behavior, any individual’s behavior is determined. Past life karma, upbringing, association, willpower and grace.
Now, for the parents, now, as was mentioned by several other members of different traditions, when we pray to God that we get a child who is virtuous, the idea is, that means, it is a soul who has come with good karma from the past. But we do not know. There is no meter or gauge by which we can see what kind of child is born.
All that we can focus on is the upbringing. And later on, we can monitor the association to some extent. So, this brings us to the second point, the essential gift that the parents can give is the gift of will.
Today’s education focuses primarily on giving skill, not will. We give skills, technical education, engineering, medicine, law. Skills help us to make a living.
But it is the will that helps us to make a life. Skill helps us to make a living, but will helps us to make a life. And what do we mean to give a strong will to a child? There is a difference between will and willfulness.
Willfulness means, I want this, I want this. I will bring the house down if I do not give it. That is not what we are talking about.
Will means strength of character. So, will is that I stick to my principles, whether life gives me what I want or life does not give me what I want. And this is where giving spiritual impressions to a child can strengthen their will.
What do we mean by spiritual impressions? In the dharmic traditions, there are various samskaras. Samskaras are subtle and sophisticated religious observances, which bring the consciousness of the child in contact with the divine. So, there may be a sacrifice where there is the chanting of the names of God, where there is sacred fire that is lit, where sanctified food is offered to the child.
Through all these, impressions are formed on the child. So, there are pure impressions, there are impure impressions. God is the supreme pure reality.
And to the extent the child comes in contact with God, the pure impressions get strengthened. And the impure impressions get weakened. So, to the extent the parents can themselves be spiritual and themselves inculcate spiritual impressions and then share those spiritual impressions with their children, to that extent, the children’s will will become empowered.
That they will become strong enough in their character to stay true to virtues, even amidst temptations, even amidst tribulations. And here, the idea of, I said, we’re talking about from serving, from deserving to serving. So, deserving means that children think that I want this toy, I want this, I want that, I want that.
And you must give it to me. The parents may think this is love. Yes, whatever I could not get, I’ll give it to my children.
And that is my love. Yes, that is love. But that is not the only way of expressing love.
One of the essential lessons that parents have to teach their children is to learn to accept no gracefully. Even if the children and their parents provide everything the child wants, but eventually the child is going to grow up and then life is going to say no at times. So, unless the parents model life for the children by helping them to say no gracefully.
And how do we do this? That is primarily by how the parents themselves can take no gracefully. When things go wrong in their own lives, how do the parents react? When life says no to them, if they get depressed, if they get angered, if they, in their own way, throw a tantrum, that’s what the children will learn. So, Dhritarashtra could never take the no.
Dhritarashtra had been born blind. He was the father of the Kauravas. And he could never take that, accept that I’m blind, that I can’t become a king because of my blindness.
And because he could not take that no, he projected that onto his son. And his son could never take no. And when he got a no from life, he became vicious, malicious, horrendous actions he did.
So, training children in the will is facilitated by giving spiritual impressions because that purifies. And that brings me to the last point that how can we equip them to have a strong will? I’ll talk about how can we empower them to choose wisely? I’ll talk of three principles over here. Enlightenment, engagement and encouragement.
Enlightenment means not some mystical state of seeing some light. It just means that we help children to see the choices, the consequences of their choices. Often, for us as parents or in that generation that we are parents, the certain choices, this will lead to this, this is terrible, this is good.
It’s very clear. But for our children at that age, it may not be at all clear. So, rather than giving rules, we need to give a multidimensional explanation of why the rules are there.
So, if we just give rules, the reaction, especially in today’s generation is, as soon as we tell, don’t do this, immediately says, why not? I will do it. So, telling don’t do it actually triggers a rebel within us. So, the Bhagavad Gita, which is a primary text in the Indian tradition, the Bhagavad Gita is not so much a book of commandments, as it is a book of choices and consequences.
You do this, this will happen. If you do this, this will happen. And now you choose what you want to do.
In fact, the Bhagavad Gita concludes, it’s spoken by God, but he concludes by asserting human independence and respecting human intelligence. In 18.63, Krishna says that, now you deliberate on what I have said and do as you desire. So, if parents treat children as intelligent human beings, according to their level, of course, and explain why they’re doing what they’re doing, explain the consequences of the choices, then that makes the children’s intelligence grow.
And that enables them to make good choices. That’s enlightenment. Second is engagement.
Engagement means that for children to make good choices. It’s like if you want a person to take a particular road, if you go to this road, it’s a dead end. You go to this road, you will get to your home.
Okay, I want to go along this road, but how do I go? Do I walk? Do I take a cycle? Do I take a car? Do I take a cab? So, there is some means needed to go along that path. So, engagement means that it is the responsibility of the parents to facilitate the children in making good choices. So, if we tell our children, don’t do this.
Say, don’t take drugs. Don’t associate with kids who take drugs. Now, okay, that’s fine, but what should I do? So, we need to create forums where children can engage constructively.
In fact, I was at a temple in America, and this is a common question which parents always ask, how do we engage our children? So, we want our children to come to the temple, but the children are neither interested in the religious ceremonies, nor are they interested in the religious discourses. So, in that temple, the leader came up with an idea. He said that we want to make our temple green.
We want to make it eco-friendly, everything. And now, the teenage kids, they learn about eco-friendliness in their schools, in their colleges, and just right now in America, big social gathering or you could say a social movement is arising, youth are protesting that the planet which we are being given is being destroyed. So, climate change has to be countered.
So, there is a lot of activism, the mood of activism is there. So, they entrusted to their children, the teenage children, teenager little older, the responsibility of making the temple green. And thereafter, every weekend, the children came, not so much to participate in the ceremonies or to hear the discourses, but to make sure the green policies were being implemented.
So, here, what was done is, create a sense of ownership. Unless there is no, if there is no involvement, then there is no commitment. We cannot force any commitment, but we get them involved, find out creative ways in which the children can be channeled in the right direction.
We can have dramas, song, music, dance, centered on spiritual themes by which those impressions can be incorporated in the children. That is engagement. And the third is encouragement.
Earlier, I talked about tough love, where the children need to be taught to accept no gracefully. But another equally important aspect of life is that failure is an event in a person’s life. Failure is not a person.
Today’s life is such that a student fails in an exam. I feel as if it is the end of the world for me. I was just a couple of months ago in IIT, India.
And there, IIT is the most prominent institute, Indian Institute of Technology in India and prominent professors, professor had come to meet me and he is saying that so many youth in IIT end up committing suicide. So, we were discussing what can be done to help them. So, we need to, while we all want our children to achieve wonderful things, we have to tell them, as was beautifully explained by Mark, that we have assigned worth and we have attained worth.
That we all have intrinsic worth, which is given to us by God. Even if we do not achieve anything in life, our self-worth is not determined by our net worth. Our self-worth is independent.
So, to the extent this is understood, that yes, if you did not succeed, it is not good, but that does not mean you are a bad person. A clear differentiation between what a child achieves and who a child is, has to be made. I will conclude with one anecdote and a lesson from that.
Once, there was a law case between a husband and a wife. And what was the case? They came to the judge and the father said, that I want my son to be an engineer. And the mother said, no, I want my son to be a doctor.
And then the judge said, why do you have to come to me for this? Just ask your son what he wants to do. He said, no, we cannot do that. He said, why not? He is not yet born.
So, sometimes the parents impose so much expectation on the child, even before the child is born, that then the child starts feeling that if I do not fulfil this expectation, then I have no worth. So, yes, we naturally have expectations. But our love should not be conditional to the fulfilment of expectations.
So, our love, we can appreciate our encouragement means, we appreciate our children for how they strive, not for what they achieve. Because achievement is not in our control. But how we strive is in our control.
So, if a child is striving nicely, and somehow success does not come. If we encourage and appreciate the child for striving, then the child will stay on the path of growth. If we appreciate the child only for achieving, then the child will think, if I do not achieve, then I have no worth.
And my parents will no longer love me. So, encouragement is what we provide so that the child can strive on. And if the child has strived, then appreciate that, even if the child achieves or does not achieve.
So, when we focus on encouraging the child based on their innate self-worth, and on their efforts to actualize their self-worth, then even if the child makes some wrong choices, they have confidence in their innate self-worth, they may take some wrong turns, but they will come back on the right track. Because they have that self-worth. And to the extent they have spiritual impressions, they have the impressions connected with the divine within them, those impressions will pull them back.
Purva bhyasena tenaiva hriyateya vashopisa. The Bhagavad Gita says that, by previous practice, one is pulled back as if an iron firing is pulled towards a magnet. So, similarly, by providing spiritual impressions, that can help the child to come back on the right track.
So, I will summarize. I spoke on the ethos of deserving to serving. And I spoke three points that first was, parenting is one part in a multi-life evolution of the spirit of the child.
And so, the factors that determine our behavior are past life karma, upbringing, association, willpower and grace. So, I talked primarily about how the upbringing can empower the will, can empower the will and provide access to the grace. So, the essential gift that the parents can give is not skill, but will.
And we give will in two ways. One is by helping children to take no gracefully. Not that we pamper them, but yes, if no comes, take them gracefully.
And how do they take that? By focusing on their intrinsic self-worth, based on their spirituality, based on their innate character. We appreciate our children, not for what they achieve, but for how they strive. And if you can provide them enlightenment, engagement and encouragement, then they will make wise choices and become the best that they can be.
Thank you very much.