​Why have I got an autistic child?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Sometimes the children are born autistic And this seems Statistics are saying this is going to increase So why do such things happen? There are Two different Issues here First is, when it comes to the Why question We don’t have ultimate answers No one has Let me complete my point What I am saying I say ultimate answers Ultimate definitive answers So basically We need to adopt Some world view Which enables us to Move on in life So what are the world views available to us? Broadly speaking There are three One is that everything happens by chance Some people are lucky, some people are unlucky So I just happened to get a Bad lot Now this is actually a very Heartless And disempowering way of looking at the world Anything can happen anytime And I can be victim Anytime It’s very difficult to Go on in life Encouraged with this world view That life is just a lottery game Some of us get a good lottery, some of us get bad That’s one way of looking at it Second way of looking at it is that God is in control and God decides everything So God has arranged for Some parents to get good children God has arranged for some people to get bad children This is actually Even more difficult to accept Because you know Why is God so arbitrary? Why would God Why would God Give me such a raw deal And give someone else such a good deal And then if I am told on top Worship such a God Now if God is giving me such a It becomes very difficult to worship such a God Now Most people have this conception of Religion And they feel atheism is better Although chance is no good explanation At least that is better than a capricious God But there is a third explanation A third explanation is that You know we are all On an onward spiritual evolution And Whatever happens to us If we see it If we see it Now if we see it from This life’s perspective It is Very difficult But if we see this life as an onward journey Then What happens to us in this life It is not Defining of all of reality So You know you are at a particular stage In your spiritual evolution Your son Is at another stage in his spiritual evolution And You two have been brought together For helping each other grow So if you think that If we think that This This life is all that there is Then we may feel that Oh Some people are physically handicapped Some people are blind Some people are autistic Then from this life’s perspective We see life just seems so Terribly unfair And And we see not just unfair But it seems to be Incurably unfair We can’t do anything about it It becomes very difficult to deal with it But if I see that life is an onward journey That The soul who has been entrusted to you as your son His future Is not just What he is going to experience in this life And your future is not just What you have To do for him as a mother in this life Both of you are on a journey And In this journey If you let The world’s definition of success And the world’s Definition of happiness Which is largely in materialistic terms If you let that Determine Your definition of happiness and success That means if you define your son only in terms If you think that your success Is in terms of making your son Very well educated, having a degree from prestigious Institution And building a bright career in terms of What the world defines as a bright career Then it may be difficult It may not happen But if you see that Success is not necessarily defined only by these things These things are also one parameter of success But success Is much bigger If you see that Actually all of us We all want to love And be loved There is a reciprocation of love We want wealth, we want fame, we want position Ultimately because we hope That these will make us more lovable If I look very good, then somebody will love me If I have a good degree, same way All these things we get so that We can love and be loved That’s what we long for ultimately Everything else we want, we want it so that We can get at loving and being loved Now if you see from that perspective So The relationships become more and more Fulfilling when they are more and more Selfless Isn’t it? If somebody loves us Even if We are not able to do anything for them at that particular time That shows their selflessness in love And selfless love is actually A sign of a very evolved person And we all Will ourselves get more and more Selflessness So if we see, we grow in love When we love those who are around us With a spiritual understanding of life Then we grow in our love for God also And then gradually We have Horizontal relationship with others in this world We have a vertical relationship With God And both these relationships can go Symbiotically The more I love God The more I become peaceful The more I become internally joyful The more I become internally strong Then I can Offer more love and stability in my horizontal relationships And if I have good horizontal relationships Then I also have security I feel loved, I feel safe Then I can love God also more So both of these are meant to be symbiotic And life is a journey Multi-lifetime journey Where we all move towards More and more selfless love So if you see that You have an opportunity Through the son that you’ve got To become more selfless In your love And that selfless love In itself Will give you deep fulfillment It may not be the kind of Fulfillment that the world Will applaud But within your heart You will be contented And within your heart God is watching And He will reward you Because he knows what you are going through So we see God as A strength giver For dealing with whatever life brings our way As I said we are in a spiritual evolution And because we are In different stages At different stages in our life different things may happen Which May be difficult to cope with But if we have The connection with God If we have the shelter of God That enables us to cope With these things better Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita 18.58 That if you become conscious of Him You will pass over all obstacles By my grace He doesn’t say that you will not have obstacles You will pass over obstacles By becoming conscious of Him That means that When we understand that Yes I have a big problem right now But I understand God is bigger I understand that God is bigger And God can If He wants He can remove the problem Or if He wants me to grow He will give me the strength to Grow so that I deal with the problem You may know that well known story Of how there was a Person going through a forest And he once saw a bird Trying to break through A baby bird trying to break through a Shell And then the baby was struggling The bird was struggling One part of the wing came out and the shell snapped back again And then he could see that he was Screaming in pain Oh this baby is going through so much trouble The bird is going through so much trouble So he broke the shell But now I have released the bird But the bird had come out But Because it had come out without going through the struggle Of breaking the shell Its body was not adequately developed And then It didn’t have the strength to fly And it was hopping around a little bit And suddenly a predator swooped down And it couldn’t fly While other birds flew away So sometimes the difficulties That we go through They are vital for our growth And if you think of growth only In terms of this lifetime What is the point of it all You see that you are onward journey Which is Extending to eternity So what you go through in this life Or this situation It is not going to define you Permanently It is something which will help you to grow And you can In this situation grow far far more Than what other mothers can grow So they may have More Joys or pleasures According to this life’s definition Material definitions of Success and happiness But far greater Rewards in terms of your own Spiritual growth awaits you And When We connect With Krishna When we become devoted to Krishna It is that We get Inner strength To cope with life’s problems So Life determines Our problems How we determine That size That means if I have a problem And say If I have to carry a 10 kg luggage And if I carry a 10 kg luggage It is difficult but I can carry it But if I take 10 kg I put 30 kg more 40 kg will practically be immovable for me So The problem that we have That is A certain amount of problem But when we Start resenting that problem We start Feeling negatively because of that problem That resentment Of the problem Hurts more than the problem And thus the problem is a 10 kg burden But the resentment of the problem Is a 30 kg burden So now when we turn towards God As A means for Redirecting Our thoughts Ultimately We are always thinking of some things And quite often The very things that we think about They agitate us They torment us And then we become disempowered So When we become When we try to practice bhakti Krishna becomes a very Pacifying Satisfying Empowering object of thought Now if you try to Chant the mantras We had some kirtan right at the beginning Chant the mantras, pray Understand the bhagavata’s wisdom You will find that you will get peace You will get strength And Then you will be able to cope With the problems that are there In your life better And So both in terms of Like in science there is theory and there is experiment So in terms of spirituality There is philosophy and there is Practices So in terms of philosophy The situation that we are going through in life It will make better sense If you have a Spiritual world view rather than simply a Atheistic world view Or a nominally religious world view Where you think god is The focus is not on spiritual evolution The focus is on god being controller So what is the third world view is that God is the supreme But we are on a spiritual evolution And what happens to us is For our spiritual evolution onwards So From a philosophical perspective It’s not that we get complete answers But Relatively speaking we can make better sense of life In terms of its purpose Not in terms of what is happening right now But in terms of its ultimate purpose We can make better sense of life And in terms of practice You will find that you will be able to Have better strength To deal with The Challenges that you are facing If you Have spiritual practices to boost you Having said all this I am not going through What you are going through So definitely I know it’s Very difficult And it is You who have to tread the path Nobody else can tread the path But I can surely offer My prayers For you and your son’s well being Thank you