Parenthood and the Spiritual Path - Swami Rama

If there is ever any real profound and peaceful "revolution" in the world, it will take place within the family. When the human being fully understands life, he will not create revolution on the streets, damaging and destroying things in the external world. The real revolution will begin from the home.

How do we create a good home? How do we have healthy children? How do we create that kind of discipline that is healthy for children? Once we know this we can change the whole world: We can take another step in the development of civilization. We have done enough research on mind, matter, and energy. If we decide today that we really want a good and healthy society and we decide we want to change our society, we can change the entire society in thirty or forty years. But to do that, we will have to change ourselves and our habits, so that we have healthy children, and so that the children learn from the very beginning to love and share. It is possible to achieve this.

All over the world man has been very selfish and cruel, and it’s a pity that man has not given full opportunity and rights to woman. Woman is the creator of our society and all over the world that you see around you, she’s the first architect of culture. When she became pregnant, she wanted a shelter and a home. A woman is definitely superior to man, but I am not talking about those women who are irresponsible or selfish. I am talking about those women who are women, who understand. Women have been exploited for many things. But if there is anything that can change the course of humanity, it is woman. The day that woman understands who she is, and the immense power that she has, she will transform the world in a short time.

Woman is being exploited in the world, but she should be respected, revered, and loved. I think the time has come when we are becoming aware of this. Man and woman are equal partners.

Whether you are a man or a woman, if you want to develop spiritually, you should never be afraid of responsibility. Modern people are afraid of the word "responsibility," but responsibility is not something bad. Responsibility is learning to give only the best that you have. The word actually means the ability to respond. In responding you give of yourself. A teacher or parent should always give the best that he has. It is something you should learn to do naturally as a child; you should not learn to be afraid of giving.

By nature, children are very selfish; they do not have an awareness of others’ existence or needs, but if children are taught to give from their early childhood, then giving becomes a part of their life and they learn to take joy in giving. Then, a child’s growth is not stunted. The mother is the first teacher of the child, and if she does not impart the right knowledge to the child, then the child does not really grow or mature well. If the mother does not know how to give lovingly and freely to the child, then the child becomes selfish; that child does not know how to live.

Those who are irresponsible are actually very selfish. Selfish people become even more irresponsible. But the more selfless you become, the more you will find that you have a kind of freedom that cannot be imagined by your mere mind. In the modern world, you learn to live only for yourself, and you learn to use the things that you have or want to acquire for yourself. This is one concept approach to living. But if you understand that you are meant for others, and you want to serve others and live for others, that is an entirely different way of living. The first concept contracts your personality; the other concept expands your personality—that is the difference!

When you become selfish, you create boundaries around yourself and live in a self-created imaginary fortress. When you become selfless, then you expand your personality, because you don’t think of yourself alone. Many people do not communicate well with others or trust others because they were not taught to give. That is why a great poet said, "Give me only the first seven years of my life, and the rest you can take." The best and most important period of life is childhood, and if the right seeds are sown in childhood, then one truly grows and develops.

Certainly everyone grows up, but often you grow up in a wild and selfish way. If you are trained correctly, then you will learn to give. One of the great educators of the world said, "A child is trained twenty-two years before he is born. "This means that the child is really educated when the mother is trained.

When a mother has a child, she should be attentive and careful to impart the subtle lessons that help the child grow. The reason why there is so much disharmony in our society is that children are not properly brought up or taught to give. You are taught only to judge things and to accept others’ values—to think that one thing is good and another is bad.

In the modern world, the main responsibilities of a human being are not usually imparted in childhood. That is why you remain irresponsible and selfish throughout life. The role of the parent or teacher is to teach you to be unselfish. Your first teacher was not the person who taught you philosophy or yoga; it was actually your mother. If the mother was a bad teacher, then there is always a cross to bear in life or an obstacle to overcome in your growth: Then throughout your life you don’t trust anyone.

In childhood you learn through imitation and example; you don’t learn through books, mere words or through culture or philosophy. You learn by seeing what others do. When a mother and father are good examples for the child, then that child is very happy and secure and he or she grows up without fears or selfishness. That is why modern society is still in a primitive state: It has not yet attained the height of a culture where you truly learn to give to your children. So these days, although human beings are growing, it happens in a wild and selfish way.

When you give, you have to sacrifice. That kind of sacrifice is higher and more difficult than the mere idea of giving. Those who want to have children and those who are already parents should learn to given up their selfishness and give their children the kind of knowledge that is helpful and healthy for them, so that they can, in turn, impart the same knowledge to their own children.

When the time is right, then the next step comes: An environmental education where you learn from others’ behavioral patterns and from how others around you behave and feel. You develop empathy. Then, if someone cries, your heart also cries. You could be cruel and hate that person if you have learned that, but to be like that is not really a natural phenomenon; it is not the natural response. If the child grows up in an atmosphere that is not healthy, how do you expect that child to become a good citizen, and to help others?

Historically, man is not the first teacher of the child; the mother is the first teacher. The father’s influence comes second. If the early training is not adequate, later on, the person’s whole problem comes to the attention of the spiritual teacher, the acharya. He has to deal with all the student’s negative thoughts and habit patterns. If the mother has completed her responsibilities, and the father has completed his duties, then helping the student becomes the acharya’s job, and it is not difficult. But if the parents have not done their work, it becomes very hard for the student to change and develop. The teacher tells you to come to him, but you go in the opposite direction because you have become very resistant, stubborn, and negative. You don’t accept things as they are. You accept things only if they are as you want them to be. That is a very serious problem in your learning. To learn to "let go" is an important part of childhood training. Those who are fortunate have received that training. A child does not merely need simple or tender care, but the parent should also carefully observe how the child’s personality is growing and developing.

Responsibility really lies with women. Woman is the true builder of the world, not man. Man has always been irresponsible, but now in our modern world, woman has also become irresponsible, so there is chaos in society.

In the modern world, we have many means and opportunities, but we do not know how to use those means. We have explored many avenues and alternatives in the external world, but we do not know how to use those opportunities well or why to use them. This is a very serious problem in modern life. As a child, your mother and father should teach you to walk and move in a straight, comfortable, and balanced way. They should teach you to speak in a balanced and pleasant way, and to interact pleasantly with others. And when you have learned those basic things, then the acharya or teacher explains to you the "why" of life; he answers the questions, why are we alive and how should we live?

Years ago, when I went to the Soviet Union, I asked the Russians some philosophical questions: "Why do you eat? Why do you aspire to have good food and a good living?" But they couldn’t really give me a good philosophical answer. There should be a purpose in your life; the purpose of a good life is so that you can conveniently attain your natural needs, and then you can more easily explore the higher stages of life. If you have many obstacles and difficulties, it is hard to explore the higher steps. All the things in the external world—making a good income, having a good home, and owning things that are helpful to you—are all intended to be means. But if they are not understood and used as means, then they can create obstacles. The same things that can become means to a higher goal, can also create obstacles for you. In the family, a good husband or wife who helps you and shares with you is a means for your comfortable living, but this relationship can also create serious problems for you. Your problem is not with the means of the world, it is with the way you use them.

To help a child grow, a parent should have inner strength, and that inner strength lies in compassion. No one can love anyone in the way that I was loved by my Master. A thousand fathers and a hundred million mothers couldn’t have given me that kind of love, and because of that I never missed my parents. Even today I don’t miss my parents, because of the way I was looked after and the love I was given.

You can tell whether someone is phoney or genuine when they say they love you. Most often, you do not know what you really mean by the word, "love." Real love is when you do things for someone and do not expect anything in return—that is the nature of genuine love. But how do we learn such love? We mostly learn through the examples of others’ behavior and not what they say. For example, there was once a father who visited prostitutes, and unfortunately he and his son visited the same prostitute, but neither of them knew that the other went. One day they met there. The father was shocked to see his son, and he became angry and said, "What are you doing here?" The son became arrogant and said, "The same thing that you are doing here!" And the father replied, Do as I say, don’t do what I do."

This is the problem: You expect your children or students to learn what you say, but they actually learn what you do. You always want the best for your children; you don’t want them to pick-up your bad habits. You know what your bad habits are: What is bad in you is what is unhealthy in you. You may not want to admit this to yourself, but you know it. Your bad habits are your arrogance, your egotism or your selfishness—but actually, all these traits can be summed up in one word—selfishness.

You should certainly know when to give and how to give. But first, you should create the zeal and desire to learn to give. To instill that, the parent should have compassion. Compassion means that you love your children, and you want your children to grow, learn, understand, and practice. That attitude should exist in the parent.

Sometimes wisdom flows through you. When you have compassion, all good things will come through you. If you don’t have compassion and if you are selfish, then only the negative will come out of you. When you are learning to teach your children, your first responsibility is to develop compassion for them. You can do wonders with the help of compassion, but if compassion is not there, then imparting knowledge is like planting seeds in a barren field in which nothing will grow. Thus, the first stage of a parent’s growth is to develop compassion.

This is why yoga science teaches ahimsa, which means non-violence. If you want to practice non-violence, you must first know what it really means. Love comes before truth; satya (or truth) is developed later on, but first, you have to understand ahimsa. You cannot practice truth if you do not understand ahimsa. In developing love or ahimsa, the field of your practice is where you live—with your family, friends, colleagues or your neighbors.

Your goal is to practice truth and love and learn to speak the truth. Your parents told you to speak the truth and to love others, but their teachings don’t explain how to do this: You need to have an example of love and truth. All the great bibles and scriptures of all of the cultures in the world say you should love others and speak the truth. But how do we love others?

Yoga science teaches that if you want to develop love, then you should first do no violence. Whether you are learning to love your husband, wife, children or friends, the first thing is to do no violence in action, speech or mind. If you have refrained from hurting, injuring or killing, then you will naturally come to love. By observing this principle of ahimsa, you are loving and practicing truth.

As a parent, this means not to allow any selfish feeling in your heart toward your children, expecting that your child will give you something. You have to prepare your children for your teaching. Preparing children to learn is more important than imparting the teaching. When you learn how to prepare your children, you teach them basic things. Their foundation is very important; if a solid foundation is not there, then a castle cannot be built. If a castle is built on sand without the right foundation, it cannot stand. The foundation may seem primary, but it is very important, and the first cornerstone of that foundation is your compassion.

There is one single characteristic that has existed in all the great people of the different traditions in the world, and that is selflessness. Christ, the Buddha, and Krishna all attained the highest wisdom, but they remained themselves. Your outer individual shell will remain exactly the same, but your inner light will expand and expand to universal Consciousness. That individual flame of love will become a forest conflagration and will burn up the precarious weed of your selfishness. Selfishness is not needed; it will get in your way. Truth will automatically come to you if you learn how to love. Don’t approach love in a merely external or superficial way; offering your body to somebody is not love, it is merely lust. I am talking of that kind of love in which you are completely selfless. In such love, you want to give and you feel great joy in giving, and you feel that this is something great for you to do as a human being. You need to learn to give and truly love, and compassion is the first step.

While you are learning to teach your children, you should also have another goal: You should develop an enthusiasm about learning from your children too—children are also teachers for their parents. You can learn many things from your children; often the parent doesn’t have the intense desire to learn that a child has. You should learn to keep that zeal alive. Never close the gates of learning; they should remain open. There is no end to knowledge; don’t allow yourself to think that you know everything. Always remember that you still have more to learn, because there is no end to your learning. This knowledge is Ananta, limitless. With such a love, you teach your children and attend to each child personally.

Set a time for your practices, because that is how you develop habit patterns and teach your children to do so. If you are used to eating lunch at one o’clock, you will feel hungry at one o’clock, no matter where you are, even without a clock. If you have developed the habit of waking up at five o’clock in the morning, your eyes will suddenly open at five o’clock, even if you are tired. It is helpful to form a habit of doing your exercises, breathing practices, eating your meals, and going to bed at exactly the same time every day. These are four important functions that you should regulate. You will enjoy life better if you do this.

Actually, all four of your appetites should be controlled. When you learn to regulate all your drives, that is real human development. When you are married, you know you have a spouse and do not go with another partner. This is part of what is meant by regulation of the sexual urge. You should also regulate the temporal aspect of your behavior—the times in which you do things. Don’t just decide to have sex the moment that you come home—learn to prepare yourselves for the experience. Sometimes a woman does not feel prepared for what her husband wants. Sexual desire does not originate in the body; it originates in the mind, and is then expressed through the body. Sexual desire has nothing to do with virility or strength; it has something to do with emotions and the way you channel and express your emotions. It is better to have an understanding of your partner and his or her feelings so that you are not disappointed in your expectations of the relationship.

You should also regulate your food intake and teach your children to do so. If you eat regularly at the same time, it helps the system to function. Your sleep schedule should also be regulated. Yogis reduce the amount of sleep to two and a half hours, and finally to no sleep. They call it “sleepless sleep,” and they go to a state of deep meditation instead of sleep. When meditation becomes your whole life then this change naturally occurs.

In a healthy lifestyle, you should have time for exercise, breathing practices, and meditation. You should also understand that you were born and anything that is born is sure to die. Brooding on death and creating fear is not a helpful thing to do. Sooner or later everything changes and everything dies. You will lose only your body, which dies and decays. Why should you be afraid? Again and again you need to remind your mind of this, because you have not been taught to do so; you have been taught to look after yourself fearfully. People said, “Don’t go here, you will fall. Don’t go there, you will have an accident. Don’t go here, someone will kill you.” All those kinds of negative suggestions are stored in your mind, and thus, you become afraid. Most of the fears in your mind are imaginary. You analyze many things in your life, but because of your fears, you never analyze your own fears.

When you go to a teacher, you want to get rid of your fears. You explain them to him, and he gives you strength and inspires you. But the teacher can only inspire you. It is your responsibility to see that your children improve, progress, and remain fearless and happy. Even if you live for only five days, if you live those days cheerfully and fearlessly, they are wonderful. If you live miserably for five hundred years, then those five hundred years are of no use. If you want to live for a long time, learn to be cheerful. But aspiring to live for a long time without doing something creative or useful in life is of no use. Don’t give up and say, "O Lord, take me away." You only do that when you feel good for nothing. You have worth and value; you can do wonders for others. The more you act selflessly, the more inner strength you will develop. When you have inner strength, you will become free of physical pain. The body may experience pain, but you will not feel it. Then, the time will come when you will not be affected when the garment of the body is snatched from you.

Slowly you should learn to be an "insider." An "insider" is aware and attentive to the Reality within. An "outsider" is only aware of the external reality. Don’t remain an outsider throughout your entire life. Make gradual progress: At first, you may only be an insider twenty percent of the time and eighty percent an outsider. Slowly, when you go within, you will grow to become fifty percent an insider and fifty percent an outsider. This is a wonderful combination, because you are half there and half here. Before the light of the body extinguishes, learn to focus all your awareness within. Then, you merely leave your shell here. In this way, you will make gradual progress.

I encourage parents to practice ahimsa. This requires strength; love is inner strength. Love alone is the only real strength. The sages live in the forest and they have no weapons to protect them, but they remain safe, because they practice non-violence to such a degree that even the most violent animal becomes calm in their presence.

I had that experience once with a swami near Rishikesh, where there is a temple called Chandakali, in a deep forest. There was a swami who lived there in a thatched hut, and the whole forest around there was full of tigers.

One evening I went to see him at eleven o’clock, and he said, "How did you come here all alone? It is very dangerous to travel at this hour of the night. You should go back now!"

I exclaimed, "You just said it is dangerous to travel now, but you are sending me back into danger again?"

So he half-heartedly allowed me to remain and sit down. He was baking a large bread in a dhooni, a kind of fire, and the loaf was rising and swelling. I asked, "What is this huge bread? It is big enough to feed twenty people! It is huge!".

He said quietly, "My kids eat a lot."

I was surprised and asked him where his kids were and if he was married, and he answered, "Yes," but there was no cottage around.

Suddenly I heard a roar: Tigers! He said to me, "One of my kids has come now," and the tiger came and sat down near there. I didn’t see the tigers but my whole body suddenly shivered and shook, and I thought, "I am finished now!" The swami said to me, "Be quiet, please," and he broke the bread in half and asked the tiger, "What happened to the other kid?" And then the tiger and its mate came and sat down near him and looked at him, and the swami gave them the two huge pieces of bread. Then he clapped his hands and said, "Go now," and the tigers left. He said, "I tamed them, you know. I live here alone; sometimes I felt lonely so I started talking to the animals. It is possible to do that." I have even known of people who tamed wild elephants with love.

There is a way to tell how much love you have for others: Sit down quietly and calmly examine your fears, and see how much fear you have. The more fear you have, then the less love you have. If you have less fear, then you will have more love. If you have no fear, you are able to give complete love. Your fear will tell you how much love you are capable of. Learn to live in love and not in fear. Always be cheerful, compassionate, and giving. Let Providence work and trust that you will receive what you need.

There is nothing that is really yours. You become attached to things and people, and then you think that they are yours, but they never belong to you. Things are meant for you to use, but they are not yours, so don’t allow yourself to become attached to them. Things will always disappoint you. Unauthorized ownership leads to misery. Enjoy all the things of the world as long as you have them, but don’t become sad the moment they are gone. This should be your attitude in daily life.

If you always remember two things you’ll never be sorry. These two things are death and God. Death will help you realize that you eventually have to leave here, that this world is only a platform, and you are merely on a journey. Remembering God will help you realize that you are strong; He is within you. Wherever you are walking, you are walking with Him. God is with you, so you are strong. Death is there to remind you that this physical self will finally go away, and not to become attached to the world. You have only to complete your duties and your responsibilities.

You often wonder how you know what your duties are. Whatever you do and wherever you are, pay attention to the things that are occurring in the present—that is your duty! Whatever comes in front of you is your duty. Understanding this is important to both students and to parents.

© `The Art of Joyful Living’ by Swami Rama, published (1998) by The Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the USA, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, USA.

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