Open the Door... Let the Breeze in!

Children

Children need not be brought up; they just grow up.
The greatest gift by the parents to the children is that, in the name of bringing them up, they neither change the direction of their children's growth nor hinder the progress of their growth.

Instead of claiming it as a right: "This is my child," and making the child as a possession, value the child as a life which has made you father/mother. Then the child will be seen as God.

We should realize that mere giving food, clothes and protection; scolding them sometimes and cuddling them at other times, is not 'bringing up.'

Punishing a child is not 100 % wrong; pampering a child is also not 100 % correct.

Spoiling a child in the name of bringing her/him up or failing to bring up the child to avoid spoiling the child - both are 100 % wrong.

First of all, start finding out the deficiencies in your behavioral patterns and correct them as early as possible; secondly, find out the wrongs being done by average parents in the name of bringing up the children. You grow to make your children grow. Both are 100 % correct.

Children are gods, since the divine qualities of innocent smile and clarity in the eyes are always present in children.

Children do not act from their heads.

Children always act from their hearts.

Since children act (till they are seven) from their hearts, their power of grasping will be total. Whatever they have seen or known, whether right or wrong, will get registered in them as it is. They themselves will become those imprints. The experiences one gets in his tender ages determine the basic qualities of a person.

Some people ask me whether bad people become so due to being brought up badly in their childhood. It cannot be said that there is always some thing wrong in the methods of upbringing. The mistake lies always in the lack of maturity in those who bring up the child.

Even though there may be differences in the maturity levels of those who bring up the children, we cannot find fault with the methods as they do have the desire, sincerity, love and affection to see that their children grow up well.

A man who is fully mature cannot bring up a child in a wrong way. In the same way, a parent, without adequate amount of maturity and with average feelings of hatred, irritation, envy, grief etc., however much they read or listen about child-rearing methods, cannot bring up the child properly.

Children do not observe our words or our expectations, since these are related to the mind. Children wholly absorb only our facial expressions and our feelings, because these are related to the heart.

Mostly, people live their lives with a masked face. They have to hide their real feelings, desires and anger for various reasons and act as per the demands of the circumstances. As they have practiced living this sort of double lives, they almost forget how to live with their heart and soul and with real feelings.
Like cotton, the children's minds absorb the colors we exhibit and give. This is an intricate truth. If a child grows always seeing quarrelling parents, it will get ingrained in the child's mind that quarrelling is a part of life. The seed of confusion and fear is sown in its tender mind. Such children grow up to become angry men and rebels.
If a child grows up seeing their parents live without any quarrels, loving, caring for each other, it will then get implanted in such a child's mind that love, helping others, etc. are all part of life, a way of life.

For a mind which has been planted with the feelings of love, culture and similar good things, aggression, anger, fight, harming others, etc. will appear as poison.

The child growing under the care of the first type of parents, to become a 'good', 'loving', and 'cultured' child, lots of efforts are required.

However, the child who grows under the care of the second type of parents need not take any special efforts at all to become a good, loving and cultured adult. These things will come naturally for that child.

Poor children! Children are gods; nobody refutes it. But until the child becomes a grown up, you, the mother or the father, is their Guru and God.

The child sees God and the world only through us. Our small mistakes and our immaturity will all add up to poisoning the child's tender mind. They will not even be aware that they are absorbing poison (for their qualities of mind, and in regard to money). They entirely believe us, so try to feed them with nectar.

Our mature mind is that nectar. In addition to accumulating wealth, we also acquire good culture. Besides gathering name and fame. let's acquire clarity of mind. Instead of learning methods of bringing up children, strive to learn the methods of growing up ourselves, which is of paramount importance.

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Learn to learn

Every sudden turning point of our life is waiting with lessons we have to necessarily learn :
Every incident in our life: Veda.
Every person we come across: Teacher.
Every moment of our life: Meditation.
The main reason for all our troubles is only our failure to learn whatever we had to learn when required.
First, I will tell you a story. There was a religious preacher by name Abichithananda. He was very famous for his spiritual lectures. Thousands of people would listen to his lectures with rapt attention when he talked about Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita. That preacher, who was above sixty years of age, got a doubt suddenly one day.

His doubt was: 'Have I completed the task for which I have taken birth in this world?'

Always contemplating on that, he roamed about here and there without peace of mind. He consulted right from the doctors to great enlightened Masters in search of a solution. It was of no use.

In that same place there was a Christian Father, whom many people approached with their problems and received solutions. Some people told the preacher. 'If you approach him, you may get an answer to your question.'

Thinking 'What is the Father going to say? He will give me a Bible and ask me to read. Anyway, let me go and see him,' he started out. After listening silently to Abichithananda, the Father took out a book.
The Father said to him: 'Oh friend! There are answers in this book for whatever questions you ask. If you read this, you will realize yourself.' He gave him the book. The book he gave was not the Bible. It was Bhagavad Gita.
Abichithananda was disappointed. He asked, 'For the last 30 years, my job was to deliver lectures on Bhagavad-Gita. You are asking me to read Bhagavad Gita myself."
Abichithananda was shocked when the Father said, 'It is all right that you read Bhagavad Gita for thirty years. But you have read it only for others. Now read it for your own sake. You will get answers to your questions.'
We also suffer on various occasions the same faults that Abichithananda did. We do not observe either from the incidents that happen in our lives or when we read good books, as to what they tell us. Whatever we have grasped from the good books or from our life experiences, we use them only to brag about ourselves, and we forget about trying to realize our true selves.
If some one tells us about charity, instead of thinking what we have donated ourselves, we start lamenting 'Oh, my neighbor is a great miser. When approached for Murugan temple Kumbabhishekam,( a Vedic ritual) he gave just ten rupees and left it at that.'
In this world, however small a matter may be, learn from whatever it teaches. In this way, we can make ourselves grow and progress in life. Each and every incident in life contains great secrets. This truth will be known to us only when we begin respecting other people and life fully.
Learning to learn is only learning to respect other people and also life. After we have learned fully to respect, we will find that the teacher, the Vedas and meditation; all these exist around us. Learn to learn the secrets of life. Begin to respect the world and the relationships. Truths will begin to be revealed.

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Belief

Have belief in whatever work you start to do; life will help that belief.
'My name is xy/xx.

I am a man, woman. My family, my job is thus. My life's aim is this. I am physically, mentally all right.'

Based on such beliefs man is able to live with a clear state of mind.

It is only the confusion in these beliefs which spoil the mind of man and make him become mad.

If such beliefs disappear from the mind and life leaves the body simultaneously, then the man dies.

The quality of our life depends upon the quality of our beliefs.

For some of us, we want everything to happen immediately. Such things can happen only in the story of Aladdin and the wonderful lamp. But life is not a story, nor is it a cinema. To achieve success in life, we have to wait.

So much revolution has occurred in agriculture. Still, we have to wait for about three months for the paddy to grow and be ready for harvest. Likewise, we will have to wait for about nine months and a few days for a child to grow and be born after it is formed in the mother's womb.

Ernest Hemingway was a Nobel Laureate. He won the Nobel Prize for his book, "The Old Man and the Sea.' The old man in this novel is belief personified. The basis of belief is patience. If a man has no patience, first of all, his belief is put to test.

Belief is life. Have belief. Believe in yourself. In whatever you believe, you become that. There are lives which die due to ordinary bacteria. There are also people who have bullets in their chests and still carry on their lives! The only difference existing between life and death is belief.

A small story: A deep ocean. There was a mountain in its middle. In a crevice on the top of the mountain a bird had built a nest and there were a few hatchlings in that nest. One morning the bird had flown out of the nest to fetch food for its young ones, but it did not return for a long time.

The young birds became very hungry. There was hot sun on one side and there were huge waves rising below from the sea.

'I am going to jump down below,' said one hatchling. 'If you jump, you are sure to die by drowning in the sea,' said the other young bird.

After hesitating for a while, the first bird gained some courage and simply jumped down into the sea water below. Only after jumping, did it come to know that it is impossible for it to get drowned in the sea (because of its very light weight).

It was nicely floating on the surface of the water and picked up some small fish and ate them. On seeing this, the other hatchlings also jumped out and fell into the sea. They came to know that they could only float on the surface of water and could never get drowned.

In this story, if only the first hatchling had not had the belief, then that one as well as others in that nest would have died due to hunger. It is only belief which made them survive.

There is no harm if belief is born out of knowledge. But if belief is born out of heart, then it is rewarded immediately. Mere knowledge questions every thing; it won't believe anything. There is no harm in questioning. But life should not be with questions alone.

Every man sees other men die. Still he carries on his life as though death will never happen to him. Even though this is a wrong belief this belief only remains as a driving force for a man to carry on with his life.

Why does a man patiently wait for a long time after throwing away his fishing hook in a big lake? Who will go near the lakeside if disbelief comes to him that he can't catch any fish with his fishing equipment? The basic stepping stones for success are: waiting for something to happen with due belief; planning, working hard, wisely, etc.

Man does not live simply by breathing air: he lives because he breathes belief also. If the air we breathe is polluted, deterioration of our health is for sure. Likewise, if our belief is polluted, deterioration of our life is also for sure.

It is only one's wrong belief which hurts him, causing an inferiority complex by thinking 'I am bad.' It is also one's wrong belief which causes superiority complex by thinking 'I am big.'

One's belief is the very basis and an axle for the functioning of his behavioral nature and mental set up. If there happens to be a defect in this axle of belief, then the movement of the wheel of life gets affected and the man begins to struggle.

The functioning of his mind and the revealing of his nature, which are formed entirely due to the pollution of the mind for reasons of: believing the imaginary as real, false as truth, wrong as right; all these depend upon the extent to which the belief is polluted.

Only depending on these, it will be decided whether the movement of the wheel of life is one of enthusiasm or one full of inward grief.

If we recognize the wrongs and understand them correctly, all pollution surrounding the belief will simply vanish. Solutions to life's problems can be obtained.