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May you two, waking up in your pleasant chamber,
both filled with laughter and cheer, and enjoying mightily, having good
sons, a good home, and good cattle, pass the shining mornings.
Atharva Veda 14.2.43. HV, P. 141

Monday
LESSON 148
What Is a Real Family?
How to strengthen family ties is a very important
question these days. It is said that Jawaharlal Nehru was instrumental
in breaking up the extended family structure in his attempt to
industrialize India. After that, once tightly-knit families really
suffered as age-old family ties became loosened. The wealth of extended
families dispersed in many directions as nuclear families formed and
money was unnecessarily spent to maintain the ever-increasing needs of
a multiplicity of households.
Let's explore what a family
actually is. People seem to have forgotten. In America before the First
World War there were wonderful, well-established and large joint
families, with twenty, thirty or more people all living as one unit,
often in one home. Everyone had chores. And they all knew their place
within the family structure. They loved and cared for each other, and
mother was always in the home. We may be a long time in rebuilding
family togetherness to the point where the extended family is back in
vogue, but meanwhile we are still faced with maintaining family unity.
Hindus around the world are working hard to rediscover their roots and
strengthen family values. Our staff of HINDUISM TODAY had many
inspiring interviews with bright young Asian Hindus in America who are
working in their communities to make a difference and reestablish the
old culture of caring for one another. We congratulate them and welcome
their efforts, for they are the leaders of tomorrow.
I tell
parents who seek my advice that one way to keep a family together is to
show all members that you want to be with them, that you need them in
your life. Not: "Get out of my life, you are bothering me. I have other
things to do. I have goals in life that don't include you." This
hurtful attitude is based on the belief that when children reach age
eighteen they should leave home and support themselves. In the West,
this pattern is the result of two world wars, when every able-bodied
young man left home to join the armed forces. This callousness on the
part of parents leads to alienation from their children, who then begin
leading independent lives. That leads to the first step in leaving
home: keeping secrets from the parents.
With each secret kept,
a small distance is created. A large distance is created when five or
ten secrets accumulate and deception becomes a habit. When too many
secrets mount up, parents and their children don't talk to each other
much anymore. Why do secrets create a distance? Because every secret
must be protected. This requires cleverness, sneaking around to keep
the matter hidden, even lying. Secrets give rise to angry outbursts to
keep others away, such as, "I'm insulted that you would even suspect me
of that!" Arguments erupt that go unresolved, and an impenetrable
barrier is established.
Mom and Dad are heard confiding to one
another, "They're so different now. I can't reach them anymore." Of
course, the children have been taught to be cautious, in a sense forced
into keeping secrets, lest unloving parents curse them or physically
punish them without mercy for transgressions large and small. Many are
afraid of the wrath of mothers and fathers who rule their families by
fear. In today's world it is so easy to leave home. It is so easy for
the family to break up. It's even expected. Husbands' and wives'
keeping secrets, similarly, creates a distance between them. The final
divorce decree started with the first secret.
In an ideal
family, children should be able to tell their mother and father
anything and everything. The parents should want to understand and
realize that if they don't understand but misunderstand, they
participate in the break-up of their own family. Of course, it might be
hard for them to deal with certain experiences their children are
having, but all they have to do is look back at their own life, actions
and private thoughts to know that their children are living out the
same fantasies. The children repeat the still-active karmas of their parents. Children are born into families with karmic
patterns that are compatible with their own. I can predict what young
people are going to do in their future, and the temptations that will
come up, if I know the karmic patterns of their parents. With
this knowledge, it is easy to guide them through life, helping them
avoid temptations and unwholesome experiences that their parents lived
through. All of these experiences are set into motion by the individual
himself, by his own past actions.
Tuesday
LESSON 149
The Magic Of Love
Every experience, no matter how difficult or
embarrassing, is a good experience, providing the lesson to be learned
is extracted from it. Experiences that are unresolved and repressed can
be very burdensome for the individual. Living Saiva Dharma makes us our
own psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor and problem-solver. This is
because one slowly becomes the watcher of his mind thinking, the
watcher of his emotions feeling, acting and reacting.
Holding the family together can be summed up in one word: love.
Love is understanding. Love is acceptance. Love is making somebody feel
good about his experience, whether the experience is a good one or not.
Love is giving the assurance that there is no need to keep secrets, no
matter what has happened. Love is wanting to be with members of the
family. A father who is eager to hold his family together rushes home
from work. He doesn't think to himself, "Why should I go home to all
their problems when I can continue working at the clinic for awhile
longer." Loving parents, father or mother, want to be with their
children, and they let them know this in so many ways. They face up to
problems with love, trust and understanding. They know that problems
are only problems because of lack of understanding. They also know,
through living Saiva Dharma, that love and trust bring understanding
and acceptance of the lessons of the experiences, which are natural
manifestations of individual birth karmas and collective family karmas. This approach keeps the family strong and cohesive. In a home where dharma is lived, no one has a private life. No one has a secret life.
When
harmony persists in the home, harmony permeates the community, and
harmony permeates the country. When love and trust prevail in the
family, love and trust extend to the local community, and the country
becomes stronger and more secure. Making strong distinctions between
good and bad does not help youths understand their desires and
temptations. The only path through their lives is one experience after
another. They evolve into better people through understanding their
experiences.
Children and young adults who have been holding
secrets and now feel that it is time to become close to their family
again should tell their parents they want to be completely open and
disclose what they have been hiding. Then give parents a few days to
adjust and prepare to listen. Once reconciliation takes place, hugging
and talking will begin again, and the warm, loving feeling of family
will take over the home. Something magical happens when secrets are
brought out in the open among loved ones. Many youths have told me that
when secrets were divulged, their parents were surprisingly
understanding. Secrets are psychic burdens, and releasing them, youths
tell me, gives a great sense of upliftment, like a balloon dropping its
counterweight and soaring skyward. They feel instantly closer to their
parents, free of guilt, happier, less stressful, no longer defensive
and more interested in helping others.
One of the biggest
areas of secrecy is sex. It is important that parents give their
children an education in sexual behavior early on. This will also bring
and keep the family togetherness. Many parents find it difficult to
talk about sex, pornography, drugs and the various other kinds of
temptations the world offers today. If this is the case in your home,
it is best to seek community or professional help. Not talking leaves
children unprepared. Parents force their children into secrecy by
showing that these are areas that cannot or will not be faced in the
light of day. All begin wishing that conditions will improve, but they
never do.
We can now see that the first secret is the crucial
issue, for it leads to many, many more, be it on the part of children
keeping secrets from their parents, wives from husbands, husbands from
wives, students from guru, and on and on. The solution is to follow the yamas and niyamas, the
dos and do nots of Hindu Dharma. These are the natural laws of Sanatana
Dharma. These are the human ethics that hold families together,
marriages together, communities together, countries together. These
eternal Vedic precepts are for everyone, no matter who they are.
Wednesday
LESSON 150
What Makes a House a Home?
What is it that makes a house a home? A home is a
place of companionship with people in it who love each other, who are
harmonious and closer inside with one another than they are outside
with associates in the workplace or with classmates at school. A home
is a place that's so magnetic that it's difficult to leave. In a home
there is love, kindness, sharing and appreciation, and the inhabitants
help one another. It's a place of selflessness and togetherness, where
everybody has time for everybody else. In a home, the guests are
treated like Deities or devas coming to the temple. That is the
spirit of hospitality in the Hindu framework. It is the same spirit of
sublime energy flowing to the guest that also flows within the
household. And a righteous household that worships every morning
together as one family is like a temple. That's a home, and everything
else is just a house or a hotel lobby.
If you were to look at
a harmonious home with your astral vision, you would see the three
primary colors -- pale pink, pale blue, pale yellow -- and white, all
intermingling in a big pranic force field. Moving over to
another house, you might see a congestion of various colors, with dark
and light shades and strange astral forms, and you would know that
house was not much different from a hotel lobby.
I was once
asked about the desperately poor, homeless families living on the
street in America and what can be done for them, when so many other
families have large, luxurious homes. I, too, have seen families on the
street. But if they live together, if they sleep together, if they talk
together, if they eat together, they are a family, even if they are
destitute. Such a family is at home wherever they are. You don't need a
roof to make a family. You don't need a roof to make a home. The truly
homeless are some of the rich people who build multi-million-dollar
houses and are too busy to really live in them. The truly homeless are
those who have turned their home into a hotel lobby. The husband works.
The wife works. The children are delinquent. There's no companionship.
They don't talk together every day. They don't eat together every day.
They rarely see each other. The truly homeless people are those with
babysitters, caretakers, gardeners and maids, but who don't spend
quality time with the family in their house. Babysitters often abuse
their children. Parents are unaware, too busy making money outside the
home that they don't live in. This is another way of looking at the
rich and the homeless. Who is to be pitied?
Control of the
computer and the Internet is also important to make a house into a
home. If the computer is on all the time, the house turns into an
office, even if everyone is at home. Many homes these days are just
offices. Human communication has stopped. The computer eats up the time
that one should be giving to others within the home. Using the computer
moderately gives us time for gentleness, play and communication, not
with a screen, but with a human being. And that is the vibration needed
in a home.
Thursday
LESSON 151
Discouraged Families
There are too many dysfunctional families in the
world today. What is a dysfunctional family? A dysfunctional family is
a discouraged family, a family that has no home. True, they may have a
million-dollar house, but it would take a lot of constant, magnetic
love and kinship to turn that house into a home. Many million-dollar
homes are just houses, totally impersonal.
The guests are not
God in those homes; guests are seen as business potentials and social
obligations. The father works late in his profession so he can avoid
his wife and family. When he comes home, he sits down in front of the
television while eating his dinner. The kids are running here and
there; the mother comes home tired from her equally demanding
profession and begins yelling at them. Verbal abuse becomes a way of
life. The youngsters come and go unchaperoned. Nobody knows what
anybody else is doing. Girls are getting pregnant out of wedlock. Boys
are swearing, getting involved in gangs and experimenting with drugs.
That is the hotel lobby home of a definitely dysfunctional family, a
discouraged family.
No wonder that in discouraged families
teens want to leave home as quickly as possible -- as soon they're able
to get a job and rent an apartment. That is not quality living, is it?
Sorry to say, but most dual-professionals' homes, where husband and
wife both have high-paying jobs, are more like a hotel lobby with a
snack bar than like a home with a hearth, which is home with a heart.
Think about your home. Is the guest God? Is your house a home? What
kind of astral vibration does it actually have? Be honest with
yourself. Evaluate!
The astral pranas or energies
radiating out from the hotel lobby kind of home make the occupants
frustrated people. They make people around them uncomfortable, because
they live in an uncomfortable place. Yes, the pranas that
emanate from an empty house make one an empty person. All Hindus in the
world should reverse this situation for a stable, well-adjusted
community for the new and coming generations of Hindus in the West, as
well as in the East. This is the next step which those of the diaspora
have to heartfully take. It is only intelligence that can reverse a
negative situation and turn it into a positive, encouraging situation.
It
is important for the mother to be mother, and for the father to allow
her to be mother, so that together they can nurture the astral
atmosphere within the house and make it vibrate with spiritual energies
into a real home. To make the house into a home is the next step. You
will know if it is a home when you want to hurry back to it. You won't
want to stay away too long, and you will find it difficult to leave.
That's because you enjoy the vibration that you have created from your
soul body. And your focus for whatever you are doing will be exquisite.
It won't get divided.
It is a slow process for a mother and a
father to turn a house into a home. They have to be spiritually present
in the home. The auras of the mother and father and each of the
children have to permeate the walls of the house. The Gods and guardian
devas and ancestors have to be worshiped and invoked in the home. That turns a house into a really pranically viable home, building up the vibration so that you never want to leave.
Friday
LESSON 152
What Is Real Prosperity?
A spiritual vibration in the home can be initiated
or renewed by having a priest come and perform a purification ceremony.
That makes the pranas flow correctly in the home, which when
carried out to the community make you a full person. Another key is to
have Monday evenings at home. Monday home evening is practiced by many
religions, including the Hindus. On Monday evening, Siva's day, the
family members get together, prepare a wonderful meal, play games
together and verbally appreciate one another's good qualities. It's an
evening when the television is not turned on. They don't solve any
problems on that day. They just love each other, and everybody has a
voice, from the littlest child to the oldest senior. It's a family
togetherness, one day a week when everyone will look forward to having
mom and dad at home. That doesn't mean it will be on Tuesday or any
other day if Monday is missed. Family home evening is always on Monday,
and everyone's life has to adjust to that.
Many families find
even this is impossible because of their careers. Nowadays people think
that they have to have two incomes, three incomes, to be comfortably
well off. Money is gained and lost, sometimes rather quickly. As
quickly gained, often as quickly lost. But what is wealth? Wealth is a
diamond with many facets. One facet of wealth is money, but it is not
the only one. A happy family that enjoys each other -- that is a great
wealth. Doing things together and enjoying doing things together is
another great wealth. Rushing home to be with one another -- if you can
create that in your family, you are wealthy. Wealth is growing your own
food, making your own furniture, sewing your own clothing, picking
oranges off the tree the family planted together several years ago.
Another great wealth is living within your income. Even
multi-millionaires are poor if they do not live within their income and
always worry about debts, payments and responsibilities. They often are
very lonely people, because in all their efforts to gain those
millions, they have had to sacrifice their family, their children and
their own happiness. Many content themselves with building big
multi-million dollar mansions -- but to benefit whom? A gardener? Maybe
a cook, a maid or two who get to live there all the time while the
owners are traveling around the world, coming home late and leaving
early. That's not wealth. That's also not wisdom. That's a good way to
die young.
To have a maid take care of the children while the
parents both work and come home late is not a substitute for a mother;
nor are grandparents, though they may be a better choice. A surrogate
mother cannot replace a real mother and a real father for children
growing up, because children model themselves more than you know upon
what they see adults do, what they hear adults say to each other, what
they feel adults are feeling. That shapes who they are and what they
are going to do in their future. There is no substitute for a real mom
and a real dad in a real home with a vibration of a family, the
vibration of loving and the vibration of sharing. A mother's place is
in the home
What is a mother? A mother is a person who loves
her children, who is calm, serene, doesn't become angry, doesn't become
frustrated with children, realizing that a child goes through many
stages of development. One must not expect a child to behave like an
adult or expect too much of a child too early. A mother knows of all
this intuitively; but for her intuitive mind to work, she has to be
free from the worries of the outside world, of bills and bill
collectors, of travel, of TV and various other concerns, so that she
can raise up the next generation strong enough to meet the challenges
of the impending new age of peace and prosperity for all mankind.
Now,
if mothers beat their children, the children will beat other kids, and
later on in life they will become warriors and fight all through life,
emotionally, mentally, because they're taught right in the home that
solutions are reached through violent means. We don't want that. That
won't bring in the New Age. That is bringing back the Old Age. Those
methods of raising children have to go. A mother must be a real mother.
For many, it's not a popular idea for a mother to stay at home. During
the Second World War in the United States, mothers left their homes and
never went back, because they were needed in airplane factories and
shipyards, as the men were all off to war. But before the Second World
War and before the First World War, mothers remained home. Juvenile
delinquency was not a phrase in anyone's vocabulary. If a teenager made
some mischief, the family was held responsible by the community. Such
things were regulated in those days, but went out of balance when
mother left home and never went back.
Saturday
LESSON 153
Mothers-In-Law
When devotees speak with me of their experiences
with family togetherness, the mother-in-law is a common concern.
Mothers-in-law on both sides are often even the cause of separation or
divorce. They often have the attitude, "This girl is not good enough
for my son," or "This boy is not good enough for my daughter." That
constant harassment -- emotional harassment, mental harassment and even
physical harassment -- can cause the couple to separate, just for their
own peace of mind. When we are asked to ascertain astrological
compatibility for marriage, we not only check the compatibility between
the boy and the girl, but also between the girl and the boy's mother.
It
is important to be aware that all mothers-in-law of the world -- and
every daughter may eventually be one -- have their own insecurities in
giving sons and daughters over to a spouse they don't know deeply.
Social security and pension plans are relatively new, and only exist in
certain parts of the world. In the absence of these, worries about the
future naturally arise. Every society has evolved solutions to the
in-law issue, mothers-in-law, fathers-in law, but in today's world it's
even more difficult. Young people need to be aware of their needs,
their feelings, their insecurities, and have compassion when behavioral
patterns that are the by-products of insecurity show themselves, such
as being overly dominant, proud, extremely critical and unrelenting. In
America there is a sad saying, "Old and gray and in the way." The
solution used all too often is to put bothersome elders away in nursing
homes, rest homes or "paradise retreats."
The major focus of
the problem is the authority of the mother-in-law and her occasional
abuses. But consider also that in modern cultures the authority of
elders is all too frequently usurped by both the son and the
daughter-in-law, who then wield the power and make life-and-death
decisions about their parents. The tables are turned. This causes an
even greater instability. One has to ask which is the preferable
culture -- to allow the elderly to remain in charge of their lives and
have a strong say and respect in the family or to deny their
contribution and condemn them to a life of helplessness and dependence,
which is what happens all too frequently in the West. Obviously, a
harmonious balance is needed.
First of all, I suggest that the
myth that mothers-in-law are unable to adjust or learn anything new
should be thrown out. Second, I hold the husband, the mother-in-law's
son, totally responsible for bringing about harmony in the home so that
his wife is happy and not at odds with his mother, and that his mother
does not make his wife miserable. As in all family conflicts, each
incident must be resolved before sleep. Issues or problems can be put
on an agenda, as described in our system of positive discipline, and
brought up in a calm manner at the daily family meeting, just as is
done nowadays by children in many school classrooms.
Anyone,
including mothers-in-law, can change if they want to. A problem mom is
a discouraged mom, just as a problem child is a discouraged child. A
young bride told me her mother-in-law was totally transformed when she
changed her attitude toward her, when she began to consider what it
would be like to be in her place and looked for ways to win her love
and trust. Without a single confrontation, a single harsh word, their
relationship improved and they actually began enjoying each other and
working together with enthusiasm.
Sunday
LESSON 154
Striving for Teamwork
The mother-in-law has much to offer. A strong,
kindly mother-in-law will see that divorce does not happen for her son
by helping to hold the family together. A strong, loving mother-in-law
will see that an untrained wife becomes trained in various household
skills and the human arts of nurturing and education. A strong,
understanding mother-in-law will care for the children and give
occasional rest and freedom to the busy young homemaker. The
mother-in-law is a precious artifact. Whatever her qualities are,
likeable or unlikeable, they are also the qualities of the son, since
she raised him. She is a library of useful knowledge for the young
bride. If the young homemaker takes the attitude that she is in school
and the mother-in-law is her teacher, and adopts that relationship,
then it will be a positive learning experience for the daughter-in-law,
and she will become a better, more accomplished, more refined person as
positive qualities awaken in her. The mother-in law teaches the ins and
outs of the whole family, and if there are dozens of members of the
extended family, there is a lot to share and know. She should listen
carefully.
Many families are not patient and persistent enough
to bring about harmony in the home. Often they resort to splitting
apart. When the mother-in-law living with her son and daughter-in-law
is not kindly, loving or understanding, one common solution that works
when the going gets tough for the bride is for the son to get an
apartment for himself and his wife next door to his mother and father's
home, or at least not too far away. After the first baby is born,
mom-in-law may soften.
Another solution is a condominium with
members of the extended family living in separate apartments in the
same building. This happens in many parts of the world where ancestral
compounds provide closeness, but also separateness. Within this
independence enjoyed by each nuclear family, there is yet a valuable
dependence on the extended family as a support in marriage, crises,
births and deaths. Here, without too strict a rein, the elderly mother
may reign supreme. Honor her, respect her when she visits and realize
that each in turn may be a mother-in-law or father-in-law one day. Thus
we set a new karmic pattern in families where Eastern values
and those of the West merge for a happy elderly experience among Hindus
in today's world. With this in mind, shall our motto now be "Old and
gray and here to stay"?
Still, we must admit that to move across town to avoid the mother-in-law is to cause new karmas
to be worked out in a future birth. To conquer the home situation in
love and trust leads us to deepen our religious commitments through sadhana, to quell the flames of fight within us. When this is done, a better person emerges. The family dharma is a very important part of Hinduism today. We must reaffirm that we are born into a family to merge our prarabdha karmas with those of others and endeavor to work them out with all family members.
It
is best to take a positive attitude. Mothers-in-law are not going to go
away. They have always been with us; they will always be with us. Many,
if not most, are not going to adjust to being retrained. Most will have
a hard time accepting suggestions or hearing about a better way of
doing things. They are who they are. If the wife receives pleasure from
her husband, simultaneously she can bless his mother for bringing him
into a physical body. Let's be kindly. Let's be tolerant. Let's be
accepting. Let's be nice to the aged. Let's work out issues at the
daily family meeting as they come up. If all else fails and the
situation becomes unbearable, let's get an apartment a few minutes
away, and treat Mom as an honored guest when she comes to visit, which
will probably be twice a day.
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