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Disputes, worldly associations and quarrels should
be avoided. Not even spiritual disputations should be indulged in,
whether good or bad. Jealousy, slander, pomp, passion, envy, love,
anger, fear and misery should all disappear gradually and entirely.
Devakalottara Agama, Jnana Pada, 77-78. RM, P. 116

Monday
LESSON 183
The Bane Of Battering
The whole world is reevaluating how we treat women,
children, the aged and infirm. Ways of behaving toward our fellow human
beings that were normal and acceptable a hundred years ago are no
longer acceptable. We now comprehend, as never before, the tragedy of a
battered wife or an abused infant. Shamefully, we do not always live up
to the Hindu ideal in these areas.
What is that ideal? It is
this: Never injure others. Hindu children are always treated with great
respect and awe, for one does not always know who they are. They may be
incarnations of a grandmother, grandfather, aunt or uncle, dearly
beloved mother, sister, brother, respected father, a yogi or rishi
returned to flesh to help mankind spiritually. We must ask, "Who are
these souls? What is their destiny in this life? How can I help?"
Parents love their children, or at least they should, and the principle of ahimsa,
nonviolence and nonhurtfulness -- physically, mentally or emotionally
-- does apply in the parent-child relationship, as well as in the
husband-wife relationship. Children must be nurtured prenatally without
being hurt in the process. Children must be allowed to develop
physically, emotionally and mentally without being hurt in the process.
We know they are sometimes mischievous and can get on your nerves, but
the religious parents who are avowed to ahimsa are in truth
more mature than their children and are able to handle situations as
they come up without recourse to pinching, hitting or verbal abuse.
Only in an ahimsa home can we bring children from one stage of
physical, emotional, mental growth to another and still nurture
spiritual qualities.
To hurt a child in any way is to drive
that child into fear and cause the development of anger and resentment
at an early age. Parents are supposed to lift their offspring into the
higher nature, of love, forgiveness, friendliness and security, not to
drive them into the lower nature, of hate, mistrust, resentment,
offishness and insecurity. Obedience through fear is not a desirable
obedience.
Psychologically, parents breed guilt by telling
their children they sacrificed everything for them, gave them so much,
saying, "Look what we are getting in return. You are worthless and
ungrateful." Guilty people are not creative, often not reasonable and
are lacking willpower, for their inspiration has been destroyed. Their
self-image is at the bottom of the bottom, like rust on the soul. "I'm
nobody, I'm nothing. She is right. I don't appreciate anything, I'm
worthless." These are the thoughts of those who live in this state of
mind. True, this is the Kali Yuga in which mothers give birth and then
destroy their young. They do it through beating them when they are
young and later through defamation of character through cutting insults
to keep them "in their place."
Conformity through threats does
not build a loving family or a strong society. To bribe children into
submission with sweets or promises that are never meant to be fulfilled
is to engender in them an eventual mistrust of their parents and foster
rebelliousness coupled with selfish expectations about life. To anger a
child at an early age is to place him on the path of retribution toward
others later in life. To strike or pinch a child may seem expedient in
the confusion of the moment. It may provide a short-term solution. But
never forget the long-term karmic price that must be paid. The
"I own you, you owe me" attitude is no longer acceptable, and is being
replaced by "I love you, you love me," in the homes of righteous Hindu
families who realize that the hurtful methods do not bring positive
results.
Tuesday
LESSON 184
The Sad Truth Of Hurtfulness
I have been asked, "Should parents never spank a
child?" Of course, one should never spank children, ever. Those who are
spanked are taught to later punish their children, and this is a
vicious cycle. Have you ever seen an animal in its natural habitat
abuse its offspring? Does a lion cause blood to flow from its cub, a
bird brutally peck its own chick, a cow trample its calf, a whale beach
a disobedient calf? How about a dolphin, a dog, a butterfly, a cat? It
is only humans who become angered by and hurtfully, sometimes lethally,
aggressive toward their offspring.
The wife-husband relationship is where it all begins. The mother and father are karmically responsible for the tenor of society that follows them. An ahimsa couple produces the protectors of the race. Himsa,
hurtful, couples produce the destroyers of the race. They are a shame
upon humanity. It's as simple as that. It's so crucial that it needs to
be said more than once. "Himsa, hurtful, couples produce the destroyers of the race. They are a shame upon humanity."
A
five-foot-ten-inch adult beating on a tiny child -- what cowardliness.
A muscular man slapping a woman who cannot fight back. What
cowardliness! Yet another kind of cowardliness belongs to those who
stand by, doing nothing to stop known instances of harm and injury in
their community. Such crimes, even if the law does not punish, earn a
lifetime of imprisonment in the criminal's karma, because they
always know that they watched or knew and said nothing. This sin earns
lifetime imprisonment in their own mind. Beating a child destroys his
or her faith. It destroys faith in humanity and therefore in religion
and in God. If their father and mother beat them, whom are they going
to trust throughout their whole life? Child beating is very
destructive.
Innocent children who see their father beating
their mother or their mother spitefully scratching their father's body
after she emotionally shattered his manhood by provocative
insinuations, threats and tongue lashing have at those very moments
been given permission to do the same. Of course, we can excuse all of
this as being simply karma -- the karma of the parents as taught by their parents and the karma of the children born into the family who abuses them. But the divine law of karma cannot
be used as permission or an opportunity to be hurtful. Simply speaking,
if hurtfulness has been done to you, this does not give you permission
to perform the same act upon another. It is dharma that controls karma. It
is not the other way around. In Hinduism, the parents are to be the
spiritual leaders of their children, not the mental, emotional and
physical abusers of their children.
Those sensitive children
who see their mother and father working out their differences in mature
discussion or in the shrine room through prayer and meditation are at
that moment given permission to do the same in their own life when they
are older. They become the elite of society, the pillars of strength to
the community during times of stress and hardship. These children, when
older, will surely uphold the principles of dharma and will not succumb to the temptations of the lower mind.
Wednesday
LESSON 185
Instilling No Fear
There is no greater good than a child. Children are
entrusted to their parents to be loved, guided and protected, for they
are the future of the future. However, children can be a challenge to
raise up into good citizenship. There are many positive ways to guide
them, such as hugging, kindness, time spent explaining, giving wise
direction and setting the example of what you want them to become. Most
children were adults not so many years ago, in previous births. The
mind they worked to develop through the great school of experience is
still there, as are the results of their accomplishments and failures.
They have been reborn to continue to know, to understand and to improve
themselves and the community they are born into. Parents can help or
inhibit this process of evolution. They have a choice.
There are six chakras, or centers of consciousness, above the muladhara chakra, which is the center of memory, at the base of the spine. Above the muladhara lies the chakra of reason. Above that is willpower. There are seven chakras below the muladhara,
the first being fear, below it anger and below that jealousy. The
choice of each individual parent is to discipline the child to advance
him or her upward into reason, willpower, profound understanding and
divine love, or downward into fear, anger, distrust, jealousy and
selfishness -- personal preservation without regard for the welfare of
others.
Children have an abundance of energy, and sometimes it
can make them rather wild, and this can be extreme if they are
consuming too much sugar. How should this be controlled by the parents?
When children run around excitedly, refer to their energy as Siva's prana within
them. Congratulate them each time they exercise control over it, but
don't punish them when they don't. Instead, explain that it is
important that they learn to control and use their energies in positive
ways. Have them sit with you and breathe deeply. Teach them to feel
energy. Go into the shrine room and sit with them until their pranas become
quiet, and then help them observe the difference. To hit them or to
yell at them when they are rowdy is only sending more aggravated prana into them from you. Another technique is to withdraw your prana from them and tell them you are retiring to another room until they calm down.
Beating,
spanking, pinching, slapping children and inflicting upon their astral
bodies the vibration of angry words are all sinfully destructive to
their spiritual unfoldment and their future. Parents who thus force
their child to fear and hate them have lost their chance to make him or
her a better person by talking, because they have closed the child's
ears. Those who beat or pinch or hurt or slap or whip their children
are the enemies to religion, because they are pushing the next
generation into lower consciousness. Is that religious society? No!
Such behavior is not even common in the animal kingdom. It's below the
animal kingdom. But that is what we face in the world today. That helps
explain why there are so many problems in this modern age.
Sadly,
in this day and age, beating the kids is just a way of life in many
families. Nearly everyone was beaten as a child, so they beat their
kids, and their kids will beat their kids, and those kids will beat
their kids. Older brothers will beat younger brothers. Brothers will
beat sisters. You can see what families are creating in this endless
cycle of violence: little warriors. One day a war will come up, and it
will be easy for a young person who has been beaten without mercy to
pick up a gun and kill somebody without conscience, and even take
pleasure in doing so. What kind of society do we have? In the US today,
a murder is committed every thirty-three minutes, an assault every five
seconds, a rape every ninety seconds. A man beats his wife every
fifty-one seconds. A woman beats her husband every five and a half
minutes. A 12- to 15-year-old child is assaulted every thirty-one
seconds, and one is raped every eight minutes. Will the violence ever
stop? No. It can't, unless a radical change is made. We must stop the
war in the home. It is as simple as that.
I recently attended
a ceremony in which criminals being released from the Kauai jail gave
testimony before leaders of the community that they would not repeat
their crime. With tears in their eyes, all said they had been beaten by
their family in early life, driven out of the home, into drugs,
excessive alcohol and into crime and finally jail. Each one had the
same sad story to tell.
I instruct the lay missionaries of my
international Hindu church: "Talk to the children. Ask if their parents
beat them, and then talk to the parents. At first they will say, 'Oh,
once or twice,' but if you persist, you may find it's much worse than
that." Think about it, even if a child is only hit once a month, that
adds up to nearly two hundred beatings over fifteen years. I challenge
child-beaters, "Would you beat somebody your same weight and your same
height with the same readiness?" They would say no, because that's
against the law. It's called assault. But hitting a little kid, is that
also not against the law? More and more, it is.
Thursday
LESSON 186
Laws Against Child-Beating
In England, in 1996, a twelve-year-old boy who had
been caned by his stepfather made headlines in a human rights court by
challenging British laws that permit parents to "use corporal
punishment, but only to the extent of reasonable chastisement."
Hundreds of children marched through central London on April 15, 2000,
to demand an end to smacking. They ended their protest at 10 Downing
Street, the residence of the Prime Minister, where they handed in a
letter urging him to ban all physical punishment of children.
Smacking
children under any circumstance has been banned in Norway, Sweden,
Denmark, Austria, Finland, Croatia, Latvia, Italy, Israel, Cyprus and
Germany. Progress toward legal reforms are underway elsewhere: in the
UK, Switzerland, Poland, Spain, Scotland, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand,
Mexico, Namibia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the Republic of Ireland and
Belgium. In India battering is widely considered perfectly acceptable
and is encouraged in homes, as well as in schools, ashramas and gurukulas,
among all castes and classes. However, the Supreme Court of Delhi has
recently banned physical punishment of children in the state. In the
US, all states except Minnesota permit parents to use "reasonable"
corporal punishment on children, and the law for schools, institutions,
foster care and day care facilities varies from state to state, with
even caning still allowed in some.
In schools, happily, the
trend is away from corporal punishment. Almost every industrialized
country in the world, and many pre-industrial countries as well, now
prohibit it in school. See www.endcorporalpunishment.org for an
up-to-date list. In the US, twenty-seven states plus the District of
Columbia have bans, with legislation underway in many more. The
national newspaper USA Today wrote in 1990, "As millions of
children across the USA prepare to go back to school, teachers are
laying down their weapons -- the paddles they use to dole out corporal
punishment. A teacher does best armed only with knowledge. Corporal
punishment is a cruel and obsolete weapon." In Canada, only the
provinces of British Columbia, New Brunswick and the Territory of Yukon
have banned corporal punishment in schools.
In London, in
response to a move to reinstitute beating, public school teachers said
they would not cane even if lobbying by conservative members of
parliament was successful, while Christian bishops and priests are
trying very hard to reinstitute beating in their schools. Abolition of
corporal punishment in African schools is also quickly spreading. A
high-level Zambian court declared corporal punishment in schools to be
unconstitutional, and the Kenyan Minister of Education, in March, 2001,
discarded sections of the law that permitted corporal punishment. Laws,
however, are no guarantee of protection. Consider the nation of
Mauritius, where laws have prohibited battering of children since 1957
but have never been enforced, and children are mercilessly abused in
schools to this very day.
I've had Hindus tell me, "Slapping
or caning children to make them obey is just part of our culture." I
don't think so. Hindu culture is a culture of kindness. Hindu culture teaches ahimsa, noninjury, physically, mentally and emotionally. It preaches against himsa,
hurtfulness. It may be British Christian culture -- which for 150 years
taught Hindus in India the Biblical adage "To spare the rod is to spoil
the child" -- but it's not Hindu culture to beat the light out of the
eyes of children, to beat the trust out of them, to beat the
intelligence out of them and force them to go along with everything in
a mindless way and wind up doing a routine, uncreative job the rest of
their life, then take their built-up anger out on their children and
beat that generation down to nothingness. This is certainly not the
culture of an intelligent future.
Nor is an overly permissive approach. A senior sadhu from the Swaminarayan Fellowship's 654-member order of sadhus, who
visited us recently echoed our thoughts on child-beating and emphasized
the need for firm, even stern, correction and teaching right from
wrong. "Parents these days fail to impart what is good and what is not
good," he said. "As a result, a very crude society is being developed."
I advise parents: if you are guilty of beating your children,
apologize to them, show remorse and perform the child-beating penance, bala tadayati prayashchitta, to
atone. Gain their friendship back, open their heart and never hit them
again. Open channels of communication, show affection. Even if you
never beat your children, be alert in your community to those who do
and bring them to your understanding that a happy, secure family is
free from violence.
Friday
LESSON 187
Penance and Reconciliation
Those who have been physically abused are as much in
need of penance to mitigate the experience as are those who abused
them. The penance, or prayashchitta, for abusees is called the flower penance, or pushpa prayashchitta.
It has been successfully performed by many children and adults to
mitigate the hate, fear, resentment and dislike toward the parents,
teachers or other adults who beat them, by hitting, pinching, slapping,
caning, spanking or other methods of corporal punishment. This penance
is very simple to perform, but often very difficult to carry out. Each
person -- child or adult -- who has been beaten at any time, no matter
how long ago, is enjoined to put up in the shrine room a picture of the
person or persons by whom they were beaten, be it a father, mother or
teacher. Then, every day for thirty-one consecutive days, without
missing a single day, he or she must place a flower in front of each
picture, and sincerely forgive the person in heart and mind. If no
picture is available, then some symbol or possession can be
substituted, or even a paper with his or her name written on it.
When
it becomes difficult to offer the flower of forgiveness, because
hurtful memories come up from the subconscious mind, the abused
individual must perform the vasana daha tantra, writing down the hurtful memories and burning the paper in a trash can. This tantra
releases the deep emotions within the individual who finds that he or
she does not like or deeply resents the parent or other relative,
school teacher or principal. After writing about these experiences,
expressing in words the emotions felt on many pieces of paper, the area
of the subconscious mind holding the suppressed anger and resentment
gradually disappears as the papers are seen burning to ashes in a
garbage can.
Upon recognizing and admitting their fear or
hatred of their abuser, they must deal with the pangs of pain that
arise each day by mystically turning the slap, beating or spanking into
a beautiful flow of prana by placing a flower before the picture with a heart full of love. Each day while performing the "flowers of forgiveness prayashchitta,"
the individual should mentally approach the tormentor -- the person or
persons who beat him or her -- and say, "I forgive you. I don't hold
anything against you, for I know that you gave back to me the karma
that I set in motion by committing similar misdeeds at a prior time."
If possible, this act of verbal forgiveness should be done in person at
least once during the thirty-one days, ideally face to face, but at
least by phone, if the person is still on this Earth plane.
Of
course, for most it's much easier to pass on the slap or beating to
someone else. Parents often hit their own child, or abuse another
person in order to "get it out of their system." That slap has to go
someplace, and turning it into a flower is very, very difficult. This prayashchitta
brings up all those awful memories. This discipline brings up all the
pain. It brings all the injustice to the surface of the mind.
Nevertheless, this tantra, or method, has been a great help to
many. It is difficult to forgive, and some had to work very diligently
within themselves to face up to being able to place that little flower
lovingly before the picture of a parent or a teacher. Many have tried
and failed again and again when deep-seated resentment emerged, but
finally succeeded in true forgiveness, whose byproduct is
forgetfulness. They all feel so much better today. Now they are
responsive, creative and happy inside. Yes, hitting people is wrong --
and children are people, too.
Saturday
LESSON 188
In Defense Of Battering!
There is an old saying in Tamil that is often recited before or after slapping or beating a child: Adium uthaium uthavu vathu pol annan thambi uthava maddar. It
means, "Even the help of one's younger and older brothers cannot
compare to the benefit of being kicked and beaten." It seems this
proverb, printed in certain school books, is taught to students.
This
makes me ask the Hindu community worldwide: What fearful expectations
are we nurturing in young minds by repeating such a cruel, stupid
edict? Study until midnight to avoid a plastic rod across the back?
Obey the teacher or get hit with a strap or cane, then slapped in the
face at home for getting beaten in school? Are there more shlokas promoting himsa,
violence, in the home, more guidelines for corporal punishment? Is it
our intention to pass this despicable attitude from generation to
generation? Unfortunately it seems to be so. My young Asian monks can
recite the above verse from childhood memories. Parents seeking to
defend corporal punishment of children will also quote a saying from Manu Dharma Shastra (7.198), "Sama, dana, bheda, danda,"
which means "using kind words (or negotiation), bribery, sowing
dissension, and punishment (or striking)." These are the four
successive steps in achieving success against an enemy of the realm. It
is advice for kings, not parents. I, for one, hope the rules will
change in this nuclear-family age, for there are more seeming reasons
to hit and fewer places where a beaten child can find solace and love,
without the presence of grandma, auntie and others.
The
working mother slaps her children at home because they add stress to
her already stressed-out nerve system. Father has a tough day on the
job and takes it out on his son's back or face with the hand, strap or
cane. Does it give a sadistic joy to hear young children cry in pain
and humiliation? Does it enhance the feeling of "I'm in charge here;
you are not!''?
In the past century we've had two world wars
and hundreds of smaller ones. Killers come from among those who have
been beaten. The slap and pinch, the sting of the paddle, the lash of
the strap, the blows of a cane must manifest through those who receive
them into the lives of others. But there is a price to pay. The abuser
one day becomes the abused. This is a law of life seen manifesting
every day. It is called karma. Action gives an equal or more
intense reaction, depending on the intent and the emotion behind it.
Corporal punishment is arguably a prelude to gangs on the streets,
those who will riot on call, and others who suffer in silence and hide
behind a desk or in a routine profession, fearing reprimand and
punishment, never talking back or offering an opinion.
Sunday
LESSON 189
Time Out And Time In
Is there a covert consciousness that accounts for
the fact that for forty-eight years, until early 1996, I didn't even
know that children of my international congregation were being beaten?
Perhaps. Hindus know it's wrong in their heart of hearts, but are
blindly obeying the cultural attitude expressed in this himsa,
violent, senseless proverb, and thoughtlessly reacting to their own
stress and anger. They don't even look for a better way. Well, there is
a better way.
It has been over fifty years since my ministry
started, way back in 1949. Now, in its maturity, there are uncounted
encounters to rely upon, much experience to guide the fellowship and
much energy to march into the future of futures. Among the concerns,
one has become crucial to parents, who ask, "Are there better ways to
raise our children? We are entirely dedicated to ahimsa,
noninjury, physically, emotionally and mentally. But how is this lofty
ideal possible to follow when troubled by emotions that are too easily
released by taking them out, in the fire of the moment, on those we
love? How can misdeeds that happen in the home be absolved, and
examples set that prevent their repetition generation after
generation?"
For parents seeking effective nonviolent
alternatives, they are readily available today in excellent books. One
strategy educators recommend is called time out, one minute for each
year of the child's age; hence ten minutes for a ten-year-old. This
tells the child that if he doesn't behave in a reasonable way, he will
be separated from other people. Time out, sitting quietly in a room,
works best in conjunction with its opposite, time in. Time in is
quality time spent with the child in an activity he enjoys, and just
being together. Time in includes letting children share their feelings,
positive or negative, with parents lending a receptive, understanding
ear.
There are new methods and new principles, such as in
Nandinatha Sutra 138: "Siva's followers never govern youth through
fear. They are forbidden to spank or hit them, use harsh or angry
words, neglect or abuse them. They know you can't make children do
better by making them feel worse." This goes along with the innovative
approach being taken by psychologists, sociologists and educators, in
consideration of the turmoil that engulfs today's world. The truth is
being accepted that methods that rely on what experts call "punishment
power" -- scolding, taking away privileges, spanking -- do not elicit
more desirable behavior in children or adults. Rather, they produce
hostility, resentment and the desire for retaliation. In communities
around the world, our family missionaries are conducting study groups
on Dr. Jane Nelsen's Positive Discipline as a public service to help parents raise their children without violence.
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