Contributed by A Darbha
Dear Friend,
Love and Regards. Timeless Insights is delivered by Sri Bhagavan, loved and revered as a friend and worshipped as an Avatar by millions across India and world over.
The insights contained here in do not belong to any particular time frame, culture or nationality. They are beyond all division and appeal to the humanity in us all; some of the messages are to the parent in you, some to the child or the spouse, yet others to the truth seeker.
The words of Sri Bhagavan would serve as Oneness Blessings and explode in your consciousness, awakening you to an alternate experience of life. They are not about changing you as much as they are about awakening you.
These insights would serve both as meditation and contemplation. They are about making you into a greater partner, greater parent, and above all into a new human being.
Take one insight at a time or one section at a time. Allow the insights to act on you and become personal realisations since these carry along with them the power of the Divine Consciousness of Sri Bhagavan.
Regards,
Aishwarya
Volunteer of Oneness University
Timeless Insights - Parenting
There is growing concern world over about the lack of understanding of the process called Parenting. Parents are painfully aware that they are inadequately equipped to bring up their children. The best qualified to be parents are those who have discovered love. If you discover love you shall know exactly how to live and how to bring up your child. You would then naturally know how to respond to the various phases of growth in your child’s life. Without love you would not respond but would react to your child from fear or hurt. However, if you have not discovered love, it is better to learn parenting at least as an art. It is one of the most difficult arts to learn, since it requires not only the head but the heart.
Panchatantra, one of the repositories of ancient Indian wisdom speaks of treating a child until age six as a king, until twelve as a prince and from then on as a friend. However we should also pay attention to the most crucial phase of human life, which begins with the intent to conceive and proceeds right up to the first few hours after birth. Being a parent is in itself an extraordinary spiritual process that would bring about self – awareness leading to inner individuation. It would help you open up to another unconditionally and would also teach you to live by divine guidance when you so often are at cross roads. It is a great experience to be a parent. We would help you with it.
Your responsibility as a parent is far greater than you have hitherto undertaken. Whether it is the child’s self destructive tendency or the exuberance and joy with which it experiences life, is determined not in later life but right from the moment of your intention to bring forth life into this world. If the parents conceived a child not in frustration or fear but in love for each other and a feeling of sacredness, at an auspicious time, you would bring forth an extraordinary being into the planet.
The experiences and the feelings of the mother, as the baby grows in the womb form a part of the psychological make up of the child, which continues into its adulthood and later life. The process of birthing and the first 6 hours after birth also are very important. Every child needs to be welcomed as a child of the divine into the world. Children not wanted by parents any time in the womb suffer an immense sense of lovelessness through out their lives. However these damages could certainly be set right in the life of the child if the consciousness of the parents is elevated to that of causeless love.
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There are three major forces that architecture your child’s destiny – your child, the Divine and “you” as parents. The foundation for your child’s future is laid from the time of birth till it is six years of age. These are the formative years of the child’s later day personality. Its patterns of success or failure, of friendship or loneliness are all created at this stage. The child’s understanding of life being incomplete it comes to certain illogical conclusions, which remain for life in the unconscious. This unconscious decisions thereafter governs its life. Bathe your child in love, never making it feel rejected. Treat the child with respect, as though it were far superior to you. Treat it like a king or a queen. Would you dare use harsh words or be rude to a king? You certainly would not. Be polite, nice and sweet to the child even if at times you have to be firm. You would have rendered service to your child and to the earth.
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You as a parent need to be awake to the changes occurring in your child and cope with it through understanding. Most of humanity is a victim to the lovelessness of their own parents. Since it is very difficult to show love if one has not received it, most parents do not know what it is to love their children. When the child is between the age of six and twelve, the parents need to maintain a delicate balance between freedom and discipline. The child should be corrected without it being condemned or insulted. Insulting or condemning a child could sometimes make it destructive. Being possessive and trying to fulfil your own unfulfilled needs through your child could be damaging to him or her. He/she needs to experience your attention, friendship and an acceptance that is unconditional.
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An intense period of emotional upheaval both for parents and the child is when he or she has crossed twelve years until twenty one years of age. Your child is going through many biological and emotional changes at this stage. Your child is no more a child but your friend whose feelings and opinions should be respected and valued.
Your daughter or son at this stage is breaking away from you and is trying to create his or her own identity. You cannot talk “to” your child but would have to learn to talk “with” your child. Your child would be going through a “no” phase, trying to assert himself or herself. You as a parent have nothing to fear about this kind of behaviour from your child. Give them room to sometimes reject or refuse you. However relationships would be better off if the parents learnt the art of listening to their child. Listen without condemning or judging your child. You would have discovered what your child needs.
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There are few things however that you should remember in the process of being a parent. Every parent is foremost a child of his own parents. If your relationship with your parents is excellent i.e. if it has care and love for them, the same would come to you from your children. You bequeath to your children not just your inheritance but also your attitudes and your relationships. If you seek to be loved by your children, learn to love your parents.
Secondly, every couple that intends to be parents must first enquire if they are qualified to be parents. Do they have healthy bodies? Have they worked out their emotional hurts with each other? Do they love each other? Are they prepared to share the responsibility, which would last over a period of two decades? You prepare yourself to be doctors and engineers for over a period of a decade. Do you prepare yourself to be a parent? Enquire.
Contemplative Questions
Here is a set of questions that would provoke you and put you through some soul searching. They are not about religion nor about ethics. They are merely about you.
They are not meant to serve as solutions nor are they meant to lead you anywhere. These questions are meant to serve as tools to discovering yourself.
1. What was your emotional state when you conceived your child? Was it fear, love, frustration, affection or unawareness? What was your combined intent while conceiving your child?
2. a) If you are a pregnant mother, how would you rate yourself – a happy and a contented woman or a stressed out frighten woman?
b) If you are someone who is going to be a father soon, how would you rate your wife – happy and contented or stressed and insecure. In the interest of your future child, what measure would you take to make your partner happy?
3. Was your child an unwanted child at any stage? If so, take your child to your nearest Oneness Blessing giver for receiving a Oneness Blessing with the intent of healing the hurt or the damage.
4. What is your child’s perception about you – an indifferent parent, demanding parent, self – centered parent, loveless parent, harsh parent, controlling parent, loving parent, understanding parent, non – judgemental, friendly parent?
5. What is your child’s life pattern – failure, success, glory, topper, happy?
6. How do you take a “no” from your child? Is it an affront or a humiliating experience or does it connect you to your own phases of growth through life?
7. Do you listen to your child when he/she is talking? Do you look at his/her face?
8. a) If you are planning on being parent are you prepared to share a responsibility that would last two decades?
b) Does your relationship as a couple have strength? Have you worked out your emotional hurts?
