Talks Excerpt 549. Swamiji gives guidelines on what to do and what NOT to do in front of children.
From Mother Radha’s recordings of Swamiji.
[Swamiji continues talking about children’s upbringing].
Every senior person should be respected. To a spiritual man everyone is a senior, even the smallest child, even an ant. One’s father and mother should be respected with all one’s heart and soul. But I plead to the fathers and mothers to become worthy of the respect that the children give them; because they themselves have a duty towards those children, to show them how to live a righteous [dharmic] life.
If the father and mother are fighting, they must not fight in front of the children. Do not have any argument at all in front of the children. Send your children out or send them here [to the ashram] if possible. Then you can sit down, close your door, and say whatever you like. But never talk roughly in front of them, because example is the best teacher.
Never speak ill about other people in front of your own child because the child will pick it up and later understand what a hypocrite you are. One moment you are saying how bad that man is and the next moment you are joining him. Instead of dropping the other person’s image down, your own image has gone down in the eyes of your child.
What is the best thing to do if you do not agree with anybody? Keep silent. ‘I am mauna [internal and external silence],’ Sri Krishna says in the [Bhagavad] Gita. ‘Of things secret, I am silence.’ That is the best way to beat it.
When you leave this Yoga Camp remember that this ashram belongs to you; we are just the caretakers. Just as you have a duty, we also have a duty. Each one of us has his or her duty. Let us perform our duties to the best of our abilities and offer the fruit to God.
The free-to-read or download, 396-page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, please click HERE.
These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.