Right Parenting

[Guest guest]

Right Parenting

The following talk was given by David Jevons at the 1999 Western Canada Sai

Retreat which was held at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan over the weekend of July

31st/August 1st 1999. It has been edited but only for the purpose of

reproducing it in this Newsletter.

How am I qualified to talk to you about right parenting? Well, I have behind me

the experience of helping my wife in the raising of our three children but, more

importantly, I have read what Sai Baba has to say about right parenting. Now

Sai Baba says “First be, next do and only finally say”, so by this standard I

really should not be talking to you at all! I must, therefore, preface my talk

to you today by confessing that I have had my successes and my failures when it

comes to parenting. I cannot say that I have always got it right. So my talk

is not so much based on my own experiences, on my own understandings, but on

what Sai Baba has taught me about parenting.

Isn’t it strange that when you want to drive a car you have to pass a driving

test. If you want to fly a plane you have to pass a flying test. However if

you want to raise children all you have to do is to give birth to them and then

you are free to do whatever you like with them provided, of course, that you

don’t break the laws of the land. No guidance is given to you on how to raise

your children. You don’t have to pass an exam on child care before having

children. You just do it. So what experience do you actually draw upon? You

rely on your own experiences and feelings. You rely on what your parents did

to you and surveys show that in most cases you either do exactly what your

parents did to you or else you do exactly the opposite. I remember that many

years ago I counselled a teenager who was having problems with her mother over

the house rules that the mother was imposing on her. Years later, when that

teenager became a mother herself, guess what she did. She raised her children

exactly as her mother had raised her and she imposed the very same rules! All

children need boundaries and they will always test the boundaries that you set

for them.

I would like to begin by looking at the true nature of our relationship with our

children. Most of us tend to view this relationship in a body conscious way.

We forget that they are spiritual beings just like us, that they are atma,

divine spirit, just like us and that the only real difference between us is

that they happen to be in younger physical bodies. Nevertheless they are still

God, they are still no different from God. They have all the knowledge, all the

perfection and all the wisdom of God within them. Indeed our children may be

more evolved than us, more advanced along the path to liberation than us. They

might even have come into incarnation to teach us rather than for us to teach

them. Do we remember our past lives when we were children and parents? Do we

know our future lives when we will be children and parents again? The answer

is definitely “No” and why should this be the case? It is because all human

relationships are transitory and finite and, as such, are not important in the

infinite scheme of things. Sai Baba points out that we did not worry about our

wife or our husband before we met them in this life. We only become concerned

about them when we established a relationship with them. Why were we not

concerned about them before we knew them? Why will we not be concerned about

them if we divorce them or if they die? It is because our egos will not be

touched by them.

It is just the same with our children. Before our children were born we were

not in the least bit concerned about them and when they grow up and leave home

our concern soon diminishes. The spiritual relationship is always the same and

is infinite but the physical relationship waxes and wanes and is finite. The

soul relationship is something entirely different and separate from the

physical relationship. I remember being told the story of Sai Baba calling his

interpreter, the late Professor Kasturi, into the interview room one morning and

introducing a young boy to him saying “Kasturi, meet your husband!”. It took

Kasturi some time to work it out, but Sai Baba was introducing him to his

partner in his next life. At that time he would incarnate as a woman and would

marry this boy when they had both grown to adulthood. Does this not make a

complete nonsense of our relationships to which we attach so much importance?

A man in one life, a woman in the next, our parents in this life become our

children in the next, which all goes to prove that life is just a game in which

we play many differing roles and face many differing relationships.

So we really are, as the Latin expression goes, in loco parentis for our

children, that is to say that we are parents standing in for the one true

parent which is God. God is our only true parent. He is the Divine Mother and

Father. We are only playing the role of parents in this life. We are guardians

for God. God has given us His seed and we are responsible for raising His

children. What is the basic role of the parent? Sai Baba says “Children are

precious treasures given to you. Yours is the great task of rearing them to

become devoted servants of God and sincere spiritual aspirants.” That is the

primary role of a parent although, as we well know, many other duties are

involved. The primary duty of a parent is to oversee their child’s spiritual

development, is to awaken in them the divine knowledge that they already

possess, namely, that they are God, that they are no different from God. We

also have to recognise that children come into incarnation with a divine

garland around their neck, a garland of all their past karma. My wife often

comments wryly, when Sai Baba devotes all his attention to our children in an

interview rather than to us, showering them with rings and watches, “As far as

I am concerned they have done nothing so far in this life to deserve such

attention!” Nevertheless, by her very words, she is saying that it is their

past deeds that attracts Sai Baba’s attention, that he is rewarding them for

what they have done in their past incarnations. Truly our children are not our

children and to illustrate this point I want to read to you a wonderful poem

from a book called ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran, which was first published in

1923.

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said

“Master, speak to us of Children”

And he said:

“Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,

not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

Your children come through you but are not from you. One of the great lessons

that we, as parents, have to learn is that our children are not our

possessions, are not extensions of our egos. Men have to learn the lesson of

ego. Women have to learn the lesson of attachment. Men should not see their

children as carriers of the family name, as upholders of the family’s social

status, as successors to a family business or a family fortune. Children

should not be seen as a source of family pride, with their achievements and

successes bringing kudos to the parents. Women should not live their lives

vicariously through their daughters and should not make them into wives before

their time. They should not expect their daughters to conform to their

concepts of love and marriage and should not hang on to them as companions if

the relationship of their own marriage has broken down. Above all, though,

parents should not try to fulfil their destiny through their children. When we

look at our children we should always try to see the atma, not the body, for we

are not our bodies. Our bodies are forever changing, are forever decaying.

They are not permanent and will be gone in seventy years or so, but the atma is

eternal, so let us relate to the atma. The children coming into incarnation at

this time are very special souls for they have come to witness the birth of the

Golden Age that will soon be with us. These special souls need to be raised and

educated correctly, to have their minds filled with human values not bookish

knowledge. That is why Sai Baba has founded his schools and is so insistent

about teaching EHV - the Education in Human Values programme.

As you look around the Western World today it does not need an observant eye to

recognise that marriage and family life is in a very precarious state.

Educational systems have become political footballs and are simply failing many

of our children. We have children murdering and raping, emerging from the

school system illiterate and ill prepared for life. We have an ever increasing

number of family break ups, with the divorce rate rocketing. In England, for

the very first time in its history, last year more children were born

illegitimately than were born in marriage. Single parent families are on the

increase. There are few role models for children, but this is to be expected!

Why? It is because we are at the very end of Kali Yuga. This is the darkest

time for Humanity, just before the dawn of the Golden Age. This is the time of

karmic settlement. Our karmic account must be balanced if we are to enter the

New Age. Let us recognise, above all, that the birth of children is associated

very closely with karma. We attract children to ourselves according to the

nature of the seeds that we have sown both in this life and in past lives.

I well remember an acquaintance of mine who drank and smoked very heavily, not

only whilst conceiving his child, but also whilst the child was being carried

in his wife’s womb. His child was born autistic and I believe that this

deformity had a great deal to do with his lifestyle. Of course only a few

people would accept that a deformed or a sick child is not an act of blind

fate, but is a direct result either of a karmic settlement from a past life or

of what the parents have sown in thought, word and deed in this life. Medical

science is slowly proving that what the parents do during the pregnancy does

affect the unborn baby. The same thing applies to conception. Sai Baba once

told someone that he should follow a sathwic diet, should remain pure in

thought, word and deed and should abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife

for thirty days before conceiving his child.

How many of us conceive our children consciously? How many of us even know the

moment when we conceived our children? How many of us consciously dedicate the

act of procreation to our Creator before we engage in it? This should be the

birthright of every child and from such a conception comes a true child of God,

one that knows its divine inheritance. However if a child is conceived out of

drunkenness, out of lust, out of drugs, out of a brief affair, then that energy

must be reflected in the nature of the child. We are, of course, in Kali Yuga

and this is the time of great karmic settlement and so we must expect marriages

to break up and children to have less than perfect upbringings. I remember

Isaac Tigrett, the founder of the Hard Rock Café chain, who gave millions of

dollars to help build the Super Speciality Hospital in Puttaparthi, saying that

he had had a very unhappy and abusive childhood. In an interview with Sai Baba

he asked Swami why he had had to undergo such suffering. Sai Baba replied “It

was to soften your heart and to make you more compassionate.” So there is a

purpose to suffering, many lessons are learned by all concerned and souls

choose to incarnate into imperfect relationships for their own growth and

evolution.

Nevertheless, as devotees of Sai Baba, we should be very concerned about raising

our children correctly, about preparing them for the Golden Age to come. Some

old souls have been entrusted into our hands, some of whom have not been on the

Earth for thousands of years. They have come back for this great moment of

spiritual initiation. These children will be the foundation stones of the

Golden Age. They are the seeds from which the Golden Age will sprout. I can

look into the eyes of these children and see a wisdom and a spiritual maturity

way beyond their years. I have heard spiritual truths coming from the mouths

of these children that leave me in a state of wonderment. Some great souls

are back on the Earth at this time and they need to be parented properly. Such

children have chosen to incarnate into pure families all around the world who,

as Sai Baba says, are concerned that their children become devoted servants of

God and sincere spiritual aspirants. How fortunate we are to have an example

of right parenting on the Earth today in the form of Sai Baba’s schools and

universities. I think we were all impressed by Neilank Jha’s talk yesterday

and by what this young man is doing to help the underprivileged children of

Toronto even though he is still a student at Toronto University. Here is a

product of Sai Baba’s school demonstrating what comes from right parenting and

right education. In one sense, of course, we are all Sai Baba’s children and

he is parenting us, the more so when we go on visits to Puttaparthi in search

of that personal contact with him. I once said to Sai Baba when I was about to

leave the ashram “Swami, when can I come back again?” to which he replied “You

don’t have to ask me. This is your home. I am your father and your mother.

You are always welcome here.”

Now my path towards Sai Baba has not been an easy one. Swami once said “Matter

I can transform with a wave of my hand, but to transform a Western man’s mind

is very difficult.” The transformation of my mind has indeed been a slow

process and my dear wife will bear testament to this. I was very suspicious of

Sai Baba in the early days of my relationship with him. However over the course

of many visits I began to see that he did indeed practise what he preached, that

he truly did ‘Love all and Serve all’ as he continually teaches. The quality

that ultimately impressed me the most about Sai Baba is his continual seva or

service to everyone that comes to him regardless of race, colour or creed. No

matter what the time of day, he is always serving somebody, the more so on the

days of the great spiritual festivals when tens of thousands of devotees

converge on Puttaparthi seeking his attention. However the incident that

impressed me the most happened during an interview with him in Kodaikanal. One

of Sai Baba’s students was called for an interview with us. This student was

looking very unhappy, I think because he had done something wrong and he knew

that Sai Baba was going to reprimand him. The boy eventually went in for his

private interview and duly emerged looking even more unhappy. He was then

dismissed to go back to his class. Then Sai Baba said something quite amazing

and it has stuck in my mind to this very day. He said “It is I who have failed

that boy, not the boy who has failed me. I am to blame because my example has

not been strong enough to make him behave correctly!”. How many of us, when

our children do wrong, ever think of saying that it is our fault, that our

example has not been strong enough? What a teacher, what a Master, what a

parent is Sai Baba. He clearly shows us as parents that our example is

paramount.

I would now like to read to you some of Sai Baba’s own words on this subject.

Children have unselfish love; they are innocent onlookers; they observe the

actions of the elders and they learn from the home much earlier than from

school. So parents have to be very careful in their behaviour with the

children and between themselves. The children should grow with the mother for

the first five years of life. Many children do not know what the prema (love)

of a mother is like. The mother should not hand over the responsibility during

those years to someone else and be called simply ‘Mummy’ as if she is some doll

with which the children like to play. So the children of rich and educated

parents can be severely handicapped, if they are deprived of the care and the

love of parents. They are handed over to the care of servants and nannies and

they grow up in their company and learn their vocabulary and habits and styles

of thought. This is very undesirable.’

In support of this statement I would add that it is a well known fact that in

England, in Victorian times, the children of the rich and educated, of the so

called upper class, were raised mostly by nannies or servants of the so-called

working class. When these children grew up, however, they often married

working class girls or boys, in defiance of their families, because that was

the company to which they were accustomed. I believe that there is a valuable

lesson here for all the working mothers of today. If, as Sai Baba says, a

child is so susceptible to outside influences, is like a sponge up to the age

of five years, what other influence would you want your precious child to have

other than that of its parents? If a child chooses its mother before coming

down into incarnation, which it most certainly does, if it chooses its mother

for the wisdom and for the example that it knows its mother will impart to it,

how can you possibly deny that child its birthright. What is important is not

the standard of living in a home but the standard of life.

Sai Baba is always saying that women are the keepers of the hearth, the keepers

of the home. He is on record as saying that women have seven divine qualities

or values and that men only have three. That is why women are mothers. He

also says that women exhibit far more devotion to God than men and that they

will teach this devotion to their child. It is an observable fact that Sai

Baba tends to spend more time with the men than with the women in darshan. He

once jokingly said to me “If I did not talk to the men they would all go away!”

As at most satsangs, so here today, there are twice as many women as men

attending. Women have more devotion than men and that is why they are mothers

and the keepers of the hearth. Sai Baba has also said that to be a good mother

in this time of Kali Yuga is the greatest seva you can perform, is the royal

road to liberation. If you can raise your child amongst the minefields of

modern society and teach it to be a servant of God and a devoted spiritual

aspirant then you have performed a great service for your community, for your

country and for the planet as a whole. That is the real nature of the

responsibility that we parents have all been given.

In the home it is very important that the mother and the father always set a

good example, because what the child sees, what the child experiences in

thought, word and deed, the lifestyle to which it is exposed, the diet it is

fed, becomes its bench mark in life. Listen to Sai Baba’s words on this

subject.

‘Many people think that a sathwic diet consists of milk, curd and other things.

We must try to know the real nature of sathwic food. A sathwic diet does not

mean simply the food that we take through our mouth, which is only one among

our five senses, but it also means the pure air that we breathe, the pure

vision that we see through our eyes, the pure sound that we listen to and the

pure objects that we touch through our feet. All that we take in through the

doors of our five senses may be described as a sathwic diet. All the five

senses must be pure and immaculate. We must endeavour to gain mastery over our

senses.’

And

‘All households should be vegetarian. There should be no smoking. There should

be no drinking. There should be no gambling. It should only be sweet talk

between the parents. There must be respect between the parents. There must be

love between the parents. It must be shared.’

And

‘Condemn the wrong and extol the right, as soon as you notice either, in your

children; that will settle them on the straight path. There are many parents

who, by their behaviour and habits, in full view of their children, eat meat,

drink, gamble and utter blatant lies, thus poisoning the tender minds of their

progeny. When the father requests the son to tell the caller at the door that

he is not at home, the seed of dishonesty is planted.’

In buying or selling a house a Realtor will tell you that there are three

factors that affect its desirability and value, namely, position, position and

position. So, in the household, there are three factors that influence the

character of a child, namely, example, example and example. Those little eyes

are watching you and are storing away in their memories everything that they

witness, every action that takes place between husband and wife, between

parents and children, between the family and society at large. These are the

most formative influence in a child’s life, especially up to the age of five,

because until the child goes away to school and is exposed to other influences,

the mother and the father and the family unit are its whole world. If the

parents do not establish an effective relationship with their child during this

time, if they do not establish a pattern of discipline, then, when the child

begins to move outside the family and to establish other relationships, it

becomes more difficult to exercise any form of control over it. After a child

has passed the age of twelve it becomes very difficult to influence the course

on which it is set, to discipline it, to control its lifestyle. Using the

analogy of a ship, you cannot greatly alter the course on which the ship is

set, all that you can do is to tweak the rudder a few degrees. A child must

know and respect discipline. The trouble with most children these days is that

they are totally undisciplined and here in the West we are reaping the harvest

for that undiscipline. Listen to Sai Baba’s words.

‘To-day the parents give unlimited freedom to their children which is highly

disastrous. If the children are not controlled at the tender age, they can

never be controlled. A child to a large extent controls the family. Therefore

it is imperative that a child learns self control.’

and

‘Children must grow up in an atmosphere of reverence, devotion, mutual respect

and co-operation. They must be taught respect for parents, teachers and

elders. Now they learn only copybook maxims, devoid of any sincere urge to put

them into practice.’

When the child enters the educational system of its country some of the parents’

position as a role model transfers to the school teachers. It is therefore

self-evident that the values of the teachers will be inculcated in the child.

Do you know what values are being taught to your child? Do you know the

character of the teachers? You should. Education moulds a child’s attitude

towards the world in which it is to live and to make a living. The value of

current educational systems is being called into question all over the world

but it is difficult, especially here in the West, to bring about change in what

is a very conservative aspect of society. Many teachers, however, deplore the

current situation where the teaching of any form of spirituality, of morality

and of human values is banned from the classroom under the banner of political

correctness. That is why Sai Baba has created the EHV programme, the

Education in Human Values programme, which is being introduced in various

countries with very positive results. I believe that the children of the

Golden Age will be taught human values as a natural part of the school

curriculum. The few schools already in existence that teach this programme

have achieved near miraculous results. Education, as Sai Baba says, is for

life not for making a living. There is a tendency here in the West to see the

purpose of education as getting a well-paid job rather than as grounding the

individual in human values and right living. So if the public schools are not

teaching this programme it is essential that Sai devotees ensure that their

children attend the classes offered by their local Sai Baba Centre. In this

way they will attain an understanding of human values and will have the

knowledge and the power to resist any undesirable peer group pressure.

I would now like to touch briefly on three topics that arise in the natural

course of events in every family and which should be addressed. Firstly, here

in the West, we have a remarkable ambivalence towards death. Rarely do we

discuss death with our children or think it right that we should expose them to

death. We think that they are too young to understand it. This is not so.

Children should be made aware of the reality of death. Their questions should

be answered truthfully and use should be made of animals and pets to

demonstrate this reality. Having only recently come from the higher planes of

life they are probably closer to the reality of life and death than us adults.

The mortality of the human body and the immortality of the spirit should be

explained whenever an opportunity presents itself. Sai Baba once said to me

“It is amazing how Man believes that death is something that happens to someone

else. None of you prepare for your own death." Do you prepare your children

for their death? Death is as natural as birth and is integral to life. It is

not something to be swept under the carpet and ignored as if it did not exist.

Secondly, Sai Baba has some very sharp comments to make about television, which

he calls telepoison. There is obviously a good side to television, but for

every good side there are, unfortunately, twice as many bad sides. Television

comes right into the home environment. You would not open your front door to a

murderer, a rapist, a thief, to a monster, to anyone who would abuse or frighten

your children and yet you turn on the television and let these negative aspects

of life come right into your living rooms. Children’s minds absorb everything

that they see. I firmly believe that the violence that is now surfacing in our

schools is due in no small way to the fact that many children have been exposed

to too much violence on television. It is because of this that they recognise

violence rather than non-violence as the natural expression of a human being.

I read recently that some psychologist once watched television all day and

counted the number of killings that they witnessed in that time period. It

came to over a hundred. That is not representational of life. Television

distorts life for its own financial ends. Even children’s games are violent

now. Have you played one of your son’s video games recently? Most of them

involve killing in some form or other. It is just the same with children’s

books and comics. I was amazed to read in the newspapers recently about a

young boy in America who built some bombs that blew up his school. He did this

because of some grievance. Now his parents were totally unaware of what he was

doing, yet he was in their home, in their garage, in their workshop, with all

the manuals in front of him, making these bombs. They did not know what he was

doing. That is simply unacceptable. A responsible and caring parent should be

aware of everything that their child is doing, especially in their own home.

Never turn a blind eye to wrong-doing, be it drugs, alcohol, sex or the company

that they are keeping.

Finally we come to good company. This, I find, as a parent, is the most

difficult aspect of parenting. Your child strikes up a relationship with

another child at school. They want to become close friends, they want to stay

over with each other at nights, they want to go out and experience life

together, but for some reason you do not feel in harmony with the values of

this child’s family and their lifestyle. You feel that this friend exerts a

bad influence on your child and its family most certainly does not uphold the

human values on which you base your life. This situation inevitably creates

great conflict between you and your child, but it is a conflict that you have

to win. You have to explain to your child the importance in life of keeping

good company. I used to repeat to my children Einstein’s words “Show me the

company you keep and I will tell you what you are.” Let us listen to Sai

Baba’s words on this subject.

“Man is put to suffering because of bad company and even mentally he suffers

with bad thoughts. Any spiritual aspirant is in danger because of bad company.

So run away from bad company. What is bad company? Selfishness, intense

jealousy, ego, no human qualities. All these will take you away from the

Divine. We lose the human qualities because of bad company, and even good

thoughts and feelings will turn bad. A man in the company of thieves will turn

into a thief. A man of virtue loses his virtues in the company of those with

vices. The sacred heart turns unsacred. Therefore run from bad company.”

Recognise, though, that you can only control your child if you have already

established a channel of communication with it, if there is true and open

sharing between parent and child. The trouble with many families today is that

that communication has broken down. Parents are busy earning a living and so

children are allowed to watch television and to play for long hours on

computers, thus relating to nobody but the television and the computer. As a

result of this many children are losing social skills, are losing the ability

to communicate thoughts and feelings, to relate to society as a whole, to

discover the diversity and complexity of human incarnation. They have little

grasp of the principle of service, of helping those less well off than

themselves. Sai Baba has said that the health of the family is controlled by

the health of the parents. The other day I read an article in the Vancouver

Sun which stated that strong marriages produce healthier children. Research

has shown that the health of the family is directly related to the health of

the father/mother relationship. Weak, conflict-ridden unions often produce

troubled children, whilst strong unions make children feel secure and enables

them to relate well to others. If the health of the family is strong, if the

marriage is strong, if there is love expressed and shared, then, the children

have a model to follow in their own lives.

I feel that we are all going to have a testing time in the next few years.

There are changes coming in the world which will challenge us all. Therefore

it is important that we have established lines of communication with our

children, that an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding prevails in

the home. We should be able to discuss openly and freely the problems facing

the world, what is causing these problems and what are the solutions. We

should listen respectfully to what our children have to say. They are going to

inherit our world and the problems that our generation has created. Our

children are the seeds of the next generation and they represent the future of

the Human Race. The atoms in their bodies dance to a different tune to ours.

They have a different vision to us. They are the future. Many of them are old

souls with great wisdom and spiritual understanding. My daughter comes up with

the most amazing concepts and visions. She has more dreams about Sai Baba than

I do. Swami comes to her in her dreams and tells her the most amazing things.

We must respect their point of view and listen to their insights on our world.

We must forget body consciousness and be open to spiritual consciousness.

I would like to close with one final quotation from Sai Baba which I hope will

put this talk in its right perspective.

"I have come to give you the key of the treasure of bliss, to tell you how to

tap that spring, for you have forgotten the way to blessedness. If you waste

this chance of saving yourselves, it is just your fate. You have come to get

from me tinsel and trash, the petty little cures and promotions, worldly joys

and comforts. Very few of you desire to get from me the very thing I have come

to give you, namely, liberation itself and even among those of you who do, those

who stick to the path of spiritual practice and succeed will only be a handful.

This is a great chance. This chance will not come your way again. Be aware of

that. If you cannot and do not cross this sea of grief now, taking hold of

this chance, when again will you get such a chance? Be confident that you will

be liberated. Know that you will be saved. Go and tell all that you went to

Puttaparthi and that you got there the secret of liberation. Many hesitate to

believe that things will improve, that life will be happy for all and full of

joy and that the Golden Age will recur. Let me assure you that this avatar,

this divine body, has not come in vain. It will succeed in averting the crisis

that has come upon Humanity.”

If we do nothing else in life, may we raise our children to recognise the truth

of that statement and to be aware of the life and the teachings of Sri Sathya

Sai Baba. Let us remember the many blessings that Sai Baba showers upon us

and recognise that we too should bless our children at every opportunity

because, as Sai Baba says, a child that is blessed by its parents will always

succeed in life.

Source: Ramala Centre Newsletter, March 2000,

http://www.ramalacentre.com/newsletter03_00_05.htm

http://www.saibaba.ws/articles/rightparenting.htm

[Guest guest]

color:navy;mso-no-proof:yes">Sherry,

color:navy">Thank you for sharing the article on parenting. It was so beautiful.

Although, I am not a parent, my sister recently gave birth to a beautiful baby.

I would like to send some articles/resources on parenting (as taught by Swami)

to her.

color:navy">Would anyone on this list know of some resources that I could share with her?

color:navy">Sai Ram,

color:navy">- nimish

[Guest guest]

Om Sri Sai Ram to All.

Thank you for such a wonderfull Article on Right

Parenting. We are very fortunate that members share

ssuch arrticles with others.

The most important is what Baba says and the speaker

emphasized on it. “First be, next do and only finally

say”

We cannot say until we become good parents ourselves.

I am sure many parents will read this and get

something out of this.

Thanks once again.

 

At sai Service

Neena

[Guest guest]

***

Moderator's Note

Books on the subject:

- Sathya Sai Parenting, by Rita Bruce

- Human Values. The Heart of Dynamic Parenting, by Dr. Pal Dhall;

- Workshops on Dynamic Parenting, by Dr. Pal Dhall

All available at Sri Sathya Sai Book and Publications Trust:

http://www.sssbpt.org/products/

- Sathya Sai Parenting, by Dr. Teerakiat Jareonsettasin

available at:

http://www.sathyasai.org/inform/tustin.htm

***

Nimish,

Recently I bought a book "Satya Sai Parenting". I just started reading it..

its really very wonderful book on Baba says on wife/husband, relationships and

parenting.

sairam

Padmaja