Is loving your family a lot power of maya?

radhagovind · May 10, 2007

is it the power of maya and a bad thing or a good thing? and can it prevent you from achieving liberation?

theist · May 10, 2007

Nothing wrong with loving your parents. Just try to see it all in it's proper context. They really aren't your parents. Afterall in your last birth they may have been your children.

Love them, respect them ,show gratitude for all the sacrifices they made for you and simultaneously work on realizing them as spiritsouls, parts and parcel of Krsna and realize also the family bit is an illusion.

Try also to repay them with something that will benefit them spiritually. While playing the dutiful role of their offspring get them some maha-prasada and speak whatever philosophy they will take without making waves. In this way be the perfect son so that they might praise Krsna through you.

Murali_Mohan_das · May 11, 2007

If I may add to your kind comments, Theist-ji.

Let's also be clear on just what "love" is. When we are truly loving we will love not just our families, but all living entities.

What most of us call "love" is really just attachment, infatuation, intrigue, and often in the case of parent's "love" for their children--narcisism.

A good indicator of what is really "love" is how many conditions we place on that love. If only love our parents when they are providing for our material sustenance, or if we only love our children when they are obedient, then how deep is that love?

So yes, we are advised to free ouselves of our material attachments (while carrying out our prescribed duties), we *should* whole-heartedly love our familes, and, as Theist says, the best way we can love them is to share the Mercy of Mahaprabhu with them.

As the father of two small children, I must say that, when I hear or read the childhood pastimes of Sri Krishna these days, I do so with a vastly different perspective than I did when I was a child myself (or before I had children of my own).

Can I be so bold as to say, fatherhood has granted me greater insight into the mellows of vatsalya (parental) rasa (while I still aspire for even shanta (neutral) rasa).

Nothing wrong with loving your parents. Just try to see it all in it's proper context. They really aren't your parents. Afterall in your last birth they may have been your children.

Love them, respect them ,show gratitude for all the sacrifices they made for you and simultaneously work on realizing them as spiritsouls, parts and parcel of Krsna and realize also the family bit is an illusion.

Try also to repay them with something that will benefit them spiritually. While playing the dutiful role of their offspring get them some maha-prasada and speak whatever philosophy they will take without making waves. In this way be the perfect son so that they might praise Krsna through you.

kripa_karo_radhe · May 12, 2007

If I may add to your kind comments, Theist-ji.

Let's also be clear on just what "love" is. When we are truly loving we will love not just our families, but all living entities.

What most of us call "love" is really just attachment, infatuation, intrigue, and often in the case of parent's "love" for their children--narcisism.

A good indicator of what is really "love" is how many conditions we place on that love. If only love our parents when they are providing for our material sustenance, or if we only love our children when they are obedient, then how deep is that love?

So yes, we are advised to free ouselves of our material attachments (while carrying out our prescribed duties), we *should* whole-heartedly love our familes, and, as Theist says, the best way we can love them is to share the Mercy of Mahaprabhu with them.

As the father of two small children, I must say that, when I hear or read the childhood pastimes of Sri Krishna these days, I do so with a vastly different perspective than I did when I was a child myself (or before I had children of my own).

Can I be so bold as to say, fatherhood has granted me greater insight into the mellows of vatsalya (parental) rasa (while I still aspire for even shanta (neutral) rasa).