DISCIPLINE   

I insist on discipline. Man has in him certain specific attributes which have to be developed and fostered so that he can rise up to his full stature. If these are ignored or allowed to lie fallow, he exists on the animal level only. Discipline alone can make him grow into his heritage. Children’s minds are innocent, tender, and pure.

The snake gourd is apt to grow crooked if left alone, do gardeners tie a stone to its end and the weight pulls it straight as it grows longer and longer. The minds of children and of youth are also apt to grow crooked under the influence of the sensuous films, the hollow hypocritical atmosphere created by elders, the lure of glitter and glamour and of a false sense of adventure and fame. So parents and schools have to attach the stone of discipline and make them grow straight and true.

The stone should not be too heavy, lest it snap the gourd in two! Avoid extremes, at all times, in all cases. Disciplinary rules have to be well thought out and adopted to the age group they wish to correct. The atmosphere must be so charged, the obedience to discipline comes automatically a full heart.

 I insist on reverent obedience to parents. The mother who bore you, the father who nurtured you, and the teacher who opened  your eye  to the mystery of nature in and around you all has to be revered. However high you may rise in social status, however huge may be your bank account, if your parents are neglected in distress, your life have been a tragic waste. The parents gave you this body and fostered the intelligence and love that are embedded in it, so gratitude in their due. If you do not honour the parents who are the creators  in human form, how can you learn to honour the Creator in the Divine?  Moreover, the parents reveal to you the glory of God and the means of worshipping Him; they are the first representative you meet with, and you will learn through them, how to submit to the Lord. As the twig is bent, so the tree is inclined.

I insist on regulated food and play. Regulate the food habits of the children; food determines to a large extent health and intelligence, emotions, and impulses. Set limit on quality and quantity of food, as well as to the number of times it is consumed and the timings. Recreation too, has to be moral and elevating and in the company of the righteous and God-fearing.

I  insist on  rigorous allocation of  time for study, singing spiritual songs, meditation, etc. BHAJAN  has to be start in childhood and has to continue. It must be the constant companion of man, his solace and strength. Do not postpone it to older age, for it is the essential food for the mind. Tell your children stories from Scriptures of all religious so they can  realise that the saints and seers of all lands are equally good and great. Let the children realise the prayer is universal and that prayer in any language addressed to any Name to reaches the same God. Do not keep the young ones idle and unoccupied. Every second is a precious gift. Time well used is like food well digested. It sustains and strengthens the students.

I also recommend some items of service, like nursing the sick. Visit patients in the hospitals, read nice story books sitting by the side of the patients in the beds, write letters for them, and generally be kind and friendly to them in their loneliness and pain.

I condemn frivolous talk, luxurious living, bad habits, addiction to films, horror-comics, pen-friends, exotic dress, outlandish coiffures designed to draw attention to oneself, etc.  By these means, boys and girls are slowly drawn into non-righteous and immoral ways.

Ref: Vision of Sai

PARENTS' RESPONSIBILITY

Baba says, “You must bear in mind that years of youth are the most precious in one’s life, and they should not be wasted or misspent. To let children watch television from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. is to make them forget all that they have learned at school or college. In addition, they learn many evil things. If television is used for teaching good things, it can serve a worthy purpose.  But that is not the case. The younger generation is being ruined by undesirable films and television programs. Their minds are being  poisoned. It is not a sign of parental love to let children be ruined in this manner. Even parents should avoid going to cinemas. All the crimes and violence we witness today are largely the result of the evil influence of films on young minds.”

  Children are charming saplings, full of promise, who can be made, by wise care and well directed love, to bloom into ideal citizens, able to understand, appreciate, and practice tough discipline laid in the ancient wisdom for attaining self-knowledge and knowledge of the Universe, which is only another aspect of the self. The early years of life are the most crucial, and so, mother and father have to share the responsibility for the proper upbringing. The skills, the attitude, the prejudices, and the emotions that make or mar the future are all built into the foundation of character during crucial years. The parents must lay the foundation strong and straight. But what equipment have the parents now for this task? They have no deep knowledge of their own culture; they have no faith in  its values; they practise no spiritual discipline; they have no mental peace. Children must grow up in the atmosphere of  reverence, devotion, mutual service and corporation. They must be taught respect for parents, teachers and elders.

Parents first, teachers next, playmates and companions later, then the leaders who command the allegiance of millions. These Leaders should all be constantly examining themselves, whether they are fit examples to be followed by the children of the land. These shape the character and so shape the future of the country.

 Parents today tend to lavish too much affection on their children. But such affection alone is not enough. There should also be control over the children. There should be both ‘love’ and ‘law’. Only when both love and restraint are present will the love proved beneficial.

It is not wrong to love children. You parent should learn how to love them. Whenever the children go astray wittingly or unwittingly, the parents should hasten to correct the faults and bring them to the right path. The obligation of the parents does not end with providing food, schooling, and knowledge of worldly matters. The children should also be provided with right values. They should not be  made to think  the acquisition of wealth is the be-all and end-all of life.

Discipline trains you to put up with disappointments; you will know that the path of life has both ups and downs, that every rose has its thorn. Now, people want roses without thorns. Life has to be one stage of sensual pleasure, a picnic of all the time. When this does not happen, you turn wild and start blaming others. If each one cares for his own pleasures, how can society  progress? How can weak survive? Mine, not thine-this sense of greed is the root of all evil. This distinction is applied even to God.... My God, not yours! Your God not mine!

 If we sow a thought today, we reap an act tomorrow. If we sow an act today, we reap a habit tomorrow. If we sow a habit  today, we reap a character tomorrow. If we sow a character today, we reap a destiny  tomorrow.

Parents have the primary responsibility to mould the character of children.

Parents  should not allow children to fall away from their control and wander about compass or anchor. Many parents feed and fondle their children and then, in the name freedom, leave them to find their own friends and pleasures. They take them to films regardless of the impression they create on their tender minds. They entertain the friends of their children but do not inquire their antecedent or habits.

DUTY OF PARENTS 

It is the duty of parents to set children on the right path from their early years. They should not hesitate to correct them and even punish them when the children take to wrong ways. The best way they can show their love for their children is to do everything necessary to make them follow the right path. If any teenager proves intractable or incorrigible, they should not hesitate to disown him. It is better to have one good son rather than a brood of bad children.

Avoid films

Avoid films, for though they may be advertised as very educative and inspiring, the producers, in their greed for profits, smuggle in low, vulgar debasing scenes in order to please row, untrained minds. Don’t allow the virus of vice to infect your brains. If that happens, you descend to levels worse than the beasts.

Man is born in society; he is bred in society; he is shaped well or ill by the subtle influence of society. He in his turn, as a member of society, influence the people who contact him. His life is turned or twisted by the standards, mode, and behaviour patterns of the society into which he born through the effect of his accumulated actions. The body and the country are inextricably intertwined. The body is one encasement; the country is another for spirit of man. Use society for your uplift; try to shape society so that it will help the uplift of individuals and not turn away from God.

The peace of the World depends on peace and amenity between nations; the peace of a nation depends on the peace between the concomitant units the villages, the families, and finally, the individuals of each family. So every individual has a responsibility to love others, have faith in them, and revere them as sparks of the Divine. Every man has to cultivate the virtues of tolerance, forbearance and brotherliness.

If one loses wealth, he may regain it. If he loses health, some doctor might prescribe a tonic to win it back. If one loses status and authority, he may by sheer luck gain them back. If virtue is lost, it is lost forever; nothing can restore the pristine purity. So one has to be ever vigilant and never slacken.

The greatest of the virtues is love. Love is the basis of character. You may have other desirable things in plenty; but if you have no character, that is to say, virtue, which is threaded on a string of love, you can have no genuine peace. Money comes and goes! But, morality? It comes and grows! Morality has to be grown in the heart by feeding it with love, then only can we have justice, security, law, and order. If love declines among the people, nations will weaken and mankind will perish.

Children are the crops growing in the fields, to yield the harvest on which the nation has to sustain itself. They are the pillars on which the foundation of the nation’s future is built. They are the roots of the national tree, which has to give the fruits of work, worship and wisdom to next generation.

THE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD

Reverence for woman

From ancient times the feminine aspect of Divine has been worshipped in various ways. The Veda declares that where women are honoured and esteemed, there divinity is present with all its potency. Unfortunately today men consider it demeaning to honour women. This is utterly wrong and a sign of ignorance.

            Men should realise the high status of  women and honour and  respect them accordingly. They should not make women weep and  shed tears.  A home where the woman sheds tears will be ruined. Men should give an honourable place for women and lead a respectable life.

Avoid excessive talking

It is found that women are given to excessive talking. From today you have to take a pledge not to indulge in talking. Women are found talking even in the Bhajan centre. Men are fond of strolling around as they please. If women observe restraint in speech and men control their movements, it will be good for both.

Motherhood is the most precious gift of God. Mothers are makers of a nation’s fortune or misfortune, for they shape the sinews(strength) of its soul. Those sinews are toughened by two lessions  they should teach; fear of sin and fondness of virtue. Both these are based on faith in God being the inner motivator of all. If you want to know how advanced a nation is, study the mothers. Are they free from fear and anxiety, are they full of love towards all , are they trained in fortitude and virtue? If you like to imbibe the glory of culture, watch the mothers, rocking the cradles, feeding, fostering, teaching, and fondling the babies. As the mother, so the progress of nation, as the mother, so the sweetness of the culture.

“Mothers must assume responsibility and not to throw it on child caretakers. The child who is brought up by the child carers loses an essential fertiliser for growth-love. The child is denied the most health-giving vitamin = love.”

Both husband should help wife and wife must help husband.

In the future, husband’s troubles are wife’s troubles and wife’s troubles become the husband’s. It is like, if one part of the body is paralysed, the other part of the body feels the paralysis. And so, your wife must feel your pains and you must feel her pains. Both of your pains are removed by Swami. Both of you have Swami. Both husband should help wife and wife must help husband.

Sometimes, it is natural for you to have anger, ego, temper, tension. You must have adjustment and understanding. First you must understand each other. After that adjustment will be easy. First understanding. Second adjustment. Ninety per cent of people try adjustment first. This is the wrong way around. First understanding.

Love everyone

“You are really loving yourself, for there is only you in everyone. He is I. Whoever you injure, it is you  that suffer, whosoever you cheat, it is you that are cheated. There is no others. You are all living cells in the body of God. You are yourself God.”

Home is the temple where each member of the family is a moving temple and is nurtured and nourished. The mother is the high priestess of the House of God. Humanity is the incense with the house is filled. Reverence is the lamp that is lit, with love as the oil and faith as the wick. Spend the years of your lives dedicating them for such worship in the homes that you have and will found.  

“Start the day with love, fill the day with Love and end the day with Love. That is the way to God.”

ADVICE TO CHILDREN

 FREEDOM

Baba says, “People in the West  talk about freedom. What is this freedom? Does this mean acting as you please, doing what you like? Not at all. True  freedom consists in keeping the sense under control -  otherwise one is simply a slave to the senses.”

We give the individual person the freedom to smoke, drive while intoxicated, to read dirty  material, etc.  But where in society is there the collective individual freedom to breathe pure smokeless air, freedom to drive without fear of accidents due to drunken drivers, freedom to walk on the street without being molested, abused or mugged?

  There is a proper meaning to the word DHARMA (Right Action). All those actions which do not come in the way of others, which do not impinge on the freedom of others, such can be described as DHARMA. Here is a small example of this. You are holding a long stick and playing with it, moving it this way and that, and at the same time you are walking down a main street. This street is busy public thoroughfare. You say, “I have every right to move anywhere I want. This is my freedom. This is my DHARMA.” Well, if this is your DHARMA, then the person who is coming in the opposite direction has every right to save himself from being hit by your stick. You are indulging in an activity which is likely to put other people walking on the street in danger. However, right conduct expects you to act so that you do not come in the way of other people walking on the same road. If you can conduct yourself in to the freedom of others, then you are behaving according to DHARMA.

Society says give the children what they want.

Sai  says teach the children not to want.

Society says wealth is material.

Sai  says wealth is Spiritual.

Society says educate to develop our market.

Sai  says educate to develop our character.

Society says take.

Sai  says Give.

Society says acknowledges youth and forgets the aged.

Sai  says prepares youth to honour the aged(seniors), parents and teachers.

Society says encourages overuse and misuse.

Sai  says encourages preserve and conserve.

Society says satisfy your senses.

Sai  says satisfaction is from controlling your senses.

Society says don’t give away your time to help, sell it.

Sai  says don’t waste your time, volunteer your service.

Society says dress to attract and excite.

Sai  says  clean up and cover up, A women should not object of sensuality but reverence.

Society says  exalt yourself.

Sai  says humble yourself.

SAI SPIRITUAL EDUCATION

Education should be utilized for developing the power of discrimination between right and wrong, good and evil. Without discrimination, a human being is worse than animal.

Last updated: April 29, 2001.