Part III — Education:

Question: Could you speak about the education of young children, particularly in a society where spirituality is not emphasized?

Sri Chinmoy: All the parents have to forgive me, but I wish to say that in America parents always think that they have to give their children what they have: money-power. But when it is a matter of love-power, most American parents have not given it to their children. They have given money or they have given a life of comfort and other things. But there is a great difference between a life of comfort and a life of love. There are places on earth where people are poor, and they cannot afford to give their children comfort. But they have given their children the real treasure of the love which they have and which they are.

Children should be given constant love, constant concern. But here in America, parents often confuse lack of discipline with love and concern. When a child is seven or eight years old, parents try to be very wise. They say to themselves that since America is the land of freedom, their children should have freedom. They do not try to teach their own ideals to their children; they say the children must make up their own minds. But this is a terrible mistake. The parents have themselves made many mistakes in life, and by making mistakes they have come to know to some extent what is good and what is bad. If they really love their children, they will tell their children, “Look, I was also your age once, and I made many, many mistakes. Now I am older and I know what is true and what is false, what is good and what is bad. So I wish you to profit from my experience.”

Human wisdom may say that what is good for the parents may not be good for their children, but here I disagree. When you have a child, you give your child milk, because you know that it is nutritious. You do not say, “I do not know what is good for him, so let me not give him anything. When the time comes, he will make his own choice, his own selection.” By that time your child will die. When it is a matter of physical food for your child, you feed him whatever you feel is best because you do not want him to die. At that time, you do not allow the child to choose what he needs. No, you are wise enough to feed the child what you feel is best.

On the spiritual plane, parents often do not feed their child’s soul. They say that they do not know which path their child will want, which church he needs or what kind of prayer is best for him, so they do not teach him anything. But what the parents feel is best for their own inner lives, they should also feel is good for their children. Unfortunately, here in America, children are not taught enough about the spiritual life. On the physical plane they get a kind of freedom to find their own path. If they need money, they are given money. But when it is a matter of deep love and concern, they do not get it. And when it is a matter of strict spiritual discipline, inner discipline, they are certainly not getting it. The children are not properly moulded with inner or outer discipline. Children must be taught on the spiritual plane as well as on the physical or mental plane.

Freedom is available, but who deserves freedom? He who obeys the inner law. If you obey the inner law, if you listen to the dictates of your inner being, then you can enjoy freedom. You enjoy freedom on the outer plane precisely because you listen to a higher authority, which is your own higher self. When you do not listen to your higher self, you realise that you are totally limited and bound. When you identify yourself with your children, you can feel that since you have more wisdom and experience, you are the higher self of the children. You are part and parcel of their existence, but you are more conscious; therefore, you are in a position to guide them. These same children will one day grow up and then they will be in a position to guide and mould their own children. But when children are given freedom before they have any inner wisdom, this freedom is not good.

We are all spiritual people here. God has given us aspiration. That is why every day we pray to God and offer Him gratitude. Just because we have accepted the spiritual life, we already know what God has given us out of His infinite Bounty, and we are grateful to Him. But in the ordinary world, most of the time people are ungrateful. Children also are ungrateful to their parents. True, if the parents go on, go on pouring love into their children, they will see that in days to come the children will offer them gratitude. But real parents do not care for gratitude. They feel that to love their children is their duty. God is constantly showering His choicest Blessings on us, and He never cares for our gratitude. He cares only for His giving. When He is giving, He is happy. In this world, happiness comes only from giving. Parents should give what they have. If they have money-power, they should give that. But love-power is infinitely more important. The child’s heart and soul do not care for money. Money-power will come and go. The child cares for the mother’s heart, the father’s heart. If he gets love-power from his parents, then he is eternally and divinely bound by his parents and he himself binds his parents in the same way.

Children should constantly be given the love-power, the heart-power. This is the most important thing. And it has to be done unconditionally, not with the feeling of an inner bargain. Children have to be loved unconditionally. If the mother thinks that she will love her child when he is four so that when he is twenty-five years old, he will give her money and bring her material comfort, then I have to say that this kind of bargain in the inner life is absurd. The mother and father should give everything to the child unconditionally. Parents should expect nothing in return for their love. Just give for the sake of giving, and if it is God’s Will, your children will give in return. Even if your children do not give in return, at least one Person will never remain ungrateful and that Person is God. He will try to please the parents in a divine way, in His own Way.

Freedom we are giving to our children because freedom we have. But is this freedom helping them? No, not if they do not know how to discipline their lives. First we have to teach them inner and outer discipline. Parents sometimes act out of false modesty, saying that they do not know what is best for their children. True, in comparison to a spiritual Master or a Yogi, the parents may know nothing. But in comparison to their children, they know much more. This is what they have to feel.

Every day parents should pray to God and meditate on God to illumine them so they will not misguide their children. And the illumination they get, the parents have to offer to the children. When the children grow up, at that time they will have some wisdom to make their own choices. Then they may discard the views of their parents. But if the parents wait for the children to grow up before teaching them anything about the spiritual life, that is wrong. That approach does not work. If children are not properly moulded when they are very tender, then when they grow up, they take to drugs and do many undivine things. At that time it is too late. At that time the parents claim, “I didn’t teach him to do these things.” But unfortunately they gave him the wrong kind of freedom.

Here we are all seekers, we are spiritual people. Spiritual parents immediately have to teach their children their own spiritual philosophy. After ten or fifteen years, when the children have some maturity, then they can change their views.