Few
days ago I had conversation related to God with my 9 year old.
Before
going to bed he came to me and said “Thank you, Mumma.”
I
was little surprised because I didn’t get anything for him that day so I asked,
“For what?”
His
answer stunned me. He said, “Nothing. You always say that we should always
thank God for no reason. So, thank you.”
And
I was like - where is this coming from! Obviously, I argued, “But, I am not God
…”
“But
for me, you and daddy are …” he declared.
“Tanish,
I’m your mother and let me be your mother, let your father be your father and
let God be the God. Don’t mix all of us please …” I said what came to my mind at
that moment.
“But
you always say that God is inside everybody. So, for me you are the God.” He
made his point and I got the hint how he has mixed all my talks and made his
own understanding.
“Yes,
our souls are part of the God. So, in that way we do have God inside us. But that
doesn’t mean that the whole me is the God. I know, I have so many flaws and I
have done so many mistakes and I might do some in future. So how can I be the
God? I am not God …”
“I
don’t know that, for me you are the God.” He was firm.
And
I was like how am I going to make him understand that I am afar from even understanding
the ‘God’ and he cannot state that; though I tried a lot, I failed.
Well,
this conversation I had with my son reminded me the Sanskrit shloka from
Taittiriya Upanishad which I had learnt when I was a kid:
देवपितृकार्याभ्यां न
प्रमदितव्यम्।
मातृदेवो भव।
पितृदेवो भव। आचार्यदेवो भव।
अतिथिदेवो भव।
यान्यनवध्यानि कर्माणि तानि
सेवितव्यानि। नो इतराणि।
यान्यस्मारक सुचरितानि। तानि त्वयोपास्यानि।
Meaning:
There should be no carelessness in the duties toward the Gods and manes. Let
your mother be a goddess unto you. Let your father be a god unto you. Let your
teacher be a god unto you. Let your guest be a god unto you. The works that are
not blameworthy are to be resorted to, not others. Those alone actions of ours
(our teachers’, elders’ and parents’) that are commendable are to be followed
by you, not others.
Well,
when I learnt this shloka, even I felt that yes – ‘My parents are God’ but I never
find courage to tell them what I felt at that time unlike my child who declared
before learning this shloka.
Anyways,
the last line of 'Geeta Saar' says that - Change is the law of universe. So by
that law, I can change somewhat of my own understanding to this shloka.
There
should be no carelessness in the duties toward our own (instead of the Gods and
manes). - There is God inside us too and that’s why our heart is pumping and we
are alive. We must not be careless to keep ourselves healthy and happy. Our
first duty is towards ourselves and then everyone else comes.
Let
your parents be friend (instead of goddess and god) unto you. - We haven’t seen
God and may be won’t see in our whole life. But these two creators - our
parents has made us and no matter how much differences we have; we definitely
can share our success and failures without any fear or doubt. And we can make
them understand our new kind of issues and they definitely can find the old way
to fight with these new ones! But we need to talk on regular basis to remain
friends.
Let
your teacher be a source of light (instead of god) unto you. – These are the
people who can make us reach to the peak of our lives. They can be anyone our
teachers, parents, coaches, elders, or may be our friends! We can learn to hold
the light from any wise person around us and can use it when we are in dark.
Let
your guest be a source of fun (instead of god) unto you. – Let’s start becoming
the kind of guest whom actually people want to invite from their heart. When we
are visiting someone, we should try to left real smiles on their face and real
happiness in their heart. We should not bother them with so called formalities
and leave them with the hard feelings. Let’s start being fun to our hosts and we’ll
definitely get what we give to others.
The
works that are not blameworthy are to be resorted to, not others. – I don’t
want to change anything in this line but we can change the takings from this
line. I completely agree we should not do such activities which are blameworthy
like – disrespecting, cheating, thieving, killing, terrorizing etc. But yes, we
can constantly change ourselves with the time (as it’s the law of universe) and
we can change our perspective towards certain activities which we actually want
to do but don’t do; just because we feel or we have been nurtured to feel that
it’s blameworthy. Yes! Absolutely that! I’m talking about that activity only which is
in your mind right now. J
Those
alone actions of ours (our teachers’, elders’ and parents’) that are
commendable are to be followed by you, not others. – Again, I don’t want to
change anything in this line but yes we all know – actions speaks louder than
words, so, better we become more of that kind of a person which we want our
children to be. The future completely depends on our today’s actions. If we are
not going to save our natural resources, our children will never learn to save
it. And we’ll make them facing undying problems and for those our old ways of solutions
might not work. And at the end, we cannot depend on the real ‘God’ for saving
our children for the wrong or blameworthy actions we had done.
So
as per my belief, God is inside everyone of us, so we definitely can be the
source of light in our children’s lives and try to solve their problems in the
old ways which we have learnt from of our parents and through our experience before
their future get ruined by our blameworthy actions. And I’ll definitely keep
talking to my child that eventually he’ll understand that I am not God … ad
Thank you
so much Dear Reader, for spending your valuable time. Please Share this post to
your connections, and be a part of Positive Change. Keep Reading…
Your Friend
Always…
Amee Darji
PS:
Geeta Saar is the core of the Bhagwad Geeta said by Lord Krishna