26 Apr 2014
[Smt. Uma Ramanathan asked: “What are the duties of parents towards their children and vice-versa?”. Given below is Shri Swami’s response.]
The duty of the parents towards children is protection from all sides and the duty of children towards parents in their old age is service, which also means protection from all sides. The unfortunate fact is that neither parents nor children can protect any other person since they cannot even protect themselves. In the effort of protection, there is always the seed of ego. This ego must be eradicated and hence, all the proposals of any human being are disposed by God. The only reason is to remove the ego from the heart of every human being and no other reason is true in the case of God. If the parent or child really likes to protect the child or parent respectively, the only way for that is to pass on this process of protection to God since He alone is capable of it. Otherwise, attempt to protect others fails miserably. The love of the parents towards children should not be direct and it should be forwarded to them through God. The direct love is useless and indirect love through God is very much useful and effective.
The actual process of forwarding the love through God is like this: you divert the love on your child towards God. In plain words, you should love God only and not your child at all. In such case, you become the devotee of God. Since your child is not getting love from you, the sympathy rises in God towards your child. Then, God starts loving your child. The love of God brings complete protection to your child. Even if you are doing some service to your child, you must feel that you are doing the duty assigned by God to you. Your service must be a duty without love. The love expressed to your child is actually spoiling your child. Therefore, all your love must be concentrated on God only. The duty performed towards your child without expression of love brings good discipline in it. The love concentrated on God brings protection to your child. This is the best way of doing service to the child or to the parent. Performance of duty without any attachment and complete attachment to God is the best way of doing things in this world. Shankara really loved His mother since He left His mother in her old age in the service of God and she was granted salvation by God for this sacrifice. She could not have attained salvation if Shankara remained in home showing love to her. The temporary service that might have been done by Shankara by staying with her is a petty thing compared to the permanent salvation given to her by God.
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