Smarter

[JUSTIFY]My wife is raised in an environment where prayers and chanting is routine every single day. She lived in a joint family with her grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. In their family, every male child will have to go through rigorous Vedam chanting and Sloka training. When a learned person came home every day to teach one of her cousins, the girls at home will listen carefully from the adjacent room and learned all chants. Later, she wanted to understand the pronunciations right and hence she became a Sanskrit student in school and college. She has perfected her skills after marriage more and more and now she could chant most of what she knows without referring to any books. Every morning and evening she spends considerable amount of time finishing her chants followed by Aarati to the Gods in the Altar. While secretly I admire her devotion, I used to make fun of her often stating that how chants help her become a better person and reach the goal of Self-realization.

After I came out of the corporate world in 2001 getting out of responsibilities of a public company, I started business of my own and spent considerable amount of time learning more and more about spiritual life. My interest in reading switched from management books into spirituality. I have come to the conclusion that if I need to be a better person, I need to become stronger in understanding of the teachings of the learned people and I started reading spiritual books of all religions particularly a lot in Sanatana Dharma. I understood that Sanatana Dharma is a concept for right living developed several thousands of years back and passed on to several generations by word of mouth. Later, it became part of the Hindu religion. Even today, I have a feeling what I have learned is handful and I still need to learn so much more equal to the size of this Universe. But the quest for learning has not stopped and over a period of time, I have become stronger in my views that it is the knowledge of spirituality that would make me a better person.

My son grew up in this environment of his mom chanting twice every day and his dad spending considerable amount of time exploring spiritual knowledge. I was watching him carefully whether he would pick up the path of devotion or knowledge. Every time, he prayed in the Altar before leaving for college my wife got elated and every time he read books of various religions, I felt a sense of accomplishment. But he never showed excessive involvement either in praying or reading books to gain spiritual knowledge. He kept volunteering for the Hospice of Florida Suncoast for hours and hours, helped neighborhood children to learn Math and Science, showered a lot of love to young children and animals, etc. He was very principled in learning the subject through hard work. When he started working as Research Associate, he contributed to several international projects including providing winter clothes for children in Africa and so on. When everyone worked for 20 hours for which the students were paid, he spent 40 hours each week besides his studies. One fine day, my wife and I decided to spend a few hours with him to understand whether he is adapting to the path of knowledge or devotion. He spoke to us for nearly 2 hours. We both were stunned by his depth of knowledge about several religions and knew so much about Sanatana Dharma. He still remembered some of the Chants taught by my wife when he was less than 4-6 years old.

Sometime back, Cheeniya Sir wrote about Swamimalai where Lord Muruga taught His father Lord Shiva the meaning of Pranava Mantra. My wife and I physically experienced that from our only son. He was devoted to his duties and demonstrated to serve the fellow beings around him and achieve happiness. He taught us an important lesson that it is not the path that is important but how we conduct ourselves following the teachings we learn or how we become instruments in the hands of the Lords we pray every day.[/JUSTIFY]

 

Dear Anu,

Thank you for your first response. I will be writing here as well as "Good to write" Snippet of life section regularly. I sent you a link where I wrote many posts recently. Thank you for being such a great supporter of my writings. I am very grateful for that.

Viswa

 

Dear Syamala,

You are right about children emulating the parents very much. It is also true that we can watch our children and learn from them about our character whether it is good or bad like looking at a mirror.

Thank you for your best wishes to my son and he needs all blessings. I am grateful to you for your blessings.

Viswa

 

Dear Aparna,

You may be right. Sometimes, my hidden good or bad qualities could be visible by looking at my son. Before I correct him, I can make the effort to correct myself so that it would be easier for me to suggest that.

Thank you for your kind words.

Viswa