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How can we encourage our kids to go to temple more?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Servall
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Dear Renu:



It is very disheartening to me that you and perhaps many women of this forum would feel this way. We all know mothers are the front liners to respond to the kids' needs, and by hearing and responding to their inner most needs, be material or religious, you are the most important people in shaping their lives, I would say, more than fathers. I am excited and curious to find out, along with some other like minded fathers, as to what our kids are telling the moms in respect to what the religion each one of us practices means to them, whether they are bright, smart or financially well off, or lacking or challenged in their critical thinking or poor!! How do they expect us to respond to their religious needs, how they envision our temples or places of worship in the future when all of us, in 10, 15,20,30 years or whenever long gone!!

Yes I agree with you, the fact that we do not respond to distractions is not due to lack of vocabulary and many thoughts come to my mind to respond to these comments, but it is not the focus of the issue and we have far better things to address in life.

I would request you and other women to write if you feel the rest of us can learn what the kids' needs are and how we respond to those needs is entirely upto each individual parent....

Thanks


Ok since you asked..I will tell you that kids these days are not like kids of those days.
We ourselves have to read and be well informed on religion.
I will share with you what my son asked me yesterday so we can all sort of guess what answers children these days are seeking.

Ok here goes..yesterday my 11 year old told me this while I was driving.
He wanted to know if he was right.

he said he feels that the Human body mimics the function of the universe.


he said the universe has sucking,churning,crushing,flowing,expelling properties and our human body also the same functions etc.
he said universe has planets and our body has multiple organs like planets..
And we humans and living beings in the universe are like microorganisms in the body.


He said since the human body mimics the universe so that means that the universe must be a body too and he said that he feels that universe must be the body of God.

He asked me if he was right?
(I was quite surprised with his thoughts and Q)


Ok I told him yes you are right according to religion but science has yet to agree on this.
Then he asked me if science is still not yet sure what lies beyond the black hole..how can science be so sure they are right?

I hugged him and kissed him cos I was happy with his inquisitive mind.

So this is what children of these days ask..so we adults better start reading more to handle such Q's.
 
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That's the key: What do our kids do on their own after leaving the NEST? Are they truly religious or secular?
I agree Y, when they are on their own, nobody to tell them what to think and what to do, do they have the knowledge and confidence to stand up for what they believe in a rational way? Preparing our kids to be able do this is the responsibility of the parents, not to feel a kind of ownership of the kid and the right to enforce whatever religious views they have been raised to believe in upon them.

If all the parents do is to fill them up with shlokas, and doing arati, the kids are being setup to be easily persuaded by any number of people keen on proselytizing young kids.

Cheers!
 
when it comes to writing it in Forum may be we might want to think twice.
Writing anything here will be shot down by the fighter pilot squad.
Dont get me wrong..its not fear that prevents me from writing some of my thoughts but just that I feel the topic is good and let me write my opinion in my mind cos some answers I read here from others dont seem to be "honest".
They recommend one thing for other peoples children but practised or practise something else for their own kids or for some its just a case of sour grapes.

One of the main reasons why i dont actively participate. If i do, people confuse my personal views with that of the website. So i prefer to remain a mute spectator.

This topic is one that is very close to my heart for various reasons that i simply cannot share without being "targeted, hounded and branded".

people get too emotional and take things way too personally. It is sad but then each has other own way of taking things. I dont blame them. If only they prefer to discuss everything, i mean everything, openly without taking it very personally things would be a lot more easier and better for all.

until then....
 
Reference Servall's post #30:

You march in a demonstration protesting the '2G spectrum- sell out' of the country. Why?

You give every month one tenth of your income to Udhavum Karangal (a charity). Why?

You accept responsibility for the mistake of a subordinate. Why?

You tell your daughter she must stop associating with a certain friend who comes from an undesirable background. Why?

When you are dogged by problems which appear to be intractable and without any apparent solution you repent and turn to pray. Why?

Every day most people make decisions of this kind. These are all moral decisions or decisions of right and wrong. Where does the data which goes into these decisions come from? These come from the value system which every one has built up over a period of time. The process of building a valid ethical value system is a lengthy, iterative, painstaking one. In this, parental advice/behavior, influence/behavior of friends, peers and siblings, one’s own experience in life(the pleasures of success, the pains of the hits/failure etc and the reasons for them), continuous updating of one’s convictions and belief using the treatment tool called reality etc. play their role. In the childhood when most of the basic values are formed(which will be accessed several times later in life), the advices of the parents when accompanied by appropriate behavior becomes an enduring value while the advice accompanied by an authoritarian behavior is discarded by the child quickly.


Keeping this in view let us look at your reasoning given in post #30.

  1. The fact that my kids are born in North America has inherently failed me as a parent from providing them the same childhood experience that I had in India.
You feel so because you believe that the values you picked up in your childhood are useful and enduring ones. You want your children too to have the same benefit. We make a number of compromises depending on the situation. If we do not get what we think is the ideal one we make do with what is available and improvise to serve our higher purpose. I am sure in North merica there are Hindu temples which may not have the same ambience as the village temple in your native village. But by taking your children to the temples in North America you can help them build a value system.

2. I truly believe, from my experience, going to the temple as a child provided me a sense of discipline, sense of tolerance, calmness, a place of learning which otherwise I may have spent in less useful activities and feeling proud of my heritage.

It would be very difficult for any one to recall and identify each value from
One’s value system and recall when or how that particular value was picked up/formed. It is a very complicated psychological process. Every value is repeatedly accessed from the archive in the mind several times and either discarded temporarily/permanently or refurbished and deposited in the archive. These values guide our behavior in our life.

3. I don’t want my kids to go to the temple because I want them to; only to empower them to observe, experience and learn the purpose and meaning of God and religion the way I learnt, so they can ask questions, do their own fact finding, and finally make up their own minds, whether they believe or not believe it is their decision. If I didn’t create those opportunities for them, I would have failed as a responsible parent and caused to create a permanent cultural void in their life


We need not hesitate to admit that we, as parents, tell our children what is good and bad. We also tell them why we say that if they can comprehend what we say. Otherwise the children pick up what we say with total trust. ‘Because Dad/Mom says it can only be true’ kind of trust. Later in his life the child will take out this value also and subject it to scrutiny several times and retain it or discard it because he would have grown up and would have picked up a lot of experience in life. Without bothering about what is going to happen in the future, we all help the child build up a system of good values because it is our duty to the child. We try to be very considerate and less authroritative in this endeavour because we do not want an outright rejection or ‘game playing’ by the child.

  1. And finally, I say this in all seriousness and due respect: If we fail as parents to bridge this cultural gap, we knowingly would cause our kids to question our faith and turn them non-believers and it will not be atheism by research but only through our neglect!!
I understand your anguish. Please read again what I have given under reply to your 1 above.


As usual Atheists have opened shop here also to sell their wares. They have said ‘why’ is more important than ‘how’. For them Atheism is the natural state in which we all were born and so there is no need to burden the children with faith. We keep telling the children to wear dresses even though nakedness is the natural state in which we were all born and what more, it is very convenient too to be naked. Faith and the values which come with it are not known to atheists. We need not argue with them on these values. If they can live without these values happily let them live that way. Atma is always aananthamayam-say Vedas.

I would conclude with a quote:

Bertrand Russel said “Many adults in their hearts still believe all that they were taught in childhood and feel wicked when their lives do not conform to the maxims of the Sunday School. The harm done is not merely to introduce a division between the concious reasonable personality(adult) and the unconscious infantile personality(child) the harm lies also in the fact that the valid parts of conventional morality become discredited along with the invalid parts. This danger is inseparable from a system which teaches the young, en bloc, a number of beliefs many of which they are almost sure to discard when they become mature.”

Are there then as Russel suggests, valid parts of conventional morality? The answer to this comes from Anthropologist Ralph Linton , who says, “without the presence of culture(values passed from generation to generation in a long chain of many generations), conserving past gains and shaping each succeeding generation to its patterns, homo sapiens would be nothing more than a terrestrial anthropoid ape, slightly divergent in structure and slightly superior in intelligence, but a brother to the chimpanzee and gorilla”

Let us not deny our children the benefit of faith and its good values, thinking that it is an unnecessary burden or that these values may be thrown to winds when they grow up. Conventional morality passed from generation to generation is enduring indeed!

Cheers.
 
i can see a complaint from atheists or the so called liberals, that the religion is being indoctrinated in a child's mind, rather be given a chance to choose..

that's fine but, when it comes to themselves, why its not condemned in the same way , when a LKG child is indoctrinated with 'A for APPLE'.

why not the same child be given freedom by the same parents to chose if she want to study alphabets or not? why not the same atheist parents, let their children to grow to a matured age, and choose to pursure ABE/Musics like , do-re-me/Ah-Beh-Se-De/ Un-Une-Deux-Trois/ Painting/ Dancing? why force teach a child with alphabets

why such double standards, when it comes to teaching religion to children?
 
i can see a complaint from atheists or the so called liberals, that the religion is being indoctrinated in a child's mind, rather be given a chance to choose..

that's fine but, when it comes to themselves, why its not condemned in the same way , when a LKG child is indoctrinated with 'A for APPLE'.

why not the same child be given freedom by the same parents to chose if she want to study alphabets or not? why not the same atheist parents, let their children to grow to a matured age, and choose to pursure ABE/Musics like , do-re-me/Ah-Beh-Se-De/ Un-Une-Deux-Trois/ Painting/ Dancing? why force teach a child with alphabets

why such double standards, when it comes to teaching religion to children?
A for apple and the further education on that foundation is what சோறு போடும், today; religion will surely not. If any religion (say, for example Islam) becomes capable of assuring lucrative salaries to a large number of youth - both male and female - I am sure people will start their kids with aleph, ba, ta...
 
Ok since you asked..I will tell you that kids these days are not like kids of those days.
We ourselves have to read and be well informed on religion.
I will share with you what my son asked me yesterday so we can all sort of guess what answers children these days are seeking.

Ok here goes..yesterday my 11 year old told me this while I was driving.
He wanted to know if he was right.

he said he feels that the Human body mimics the function of the universe.


he said the universe has sucking,churning,crushing,flowing,expelling properties and our human body also the same functions etc.
he said universe has planets and our body has multiple organs like planets..
And we humans and living beings in the universe are like microorganisms in the body.


He said since the human body mimics the universe so that means that the universe must be a body too and he said that he feels that universe must be the body of God.

He asked me if he was right?
(I was quite surprised with his thoughts and Q)


Ok I told him yes you are right according to religion but science has yet to agree on this.
Then he asked me if science is still not yet sure what lies beyond the black hole..how can science be so sure they are right?

I hugged him and kissed him cos I was happy with his inquisitive mind.

So this is what children of these days ask..so we adults better start reading more to handle such Q's.

Very interesting, indeed.

I want to know what your son will tell you when he is in High School, and in College..

Most probably, if he continues on this track, he will major in Liberal Art!

Wait & watch.
 
Very interesting, indeed.

I want to know what your son will tell you when he is in High School, and in College..

Most probably, if he continues on this track, he will major in Liberal Art!

Wait & watch.


He told me he wants to be a Paleontologist.His fav subject is science and maths and he is very good in both those subjects.
In fact at home he has a mini lab where he conducts all sorts of experiments on his own..always trying to make some potion or the other.
He is very inquisitive esp about life and death.
So I will wait and watch.And I wish him all the best and happiness in whatever field he chooses.

Anyway none of us really know tomorrow:

Papa kehte hain bada naam karega
Beta hamara aisa kaam karega
Magar yeh to koi na jaane
Ki meri manzil hai kahan

Father says, he will make a big name
My son will do such work
But this, no one knows
Where my destination is.




 
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A for apple and the further education on that foundation is what சோறு போடும், today; religion will surely not. If any religion (say, for example Islam) becomes capable of assuring lucrative salaries to a large number of youth - both male and female - I am sure people will start their kids with aleph, ba, ta...

In a way I tend to agree with Sangom sir. An ordinary man cannot think of religion or God when his stomach is empty. It might have been possible for sages but not for the common man. And when it comes to having a choice of subject, one would naturally choose the course that can assure safety (of food, of income, etc.).
 
"As usual Atheists have opened shop here also to sell their wares."-post 79

The Theist would rather have a free ride, conveniently citing Betrand Russel and Ralph Linton, the intellectuals of the WEST and their "handed down wisdom"!

On matters of God and Religion EAST is the place to learn and emulate... why to bring the Westerners here?

LoL
 
In a way I tend to agree with Sangom sir. An ordinary man cannot think of religion or God when his stomach is empty. It might have been possible for sages but not for the common man. And when it comes to having a choice of subject, one would naturally choose the course that can assure safety (of food, of income, etc.).

That is the height of stupidity originated with the european renaissance. We have become the masters of Direct Perception and Egoism. Sangom Sir thinks, we show a $10 or Rs. 100 bill, we buy a pack of Coffee powder, so, all that needed for Food or sustenance is that Liquid Cash. He fails to think, that Coffee at the market, goes through 10 levels of Service and Procurement that involves 6 months of effort of 100 people. I would explain such service in the reverse order of 'Cashier, Store Keeper, delivery, retail stores, export, packaging, transport, local market, 6 months of sweating, harvesting, cultivating/farming, seeds procurement, loan processing etc.' But all these service, only works with the GRACE OF the Nature - Healthy Seeds, Nutrient Soil, Soil Organisms, Good Climate - Prana, Agni/Sun, Apa/Water, Air/Vayu.

With the development of Exchange and Service Industry, People like Sangom Sir fail to INFER the background effort that needed to bring the Coffee at the needed moment. So, with Westernization, SET, Modernization, people lost the Knowledge of INFERENCE!
 
"As usual Atheists have opened shop here also to sell their wares."-post 79

The Theist would rather have a free ride, conveniently citing Betrand Russel and Ralph Linton, the intellectuals of the WEST and their "handed down wisdom"!

On matters of God and Religion EAST is the place to learn and emulate... why to bring the Westerners here?

LoL

Such is the effect of 2000 years of Invasion and Colonization that suppressed Sanskrit, We even after 60 years of Freedom, we can't learn our Sanskrit and quote pearls of wisdom from our Scriptures and other Works from either Sanskrit or our Mother Tongue. Western Ideas are simply a plagiarised and Packaged Indian Wisdom.
 
Govinda your post #86 sounds very smart. but for people of yesteryear would you elaborate your argument at my level. As far as I am concerned I need cash to buy my services and goods. As Shiva or Sangom posted we need our basic needs met before we go on to spiritual needs.
How do you argue against that?
 
Such is the effect of 2000 years of Invasion and Colonization that suppressed Sanskrit, We even after 60 years of Freedom, we can't learn our Sanskrit and quote pearls of wisdom from our Scriptures and other Works from either Sanskrit or our Mother Tongue. Western Ideas are simply a plagiarised and Packaged Indian Wisdom.

This point I agree with you. Unless the 'vallakaran' says it, for some it is not enough.
 
Such is the effect of 2000 years of Invasion and Colonization that suppressed Sanskrit, We even after 60 years of Freedom, we can't learn our Sanskrit and quote pearls of wisdom from our Scriptures and other Works from either Sanskrit or our Mother Tongue. Western Ideas are simply a plagiarised and Packaged Indian Wisdom.

govinda,

pray let me know what is stopping you. is anyone in india preventing you learning sanskrit? isthere not even a sanskrit university. i think in many schools sanskrit is an optional course, and in my time, 1950/60s my cousins used to opt sanskrit over tamil to get high marks, as one scored easily or sanskrit was marked very lightly. i think.

btw, if i live in chennai, i would not want my kids to force fed on sanskrit as a compulsory language. i am not interested in sanskrit as i think i have an equal ancient and a more immediate cultural option in learning tamil.

and by mother tongue, do you mean tamil? if it is tamil, i understand there are plenty of avenues and books to learn as deep as you want.

but if you mean sanskrit as your mother tongue, maybe you should move to a place in india where indeed sanskrit is spoken, somewhere in karnataka. others are simply not interested, i thnk.

it is the same with other ancient languages like aramaic or latin. hebrew was condemned to the same status, except modern day israel, in light of the traumatic holocaust, felt the need to revive and modernize an ancient tongue - which they have done successfully.

also, sanskrit, tamil, arabic, aramaic, latin, hebrew - these are just languages. developed in different areas of the world at different times. they are no better or no worse than one other, each has its shortcomings, and its highest form of literature.

today, the global and growing language is english. people all over, including the erstwhile hindiwallahs, are fighting to learn english, to be in touch with the modern world and a good future. think about it.

sanskrit, if i remember right, was always a court language. it was prakrit that was the common tongue, and afaik evolved various north indian tongues which later evolved into hindi, guj, beng, bhoj and the rest.

hope this explains.
 
This point I agree with you. Unless the 'vallakaran' says it, for some it is not enough.

prasad,

for whom is it not enough. unless the 'vallakaran' says.

is it me? nara? sangom? happy hindu? renuka? yamaka? valli? amala? haridasa siva? c ravi? nacchinarkiniyan? brahmanyan? praveen? someone you know outside of this forum?

maybe you can quote and tell us why you feel that way.

because i think you may be mistaken. let us have some proof.
 
prasad,

for whom is it not enough. unless the 'vallakaran' says.

is it me? nara? sangom? happy hindu? renuka? yamaka? valli? amala? haridasa siva? c ravi? nacchinarkiniyan? brahmanyan? praveen? someone you know outside of this forum?

maybe you can quote and tell us why you feel that way.

because i think you may be mistaken. let us have some proof.

Mr. Kunjuppu,
Please do not take it personally. I did not mean you. But if the shoe fits it wear it. My comment was in response to Govinda and it included his posting. There are perpetual doubter of anything Indian, or hindu achievements. It is like 'whack the mole' anytime someone points to some achievement of Indian origin 'whack' 'whack' 'whack' and it is the usual suspects.

If you have accepted that there has been achievements in the past or is being achieved in the present. And the findings were not by a foreigner then obviously it is not for you. But like you said before "elephant throws dirt on its own head', it is upto you. Again I did not mean you.

I do find that some in this site have very low opinion about anything Indian, that is surprising to me. I do not find that majority of Indian feel this way.

"Janani janmabhoomishcha swargadapi gariyasi’’, well illustrates this sentiment. Janani (mother) and janmabhoomi (motherland) are more exalted than even swarg (heaven).
 
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govinda,

pray let me know what is stopping you. is anyone in india preventing you learning sanskrit? isthere not even a sanskrit university.

hope this explains.

Nice Explanation. I know of lot of Sanksrit Scholars or even other professionals who mastered/authored Sanskrit works. But that is not the case with the general public, because all education/daily living/dealings are in English.

Hindi was a cultural invasion of Moghuls/Persian/Bollywood/Sufi. Tamil was promoted by the DK and British didn't suppress Tamil to achieve their goal to suppress Sanskrit in the name of Aryan/Dravidian divide. Else, both of them would have died too.

Yamaka Sir thinks that we copy or quote the Western Wisdom but not Eastern. May be Yamaka pretends, that Western wisdom are their own, we shouldn't quote them. Next time, people would sign a patent saying Air/Water/Land are in English and are Western/Atheist, and the Religious should stop using them.
 
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Our ancestors and elders keep saying God is omnipotent and god is everywhere, within you and me. So it negates the idea of going to a particular place to worship him/her.

I think Mr Praveen's point is well taken, but I have a rebuttal. I think it is all about the atmosphere. Yes, you can watch a movie on your cell phone, but that is not the same as going to a movie theater. Yes, you can try to visualize your Ishtadevata while watching "Big Boss", but that may not be appropriate. Yes, you can recite the Gayatri Mantra while helping your kid with his homework, but both will be distracted. I hope you understand my point.
 
spirituality and earning money should be done simultaneously.after losing our sight no use of buying a beautiful pic.kannai vithu chitram vankiya katai akividum-okva?
 
Reference Prasad1 in post #92:

"Janani janmabhoomishcha swargadapi gariyasi’’, well illustrates this sentiment. Janani (mother) and janmabhoomi (motherland) are more exalted than even swarg (heaven).

I am giving the Tamil equivalent so that Kunjuppu and others can easily identify themselves with the sentiment expressed in it:

பெற்ற தாயும் பிறந்த பொன்நாடும்
நற்றவ வானினும் நனி சிறந்தனவே.

cheers.
 
Reference Yamaka's post #85

"As usual Atheists have opened shop here also to sell their wares."-post 79

The Theist would rather have a free ride, conveniently citing Betrand Russel and Ralph Linton, the intellectuals of the WEST and their "handed down wisdom"!

On matters of God and Religion EAST is the place to learn and emulate... why to bring the Westerners here?

LoL

When I go to Trivandrum I speak Malayalam and when I go to Bombay I speak Marathi because I want to be understood clearly. When I speak to Atheists(not serveall) I quote Russel from his "Why I am not a Christian" and R.Linton from his "The study of Man" with the hope that they would have read these already and would have lapped up the handed down wisdom already. Lol.
 
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