Please enjoy the following Sahaja Yoga talk by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi which took place on the 27th March 1981 in Sydney.
You must protect the people who are your subordinates, who are dependent on you, your children. Like, it’s a very common thing to insult your children from their childhood. “Why did you spoil that carpet? Why did you do that? You should not have said this, why did you?” This is a very wrong thing of discipline. Best discipline is to put dignity into children.
You see, a good home in India we’ll say, is known by the way children are addressed in the family. Like, in a good family we address the children like “sa.” Little bit like that, “ap”, means “sa”. We never address the children with indignity, and we put them on a dignified level. And it’s a very nice thing. I’ll tell you about my own granddaughter, that, somebody was telling her one day that, there’s a very, this boy and why don’t you marry him. She said: “Why do you want to talk about marriage? I’m not yet grown at all to think about marriage, and we have to be dignified about things, how can we think of marriage when we are not to think, and my grandmother will marry me and I want to live, a dignified person.” A little girl of seven years said this to this woman who was very, sort of pseudo-intellectual type and she tried to tease my granddaughter. She said: “It’s not dignified.” Just think of that. At the age of seven years they have their sense of dignity. If you tell them, you see they, you need not tell them don’t spoil the carpet, but give them dignity they will never spoil it. You’ll be surprised. Because we all the time cut them short, they become so bad. They want to, they think we are good for nothing, we don’t know what to do, all the time they’re telling us like this.
Or even if you have to tell them, tell about somebody else, like that boy, you know, he was absolutely useless, he didn’t know what to do, he spoiled the whole carpet, I went to his house and slipped down. The child immediately gets the thing. But directly all the time hitting the child, you see gives him a personality which does not hold, anything substantial within. He might later on became a very arrogant person taking a cue from his parents, and he may behave the same manner, but he would not be that dignity which just is silent and is expressing and manifesting. It should be a silent dignity which just manifests, and when people see such a person, it happens, people see and say “Oh what a man, what a dignity.” You see that’s what, and they become sort of ideals for society. I think this, correcting the children is not the way, it is not disciplining, but it is making them grow.
What we have to give to our children is the joy, is happiness of the family, is the complete security, a sense of complete security and you will see you’ll never have teenage problems, never have teenage problem. You’ll be surprised you put them anywhere, they’ll be so dignified and so mature, that people will be amazed. You won’t have to tell them. Even small little children I’ve seen, if you keep your house very clean, and also always look after it, children themselves will keep it clean. They would like to do. Because children are really the budding beauties. When we cut them we cut them at the root They expect so much from us you see, they lose all their dignity and I’ll tell you try this with your children, give them dignity, you will be amazed how they behave. We say they are spoilt, I’ve never see children being spoilt when they are dignified.
Like my own grandson is a realized soul who’s a very great person and all his friends are above twenty-five years, you see he’s just a five six year old boy and he doesn’t like to wear any dress which has got funny faces and all that. He says: “This is like a clown, I’m not a clown, I don’t want to wear.” I found it very difficult in Singapore to buy a pant for him which didn’t have any funny faces, because all of them had Mickey Mouse this that. And I’ve seen my grandchildren also, daughters, there these dolls with, you see this ducky what you call the duck sort of a face you see. They said: “What’s wrong with these dolls, they should know how to put their lips. This is not good.” I mean you see, they themselves know, that this is wrong. “She’s going to go into tantrums.” That’s what they say. This duck is going to go into tantrums that’s why she is behaving like this, oh ho like that, you see they are great-grandmothers sometimes the way they do some things and the way they behave.
But we must give them real love and joy and happiness, that’s the thing we can give to our children and you’ll be amazed that this Australia is going to be blessed with children who are very great saints, very very great saints. I know that, and you have to look after them with dignity. Very great saints are going to be born in this country, so I have to request to you, that forget your problems, husband wife problem, is nothing. Look after your children, give them dignity, give them a nest where they could live, forget because I’ve seen in England I’ve seen in England even an eighty-year old woman behaves like a bride I mean she doesn’t get over her feeling that she was a bride. Like one of the “Great Expectations” you must have read of Charles Dickens where there was a bride who was sitting all the time thinking she was a bride. I see that picture even today, all the time they are in bridal mood. You see you are a mother and you have to treat your children with that dignity and with that love that a mother should give. It is very difficult for some people to accept the position of a mother, they think why women should be the mothers.
I said this is the greatest things look at me. Look at me. This is the greatest thing to be the mother, to love everyone, that they depend on you for love and guidance, just for love. Such a great thing to feel: “Oh God see how much I can give, how many cups I can fill,” it’s such a great feeling, I wish you would know what a mother is and the, motherhood you have to learn from your children and grandchildren and expand it to the whole universe. It’s such a great thing a woman has in the same way the father has to do a lot of things about which I will tell you when we go to the other center.
I think I’ve talked at length on this center because all the time what I find these two centers are catching very much in Australia. So we have to talk about the things that are catching on this and this. And today I saw there five six children with their both the fingers in, all realized children with those fingers they were sucking, and they were showing me again sucking like that. So you can imagine how much it is, and otherwise this one and this means that you have been going to some unauthorized personality. If you are going to some unauthorized personality this thumb will be caught up, that’s why children put their things in their mouths