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The Inner Development of Our Children

The inner development of children is essential. Parents implant goals, often limiting children to doctor, engineer, or teacher. Spiritual growth is neglected. Children may achieve worldly success but lack bhāva, inner feeling. Bringing children to satsaṅg is the first step. Vibrations of bhajans and positivity affect the child in the womb. The mother holds immense power, capable of transforming the age. Children absorb the peace of satsaṅg even without understanding. The love of a mother mirrors the Guru’s all-encompassing love. External circumstances suppress inner divinity. Awareness removes layers of dust, revealing our true nature. We must be living examples, not force a path. Children learn by observing. Awareness of thoughts and actions is crucial for spiritual development. Feeling behind words gives them meaning. Life is not a video game; we have one life. The world is illusion, but inner development must move toward truth. We have endurance, discrimination, and the Guru’s protection, but lack action. The Guru adapts to our needs for our growth. Keep the fire of devotion constant. Life is not waiting.

"Women are so powerful that they are the creator, they are the destroyer, they are everything. That is the svarūp of a Devī."

"Brahma satyaṃ jagat mithyā. The Brahmā, that Brahman, is the true truth. Jagat, this world, everything else is mithyā, is the illusion."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

We cannot only grow in the materialistic outer world. All parents always wish that their children will become more than us. They always implant certain goals and motives within them. Are we truly living, or not yet? Do we want to be? We can be, surely. So, there are two types of development. One is the development we get from normal studies, from sports. Those are the goals we gain by saying, "You need to have a certain goal, a certain achievement in life," which we implant in the younger generations. In India, if you ask children, you will get three major answers. You will ask, "What do you want to become when you grow up? What do you want to achieve in life?" Specifically, you will hear three answers: doctor, engineer, or teacher. These are the three major streams into which children are placed. Their passion may be totally something else, but it is implanted in the system of the kids since early childhood. We also need to consider not only our own development, but the development of our kids. Yes, they may become the best student in the school or in the class. They might earn the best trophies. But then we need to ask ourselves if the kid is getting any type of spiritual development or not. The kid might be the best CEO, the best businessman or businesswoman, but does he have bhāva? Does he have anything within? When we see here in Strilky or in our Gurudev’s satsaṅgs, the parents bring their children with them. That is already the first step, even these babies who are sitting here. Even before giving birth, it is said that when the lady, the woman, is pregnant, they listen to beautiful bhajans, kīrtans, satsaṅgs, nice things, positive things. Because the positivity goes as vibrations into the womb of the mother. When there is love and compassion in that energy field, it is felt and absorbed by that child in the womb. Women are so powerful that they are the creator, they are the destroyer, they are everything. That is the svarūp of a Devī. That is how a goddess is. Devī, Svarūpā, Jagadambā—that means the woman is the Jagadambā herself. She can be the kindest, the sweetest, or she can have that Kālī Mā within. Gurudev was saying that the women, the mothers, they have the power to turn this Kali Yuga back to Satya Yuga. But it is all in our hands. And they are very sensitive to these vibrations, to these external things which are happening. They easily tap into those energies and pull them in. When the mother is pregnant, it is not only one soul, but there are two souls. And the vibration in this satsaṅg exists not only because of the space and the āśram, but because of each and every one of you all who are sitting here. Each and every one of you, we all are unique in a different way. We all hold a certain energy field which is filled with divinity and purity because we are in this āśram. And what is the ghee in the fire that gives it more energy? It is these satsaṅgs, these bhajans, this collective energy of meditation and sādhanā, which develops and makes this space more luminous. Just by being in satsaṅg, maybe the kids do not understand anything. Maybe they are in their own worlds, in their own heads. But when they are there, that vibration of mantras, that vibration of peace, it goes into them. It is all in our hands, how we shape it. Today I was walking back from the hall to Gaṅgā, and there was a mother. She was so focused on a child that immediately, making her own way, running past everyone, moving everyone aside, she went to that child. That is the love which a mother holds for her child. That is the love which Gurudev holds for all of us. When we say, "Guru Brahmā, Guru Viṣṇu, Guru Devo Maheśvaraḥ," Guru is Brahmā, Guru is Viṣṇu, Guru is Maheśa. And tvameva mātā, ca pitā tvameva—you are my mother, you are my father, you are my brother, you are my friend, you are everyone. So when they are everyone, when they are everything, then that is the true divinity. And that true divinity resides in each and every one of our hearts. There are external things which are pressing down on that. There are external circumstances, happenings in life, which suppress the inner divinity, which hold it down. But as we all are somewhat spiritually developed, as we all understand the way of living, that makes us slightly more developed than the outer people who are living in the outer world. It is in them, too. It always has been. But there are just layers and layers of dust. When there is somewhat of awareness, we become aware of that dust, of that fog, and we remove it, and that layer unfolds. We just need to realize that we are who we are. We need to realize that we are the best versions of ourselves, and we cannot be suppressed by anyone or anything. We all have that power, that strength, that love, that compassion—everything within all of us. But when we work on that awareness, when we work on that way of thinking, then we will unfold so many things in our lives. So when we choose a path, like in India, if we choose the path that my child will become a doctor, my child will become a professor—did we ever think that after the child grows up, maybe he or she would like to become something else or someone else? And for them to experience everything, they need to see things. They need to feel this energy for them to accept it. We cannot force anything or any way of living on them. But when they see how our parents are living, when they see how things are working in my household, immediately certain qualities awaken within that child. But that is not intentionally done. That happens automatically by observing how we live. When we become the example and show them the way of living, when they see and feel the changes within themselves, they realize how developed, how divine we are compared to others because of the spiritual practices we do. And then they help their friends, they help their classmates to somewhat experience certain things. And that is how the beauty of peace, the beauty of the knowledge, will continue. And then maybe they will help their classmates and friends to also experience the situation, and so it will spread beautifully. But at the end of the day, any action, anything that we do, anything that we say, is always our decision. So whatever we say or whatever we do is in our hands. If we decide to say something bad to someone, we thought about it, it came out of our mouth. We can control what we say or think. This is the same as meditation. You meditate, thoughts pop by, distractions come, new ideas come. So do not concentrate on what is happening behind. Things happen. Life is happening in front of our eyes, and that we do not see, and we are seeing what is happening behind me. Remember anything I said? What was the last sentence I said? That is why I say awareness is important. We are physically sitting here, but mentally, our minds are not. My mind is totally somewhere else. Those of you who have to go after satsaṅg are looking at your phones and checking the time, "How long will he talk?" The children and the teachers who are organizing this beautiful play, which we will have, in their head is, "When will the performance happen?" That is why I am making them wait longer—to stress them out completely, so that the stress has gone out of them, and then they can perform easily. Some of us are thinking and contemplating: what are we doing in our lives, and how can we change it? And what are we hearing? And what can we gain out of it? Some of us are thinking, "That is exactly what I was thinking earlier." Exactly, that shows that we are all working on the same thing. It does not mean I am reading your heads or your minds; it just means that we are all working on the same thing. It is just, are we aware of what we are thinking? Are we aware of our actions? Unless and until that awareness is not there, spiritual development is slow. Problems will come and go, and paravāṇs will come and go. We focus on our path. If you start picking on every single thought and every single idea you get in your meditation, you will go crazy. So in the same way, we do not tap into those thoughts, we do not tap into those energies which come by in our meditations, we do not tap into anything else in our life. We concentrate on the thing that we are doing in the moment. But we are stuck most of the time in other places, other time zones, other things. And if we are more here, more present—physically, mentally, in every single way—here in satsaṅg, the fruits of it are much different. It is one thing if you sing "Oṁ Jaya Guru Deva Nirañjana Dīna." Why? Because the bhāva is different. The emotions come out. If we love someone and we say, "I love you," with which feelings, with which emotions did we say it? That matters. If there is feeling in that word, then that word means something. If there is no feeling in that word, that word is blank. You can say sorry to someone, but inwardly hold such a deep grudge against him or her, then nothing changed. You say sorry, or you say, "OK, I forgive you," but inwardly you do not change. If we were perfect, then we would be Gods. But obviously we are not, and that is why we are humans. So neither is everything perfect, nor is it going to be perfect in our lives. This is saṃskāras. Not only coming for chocolates—still in the mind there is somewhere that if she comes to me, she will get something. Coming, making praṇām, taking the light, and going back. That is what Swāmījī taught us, and that is what we taught our children. That is what tradition is, that is what paramparā is, and that is the true example of transmission of light. But the way we live our life is going to be in our hands, unfortunately. It is not a video game where we play, and we crash, and we restart. It is real life. It is different in video games. You have a restart button, you have a choice, you know. You watch an extra ad for 15 seconds and you unlock a new life, you know. It does not work. In real life, we have this life. After death, who knows if we come back, who knows what, because after you pop out of that door again, you forget. That is also mithyā, and this is also mithyā. That is also false; this is also false. What is satya, what is the truth? Brahma satyaṃ jagat mithyā. The Brahmā, that Brahman, is the true truth. Jagat, this world, everything else is mithyā, is the illusion. But still, we are not looking towards—or we are, but the world is still not looking towards that Brahman, towards that truth. We are still stuck, unfortunately, in this illusion. Our physical materialistic body can be stuck in this mithyā, but our inner world, our inner development, should be going towards that satya, towards that truth. No matter what the world throws at us, take it as a test. Because we know that we are much stronger than what comes at us. We are learned, we are trained with titikṣā, endurance. We have determination, discrimination, power, we have viveka. We have the protective layer, the protection of the Guru. What are we missing? Action. That is it. We need to do the action for ourselves to develop. We need to do the actions for the community to develop. We need to do the actions for this whole mission of Gurudev to go forward. Gurudev was always working according to the time and space. Where he was, with which people, you would see a different version of Gurudev every time. He showed us so many different versions of himself. We all see him, some as a father figure, some as a brother figure, some as a mother figure, some as a friend figure—whichever figure, but he gave us what we wanted. He gave us that version of himself which we were longing for. And not for his development, but for our happiness, satisfaction. Knowing that, okay, at least by this, we are getting somewhat of santoṣa, contentment, which will help us grow. The paramparā, the family, always takes care of us. They always fill the missing spaces and fill it up and make it beautifully round or square, or whichever you want to imagine it. But our intention, our awareness, our functioning, our actions are necessary for it to work. Someone brings me an ice cream; it is my wish if I want to eat it or not. It is about the action, and it is about the awareness about Kālen Diś. What is right? What is wrong? What are my inner wishes? What is right? To make that determination, that discrimination between what is right and wrong, is viveka. We all have that, we all use that. Just with which intensity, with which awareness—just spark that awareness within, discover ourselves and discover the true versions of ourselves which are hidden for so many years. Did you see this in the fairs and festivals? You have this punching thing: you punch and the thing goes up, and then the score goes up, or you hit a hammer and the score goes up. You know that game? Every seminar, every satsaṅg we come to, it spikes up, but then just above, when it is about to hit, it goes. But that spark, that awareness, that bhakti, that śraddhā should not go down. It should be constant, year-long, it does not matter. Because there is no guarantee of us. There is no guarantee of anything. It is all temporary. If we focus so much on the past and future, we will not be able to live the present, and then time is passing every second. There are so many doors which are waiting for us to open them. But we are too scared, we are too worried, we have too many things, too many thoughts, which are stopping us from moving and opening those doors. Awaken that fire, keep that fire which Gurudev lit, just keep continuously putting that ghee into that lamp. Life is not waiting for anyone. Life is not waiting for us. Sing with your hearts flowing out. Feel the energy, feel the atmosphere change, and feel yourself change from within and from outside. Those who live in the villages, they—Nirañjanjī, I do not know what you call it, but in India, it reminds me of this announcement which we have, Swachh Bhārat Abhiyān, you know. So what is that called? Is this an announcement, or what? You have random announcements, or? Yeah, so that we hear, so now when we sing bhajans, they should hear us sing. You all had dinner, you all satisfied your chatarāgni—not me yet, but no problem. You had dinner, you are satisfied, so let us get into it. I have not had dinner yet, but let us get into it.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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