Acharya Tulsi
Child is the most beautiful, attractive & lovable creation of the lord. Its spotless beauty can attract any heart. How I wish humans could overcome their aspirations & secure their childhood within themselves. The originality of life can be restored beyond the age difference if the qualities of a child (innocence, nonchalance, purity, harmony) are imbibed at all stages of life. The more a man loses his originality, the more he becomes faking and his lovability now only depends on his usability!
Simplicity/Spontaneity
It is said about Tirthankar that their bodies look ornamented without ornaments. To justify the statement a child is taken as an example. Whatever a child does it seems natural. The way a child cries, laughs, plays, talks etc, all seems spontaneous. A child's stutter is also attractive. All elders try to copy it too! The question is why does this happen? What is the secret behind the popularity of a child? The answer to this is informality! In a child's life there is no formality. He does not mind being what &/or how he is, and this simplicity stems the attraction a child gathers.
Truthfulness
According to Jain Aagam truth has been divided into 4:
- Kaay Rijuta -The truthfulness of Body
- Bhaav Rijuta -The truthfulness of Heart & Feelings
- Bhasha Rijuta-The truthfulness of Tongue
- Avi Samvadita -The truthfulness of Action
A child's life comprises of all the above four characteristics & hence there is neither pre-existent defiance nor any obliteration nor any element of hauteur in its speech. A child is naturally truthful though man needs to be taught the values of truthfulness beyond a particular age. A child cannot speak a lie even if it's taught to him. It is evident that the lie has been instructed to him when he tries to speak one.
A small girl on her 1st day in school was taught by her teacher that swearing is a bad habit & must not be cultivated. She came back home and found her mother swearing, she said to her mother - "Maa, teacher has told that swearing is a very bad habit" but her mother did not give an ear to her daughter.
2nd day in school, the teacher taught the little girl that we should never disrespect anyone. On reaching home she witnessed her father disrespecting a beggar and she uttered very softly to her father "Papa, we should not disrespect anyone!" She was surprised by a tight slap on her delicate cheeks.
3rd day, she was taught not to lie but back home she was encouraged to lie by her mother! Due to this absurdness the little girl became terrified. Next day when it was time for school, the bus had arrived, the parents were asking her to get ready for school but she unwillingly admitted that she would not go to the school. When asked why, she replied -"In school, the teacher teaches everything that is false".
Whatever the girl learnt at school, at home she was subjected to completely opposite behaviours along with her parents castigating her, had left her perplexed & hence she denied going to school, her parents realized their blunder and with great difficulty they persuaded the girl to attend school.
Truth is natural to human behaviour! When behaviour becomes disgraceful, falsity creeps into human nature, initially it is tough to speak false but gradually it becomes a practice, then the heart does not feel scared to speak anything and everything false. In childhood it’s instinctive to speak truth, but with age falsity becomes habitual. Hence, whoever wants to be truthful must nurture his child within always.
Living in Present
Living in present is the foremost of Yogvidya! The practitioners of Yoga practice living in the present moment purposefully. Even after pursuing preset goals the art of living in present enriches only a rare few exceptional yoga practitioners, while a child always lives in the present. A child never indulges into his past not does he entangle himself in the thoughts of the future. When a child is parted from the object it possesses, he starts crying & the crying stops almost immediately on the receipt of another object. Partition from any object does not disturb a child for long duration of time. His attitude of living in present provides for his health, happiness & harmony.
Lord Yeshu was passing by a garden with a few friends when he brought to their attention the beautiful flowers blooming in the garden - "These flowers are blooming, they don't know whether the sun would rise again or not...whether the plants will be watered or not. They bloom today with completeness. They are not bound by tense, hence they bloom beautiful!" Man worries for tomorrow and the day after, even for his future generations also making arrangements & provisions respectively. He even worries about his funeral and makes provisions for it too. The worry about the future puts the essence of present into oblivion, disintegrates the value of present, murders the present and then a man can never ever live in the present. A child keeps his present alive along with an opportunity to be anyone!
Awareness about Fearlessness
Child is fearless! He has no relationship with fear. He runs to catch hold of a snake and fearlessly plays with fire. The fact that the fire might burn him or a snake bite might poison him does not scare him. The awareness of any kind of fear is inactive in a child. He does not hesitate in performing the toughest of tasks. We might argue that a child is not capable to think and employ his wisdom, but this is not a question of wisdom or knowledge. Instead it is all about a natural human character. Fearlessness comes naturally to a child. He is unknown of fear, he is taught to fear! Whenever a child cries or acts stubborn or does anything that disturbs the elders through their daily chores, the elders instil fear in children through imaginary or realistic objects, animals or persons. Such suggestions encourage the idea of fear to grow and push a child towards lying.
The Realization of Mistake
Once a mother prepared sweets and kept it inside a cupboard. When her child was trying to open the cupboard she said to him that there is a demon inside, do not open it. If he would open it, the demon would devour him. This frightened the child initially but on observing sweets being repetitively kept in the cupboard, he could not control himself. Then one day avoiding his mother's attention he opened the cupboard hesitantly expecting a demon to jump out. When no demon appeared, the boy relished the sweet to his fill and locked the cupboard. After a while his mother opened the cupboard and instantly got to know the child's deed. She called upon him and asked - "Who opened this cupboard? Tell me, who had all the sweets?"The child had already prepared an answer to this - "Maa! How am I supposed to know? You had only said that a demon resides inside, he must have savoured the sweets".
The incident enlightened the mother making her realize her mistake. From this incident it also becomes evident that parents play a very vital role in the development of morals and values in a child.
The fact is that bringing up a child & inculcating values in him is a very difficult task. Some children develop through their own experiences into a good being and some prefer choosing the wrong path. Seldom do people develop a child with preset goals. To develop a child and sculpt his character, parents too need to become a child, else the aim remains untouched.
Civil Sense - An Issue!!
A child is nonchalant, non-ambitious & pure! He does not possess dual behaviour either. He can't eat without hunger & when hungry can't remain without eating. A few mothers forcefully feed their children according to a time schedule irrespective of whether the child is hungry or not. When the child is not hungry and is forced to consume, it results in indigestion and sickness due to lack of digestive enzymes. The child suffers from loose motions & nausea. Medical help is rendered, but allopathic medicines are believed to cause harm to the child's digestive system marking a question on his health forever.
A child is natural and spontaneous; hence it cannot apply controls on self. He even answers nature calls at any place without any concern about the people around him. With his age, he also learns civil sense, through which he is also taught control and its use, which in turn results in bad health.
Development Process of Sculpting
A child is soft by nature untouched by cruelty. A child never accepts opposition. Treating a child harshly encourages cruelty to grow within the child’s heart. A child is not characterized to save for future, nor does he know discrimination of people. These are few traits if nurtured forever; man would be the happiest, most beautiful and best being on earth.
Sculptor of a child is the sculptor of the world. He needs to take care of a few important points from initiation of the development process to craft a child's future into a magnum opus:
- Give correct information to a child.
- Avoid irritation while answering a child's curiosity.
- Good habits must be encouraged to be inculcated.
- Encourage independence in a child.
- Save them from being in contact with anti-elements.
- To train children, psychological methodologies must be applied.
- Attempt must be made to secure the spontaneity of a child.
The Role of Sanskar Kendra/ Sanskar Centres
Development of a child is the development of family society and even the nation. A nation can never be powerful and respected if it does not consist of disciplined and children of rich character. Hence, it is the duty of central government, state governments, educational organizations and social and religious groups to nurture a child's developments through timely and predetermined programs.
Akhil Bharatiya Terapanth Yuvak Parishad runs Sanskar Centres across many cities to provide for training of children. There had not been any substantial progress observed, but it’s expected that certain strong moves be made in this direction. It is important to pay attention to the nervous system of children through the developmental process. Activation and deactivation of certain nodal nerves helps in the learning process of a child.
It is a scientifically proven fact that if the pineal gland of a child is kept active beyond the age of 12 years then it is considered helpful in the development process of the child. Up to the age of 12 years this gland remains active automatically, controlling the behavioural entitlements. Beyond this age the pineal gland gradually becomes inactive but through practice it can be kept alive and active.
Jeevan Vigyan is one such curriculum that trains its students to control & rejuvenate their nervous system through meditation, pranayam, yogasan, kayotsarg etc. The activities comprising of Jeevan Vigyan help in developing the interim personality of a child. The curriculum set by educationists excel in developing the exterior personality, but that alone does not help a human in living a life of satisfaction & success, due to the curriculum being incomplete. This incompleteness can be eradicated by the addition of Jeevan Vigyan to the existing curriculum. Jeevan Vigyan provides for the training of a child in all activities of life. How to walk, what to talk, how to eat, behave, sit etc are the smallest of activities that a child is trained with helping him scale the heights of success. These are the foundation stones of life, without learning them a child can never develop a holistic personality. Today the world is in an irritating silence & to break that, practical programs must be paid immediate attention. Only then celebrating International Children Year & issuing special publications on children would be worth any good.
