Parenting

In fact, if there is one unpardonable crime, it is bad parenting. You are not even killing someone, you are disfiguring someone and sentencing him to live an entire life. How does that sound? It’s like chopping off somebody’s limbs but ensuring that he lives—and he lives an entire life…

When the woman is fighting the man or vice versa, then it becomes very immaterial to both of them what is happening to the child. In the process of winning that petty battle, what is happening to the kid becomes insignificant. Not only is the kid in bad company, he…

Does a kid realize why he is being attracted to the butterfly, to the toy, to the rainbow, to the mother’s breast, to anything? Does the kid realize? Like an animal he is just pulled along by his deep tendencies. He is an animal, and that is why education is…

Take care of yourself, and you have taken care of the kids. When the kids see a radiant mother, a radiant father, their darkness disappears. Be first of all concerned about discovering your own radiance. If you have nothing but darkness, all that your kids would get from you is…

If the kid has observed half an hour of a fight at home, then he has probably absorbed more than what he would usually absorb in a week’s time. The fights are usually not in the service of divine matters, are they? You fight for the sake of money, or…

If the kid has observed half an hour of a fight at home, then he has probably absorbed more than what he would usually absorb in a week’s time. The fights are usually not in the service of divine matters, are they? You fight for the sake of money, or…

Do you never wonder that, in spite of being told all these so-called virtuous things in childhood, from where do these criminals come? After all, every criminal was a child once, and every child is told of all these so-called moral and immoral things. Then why do people grow up…

If it were a perfect world, kids would be born only to Buddhas because only they know what parenting is. Only they, in the real sense, deserve to be parents. But we do beget kids. And if you are a father or a mother—could be any reason, random chance of…

Questioner (Q): My question is about parenting. What can we do as parents to raise a child in a way that the child has an understanding of the illusory nature of the world, and at the same time nurture her urge to know the Truth? My four-year-old daughter asks me,

Acharya Prashant: Human beings are the only species that need to be born twice, firstly in the biological sense and then more importantly in the psychological sense. A puppy, a cub, a kitten they need to take just one birth—their biological birth, or their animal birth, or their bodily birth.…

Acharya Prashant (AP): Tell me, why does a small child get corrupted? The small child has—to begin with—no social influence upon him. He is like a little one emerging straight from the bathroom. With just the body and no influence upon the body. Right? Then why does he get conditioned…

Questioner 1 (Q1): I’m a single parent and I have a son. He gets a lot of homework from school, but instead of doing it he likes to just play around. Next day, when his teacher tells me that he hasn’t done anything, how should I react?

Acharya Prashant (AP):…

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, should one not leave money for his children? Is that not my responsibility towards my family?

Acharya Prashant (AP): By giving them X or Y tangible things, would you really be able to do them some good? You have a son, and that son becomes an…

Acharya Prashant (AP):Abhishek asks—and it’s very cute of him to ask—he says that “I am not at all interested, yet I want to make my parents proud.”

I am trying to see how you will make your parents proud when you are not into it and what would they…

Acharya Prashant (AP): (Reading the question) “Acharya Ji, my concern is about relationships we share with our near ones. I find so many limitations in every relationship which I make. What to do in such situations where my parents do not understand me? What to do to have them understand…

The verse says: A seeker of liberation, who being learned; able to discriminate between the Real and the unreal, believing the Vedas as the authority, fixing his gaze upon the Self, the Supreme Reality, and being seeker after liberation, will he, like a child, consciously run after the unreal, which…

Question: Dear Acharya Ji Pranaam! After watching a few videos on conditioning, I understood a few methods to work on conditioning. I still have one doubt. Why must one work on conditioning in the first place? Is it not natural to have conditioning, including social conditioning? Does it not serve…

Question: Acharya Ji, if a child goes and asks his parents, because of his suffering, that – “Why did you both give me birth?” – then should the parents answer?

Taking birth for the child is easy, but dying and mukti (liberation) is difficult.

Question: Acharya ji, what happens when parents are in conflict? What happens to the child? How can two people, the husband and the wife, love the child very much, but between them there is a lot of conflict?

What is the impact on the child? And how can the parent…

Questioner (Q): Basically I have an issue. I am unable to make a decision basically. I am very confused right now. I am in a phase of being a single parent. I have a kid with me and have no source of income right now. I have to look after…

Question: Sir,is there something we can do for the education of our kids at home or at schools?

Acharya Prashant: What we call as education is just a preparation to serve social roles. The kid comes only physically conditioned; we make the kid a servant of the society. If you…

Questioner (Q): Sir, what should be the right role of parents in the life of a child?

Acharya Prashant (AP): The role of the father and mother is to give birth. Really to give birth not just physically. Physically it is very easy—hormonal, chemical, simply biology, really to give birth.…

समोऽहं सर्वभूतेषु न मे द्वेष्योऽस्ति न प्रिय:।

ये भजन्ति तु मां भक्त्या मयि ते तेषु चाप्यहम्।।29।।

samo ’haṁ sarva-bhūteṣhu na me dveṣhyo ’sti na priyaḥ

A guide to handling difficult periods, adapting to unexpected changes, learning from experiences, seeking support, and continuing forward with confidence and patience.

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How did the Buddha look then? Who is the Buddha? Let’s try to understand with the story of Gautama Buddha, The ‘Shakya Muni Buddha’ as we call him. So, who was he? Let’s look at his central characteristics. One, someone who is well versed in the knowledge of his time. Buddha had deep scriptural knowledge. He was born in a Hindu Kshatriya family, he was a prince and ever since his childhood he was quite talented. So, one thing about him is that he was quite well-read. Second thing is, he was deeply interested in knowing the depths of life. He did not want to remain merely at the superficial levels, so he would observe a lot, he would think a lot. https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/todays-buddha-1_4d1b6bf

Questioner: A lot of students that I talk to — it’s the fear of the society, it’s the fear of the unknown, it’s fear of the expectations that they are carrying, that pushes them to become an engineer and then they figure out that probably this is not something that they wanted to be. And that is the reality of a lot of individuals and not just engineers. Probably, here is something that is stopping me from taking a plunge of starting something of myself, right? Fear is something that is stopping somebody who is in a relationship for ten years to take that step to get married. Where does this fear come from? Acharya Prashant: Lack of love, which comes from lack of self-knowledge. You see, when I tie my sense of existence, my very identity, to something that is unreliable, I will have to be afraid. It’s like putting my heart on this table. Now, how can I live in security? The heart is out there on the table, anybody can take it away, anything can happen to it. Or the heart might grow legs and walk away on its own. My very existence has been subjected to something that is not in my control. Something that is definitely going to deceive me at some point, that is fear. My sense of self-worth comes from my monies, my bank account, I will be afraid. That bank account can be closed anytime, anything can happen. My sense of self-worth comes from my physical appearance. I very well know, time will take it away, I will be afraid. Right? Who am I? I am the one who is praised or worshipped by the society. Oh! I will be so afraid, so afraid! You talked of people working for their images, they would be living a cursed life. Because, their heart is out there in the hands of strangers. Their entire identity is tied to their image and the image is in the eyes of other people. So, the image can be distorted or can disappear any moment. Just imagine, how afraid they would be all the time. That’s with the ego. Because, the ego, as I said, is a fundamental sense of incompleteness. Therefore, to complete itself, it just associates itself to anything possible. And the things that you are associating yourself with, they are not reliable. They belong to the world and the world can take them away. They belong to time. They came with time and with time all those things will disappear. And you have tied your identity to those things. Now how can you rest in peace? That’s fear. If you do not have self-knowledge, you will always be afraid. My identity is linked to my husband’s identity. Now the husband has two legs. And the husband has a brain, a mind of his own. If your identity comes from your husband’s name, as happens in India at least, you would always be afraid as a wife. The husband can change his mind any day. You would always be, you know, having one eye on his secretary, and the other eye in his email and mobile phone. What’s he getting into? Who’s texting him? Why is he on the phone so late in the night? Because you are afraid if husband goes away, what happens to you? Your very existence depends on the husband. That’s fear. When you operate from the ego centre and make something very, very important for yourself and that something belongs to the world, it can go away anytime, and you are afraid. And in that fear, there can never be love, never be love. If you are afraid of losing something, you will be very violent towards it. Nobody lets his money go and have a walk down the road. What do you do? You lock up your money. That’s violence. When something starts becoming very meaningful to you, you lock it up. You don’t want it to have freedom. And that’s violence. So, love and fear just cannot go together. If you are dependent on something or somebody, you will be afraid. And that dependence cannot be called love. And that is a confusion, we often get into it. Just because you depend on somebody and somebody depends on you, you start feeling as if it is love, it is not. Questioner: Just like the way political parties think that people love them but it actually is fear. Acharya Prashant: Exactly! Love is a rare quality and rarer in politics. Questioner: So, if I am interested in a particular profession, do I not pursue it wholeheartedly? Do I pursue it wholeheartedly knowing very well that the results can either be zero or one? Acharya Prashant: One has to go into the very nature of interest. Aren’t we interested in cricket? Aren’t we interested in seeing songs in movies? Practically, everybody in India is interested in cricket, nobody in Brazil is. And nobody in India is interested in ice hockey. So, that’s how flimsy the whole thing about interest is. In India, if you don’t get a movie with songs, you say, “I am disinterested.” The movie would bomb. In Hollywood, if you have a movie with songs, that would raise eyebrows, what’s going on? Occasionally, you have an OD song but typically there is no song. So, that is the nature of interest. It is never something of the heart. Love and interest are not the same thing. Interest is something that is given to you by your body, by your environment, by random chance, your circumstances and all these. So that’s how your interests come to you. So, if you are interested in a vocation, first of all, you have to ask yourself, “Just two years back, I was interested in something else and two years before I was interested in that and when I was four years old, I was interested in becoming a fighter pilot. What happened to all those interests?” Today, I smile at those things and just shrug them off, “I don’t want to be a fighter pilot.” What you want to be today? Oh! I want to be an investment banker. What happened to the fighter pilot? You were so interested in that. And how do you know, tomorrow you will not be looking at this I-banker, just the way today you are looking at the fighter pilot. The self of a five-year old appears so naïve and immature when you are twenty-five. How do you know that at thirty-five, you will not look back at this twenty-five year old self and say, “What the hell! How was I taking this fellow so seriously?” So, interest is something that you must look at with healthy contempt. Interest, mind you, can even be induced in you. Interest can be aroused in you. That’s what the entire advertising industry is about. They can make you feel Interested in things that is intrinsically worthless to you. So, of what value is this thing called interest? But, then in today’s world, we place so much premium on this word 'interest.' Do what interests you, this, that. Whereas, it is wisdom to realize that interest is the last thing that you should ever go after. Then people come up and say, “No, should we do things that we are not interested in? No.

Does the person you are with encourage you to read? You have to ask, “What does he bring for me, roses or books?”

Be very cautious of those who bring roses for you, especially red roses. Books are what we all need, and books are dangerous. Books are dangerous because…

सङ्करो नरकायैव कुलघ्नानां कुलस्य च ।। पतन्ति पितरो ह्येषां लुप्तपिण्डोदकक्रिया: ।।1.42।।

Overview

We want to reach the end of wanting. We want completion, fulfillment in such a final way that we are left with nothing to want anymore. That’s the destination. Born a human being, you will have to act. Act rightly. Act for the right purpose. Live for the right

What does it mean to have an inauthentic relationship?

You were once a girl; you would have read mathematics, history, science, geography, languages. Didn’t you find inspiring figures there? Didn’t those books arouse fantastic ideas in you?

I am sure that when you were younger, you thought of excellence, didn’t you? You would have had dreams. In your dreams,…

A fellow who irritates you and keeps your mind agitated, why is he present in your life as a friend? How exactly is he taking care of you if his presence leads to an unsettled mind? What are these tags?

The only definition of a friend is someone who brings…

Only in aloneness can you have relationships that are not exploitative. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what name, what color you give to your relationship; your relationship will be definitely one of exploitation.

Man has the capacity to choose, and man must take responsibility of how he is living his life, what he has turned the Earth into.

If a woman is good and fine, then her lover or husband would spoil her. Women must be honored for her intelligence, her qualities, for her inner strength. But when you start giving her importance for reasons like, her body is attractive and she is very sexually appealing, then you…

There is really no pleasure deeper than not getting disturbed when the entire world is conspiring to disturb you. This deepest pleasure is called joy.

Everybody, the entire game of situations, seems hell-bent on freaking you out, on just destroying your peace, and you are looking at it with indifference;…

We are not talking of the perfect one; we are talking of the higher one, relatively higher. The higher person does exist. First of all, you must become that higher person, and then it is a case of holding hands to rise together, because that’s the shared love. What’s the…

Man wants progress, and progress means an ascension, an elevation. It is as if man wants to be elevated to some high sky. That’s what you say, right? “I am rising up, I am progressing.” What is the intention of this tendency to keep progressing? The intention is to progress…

Whenever you get cheated in love, don’t blame anybody else. Ask yourself, did you not have anything better to do with your life that you went and clinged to a person? I ask you, is he worth being devoted to? Then why do you pick some man, some woman, and…

“Enjoy the moment! Go with the flow!” What is that flow? Where is it coming from? Why should I go with it? Why don’t you just pause and ask, which flow are we talking of?

The tsunamis are coming to take you away, and the great master is teaching you:…

There is a kind of entrepreneurship that says, start the company, see which sectors are hot and booming, and when you reach a certain stage after n rounds of funding, sell it off and add a few more zeroes to your personal bank balance. That’s one kind of entrepreneurship. It…

The shopkeeper’s business is to sell his goods, and that’s what most gurus of today are: they have to sell their goods. When that is what you want to do, how can you afford to antagonize a big chunk of the population? And you would never, never do that if…

See what the presence of other people is doing to you. Obviously, when you are with a sexual partner, then the power and the influence are magnified manifold. But even if the one you are with is not your husband or wife or sexual partner, even if that person is…

If somebody has started encroaching upon your mental space, if somebody has really started affecting the way you go about your day-to-day activities—the other person has started showing up his presence even where he should not be—then you should know that the relationship is not going in a healthy way.…