Obedience constructs and self-will
destructs. A child has to learn to be obedient to its parents and to
God. It’ll remember the words of its parents all its life and will
always respect its elders, and not only those but people who are
younger, too. It’ll be polite and careful with everyone. Unfortunately,
there are very few families who bring their children up in this way.
The spirits of evil provide a
distraction in the minds of our children and they try to upset them.
Children have to be taught obedience, especially before they’re five
years old, because it’s at this age that their characters are formed. So
the traces of the way their characters have been shaped will remain
with them for the rest of their lives. Parents should teach their
children total obedience at this time of their lives. When one of the
parents says something, the response should be: “Whatever you say”.
Today, unfortunately, parents don’t know this and teach their children
exactly the opposite. But then they’re bringing them up…
If parents say, “Stay here”
then the child should stay where it’s been told to. But the child’s a
child; it can’t stay still in one place. What usually happens is that
the parents smack the child for its disobedience. This isn’t a good way
to teach a child obedience. It may be that, sometimes, such a reaction
is necessary, but it should be performed with love and the child should
feel this love. Parents should never smack their children in anger.
Because if you start chastising someone when you’re angry, you’ll get
nowhere. You’ll damage the person in front of you and yourself, as well.
If you want to set someone on the right road, you should teach them and
advise them. You should first humble yourself and speak to them with a
great deal of love. They’ll accept your advice if it’s given with love.
But if you want your own will to be imposed at all costs, you won’t
achieve anything at all. That’s what makes children react badly. When a
child is disobedient, the answer isn’t to smack it.
Parents berate their
children over the slightest things. It’s as if they don’t know how
people can speak calmly and gently to them. When a parent has to set
boundaries for a child, it should feel that, behind the strictness,
there’s love. It’s a great mistake to punish children at the moment that
they’re doing wrong, because that won’t do any good. You should wait
for them to calm down and then, with lots of love, tell the child it’s
done wrong and that it has to accept some form of punishment. If the
same thing happens again, then the child is given a more severe
punishment and, in this way, learns.
The holy will of God works
within us from our parents or through our teachers or our employers. If
we need to correct the behaviour of a child, we have to do it with great
love and care. If the only thing we have in mind is to change the life
of the child, we’ve already given it a slap just with our thoughts. I’ve
noticed this during my time as an abbot: I’ve often seen one of the
brothers not acting properly, but at the moment when I was about to tell
him off, I’ve felt that I’d already given him a slap.
Our thoughts can be very
intrusive and have great power. This is true particularly in the case of
the thoughts of parents. A parent needs to put up with much and forgive
everything. We can forgive others only if we have good and kindly
thoughts. If we have thoughts aimed at correcting other people’s
mistakes, it’s as if we’re striking them. Irrespective of how close
somebody is to us, they’ll be driven away, because we’ll have given them
a slap, through our thoughts. And we’re of the opinion that thoughts
are a mere nothing!
We punish our children, but,
in fact, have no right to do so, because we’ve failed to teach them the
right way. A lady doctor told me some time ago in a letter: “I’ve got a
son by my husband, who’s also a doctor. Our son has written off three
cars- thank God he’s still alive. Now he wants us to buy him another
car, but we can’t afford it any more. When we get home from work he
tries to get money from us, even by force. What can I do to solve this
problem?” I told her that the only ones to blame were themselves. They
had a son and they’d allowed him to do whatever he wanted, even from
when he was very little. When he was a child, his demands were
commensurately less, but now he’s older, so they’d become greater. The
only thing they could now do would be to give their son lots of love and
care so that he might come to his senses and realize that the only
thing his parents were concerned about was his own good. There’s no
other way except the way of love. Do you see from this example how we
can improve our own lives and those of our neighbours, with our
thoughts? We hope that your own efforts in this direction will bear
fruit.
Kakve su ti misli, takav ti je život ((Какве су ти мисли, такав ти је живот; Our Thoughts Determine our Lives).
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