The making of a Sarvodaya Sannyasin

How to groom next generation spiritually as well as intellectually?

This post has some thoughts that I shared with my friends on Sarvodaya_Mission_Spiritual_Vision group: please read it and feel free to share your ideas. I will become a fulltime social and political worker from 2012 onward; so whatever good ideas you share with me, has the potential to reach lakhs (if not more) through me and my other fulltime working friends.

Before you read further, let me quote few lines of my poem “The Song of Life” so that the reader may realize the spirit behind this post fully:

Love is a greater truth than truth itself – so say our sages.
Love heals and love blesses all. Thus, love is its own wages.
The more ignorant a person, the more our love should flow.
Do not our mothers care more for us, when in life we lie low?
Friends! Thus, wisely treat the lessons of life from the past.
Be positive about the future, and enjoy this present so vast.

Take care of present and future will be taken care on its own.
Take care of effort, and glorious success will be your crown.
So, worry not over the rewards, and always give your best.
True wisdom is living in the moment with supreme level of zest.
Everyone is special. Everyone has great worth.
We all are different flowers in this garden of Earth.
This diversity is a beauty – when we understand this.
From this springs the oneness which is life’s real bliss.

1. According to the latest research, 50-75% of IQ  (intelligence quotient) is in-born and remaining comes from upbringing (stress-free and intellectually stimulating environment). We cannot do anything about the in-born component, but we can take care of upbringing factor.  This post is to help in that.
2. Natural frequency of loss of reproductive elements for both males and females is once a month. More than that will do damage to the body and mind unless some extra diet is taken. Even extra diet will not solve the problem fully, as body and mind invariably becomes weak for next 1-2 days due to low level of pranic energy as a result of intentional loss of reproductive elements.
3. Due to reason 2, parent should maintain celibacy for at least 2-3 months before conceiving the child, otherwise their reproductive elements will have a low-level of vital/pranic energy and as a result, their child will not be that intellectually and spiritually developed. If they maintain celibacy for more duration, that will be even better. Also, child should be conceived only when both the parents have crossed the age of 25 (below that age neither the body nor the mind is mature enough to undertake serious and extremely important responsibilities of parenthood) and both parents have a peaceful and positive state of mind for at least last 30 days. Conceiving the child with a tense and negative state of mind reduces the quality of child a lot as these negativities release poisonous elements in our blood-stream and they hurt all our cells (including reproductive elements in the body).
4. Due to reason 2, during pregnancy, full celibacy should be the ideal for the parents – the more they can reach it, the better it will be for the child as child’s embryo need all the vital/pranic energy and nutrients from mother during embryo development.
5. As long as a child is living on mother’s milk, celibacy by parents is very good for the child again due to reason 2. The more they can manage it, the better their child will be both spiritually and intellectually. But, point 5 is not as important as point 3 and 4.
6. In many animals 4 and 5 are followed instinctively. For example, after the lioness becomes pregnant, lion and lioness maintain separation throughout pregnancy period and till the lion cub subsists on mother’s milk. Humans have been given more vital/pranic energy than animals not to lose it all through intentional loss of reproductive elements for momentary sensations and titillation, but for using it in creative pursuits in so many fields (of science, technology, games & sports, music, drama, arts, writing, etc) and spiritual growth.
7. Pregnant mothers should be given a balanced diet and positive psychological environment for proper development of embryo. Pregnant mothers should read inspiring books and magazines (particularly those containing inspiring biographies and sattwic thoughts of purity and self-discipline) – pregnancy is the best time for imparting good character to the child as embryo grasps the mental and verbal messages coming from mother and surroundings and gets influenced very strongly. One example: Napoleon’s mother used to read the stories and poems of Greek Warriors during pregnancy. Not a good example, we want good people and not war-criminals like Napoleon. But, it is just to convince ourselves that child can be and should be strongly molded in terms of purity and discipline in character starting from pregnancy period itself.
8. Mothers should remain positive during and before breast-feeding the babies. Stress releases poisonous chemicals in the body of humans and those chemicals reach all cells of the body and hurt them. They reach mother’s milk also, which when drunk by babies, will harm the babies a lot due to the presence of poison in them. Food in the home should also be cooked with a positive state of mind because negative state of mind of those cooking the food reduces the sattwic content of food and makes the food more tamasic/rajasic and hence, bad for the physical and mental health of those eating such food.
9. Every home should have a family library. Instead of giving only clothes to children on the occasion of events like religious festivals, new year, etc., parents should make it a point to give 3-4 books every year to their kids. Books can cover topics like memory enhancement, time management, biographies of great man and women of various fields, yoga, ayurveda, psychology, etc. Some monthly magazines for enhancing spiritual and intellectual development of family members should also be bought. And a good quality newspaper (which is free from lust-increasing material) should also be bought daily for the family to remain up-to-date with the latest events of the world. On the occasion of marriage or the arrival of new child, friends and family members should gift some good books also apart from normal gifts. Even if they do not give normal gifts, but the gifts of good books (on topics like how to live family life well, mental improvement, student life, time management and other self-help books) is a must, otherwise due to high level of ignorance, only misery will be present in the lives of their near and dear ones. All this is indispensable for grooming next generation spiritually and intellectually.
10. As per latest research in psychology, stress can reduce the IQ (logical skill/ability) of a child by 5-10 points (100 point is the IQ-level of most of humans and we need to increase it to at least high-IQ level, if not genius-level – it can be and must be done by proper mentoring  by parents and education system starting from pregancy period itself; only then this world can be a decent world: most psychopaths are mentally retarded and have below average IQ). So, stress-free environment is important at home, school as well as society at large. For heavens’ sake, parents should give a peaceful environment to their kids; if they cannot, they should show some morals and should not bring forth any child to this world.
11. Stress kills memory cells in hypothalamus region which plays a prominent role in memory processing. With a low-quality memory, students will lose their learning spirit. Due to this reason also, stress-free environment at home, school and society at large is a must for grooming next generation spiritually and intellectually.
12. Asanas are good for physical health, pranayama increases the pranic/vital energy (and hence, thinking ability because the higher is the level of vital energy, the better is the thinking ability as thinking ability requires high level of vital energy) of humans and meditation (thoughtless awareness) will release stress and make the mind peaceful and one-pointed. So, asanas, pranayama and meditation should be taught to students for them to develop a high IQ, high EQ (emotional quotient) and high SQ (spiritual quotient) – they bring a balance of male and female qualities of human mind and make us a mature human having both rationality and emotional nature balanced properly in our personality. For asanas, simple bending and stretching exercises will do. For pranayama and meditation, please read this post: http://gopal4mission.wordpress.com/2007/12/29/thoughtless-awareness-faq-on-basic-concepts/. Kids should be introduced to yoga as early as 4 year age. One of the parents will have to do yoga with kids, only then kids will be interested in doing it themselves. Eventual goal for the whole family should be to wake up latest by 5 am daily and spend early morning hours for yoga-practice. (3 hrs before sunrise is considered to be brahmamuhurtha period - the entire atmosphere during this time is very calm and has lots of oxygen. So, waking up in this period is very good for the physical and mental health of everyone.)
13. Give balanced and sattwic, vegetarian diet to the kids that they become spiritually refined humans and all their nutritional requirements are met fully.
14. Gently motivate kids to do extra mental effort (after taking into account their present skills and inclinations) like reading extra books, reading books from advanced classes, practising reasoning/puzzles/sudoku and doing extra projects – the more we exercise the brain, the better will be our IQ. Some more points on this given here: Celibacy during bachelor life and other important study skills. this is the way to boost one’s IQ:  for getting convinced about this, read this study on Terence Tao, a Field Medallist with an estimated IQ of 200+ [100 is normal IQ] – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao). Every child cannot be a super-genius like Terrence Tao due to 50-75% of in-born factor in IQ, but at least we should use the upbringing part to enhance childrens’s IQ. We need a high-IQ world rather than a world full of stupid people and all children should be nurtured properly by us so that they have a high-IQ. This is 100% possible. I am giving various strategies in this post to help netizens – for Indians, I myself (along with other like-minded friends) will work fulltime from 2012 onward to help them improve themselves and coming generations.
15. Train the kids in memory techniques to enhance their memory power – this will give impetus to their learning spirit. Motivate them to use flash cards/flash notes (where questions and answers are written on separate pages and hence, leads to a good practice of recall apart from rereading and hence, leads to fast and long-term learning) for memorizing difficult things and give them 1-2 good memory books so that they may learn various mnemonic techniques to enhance their memory power.
16. Teach the kids the value of time and how to manage one’s time. (I have written few things on this here: Time-management skill.) Gift them 3-4 good books on time-management and planning skills, but more importantly, train them by being a good role-model for them in this regards.
17. Teach the kids emotional skill (yoga will help a lot in this) because low emotional skill means a society of brutes; it also means lots of stress and lots of stress means low intelligence and low intelligence means a series of endless stupidities to ruin oneself and one’s family. (Emotional skill means how to deal with one’s own negative emotions like anger, anxiety, etc. and how to develop the ability to empathize with others’ feelings.)
18. Train the kids in various study skills like how to take notes in class, how to revise, how to improve exam temperament, how to improve thinking ability, etc. Some points on this here: Celibacy during bachelor life and other important study skills. (this post was mentioned above also). Buy 3-4 books on these topics for them.
19. From pregnancy till the age of 12 years, the child is ready to imitate elders (after that, the child behaves more independently and is less willing to listen and follow others and hence, much more difficult to get moulded by elders). So, if elders set a good example, the child can be given good character/sanskara of purity and inner discipline by the age of 12 years. The child should be trained to do every work at the right time and for the right quantity. All works like studies, sleep, meals, entertainment, gossip, play, etc should have fixed hours – parents have to do this training work for their kids, only then kids will be trained in proper time-management and self-discipline. Many parents, due to their own foolishness, neglect this rule and then repent later when the kids grow to be highly undisciplined. At least one of the parents should teach the kids for minimum 3 hrs on every school day and minimum 6 hrs on every holiday and in case, it is not possible to teach them due to lack of educational qualification, one of the parents should, at least, sit with the kids during their studies while reading some good books themselves. This type of personal attention is important to train the kids in the habit of self-study for their own intellectual growth – without this, many kids want to only play whole day and night and thus, severely hurt their intellectual growth due to lack of good self-study habit. Hence, this is a very important point in successfully grooming next generation.
20. Create brahmacharya-friendly environment at home, school and society. Parents should not watch romantic movies and so-called romantic songs/serials on television (if they want to watch such movies, they can watch in cinema-halls without taking their children with them), otherwise their children will also watch them and their gullible mind will become full of lust at a very tender age.  This will create lots of perversions in them sooner or later. This is the sole reason how my generation got trapped in lust very badly. Also, impart direct knowledge of the science of brahmacharya when the child crosses puberty at the age of 16 or later (those who cross puberty earlier do so because of lack of daily yoga practice and romantic movies/serials/songs shown to them by their own parents – if parents train the kids in yoga and create a brahmacharya-friendly environment at home, then premature puberty will not happen to their kids and their kids will remain a balanced teenager). Some materials on “brahmacharya knowledge” (theory as well as practical techniques) are given here: Greatly inspiring brahmacharya quotes (please neglect those parts in this post which advocate a lifelong bachelor life.) Please note that television is fine for kids for many programs like cartoons, news, yoga programs, distance education program – only restriction is for lust-intensifying, so-called romantic movies/serials/songs shown on television channels. Ideally, till the age of 25, everyone should follow brahmacharya in thoughts, words and deeds. Parents should protect their kids from all lust-intensifying audio, video or textual materials without any compromise, only then their kids will remain a decent and wise human.
21. Never beat the child aged 8 or more. Deal with all problems through love and psychological counselling. Psychological problems should be dealt psychologically and not by using physical violence. If parents indulge in physical violence, the child will react badly sooner or later. So, physical violence hurts the child rather than helping him/her. Parents should learn to control their temper – short-tempered and hot-tempered people are totally unfit for family life.
22. One may mildly slap the child aged 7 or less in only two cases: (1) the child is beating someone else and despite lots of pleadings/warnings, he/she is not listening & (2) the child is doing or insisting on doing something which may bring physical harm to him/herself or others and is not listening at all to pleadings/warnings. Even in these two exceptional cases, lots of other psychological methods should be applied first and physical punishment should the last resort – other methods include using the methods of (in decreasing order of preference): (a) convincing the child, (b) distracting the child to some other activity (as the child may not understand parents’ logic due to less age and lack of understanding), (c) bribe of rewards and (d) threats of some punishment.
23. Parents should keep on telling inspiring stories to their children. These stories help a lot in motivating kids. They should also buy books containing such stories. Apart from this, parents should make the kids memorize few motivational poems/couplets/dohas/quotes – these will help the kids a lot in getting self-motivation for leading the life wisely.
24. If the child commits any mistake, parents should use words like “This type of behaviour is beneath your dignity. “/This does not suit a person like you”/”We did not expect this from you.” rather than using hard words. Hard words make kids feel ashamed or frustrated and proves many times counter-productive whereas words provoking their sense of self-dignity will motivate them to avoid the repetition of the mistakes.
25. Parents should allow their kids to develop self-reliance by not doing those works also which kids can and should do themselves. Such works include cleaning one’s clothes, shoes, dressing up, arranging his bedroom, cloths, books and other stuffs, etc.
26. Parents should criticize their children’s thoughts, words and deeds only occasionally and always constructively rather than just to give a vent to their own stressed state of mind. Only then the child’s self-esteem and self-confidence will be enhanced.
27. Let all girls get at least a white-belt (the more training is always better) in martial art (it takes just 3-4 months). this will enhance their self-confidence as many of them feel fearful due to inadequate physical strength. (my 9-yr old niece is taking karate class everyday at 6 am now and aims to continue for another 2-3 years, even his 5-year old brother is attending it daily, trying to imitate his sister )
28. Parents should ask the child (even if he/she is just 3-year-old), “What is your opinion about this issue?”/”Why do you think so regarding this issue?” to involve him in various decision-making process. This type of friendly and respectful dialogue enhances the self-esteem, self-confidence, communication skill and thinking ability of the child a lot.
29. Parents should expose the child to everything like studies, games & sports, music, arts, drama, martial arts, etc to give a broad education, but should respect the individuality of the child in choosing his/her career and should insist on only giving his/her best to his/her chosen field. Even if the kids want to go into the fields which pay less money, they should allow them because happiness and self-satisfaction are more important than money and physical comforts. At the worst, someone in the field of music, games & sports, arts, drama, etc. working with full devotion will get a teaching job in some school or college which will be enough for meeting their basic needs and the best thing is he/she will enjoy life by doing things in which he/she has genuine interest and devotion. Also, parents should save enough money as a backup plan for involving kids in agriculture, shops or other types of business in case kids are not able to well (due to lack of interest or motivation) in traditional fields of academics, music, arts, games & sports, etc. In absence of such a backup plan, many people end up being drunkards, drug-addicts, thieves and other anti-social elements – one tragic example is the case of Harilal Gandhi (the son of Mahatma Gandhi) who became a drunkard and died due to over-consumption of alcohol due to lack of proper employment (he did not do well in his studies and Gandhi Ji did not have the resources to employ him in some business). All these things clearly can be done only when parents have a small family of 1 or 2 kids.
30. Parents should praise the efforts and achievements rather than intelligence and talents. Many intelligent, talented people get diverted if they lose their spirit of perseverance, whereas even less intelligent people often do wonders through their dedicated, single-minded efforts. So, the praise should be given for efforts rather than talents. This will instill self-motivation for continuous labor and self-improvement in the kids, which are the only things that help anyone in life.
31. Parents should motivate the child to compete only with oneself, and not with anyone else. If anyone else is better than you in anything, manifest your learning spirit and learn the skills, strategies and motivation shown by that person. And if you are better than anyone in anything, manifest your helping nature and share your skills, strategies and motivation with that person. So, learning spirit with those who are superior to you in some field (rather than the spirit of jealously or inferiority complex); helping nature with those who are not as good as you in some field (rather than the spirit of vanity and superiority complex); and competition with only one’s own potential. So, instead of saying that you should top in your class or come in top 5/10, parents should motivate the child to learn everything in their syllabus well and try to give his/her best to solve each and every question well in the exams. This way, we will create a psychologically healthy society where people feel neither any superiority complex nor any inferiority complex and keep on giving their best by competing with themselves and continuously challenging their own limits.
32. Kids should be trained by parents in virtues like cleanliness, self-reliance, polite manners, honesty, selflessness and social consciousness. Even animals know how to live for oneself – humans should go beyond the level of animals & feel and act for the welfare of society at large. Only after such training, kids will become an ethically and socially conscious person and do good to the humanity at large.

All these things should be ideally done by us for grooming next generation spiritually and intellectually. Feel free to rate this post (at the top) and give your suggestions for further improvement in comment section (below).