Book Notes
Sathya Sai Parenting
Rita Bruce
It is interesting that Swami says that culture is alive and has consciousness. It affects us. We can transform and purify culture only by our choices. We have seen the rise of the Super Mum, child daycare centers, paternity leave for fathers, the career woman and the conflict this produces with the roles of housewife and mother. Society and culture have attempted to resolve through rights and conditions in the workplace and the work contract itself.
We should look to the past and think about our own parents and how they parented us. They were the instruments of the Divine who shaped us in such a manner and fashion, that one way or another, via Divine Grace, we would find our home at the Lotus Feet. How good a job our parents did! With all its problems and warts! Life has changed, with the collapse of cultural norms, the explosion of the information revolution and the electronic invasion into every compartment of human life. The global village has led to the collapse of social and personal boundaries and values.
Rita Bruce has authored an exciting book. Sai Baba's teachings have been viewed and reviewed from the perspective and role of a mother. Here, many selections and citations from Divine Discourses form the framework of these chapters, interspersed with social data, statistics and observations of experts in family and child-raising. Rita Bruce has stood firm on her inner connection to the Divine and extrapolated from the Divine Discourses and showed how Swami is addressing the ills of this modern day and age.
Solutions based on the five human values and spiritual disciplines are offered. Swami teaches na sreyo niyamam vina - no benefit occurs without adherence to discipline. The real solution is the balancing of discipline and love, love that does not give in, or bribe or endlessly end in arguments with children. Children test the limits, and try to stretch the boundaries all the time. The only real love is boundaries that are firm, based on self discipline in the parents. An exciting book for youth, parents and grandparents, and study circle.
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