How can we encourage our kids to go to temple more?

[Yamaka]

Share:

Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Share Link

I refer to Post no.346.I agree with Thiru.Yamaha that all political leaders in India gets exonerated from civil/criminal cases.
That is the order of the day in FREE DEMOCRATIC INDIA.
Ps:- After reading posts of Thiru.Yamaha, I feel he would have been a successful diplomat/politician in INDIA.
He can try his fortunes in USA.

Ref post 350.

I started following this 2G case only after knowing the purported humongous "loss" of Rs. 176,000 crores.

Knowing the details of THIS particular case, I am convinced of the following -

1. Corporates sold their licenses for a humongous amount. I don't know the legality of this, as yet. This is an activity in the so-called Secondary Market.

2. A. Raja followed the Cabinet Decision to sell the 2G in 2008 for 2001 price. There was no REAL loss in the transaction, and the Cabinet Policy was not willing to make money out of this sale, for the sake of the consumers.

3. Initially, CBI did not want to pursue this as a crime. But in response to Public Interest Litigation and a petition by Sub Swamy (a politician), Supreme Court unnecessarily intervened and ordered CBI to take up the case. Hence, CBI is a reluctant warrior in this matter.

4. The Public Prosecutor must establish that a Crime has occurred, and A. Raja is the prime criminal beyond REASONABLE doubt in the court of law. Which I believe can't be done from the publicly known FACTS so far.

5. Kani's arrest and incarceration for 6 months is purely political to punish Karuna! This will not stand in the trial court of law.

Therefore, I believe, A. Raja and Kani will be exonerated on Appeal, at least. I am not sure about the Corporates who made tons of money!

I have no idea about other corruption cases involving politicians and Corporates.

Wait & watch.

 

[guruvayurappan]

dear krish !
do you think mr. yamaka may not be known to USA indians?
he might have participated in Indian organized events .you and i may be appreciating,but the politician will not tolerate his open mind discussions.

 

[sarang]

Money trail documents are available. If the govt ic keen, clean and honest, it can get bank certified documents in no time. In the case of the stud farm owner, the IT dept. just produced the documents available to the general public - they have just downloaded and made them part of the charge sheet; and the IT was rebuked by the court for not even trying to get them attested by the reserve bank.

Bigger fish are involved. manmohan sat on the request for prosecution for over two years. He is the true physical manifestation of the three monkeys - see no looting, hear no looting, speak no looting.

 

[anushagn]

The most simplest way to encourage kids is by making them question..
just make them question you about the rligious activities we do.. About some famous events held in the temples like "kodi etram, karthigai deepam at thirivannamalai, margazhi festival at srivilliputur, hanumar jayanthi," etc etc..
When they really question you, give them an answer that will make them know the divinity of the particular god.. That will make them get fascinated first.
Then, automatically they will start knowing many things. Then, they will teach others.. "WITH LOTS OF DEVOTION AND INTEREST"..
Thank u..

 

[prasad1]

The most simplest way to encourage kids is by making them question..
just make them question you about the rligious activities we do.. About some famous events held in the temples like "kodi etram, karthigai deepam at thirivannamalai, margazhi festival at srivilliputur, hanumar jayanthi," etc etc..
When they really question you, give them an answer that will make them know the divinity of the particular god.. That will make them get fascinated first.
Then, automatically they will start knowing many things. Then, they will teach others.. "WITH LOTS OF DEVOTION AND INTEREST"..
Thank u..

You assume that average person is knowledgeable enough to answer these questions reasonably. It is difficult to find a single authority who can provide reasonable answer to these questions about belief.
IMO, Our parents imparted 10% of their religious knowledge, and some instance we can offer 10% of our knowledge to our children (I assumes we believe in them).
They get the rest of the information from other sources. For the average person it is not as simple as you think.

 

[ShivKC]

So when I was age 20/21, in Madurai, I became a self proclaimed Atheist. I raised my two wonderful kids in a Secular household:

Yams, i have a quest here.

you forced education on to your children, and reaped results. to any father,nothing compares, to have a child of rhodes. but you havent forced religion/atheism in to their throats, and given them a choice to choose. i mean, you havent pushed your atheism to your kids.

but look what the end results are..

they are poles apart. your son has moved already towards theism, and tilted towards christianity. i can smell the rat from him blogs. as said earlier, he is indeed smart he may follow bobby jindal and become another governor of indian origin. wish him the best in advance.

but then, you are a looser here, cos your own kids disagreed to your atheist views, leave aside the forum members here. arent you a looser here!!

just a personal question.. by any chance your son used to sing this Pink Floyd song "Mother should i run for President!"

 

[Yamaka]

Yams, i have a quest here.

you forced education on to your children, and reaped results. to any father,nothing compares, to have a child of rhodes. but you havent forced religion/atheism in to their throats, and given them a choice to choose. i mean, you havent pushed your atheism to your kids.

but look what the end results are..

they are poles apart. your son has moved already towards theism, and tilted towards christianity. i can smell the rat from him blogs. as said earlier, he is indeed smart he may follow bobby jindal and become another governor of indian origin. wish him the best in advance.

but then, you are a looser here, cos your own kids disagreed to your atheist views, leave aside the forum members here. arent you a looser here!!

just a personal question.. by any chance your son used to sing this Pink Floyd song "Mother should i run for President!"

Dear Shiv:

1. Did I force education on to my children?

I said, "We all need to work harder than anybody around us, to live better than others". Perhaps, they bought into that advice.

I said, "Hard work, dedication and sacrifice will take us a long way". Perhaps, they understood what I meant.

I did not say "Believe in God, worship Him as often as possible; He will give you anything you want".

2. I did not stop my wife going to Temple; I did not stop my kids going with her when they wanted to go with her.

3. Is my son becoming a Christian? I don't know... from his blog you could sense that he is open minded.

4. Even if he, as an adult, becomes a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim or a Jew, I don't have any objection whatsoever. As I changed at age 21, he has the right to remain Secular or change his view on God and Religion.

So far, there is no movement from Secular Thinking.

5. My son cares a lot about Social Justice - he says, for example, quality affordable healthcare is a human RIGHT, and that he will fight for tooth and nail.

Whether he will enter politics in the US, I have no clue.

Right now, he worries about beating the Brits in Soccer Intramural at Oxford! Lol.

Wait & watch.



ps. My wife predicts that our son may follow the religion of his girlfriend/wife if she insists!

 

[B.Krishnamurthy]

Recently I had the opportunity to read the speech given by a retired Supreme court Judge(a Kerala Christian)in an RSS annual function in some city of Kerala
in the presence of the present Chief of RSS organisation.He has dealt with the word 'SECULAR' in his speech and also about a judgement of the highest court of India and how Mr.Nariman was feeling bad for his arguments which resulted in the judgment of the SC on the lines of his argument.
I have never heard that the word 'Secular' denotes 'Atheists'
PS:-I think there is a member belonging to BJP party in this forum from Madurai.If he can,he can copy paste the speech of that retired judge in this thread.

 

[B.Krishnamurthy]

Dear Shri.Guruvayurappan,
I refer to your post no.352.USA is a very big country(I am told it is three times bigger than India in size).It may not be practicable to know all
American-Indians.
I am also staying in USA with my son.Recently some gentleman from 'LAGOS' had some doubt(in another forum).I gave him a reply.
When he came to know that I am in California,he inquired whether I knew his brother who is in USA for the past 28 years and very well known
to all American Indians who visit temples in USA.It seems his brother takes keen interest in arranging various functions connected with different festivals of Hindus from the beginning.
PS:- I spent my first 20 years of life in Thiruvanaikoil,Tiruchirapalli-6.I am happy to note that you are also from Tiruchy.
Whenever I am in Chennai,I visit Tiruchy and enjoy walking in Teppakulam road and 'Malaivasal'road.

 

[kunjuppu]

BK,

here is the speech by supreme court judge kt thomas at rss gurupuja on au 5th. on of these times when i have the inclination, i will read
it.

this will do our dear friend t.s.sankaranarayanan proud, proud that you ask for it, and i, an rss sceptic, post it

jai hind.

full-text-of-the-presidential-address-by-justice-kt-thomas-at-gurupooja-at-kerala/

 

[sangom]

dear Sangom sir !
kindly put in tamil or sanskrit the sentance" praaptEtu ShODaSE varShE putram mitravad AcarEt".as i mentioned in one of my post that i could not read it correctly.
with pranams
guruvayurappan

ப்ராப்தேது ஷோடசே வர்ஷே புத்ரம் மித்ரவத் ஆசரேத்

 

[nannilam_balasubramanian]

These days children see many cinema films in DVD. Similarly, we should get some
good DVDs showing the importance of Temple Visit besides prominent temples and
their importance. Perhaps, if we play a number of CDs during their leisure hours,
perhaps they may get to know the importance and interest in seeing the temples.
Because there will be some important places around the prominent Temples.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

 

[sarang]

virtually unlimited audio and video and printed media is available in giri traders in mylapore and avm music store in ttk road, chennai. I believe almost all reputed music stores stock these. One can find what he wants easily. The customers are from all varnas, more ladies than men. It is also easy to spot returning nris, who pick up 40 to 50 cd/dvds in one go.

 

[nannilam_balasubramanian]

I agree with you Sir. But we have to have some mode of attraction to the
children, as they have a heavy burden these days in the School curriculum,
stress and tension because of competitive world, that too in the forward
community to choose a good/valuable high tech education and early settlement
in their life.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

 

[guruvayurappan]

dear kris !
i am also aware that USA is a big country and 3 timing zones . what i wanted to convey is Mr.yamaka may be popular because of atheist thoughts and for his dif. way of putting his view in various forum. i am also glad that you were in t.v. koil and got blessing of Sri. Akilandeswari ambal.
guruvayurappan

 

[guruvayurappan]

thanks for tamil text.
guruvayurappan

 

[nannilam_balasubramanian]

virtually unlimited audio and video and printed media is available in giri traders in mylapore and avm music store in ttk road, chennai. I believe almost all reputed music stores stock these. One can find what he wants easily. The customers are from all varnas, more ladies than men. It is also easy to spot returning nris, who pick up 40 to 50 cd/dvds in one go.

I would like to submit one more point as a suggestion in this connection. As we all know, our house is parents
centered, chiefly not child centered, though they ought to be given an importance. The house is thus not to revolve
around the children alone i.e. attending to their desires, their day to day activities, etc. Teens are to be taught,
cultivated, to be respectful towards elders, affectionate to their kith and kins and also obedient learners of
erstwhile culture followed in the family by hereditary. God has ordained that a Family be the basic Unit of a
social society. So one of the primary objectives of the Temple visit strengthens the family. That is why, our
fore fathers used to visit Temples daily and meet a number of people besides our relatives. Similarly, elders to
suggest to take the teens to family weddings to know each other and increase the family bond, where exchange
many information girls/boys awaiting marriages, temples, important places, purchase of jeweleries are discussed
amongst the Ladies. Certain functions like Mappilai Azhaippu etc are done in the Temple. Why for that matter,
Avani Avittam is done on the bank of the Temple Tank. Therefore, working family members should as far as
possible take their children to all the functions, which would give them a desire to visit the Temples.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

 

[kunjuppu]

bala,

re your post #367

without intention to offend anyone, but most of all yourself,

are you prescribing all this out of your own experience? ie are you running a household, where you have or currently following the steps that you have posted in #367.

if you had done it in the past, and are now reaping the inevitable fruits of that effort, much to your gratification. or are you in the process of raising a family, and hoping to see your wards turn into a religious minded person of the type that you desire.

what i have found in real life, is that there is seldom relationship between how the household is, and what the children turn out to be.

we have a member Yamaka, here, who according to him, found 'stifling', the regular strict religious regimentation, and he comes from a islamic background. i have known in my own time, about tambram boys, vaathiar's sons, who have found the aacharam stuff equally stifling, and celebrated their 'liberation' by going out and having an egg at the india coffee house in mylapore. onr iyengar boy converted to christianity, just to be rid of these rituals.

the purpose again, of this note, is that it is all good to prescribe what should be. the reality is often, bounded by so many restrictions and other factors, do not turn out to be what we wish. i think our strength, is handling the results in the best possible manner, so that in our zeal for perfection, we end up allienating our own children.

the shocks come sudden. one day we find out an aberrant behaviour, and we are shocked. this is not meant to happen. not in our household. not the way we have brought up our kids. and other shocks too come. sometimes singly.sometimes piling. we have no choice but to grin and bear it. or alienate our children through our severe disapproval.

as parents, i believe, we do the right thing, provide good values, and religion and skillsets for life. there is no guarantee all this will be put to good use, or even use. our children, are another persons, with a mind of their own. we can only hope that they will turn out to be good. there are no guarantees, no matter how well we think we have brought them up.

such is life

 

[nannilam_balasubramanian]

I totally agree with you there are instances here and there. There are diversions too.
I only meant a humble attempt may help to deviate the children and create an interest
and motivate them about religious activities to certain extent.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

 

[anushagn]

bala,

re your post #367

without intention to offend anyone, but most of all yourself,

are you prescribing all this out of your own experience? ie are you running a household, where you have or currently following the steps that you have posted in #367.

if you had done it in the past, and are now reaping the inevitable fruits of that effort, much to your gratification. or are you in the process of raising a family, and hoping to see your wards turn into a religious minded person of the type that you desire.

what i have found in real life, is that there is seldom relationship between how the household is, and what the children turn out to be.

we have a member Yamaka, here, who according to him, found 'stifling', the regular strict religious regimentation, and he comes from a islamic background. i have known in my own time, about tambram boys, vaathiar's sons, who have found the aacharam stuff equally stifling, and celebrated their 'liberation' by going out and having an egg at the india coffee house in mylapore. onr iyengar boy converted to christianity, just to be rid of these rituals.

the purpose again, of this note, is that it is all good to prescribe what should be. the reality is often, bounded by so many restrictions and other factors, do not turn out to be what we wish. i think our strength, is handling the results in the best possible manner, so that in our zeal for perfection, we end up allienating our own children.

the shocks come sudden. one day we find out an aberrant behaviour, and we are shocked. this is not meant to happen. not in our household. not the way we have brought up our kids. and other shocks too come. sometimes singly.sometimes piling. we have no choice but to grin and bear it. or alienate our children through our severe disapproval.

as parents, i believe, we do the right thing, provide good values, and religion and skillsets for life. there is no guarantee all this will be put to good use, or even use. our children, are another persons, with a mind of their own. we can only hope that they will turn out to be good. there are no guarantees, no matter how well we think we have brought them up.

such is life

Simple sir..
Take life as it is..
We cannot impose anything on anybody..
Even if they are ours.. (any kind of close or blood relations)
Best way to defend ourselves from getting hurt is taking things easy..

A guy may take egg not only to disobey the rules but also due to his addiction to taste.. Well.. They call it as "trend and getting accustomed to normal living"
funny..
But 4 sure iam sayin.. They ll realize their mistake 1 day.. may b too late.. but they will..

And.. Im just doing my 3rd yr engineering..

 

[kunjuppu]

Simple sir..
Take life as it is..
We cannot impose anything on anybody..
Even if they are ours.. (any kind of close or blood relations)
Best way to defend ourselves from getting hurt is taking things easy..

A guy may take egg not only to disobey the rules but also due to his addiction to taste.. Well.. They call it as "trend and getting accustomed to normal living"
funny..
But 4 sure iam sayin.. They ll realize their mistake 1 day.. may b too late.. but they will..

And.. Im just doing my 3rd yr engineering..

anusha,

what a dellight to have a 3rd year (female?) engineering student among us.

you talk like my mother used to, 'dont listen to me, and someday you will regret'. anusha, having lived for 61 years, i have regrets. many. but not those where i violated my mother's strictures. not always anyway.

as we proceed in life, we are only aware of our limitations, not only on ourselves, but when we come to have spouses, and suddenly the value system that we held so sacred, has to become flexible enough to accommodate another perrson, or suffer damages.

i see a little contradiction, in your, 'take life as it is' and 'They ll realize their mistake 1 day.. may b too late.. but they will'. the latter is more restrictive ie live by the rules. the former, is more of an investigative open ended open minded thing - check out, and if you like it adopt it. otherwise discard. atleast satisfy your curiosity.

i mean all this being done, within the norms of decency, morality and honesty, as defined by our society ofcourse. definitely not telling someone to steal a bank..haha..

we have bachelors here in this forum. sometimes when they write about love and marriage, i enjoy reading it. but reading it like fiction. real life is all about adjustments, moderations, accommodations and above all flexibility. all of the above, go head on, against rules and regulations and strictures.

i think, as a community, we need to be more gentle in our dealings with life. it will make everything so simpler. and easier.

God Bless.

 

[Servall]

Dear Anushagan:

Simple sir..
Take life as it is..
We cannot impose anything on anybody..
Even if they are ours.. (any kind of close or blood relations)
Best way to defend ourselves from getting hurt is taking things easy..

A guy may take egg not only to disobey the rules but also due to his addiction to taste.. Well.. They call it as "trend and getting accustomed to normal living"
funny..
But 4 sure iam sayin.. They ll realize their mistake 1 day.. may b too late.. but they will..

And.. Im just doing my 3rd yr engineering..

It is a pleasure to welcome you and your age group to this forum. You can see that the original question of this thread was meant for youngsters like yourself and I am so glad that you took time first to go through this site and found it interesting to peep in and write to us. Hopefully you will find many forums here to be informative, fun and inspiring for you.

I would also encourage you to respond to this initial question.

1. Do you find it is valuable to go to temples?
2. If so, why do you find it valuable?
3. If not, what are some of the reasons you dont enjoy going to the temples?
4. If you would like to go to temples more, how can your parents, elders, your peers or temples themselves make your experience of going to temples more enjoyable?
5. What are your thoughts in general, about God and Religion from your own perspective?
6. How interesting or boring you find the discussions on various forums here?

I know it is a lot of questions; you certainly dont need to answer any of these if you dont want to. But it will be very informative for us to see what our young generation of today perceive of religion and our temples. I would also encourage you to bring more of your friends to this forum to enlighten us of your thoughts in general and matters of interest that are being discussed here on a daily basis?

Thank you for writing and we hope you will keep in touch with all of us!!!!!

Best wishes

 

[Soumya Ramasubramanian]

Actually devotion,going to temple everything is currently almost individual basis...True in a way,the children from very orthodox families might be orthodox too....but at the same time just like medicines,too much can turn out toxic...So instead of the person becoming devotional and following rituals,he actually be suffocating and waiting for an opportunity to come off the entire thing...I am religious and if i am to be compared with my parents i am way much religious than them...The reason was because of plain curiosity about the depth of what exactly religion is,what is the inner soul,and so on...this was just because i had studied for two years in chinmaya school and everything they taught me there was so different and so interesting...At home basically from childhood,parents teach the child to say prayers,ask them to pray daily,maybe tell them about a little bit of ramayana stories briefly ....but it ends with that...There is nothing that lets the person seek...seeking is the best adventure that can be given...Even little hints about what is sadi in the vedas...relating that all has been written long back in vedas...what is karma...saying something like this at a moulding age that is when in 7th to 9th would probably help...Nevertheless it still depends on the interest of the individual as said before...but by giving this curiosity linkage for sure i can guarantee no one would get bored...atleast they'd want the entire story to be complete...so even if they dont bother bout it at that time,for sure it still hangs on and at one stage or the other they would try to find out about it...And there are these situations also where the person is religious and wants to go to temple but might not tell it out...probably cuz all these years he's not been that devotional and suddenly when he is,he might feel everyone will laugh...so to avoid such situations its always better to take them to interesting temples with magnificent architecture and history...or take them along for some new enjoyable function...something which is different than the usual...So considering all this its all revolving around the one important thing ...CURIOSITY...whether it is the stories,whether it is about what is in the vedas,whether it is about the temples or the functions...it is all about instilling that one factor CURIOSITY in them to know more and letting them DISCOVER it themselves...I feel proud when i tell my mom about how certain slokas are to be chanted,how certain prayers are done etc..and when my mom does it i feel even happier that she did it because i told her....and i feel like searching more,and telling my mom more....she so proudly and happily tells everyone that i told her so and so...that is like a super duper booster for me...

 

[Yamaka]

Actually devotion,going to temple everything is currently almost individual basis...True in a way,the children from very orthodox families might be orthodox too....but at the same time just like medicines,too much can turn out toxic...So instead of the person becoming devotional and following rituals,he actually be suffocating and waiting for an opportunity to come off the entire thing...I am religious and if i am to be compared with my parents i am way much religious than them...The reason was because of plain curiosity about the depth of what exactly religion is,what is the inner soul,and so on...this was just because i had studied for two years in chinmaya school and everything they taught me there was so different and so interesting...At home basically from childhood,parents teach the child to say prayers,ask them to pray daily,maybe tell them about a little bit of ramayana stories briefly ....but it ends with that...There is nothing that lets the person seek...seeking is the best adventure that can be given...Even little hints about what is sadi in the vedas...relating that all has been written long back in vedas...what is karma...saying something like this at a moulding age that is when in 7th to 9th would probably help...Nevertheless it still depends on the interest of the individual as said before...but by giving this curiosity linkage for sure i can guarantee no one would get bored...atleast they'd want the entire story to be complete...so even if they dont bother bout it at that time,for sure it still hangs on and at one stage or the other they would try to find out about it...And there are these situations also where the person is religious and wants to go to temple but might not tell it out...probably cuz all these years he's not been that devotional and suddenly when he is,he might feel everyone will laugh...so to avoid such situations its always better to take them to interesting temples with magnificent architecture and history...or take them along for some new enjoyable function...something which is different than the usual...So considering all this its all revolving around the one important thing ...CURIOSITY...whether it is the stories,whether it is about what is in the vedas,whether it is about the temples or the functions...it is all about instilling that one factor CURIOSITY in them to know more and letting them DISCOVER it themselves...I feel proud when i tell my mom about how certain slokas are to be chanted,how certain prayers are done etc..and when my mom does it i feel even happier that she did it because i told her....and i feel like searching more,and telling my mom more....she so proudly and happily tells everyone that i told her so and so...that is like a super duper booster for me...

Dear Soumya:

Very nice post. I enjoyed every line of it.

When you wrote, "the children from very orthodox families might be orthodox too....but at the same time just like medicines,too much can turn out toxic...So instead of the person becoming devotional and following rituals,he actually be suffocating and waiting for an opportunity to come off the entire thing.", I thought you are talking about me - Yamaka - who turned Atheist at the earliest opportunity when he was age 20-21 in college in Madurai, TN.

I had all the CURIOSITY in God, Religion, Caste etc.. I read as much as possible and finally concluded that MAN created all the Gods, Religions and everything around here for his own self-interest and supremacy... so much so, I did not pray any God for anything in the past 40 years: I married a wonderful Sweet and Smart Tamil Brahmin girl and raised two enchanting kids in a SECULAR household (now S is 27 and A is 22).

Now my kids show the same CURIOSITY about God, Religion, Spirituality and the usefulness of prayers, poojas and bhajans.. I am waiting and watching them... occasionally comparing and contrasting as to what I did in their age today!

The cycle continues...

I wish you well in all your endeavor and discovery... Do whatever makes you happy or happier.

Cheers.

 

[wrongan]

An observation and not with any logic behind.I seated in the main prakaram of LORD MAHABALEHWAR TEMPLE and had a chance of watching all the devotees who enter the temple the whole day.A difference I noticed that the major percentage consisted of teenagers of both sex.The temple is in Gokarnam in Karnataka state.My purpose was that I one of several members Chanted RUDRAM continuously throughout the day for 11 days.