Children's Corner
Story for children: Ego leads to destruction
Once upon a time, there lived a Guru along with his disciples in a hut. After teaching them a few times, the Guru felt that Sanjiva was a bright disciple, who could progress rapidly if taught well. With this intention, the Guru started concentrating more on Sanjiva’s progress.
One day, the Guru taught Sanjiva the skill of raising the dead to life. Sanjiva was very grateful to his Guru for giving him this new power. But as time passed, he started feeling proud of his newfound power. He started treating the other disciples very badly and would brag to them about his newly acquired power.
One day, when the disciples were going through the forest to gather wood as usual, Sanjiva once again started bragging about his new power. Shortly on their way, they came across a dead tiger. Upon this, Sanjiva said, “See! I can even make this tiger come alive.” The other disciples immediately climbed up on nearby trees and challenged Sanjiva to do so. Sanjiva took up their challenge and uttered some mantras to raise the tiger back to life. But as soon as he had finished, the tiger came to life, and attacked Sanjiva, killing him in the encounter.
Upon witnessing the tragic incident, the disciples returned to the ashram. When they narrated the incident to the Guru, He said, “In Spirituality, developing ego leads to stalling one’s spiritual progress. As Sanjiva had developed a lot of ego, he got killed, and his spiritual practice came to an end.”
Moral: Dear children, as the Guru explained, having a lot of ego, or pride, in all that we might do to go closer to God, will actually take us away from Him. Therefore, we should try extra hard to not be proud of all that we are doing to reach God, and instead focus on reaching Him faster.
Spiritual experience of a child seeker
Subtle perception of distressing energy by a five-year-old girl
One week, my cousins paid a visit to our family. The five-year-old daughter of one of them was with them. While we were all sitting in the living room, she dragged me to my room and told me that she saw me as the only one that was bright and shiny whereas the rest of the family appeared dark to her. Then she told me that she loves me a lot.
-A Seeker, May 17, 2000.
[Dear Readers, children are generally more perceptive of the subtle dimension due to reduced ego compared to adults. This family had been diagnosed as suffering from the problem of ancestors’ souls. Thus, the five-year-old could immediately sense the negativity as darkness around her family suffering from this problem. Since the seeker is doing spiritual practice and chanting* Lord Datta’s Name, which is the principle that protects one from such distressing energy, the child perceived her as bright.
-Editor.]
* Chanting means constantly remembering or repeating God’s Name according to our religion. Young children should also chant 'Om Gan Ganapataye namaha' (Lord Ganesh's chant) for at least 15-30 minutes daily for divine protection. Older children, who have been doing spiritual practice for some time, can determine their exact chant from the experiment in Issue 124, Message to Seekers section. Parents should repeat (chant) The Lord's Name for children too young to do so themselves.