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Dialogue with Kids

Kids are one of the greatest blessings in life. I was pleasantly surprised to have a discussion this morning with my younger daughter who is around 10 years of age. She started discussing with her understanding that there is no God. Then I asked her that if there is no God then who is taking care of the digestion of food inside her stomach and the circulation of the blood. Is that happening automatically? She said that it is the forces of nature that are governing that and not any God. She discussed further that I do not understand why people pray to God in different forms and why they always keep begging from that God.

I expressed my views that probably God, by whatever name we call him, is someone who has understood the forces of nature in and out and we pray to him to show us the path of such realization. We keep the symbol of God in our prayer homes to remind us of his qualities so that we may also follow that path. I further explained to her that it is just like your teacher in the school who has completed her education and you request your teacher to tell you how to study the subjects. It is not so that she will just bless you one night and transmit all the knowledge you have. You have to work hard to get the same knowledge. Similarly, we pray to God to show us the way.

She asked me why people beg for so many things from him. He must be getting tired of this begging. Nobody understands God and the problems being faced by Him. If people ask us so many things, how perturbed we will be. Why don't people work for themselves and why do they depend so much upon God. I discussed that probably people are not that aware and in moments of weakness, they just start begging for certain desired outcomes rather than praying for guidance to work hard to reach them.

She further discussed that there is no need for any place of worship or prayer and why we carry all the symbols. I discussed that probably these symbols make us remember the qualities of God. For example, when I read Ramayana, I became aware of the qualities of Lord Rama. I get influenced by his sacrifice and equanimity and want to emulate that. In whatever form I have seen lord Rama since my childhood, the same image reminds me of those qualities, and every time I see that image, I get motivated to emulate the same qualities in my life.

She then asked why do we keep the image of God on a high pedestal if he is everywhere. I discussed that if she respects her teacher and she gets a photo of the teacher, she will always keep that photo on the high pedestal, as a symbol of respect. 

I was so happy to discuss these matters with her, It was a real joy to have such discussions. I feel kids have the purest of logic since that is not contaminated by following the mass opinions mindlessly. Slowly this society makes us dull. I feel that it is the first and foremost duty of all parents to listen to the kids carefully and not brush aside their doubts and queries, howsoever meaningless they may appear. In fact, most of the questions are also relevant to us. The difference is that we have made our minds dull and do not allow these questions to come to us while the kids are still full of life. In fact, while discussing with kids, we get to understand life from an altogether different perspective. 

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