PARENTS AND KARMA
Q: Sir, in the normal course of a parent-child relationship a parent will involuntarily cause hurt or harm to a child who misconstrues discipline for harshness. Does this lead to karma?
Child, parents are human, and parents make mistakes. And whenever mistakes are made that soul will learn a lesson, and a lesson can be learnt only through karma. So in that sense, yes, it will lead to karma. Again, in a parent and child relationship, if the child has contracted with the parents to face physical abuse, to face emotional trauma, then the parents must execute that contract. There is no karma. But not all are cases are of this nature. Several cases of abuse are of souls who have gone through great physical and emotional pain in past lives. They learn through their pain when they are with us, but in order to forgive and to let go of that pain and that reality of the past, they undertake to come back as parents of, maybe, troublesome children, because their troublesome child will give them the opportunity to either remember the lessons, and not cause harm to those who trouble, or forget the lesson and surrender to the pain of past lives. Once again, my child, this will not be told. The parent and the child must work out the relationship of their souls. And believe me, my son; you are wrong in saying that a child will misconstrue discipline for harshness. Never, my son, never will a child’s soul misconstrue. Harshness is harshness; it can never take the place of discipline.
Q: Sir, are you talking of the higher soul?
No, my son, a child’s physical soul also knows the difference between discipline and harshness. You can be a very strict disciplinarian without being harsh in the slightest. It is the gentle discipline that gets results, not harshness. Why do you think children are so fond of and are so positively influenced by their grandparents? Because grandparents enforce a gentle discipline. There is no harshness. Most parents in trying to overcome their own inadequacies, which they then see in their children, resort to harshness. But grandparents having gone through so much pain throughout their lives, having learnt from so many of the errors that they have committed along the way, have reached the point where their souls, their physical souls, are aware of so many different things, and so grandparents, truly, gently discipline the child.
It would be so much better for your society if the children’s upbringing were left to the grandparents. Look way into the past and you will find that all ancient tribal cultures had given the responsibility of rearing their young to the elders of the society. Parents who are young are still going through their own problems, their own conflicts, past and present. Their souls are still not linked with their higher souls. How can they take up the responsibility of nurturing another soul? Grandparents in your society are sadly left aside. That is another reason why your society faces so many psychological problems, because the problems, which the parents bring with them, are carried forward to the child. If the grandparents looked after the nurturing of the children you would have far more mature, sensitive, wonderful souls who will not forget the lessons they have learnt here because the elders of society will give them the chance to remember because they themselves have already remembered.