Raising Saints

“Love your child without limitation up to the age of five,

and then begin to discipline him.”

--Old Sanskrit axiom

“Love your child without reservations,

and sacrifice your other pleasures for the sake of this love.

Don’t underestimate how early this sense of love is perceived;

a child perceives your love before any other awareness.”

--Swami Rama of the Himalayas

Recently, the Catholic church where I worship offered a program for parents and

grandparents called “Raising Saints.” To raise loving spiritual children is a

wonderful and challenging goal. How does a mother or father, or a community of

believers in the spiritual life grow and foster the spiritual life of a child so that he

or she grows up to be a lover of all people like Jesus of Nazareth, Francis of

Assisi, Mohandes Gandhi, Teresa of Calcutta?

What does it mean to love our children without reservations?

First, it means loving ourselves, the future mothers and fathers and extended

family, without reservation. It means remembering that we are divine children of

God. It starts, I believe, with parents so much aware of their goodness that they

become unconditionally loving and sacrificing parents. These parents know that

this future child or infant or teen is a creation of their love for each other. They

know, at least giving mental consent to the fact, that they are children of God,

made in God’s image and likeness, just like their newborn.

Saintly children learn to know that they are children of God while they are in

utero. According to the Yoga Tradition, their mother feeds herself the highest

quality food preparing her body and the child’s future body with the nutrients the

child needs to develop strong within the womb. The mother and father’s joy of an

anticipated child growing in the mother is “heard”, yoga says, by the fetus.

Often, mothers and fathers sing to their yet-to-be-born child. And certainly any

emotional joy or upset is experienced by the being in the mother’s womb.

Future saints are raised in an environment of unconditional love, free from anger,

punishment, belittling, yoga says, for at least the first five years of their earthly

lives. In those first 12-24 months, when they long for nourishment and security,

they are given the breast or the hug. They are, like many mothers and

grandmothers are doing today, carried in a sling either on the mother’s chest or

on her back, close to the familiar beat of mom’s heart. They always feel

protected.

They are trained to be loving, kind, and safe people when fear is eliminated as

much as possible from their lives. This will hard-wire their emotional and mental

circuitry in a way that is needed for them to live a kind, loving, and peaceful life.

This will prepare them for later life when they serve others who need love and

security.

Of course, while the child is growing up, the parents and the entire close

community that encounters them needs to let them know that they are divinely

and humanly loved. They need to be reminded constantly of this because they

will be living in a world that will challenge that truth constantly.

That is why raising saints is a demanding practice, taking much sacrifice and

effort from mom and dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles and all the close family

members. And, of course, because living on earth is not always living in a saintly

environment, that is why raising children is a practice, a daily practice, just like

sitting on our meditation cushions every day, or exercising every day, or eating

high quality living food every day, or being loving and kind to all we meet, or

removing anger, doubt, fear and worry from our lives every day is a practice. It

just doesn’t happen. We have to work at it!

May our practice to be loving bear fruit in ourselves and in our children, as we

journey through our life. May we see more and more saints growing in our

families and in our community.

I bow to the divinity within you!