AFTER GIVING Arjuna knowledge of matter and spirit, Lord Krishna tells him, “Deliberate on this fully, and then decide what you wish to do.” Our children also have to choose between material and spiritual life. To prepare them for this choice, do we need to give them experiences of both? Do our children need any […]

Helping children to take advantage of their dormant spirituality. THE BHAGAVAD-GITA tells us that a child with good opportunities for genuine spiritual life must have progressed in yoga, or Krishna consciousness, in a previous life. Krishna tells Arjuna some symptoms of such a child. First, the child will be attracted automatically to the yogic principles, […]

How can we raise children so that when they grow up they’ll stay out of the modern culture of divorce, remarriage, and illegitimacy? THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY founder of Sunday school in America, H. Clay Trumbull, remembers calling to his father before falling asleep at night. “Are you there, Papa?” “Yes, my child, I am here.” “You’ll […]

WE SIT IN THE Calcutta Airport waiting for an announcement, the flight three hours late. The many ceiling fans do little to refresh the air, polluted by cigarette smoke and hundreds of bodies. My ten-year-old son and I sit by a door, opened a crack but with negligible effect. I talk with a blue-saried nun […]

A mother’s extraordinary love for her premature son draws those around her closer to transcendental knowledge of the soul. In college Carol studied psychology and sociology, preparing for social work. Living in a Catholic convent during her first two years of college, she had hoped her aspiration to serve God and humanity would find its […]