Proponents of contraception claim it solves many social problems. Are they right? Thirteen-year-old Jenny broke the silence. “Rhoda, I was a birth-control baby.” “Birth-control baby? I never heard of that.” “The birth control my mother and father used didn’t work, and the result was me.” “You mean you weren’t wanted.” Jenny didn’t answer. She hunched […]
About Urmila devi dasi
Who or What is to Blame?
An investigation into the causes of suffering. DHARMA, religion personified, had taken on the form of a bull [as described in the pages of the Shrimad Bhagavatam 1th Canto]. Shaking in fear, he stood trembling on one leg, his other three legs broken. Kali, who personifies the present age of quarrel and hypocrisy, raised his […]
Is Experience the Best Teacher?
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 […]
Divine Consciousness Of a Previous Life
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, […]
Crack in the Universe
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 […]
Do You Force Your Children?
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 […]
