Gurudeva shares an inspired talk about the creation of a home and the raising of children giving potent examples. Gurudeva discusses that the mother's place is in the home. He tells us about girls planning to enter men's occupation, children being raised by children, what good is all the money. Gurudeva gives solutions such as loving discipline.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. It is November 17. By our Vedic calendar it's Sun 6.

Today, our pilgrims from Kashi Ashram in Florida, departed. 3 brahmacharis and 2 swamis, came all the way across the United States, across the Pacific Ocean to the Hawaiian island to observe how our ashram here manages to reach out to so many people worldwide, from the little garden island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They observed our 5 schools within the ashram. The school of temple cooking and taking care of the animals. The school of maintenance, growing food and taking care of the lands. The school of publication. The school of finance, purchasing and selling. The school of managing Saiva Siddhanta Church and the Himalayan Academy Correspondence Course. They went back with their head full of new knowledge, to make their ashram more like our ashram.

Ashrams around the world share information, with each other. We are also working with an ashram in Bangalore, India, that is taking 5 of our young men, from ages 7 to 12, for a 5-year training course, training them to be the temple priests of our new temple here on the garden island of Kauai.

Today, we are going to share with you a talk, given on November 11, to a group of about 15 Hindu pilgrims, in our Kadavul Hindu temple, here at Kauai Aadheenam. The subject that they needed to hear was -the creation of a home, a real home, raising of children. It explains how with mother and father working, the children are basically street children. Nobody to talk to, nobody to guide them. Everyone too tired, and they just get yelled at.

We gave some very potent examples of how this is working, how in the United States of America, we would like to turn the situation around. There are newspaper articles, magazine articles and you see it on television occasionally. America is waking up that a woman's place is in the home. A mother's place is in the home. A full-time mother taking care of her husband, and her children is what is needed for the next generation. They say mothers like to work, because they like to express themselves. A home has so much of intrinsic values for the next generation, plenty of room for self-expression. I think you will enjoy this inspired talk.

Today with 'Living with Siva', we have cultural accomplishments. I am going to read you a few of these scriptures.

"Lovers of Siva shall learn a skill or craft regarding the use of the hands, such as pottery, sowing, knitting, weaving, painting, gardening, taking on a building of arts, to manifest creative benefits for the family and the community."

All over the world, even in our organization, The Saiva Siddhanta Church, young girls are all going to men's occupations. You ask them what they are going to do?

They say,,"Oh, I am going to be a lawyer."

You ask them, "Can you cook?"

"No."

"What can you actually do, around the house?"

"When I am a lawyer, I'll hire somebody." "Can you raise children?"

They don't know anything about that either.

Therefore, children are basically, raised up on the streets, with no father, no mother, nothing to guide them, except other children. Children are being raised today, by other children. Parents rarely talk to their children today. Husband is an engineer, wife is a doctor. They have nothing in common. Doesn't even go along with the Hindu caste system. It is only the worker caste, the shudra caste, where both men and women work. And then when there is all this money, what good is it going to do? The children will squander it after you die. They won't be involved in the family tradition, because there is no family tradition.

All over the United States , it is being recognized that a mother's place is in the home. With her mind free from worldly affairs, teaching the children ritual worship, teaching the children the kalas of refinement, culture and art, taking the children to the temple, giving them a life, communicating with them, knowing who their friends are and what they are doing, knowing their parents, not losing contact with the children, normally, in Hindu society.

In today's world everybody follows everyone else. Everyone is following everyone else. Where is the individuality and who are the leaders? They are too few and far between. Just stop and think, "What about the next generation of Hindus?"

A young man contacted me from Houston, Texas. He started going to the Hindu temple at Houston, Texas. He was beaten so badly by his father and hated his father so much, that he totally turned away from Hinduism. He, along with thousands of other children, thought, "If the parents treated the children this way, for their benefit, not for ours, what is there in this religion that is worthwhile?

Now the psychiatrists are going over his past hates and fears about the corporal punishment, the whipping that he got at home. He joined a gang, went on drugs, stole, lied to his parents. With a lot of encouragement, he is back in school now, and hopefully one day, will graduate with an education. It is thanks to the temple, he is off drugs, leading a fairly decent life, but left with the scars in his mind, of being beaten, being pinched, being slapped, rather than being explained to, being raised with love.

Then, we have thousands of other testimonies from all over the world, of kids that are hurt and abused, in the upper class Hindu families. We hope that you will take a message back to your community that discipline means to teach, not to hurt and that ahimsa means not hurting anybody physically, mentally or emotionally.

We know a few Hindu families who have never beaten their children or disciplined them physically in any way.

We ask them "Why?"

They say, "Because we love them, we love them."

"So, how do you train them, how do you discipline them?"

"Well, we have them go into the shrine room and sit for 10 minutes and think over what they did wrong, and they come back and we talk to them. We communicate."

Then we say, "What about TV? Aren't you watching TV all the time?"

"No. We can't watch a lot of TV with children. They consume a lot of your time."

Of course, in most families, the mother was at home and the home wasn't just like a hotel lobby, with people coming in and going out.

I can't imagine why the desire in the Hindu community to buy and furnish big homes and never live in them. Mother is out early in the morning, back late. Father is out early in the morning, back late. The kids are out with other kids, on the street. Where is the vibration of the home? The vibration of the home is asuric. The demons live there and cause people to argue and to fight.

We would like to turn this around. We would like the Indian Hindu community, to become the model of all communities in the United States of America.

Well, I'll be seeing you in all of our familiar places, where we enjoy sitting together, looking at our computer screen. I am looking at you, you are looking at me. It is darshan time, again tomorrow, in cyberspace ashram. Tune in. We'll be looking at each other through cyberspace.