The Mahabharata and Ramayana are Hinduism's most renowned epic histories, called Itihasa. The Puranas are popular folk narratives, teaching faith, belief and ethics in mythology, allegory, legend and symbolism. Hinduism's poetic stories of rishis, Gods, heroes and demons are sung by gifted panditas and traveling bards, narrated to children and portrayed in dramas and festivals. The Mahabharata, the world's longest epic poem, is the legend of two ancient dynasties whose great battle of Kurukshetra is the scene of the Bhagavad Gita, the eloquent spiritual dialog between Arjuna and Krishna. The Ramayana relates the life of Rama, a heroic king revered as the ideal man. The Puranas, like the Mahabharata, are encyclopedic in scope, containing teachings on sadhana, philosophy, dharma, ritual, language and the arts, architecture, agriculture, magic charms and more. Of eighteen principal Puranas, six honor God as Siva, six as Vishnu and six as Brahma. The witty Panchatantra, eminent among the "story" literature, or katha, portrays wisdom through animal fables and parables. The Bhagavad Gita proclaims, "He who reads this sacred dialog of ours, by him I consider Myself worshiped through the sacrifice of knowledge. And the man who listens to it with faith and without scoffing, liberated, he shall attain to the happy realm of the righteous.". Impact Of Television Television has not helped society to raise its children. In fact, it has virtually stopped the proper education of the child in those communities where it is watched for hours each day. Instead of developing an active curiosity by adventuring for hours through a forest or climbing a tree, instead of discovering the wonders of nature and art, music, literature and conversation, instead of becoming involved in sports and hobbies, children are mentally carried along by television stories through positive and negative states of mind. They become uncreative, passive, inactive, never learning to use their own minds. Admittedly, not all television is negative. Some of it can be quite educational; but hours and hours each day of passive absorption is not good for a child's mental and emotional development. Children need to be active, to involve themselves in a wide variety of experiences. If the mother is there, she can intelligently guide their television, being careful that they do not get in the habit of watching it for hours on end, and watching that bold sex, casual and brute violence, raw language and other bad influences are not a daily experience. When the program is over, she can send them out to play. Or, better still, she can take a few minutes to explain how what they just saw on TV relates, or often does not relate, to real life. Of course, if she is gone, they will watch anything and everything. For the young, television is one of the most senseless pastimes there is, carrying the mind further and further away from the true Self. I think you will all agree that our values, the values found in the holy Vedas, Tirukural and other sacred scriptures, are rarely found on television. Instead, TV, at this time in our history, gives our children a brutal, romantic and unbalanced view of life which distorts in their minds how life really is. These are very serious issues. It is the mother who protects her children from negative influences, guiding their young minds into positive channels of expression. Take the case of a farmer who raises livestock, who milks cows and goats. He works hard. He gets up early and takes care of his animals. He cannot succeed if he is also working part-time in the grocery store downtown. Those animals need attention. There is no sensible man who would run a farm, with cows and goats and chickens, and not be there to take care of them, because those animals need a lot of help. He stays there and takes care of his business. He is a farmer and that is his duty, and he knows it. Well, what's more important than the child? He needs twenty-four-hour-a-day care. He is learning to walk, to speak, to learn, to think. He falls down and needs consoling. He catches the flu and needs to be nursed back to health. It is the mother's duty to provide that care. No one else is going to do it for her. No one else can do it for her. She brought that soul into a physical body, and she must prepare that child for a positive and rewarding life. If the farmer neglects his animals, he creates a serious karma. The animals suffer. The farm suffers. The community suffers when the farm fails, and the man himself suffers. There is a grave karma, too, for the woman who neglects her stri dharma, who goes out into the world and does not nurture the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of her children. She knows this within herself, but she may be influenced by ill-advised people, or by a mass movement that tells her that she has only one life to live and that she cannot find fulfillment in the home, but must express herself, venture out, seek her own path, her own fortune. You have all heard these ideas. I tell you that they are wrong. They spell the disillusionment of the mother who heeds them, then the disintegration of the family that is sacrificed by her absence. Finally, they result in her own unhappiness as she despairs at the loss suffered by her family and herself. The Strength Of The Extended Family Siva's followers know the most stable societies are based on the extended family. They often merge individuals with families and families with families in one home or complex, for economy, sharing and religiousness. How the Gods Work with Man The Gods do not treat everyone alike. The attitude that all souls are equal and subject to equal standards of right and wrong behavior is not an Eastern understanding. Nor is it the way the Gods view the souls of men. There are younger souls and older souls, just as there are children and adults. They live worlds apart in the same world. Souls living side by side may actually be hundreds of lives apart in their spiritual maturation, one just learning what the other learned many lives ago. The Gods discern the depth of the soul, and when they are approached they see the devotee not only as he is but as he was and will be. They help the devotee in understanding within the sphere of intelligence which they command. Often one God will primarily direct one specialized mind stratum. He will come to know the problems and nuances indigenous to that mind region. Thus, the same misdeed performed by three souls of different ages under similar circumstances is viewed as three different misdeeds by the Gods. An older soul is more aware, more able to control himself and therefore more responsible for his actions. He should have known better and finds that his transgression brings painful retribution. Another less mature soul is still learning control of the emotions that provoked his misdeed, and he is sharply scolded. Still another soul, so young that awareness has not yet fathomed the laws of karma, of action and reaction, and who remains unawakened to the emotional mastery the situation demanded, is lightly reprimanded, if at all. The Gods in their superconscious judgment of human deeds and misdeeds are infinitely fair and discerning. Their judgments are totally unlike the notion of a God in heaven who arbitrarily saves or condemns. In Hinduism all men are destined to attain liberation. Not a single soul will suffer for eternity. Therefore, the Gods in their deliberations are not making what we would consider personal judgments. Their decrees are merely carrying out the natural law of evolution. They are always directing the soul toward the Absolute, and even their apparent punishments are not punishments but correction and discipline that will bring the soul closer to its true nature. Now, of course human law is not like this, especially today, but in civilizations past and in the great religious Hindu empires of India, there were such equitable courts of law, with enlightened men of justice, that sentences and punishments were meted out upon careful scrutiny of the individual, his particular dharma and the duties and expectations it bound him to uphold. It is through the sanction of the Gods that the Hindu undertakes the practice of yoga--that orthodox and strictly Hindu science of meditation that leads to merger of the many with the one. Yoga is the culmination of years of religious and devotional service and can only be successful with the support of the Gods who are the sentries guarding the gates of the various strata of consciousness. This sanction, once obtained, can and does allow the kundalini force within the core of the spine to safely rise and merge with the Supreme that all Hindus know is the Absolute--timeless, causeless and spaceless. But first much work has to be done.
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