Bruce Cowan's comments: Sant Ajaib Singh's visit to Australia in April, 1985, was very much for the children, as well as the adults. In His greeting talk on April 26, 1985, Sant Ji made special mention of the children:
I am very pleased to see all the dear children, and you know that I always love the children. It impresses me very much how the children are sitting here, they are very disciplined. Often I have said that children who are born in the satsangi families are special, are the dear souls, and it has been decided for them in the Court of Lord that they will definitely come back to the Real Home in this lifetime. That is why they are given birth in the Satsangi families. So I am very pleased to see all the dear souls, dear children, here, and I hope that they will maintain the discipline during my stay here, and afterwards also they will maintain the discipline. It becomes the duty of all the parents to teach them how to be in the discipline and how to understand and follow the Path of the Masters.
You know that they are the precious wealth of yourselves and of the country. Your children, when they grow up, are going to become the representatives of your country. They may be the ones who would run the country, or who would be responsible for the progress of your country. So it is very important for you to make their lives, because they are innocent and they don't know anything of the world now. It all depends on you and it is your duty to make their life.
Sant Ji gave two talks at children's darshan programs on this theme, telling the stories of Valmik and Farid, to show the influence that the parents have on their children. The moral of these stories is of great importance to both the parents and the children.
The Story of Valmik/Supach, April 27, 1985
I am very pleased to hear the bhajans with children singing with a lot of discipline and a lot of love, and I am very pleased to come to attend the Satsang of the children. I always like to do that, because children are the innocent souls. They are very loving souls, because right now they are not accompanying their minds so much. That is why they are very pure souls, they are very receptive to the Truth. Later on when they will take the company of the mind, that soul will also become like the worldly souls, but right now, because their mind is not working too much, their souls are very pure and they are very receptive. Whenever you give any truthful thing to the children, they will receive it very quickly, because they are very receptive, they are innocent souls, they are very pure souls. They have selfless love, like the Saints have; they have a lot of patience like the Saints have; and that is why I am very pleased to come to attend the Satsang of the children. I always like to do that, and I am very pleased to come here and see the discipline of the children.
Kabir Sahib says that even the dog of a Sadhu is better than the mother of the worldly person, because the dog, even though she cannot do the Simran, still she can hear the glory of God, and [see] the places of God which the Saint, the Master is [visiting]. So that is why she is considered as better than the mother of the worldly person, because you know that the mother of the worldly person will not inspire that person to do the devotion. She will never think about doing the devotion of the Lord. And that is why the bitch of the Sadhu is much better than the mother of the worldly person who does not do the meditation.
In the Anurag Sagar of Kabir (The Ocean of Love), you may have read the story of Valmik, or Supach. In order to liberate Valmik, or Supach, Kabir Sahib had to come into this world many times, and He had to take up the human body, which is full of suffering, many times. Kabir Sahib had to come into this world again and again because Valmik was His soul, whom He had to liberate. Valmik used to live a very bad life, the life of a dacoit, and it was his mother who had inspired him to become a dacoit.
Once it so happened that he killed a person, thinking he might have a lot of money in his pocket, but when he searched in his pocket, he found only one penny. When he got only one penny, he felt very bad. «Why did I kill a person just for one penny?»
He went back to his home and he thought about it, and then he thought that he would not do that again: he would not kill people for their money. So the next day, when he did not go to kill and loot the people, his mother asked him, «Dear son, what is the reason why you are not going to your job today? Why are you staying here?» He said, «Mother, yesterday I killed a person and I got only one penny from him. And I think it is not a good thing; I did not do a good thing killing a person just for one penny. It is a very big sin I have done.»
His mother wanted to inspire him to go and do his job. His mother was not a satsangi, and she did not know what she was doing. But she wanted to inspire him. So she told him, «Okay, you give me that one penny, and I will show you what you can do with this one penny. Don't underestimate this penny.»
She went to the market with that penny, and bought many fish. When she brought those fish in front of Valmik, she removed the fish from the water, and all the fish died. So she tried to explain to Valmik, «Just for one penny, the person who sold me these fish, he killed so many souls, so many jivas, and you are thinking you have done a very big sin of killing one person, or taking one person's life for one penny?» She told him, «It is your job to go and kill people, so you should get ready and go do your job.» The meaning of telling this story is that it was the mother of Valmik who inspired him and who made him a dacoit.
Some years later, when he met Kabir Sahib, as usual in his profession, he said to Kabir Sahib, «Give me whatever you have, otherwise I will kill you.»
Kabir said, «Okay, I will give you whatever I have, but first you answer one question. Tell me why you are doing this job, why you are killing people.» He said, «I do this for the sake of my children, my family, my mother, and my wife.»
Kabir Sahib then asked him, «Do you think that they will be responsible for the karmas you are making? Do you think they will share the consequences of the karmas which you are making for them?» He said, «I don't know about that.»
So Kabir Sahib told him to go to his home and ask each and every member of the family whether they would be willing to share the karmas.
When he went to his wife, she said, «No, I will not share the karmas.» His mother also replied the same, his children and everybody else had the same answer. Nobody wanted to share the karma; nobody wanted to become responsible for the karmas he was doing in order to help the family members.
When he came back, he realized that whatever he was doing for the other people in his family, he would have to suffer the consequences for that. So why should he do that? When he went back to Kabir Sahib, he fell down at His Feet and told him, «Forgive me Master, now give me the Initiation.» Later on, Kabir Sahib gave him the Initiation, and he did the meditation and became a perfect Saint, and he went to the Real Home, Sach Khand.
It is in the hands of the parents to make the lives of their children. If the parents are good, if the parents give them good teachings, then the children can also become good people.
In the same way, Baba Bishan Das Ji used to tell me a story about a person who was inspired by his mother to become a dacoit. Finally, after he killed somebody and he was put in jail, he was going to be hanged to death. So they asked him if he had any last desire. He said, «I don't want to meet anybody except my mother, and I want to tell her something very secret.» When his mother came in, that man was behind bars. So he told his mother, «Mother, bring your ear very close to me, because I want to tell you something very private, very secret, in your ear.» When she did that, he at once bit off his mother's ear and he said, «Mother, if you had told me in the beginning that stealing is not a good thing, I would not have become a dacoit, and I would not have gotten such a severe punishment of taking up the gallows today. If you had given me good teachings right from the beginning, right from my childhood, I would have become a very good person. It is only because of you that I have become a dacoit, and now I have to face the death like this.»
So the meaning of saying all these stories is that it is in the hands of the parents to make the lives of their children, and it is very important for the Satsangi parents to understand their responsibility, and to bring up their children according to the teachings of the Path.
I am very pleased that dear John is teaching the bhajans to the children and that he is teaching them to be in the discipline. I hope that he will continue doing that.
The Story of Sheik Farid, April 28, 1985
This satsang of the children is very good. Yesterday also I said that the children are very receptive, and today I saw that those small children who cannot even sing, those that cannot even say a word, still they try, looking at the other children, they try to clap their hands, they try to sing, and they try to do the same as the other, older children.
I would like to tell John and Judith that they should tell the children such stories which would inspire them to study hard and do well in their school. Also we should read them such stories to make their character good in life, because it is our duty, the duty of the parents and the caretakers, to make the lives of the children.
Such stories and such things should be told to the children which will inspire them to come to the Satsangs also, and you should try to give them parshad every time they come in the Satsang, because you know that children are very fond of eating sweets. So if you give them parshad whenever they come to Satsang they will like to come there again and again. And along with the parshad, when you give them good teachings, and tell them good things, they will become very receptive and it will be very beneficial for them.
In this context I have often told the story of a Sufi Saint, Sheik Farid, how in his childhood he was inspired by his mother to do the devotion of the Lord. His mother was a very good meditator. She used to go very high within, in her meditation, and she wanted to make the life of Sheik Farid. So one day she told Sheik Farid that he should do the devotion of the Lord. You know that children are always fond of eating sugar and sweet things, and sometimes their mind also works in that direction. So Sheik Farid at once said, «Well Mother, why should I do the devotion of the Lord? Is God going to give me any sugar or sweets?» His mother said, «Yes, my son, God will not only give you sugar and sweets, but He will also give you all the riches, all the things, if you will do His devotion.» His mother knew that her son was interested in sweets and sugar, and she wanted that he should also do the devotion of the Lord. So she told him that he should sit for meditation, and that after some time, God would give him the sweets or sugar. So she gave him a prayer mat to sit on, and she told him to sit for the meditation. After a few minutes -- because at that time Sheik Farid was very young, so it was not good for him to sit for a long time -- his mother told him, «Okay my dear son, open your eyes and see what God has given to you. Since you are doing His devotion, He has given the sugar to you.» Sheik Farid became very happy and he ate that sugar.
This went on for a couple of days, and one day his mother wanted to see whether «my son is interested in the meditation himself, or am I imposing this on him.» So one day she did not make him sit for the meditation, she told him, «You should go and do some other thing.» But Sheik Farid was not interested in doing that. He said, «Mother, I should meditate now, I should sit, because God is going to give me the sugar, and I don't want that God should have to wait for me. I should meditate and get the sugar first, and then do the other work.»
So when Sheik Farid's mother saw that he was also interested in doing the meditation, and since she used to go very deep in the within, she gave her attention to Sheik Farid and started pulling his soul up. And gradually when he tasted the elixir of Naam,
which was very sweet, it was the sweetest of all, he forgot the taste of sugar and all the other sweet things, and then he started writing the hymns.
And later on when he continued doing the meditation, he became a perfect Sufi Saint, He made many peoples' lives, He liberated many souls, He made many Saints. And in the area of Kasur and Bhagwatan He opened colleges, and He gave good education and good teachings to so many people. In His writings He wrote, «Mother, no matter the sweets: the sugar, the jaggery, honey, milk -- all these things are very sweet, but the sweetness I have found in the Naam of the Lord cannot be compared with any of the sweets of the outer world; that is the sweetest of all.»
So I mean to say that it was the mother of Sheik Farid who inspired Him to do the devotion. Right from the beginning, right from the childhood, she made His life.