Haridwar, May 18, 2005
My dearest Ark of Love sailors,
Om namo narayanaya. God bless you all. I pray ceaselessly that God and the masters bless you with joy, confidence, and perfect joy.
I am writing from the holy city of Haridwar, at the foothills of the towering Himalayas, where I am meeting many monks and school principals to share with them our vision of the Ark of Love. So I am most grateful to you all for helping to bridge these two sister continents—India and South America—through your work of selfless service and divine love.
The message of our Gurudev Baba Hariharananda has always been very simple and deeply life-transforming: “Remember God before, during, and after performing each action.” So simple and powerful, that it could change the world if we decided to really live it, and share it with our friends and our community where it really counts! That is why the Ark of Love and its sponsoring organization, the Hariharananda Mission, came into existence in 2001—to bring this art of living to the most helpless of God's children: the poor abandoned children and the destitute widows and women of India and South America.
Four basic observations prompted the idea for the Ark of Love:
1) Poor and abandoned children need to develop a spiritual vision of themselves. Merely providing food, clothing, a roof over their head, medical services, and a basic education allows them to survive; but these humanitarian measures rarely unable the children to permanently and profoundly change their life, and these growing children often carry their helplessness and frustration into their later years. To change children's destiny, we must guide them to broaden their mind to their unlimited possibilities as a soul, and help them realize their mission here on earth.
2) As long as we treat poor children as helpless, bad, or dependent creatures, we are enslaving them in their condition. A healthier attitude is to treat each child as a co-creator, a partner in the education process, and a potential teacher. If I see children sitting in a street corner doing drugs or other unhealthy activities, I sit with them, and I tell them "You know, there are some kids in the neighborhood who are really in trouble. They are doing drugs, getting into fights, and wasting their life. Do you think we could help them? What could we do?" And if you can gain their trust, they will come up themselves with the solutions! Kids love to be given responsibilities, and their greatest poverty is not of material resources, but of respect. When you treat them with honor and love, without passing any judgment on their past behavior, and invite them to help others, they automatically adjust their own behavior, to be consistent with the new position they have been entrusted with. Our role as adults is simply to be loving guides in the background, not omniscient directors of all their activities. Through our love, patience, creativity, and unconditional support, gradually the children will develop their own self-corrective course. And they will pass it on to other children.
3) There will never be peace in our heart, in our communities, and in the world until we teach children to appreciate and love all religions.
Most religious institutions which are supposed to impart this spiritual education only provide a seriously one-sided, if not outright fanatical, vision of religion which has inevitably led to the spread of intolerance, abuse, and unending conflicts. This has been painfully evident throughout human history, and particularly in these last few years. As the great French visionary André Malraux wrote a few decades ago, "the 21st century will be spiritual, or it shall not be!" Let us now try to teach all-encompassing love, for a change!
4) Spirituality or life values can never be taught effectively to children through lectures or moral lessons. It needs to be fun, exciting, and creative. No one remembers sermons, but a story, a game, and song says with us for ever. This is why it is important to use wisdom tales, sacred chants, religious festivals, sacred dances, religious plays, teaching games, sacred arts, metaphors, etc. as the main vehicle for moral and spiritual lessons.
Let us take the example of celebrating a religious festival
In order to involve the children, we can organize them in committees and give them the resources and the responsibilities. For instance, one committee will be in charge of creating the costumes, another will do the sets, another will be in charge of teaching the songs, another one will do the same for the dances and rituals, another one will be responsible for the promotion and advertising (if you want to make it a public event), another one for fund-raising (if deemed necessary), etc… Through this activity, the children are getting a complete education: project management, art, cooperation and team spirit, religion, history, geography, writing, research skills, mathematics, statistics, promotion and advertising, etc.
The greatest service to God is to man. To educate lovingly and fully the child, especially where there is no opportunity or hope left for him, brings heaven a little closer to earth, one smile at a time. Thank you for making this happen.
With all my love and reverence,
humble,
Swami Sarveshwarananda
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