Taare Zameen Par, Buddha and parenting

In the movie, Taare Zameen Par, the art teacher tells the rude and cursing father of the dyslexic kid about Solomon Islands.

In those islands, the tribals don’t cut down a tree. They surround the tree and curse it for hours every day. Within a few weeks, the tree dries up and dies.

Many of us might find that example too difficult to believe. How can intangible and invisible thoughts and words kill a tree?

Well, if you get to read Bruce H. Lipton’s The Biology Of Belief, you won’t only believe in the Solomon Islands story, but would also think a dozen times before saying something demoralizing to yourself and people you love. In this book, Mr. Lipton tells in detail about the power of the conscious and the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is millions of times more powerful than the conscious mind. It very strongly influences our lives. Many times we fail to change an unpleasant habit despite our will-power and consistent efforts. It’s because the habit has been so strongly programmed in our subconscious mind that the efforts made by our conscious mind hardly make any difference.

2500 years ago, when the Buddha said, ‘You are what you think’, he was not articulating a random philosophical theory. Actually he was telling a scientific fact which is now proved correct by Quantum Physics and Molecular Biology.

While reading the book, you will recall how Buddha had talked about the subconscious mind and its unfathomable power over our lives..

He called it Alay Vigyan which means store consciousness. This is the part of our mind where all our beliefs and experiences are stored; and they dictate our life from there. The book has a special chapter on Conscious Parenting where it talks about the beneficial and harmful effects of what parents say to their children..

If you are a parent and you keep cursing your child in the name of constructive criticism, you are installing beliefs in their mind which will keep harming them forever. But if you keep appreciating them in a sincere way, you are installing beliefs in their mind which will help them their entire life.

Be careful of what you keep saying to your children.

Inspired by the writing of Rajeshwari Shridhar