Our parents give us birth and nurture us and shape us to face life successfully. The elders in the family share their wisdom and experience and guide us. Every religion in the world teaches to respect the parents. Every culture emphasizes love, honor and respect to parents and elders of family and community. When we are toddlers and children, it is easy to love and respect our parents and elders as they are overwhelmingly wise and all knowing. But as we grow older and our ego and desires get stronger, we often feel the guidance of our parents is outdated and useless. When we become adults, there are times when the presence of our aged parents and their lack of strength and health become irritating and intolerable.
When we are young and strong, we live in the belief that we will always remain young , strong and healthy. Old age seems very far away and looking at our strong limbs, we do not feel that we will grow old or fall ill. This arrogance in our behavior and belief makes us inconsiderate and rude in our behavior towards the elders in the family and community. We disregard their lack of physical strength, loss of memory and reasoning at times and are often rude and impolite in our behavior with them. We have tolerance for the lack of strength and wisdom in our babies and children but when it comes to our aging parents, the same gets on our nerves all the time. We forget that we too will grow old and the strength in our limbs will fail as will our health and strength. We must always remember this immutable truth and give the utmost love and consideration to our aging elders at home. Karma always kicks back and we will get what we give in life. The story of the wooden bowl teaches us the great truth of life: all of us grow old, frail and will ultimately die. But we all need to be treated with love, honor, respect, dignity till the end:
An old man lived with his son, daughter in law and seven year old grandson. When the old man was younger, he used to help in the household chores and was a welcome addition to the family. With the passage of time, his physical weakness, blurred eyesight, trembling hands and slow hesitant steps made him a liability to his family. When he ate, he dropped his food and spilled the milk or water he was drinking.
The son and daughter in law were irritated with the mess he created while eating. So they set aside a small table in a corner of the living room for the old man to eat. The others enjoyed their meal together and laughed and joked while eating and the old man ate silently in the corner. Since he had broken a few glasses and plates, the daughter in law served his food in a wooden bowl. His son and wife spoke to him only to scold him when he dropped the food or his spoon. The seven year old grandson watched all this in silence.
One day, before the evening meal, the father noticed the son playing with scraps of wood. The child was scraping at piece of wood with a blunt knife. The father asked him affectionately: What are you making? The child replied: I am making a little bowl for you and mamma to eat your food from when I grow up. Saying so, he continued working with his blunt knife.
The parents were speechless. The import of the child’s words hit them and they started weeping. They did not say anything but both mentally decided what had to be done. That evening, the son took his old father’s hand and led him to the family table for the meal. All the family spoke to him with love and affection and overlooked when he dropped the spoon or spilled something.
The best way to teach children is by example. When we are loving and compassionate to our aged parents, they too will be the same with us when we grow old. Aging, illness, weakness and death are inevitable. We should be the best role models for our children in all ways. Doing SitaRam japa, meditation, following the teachings of the Guru, living a loving and disciplined life is the best way of teaching our young ones so that we do not give a wooden bowl to our parents and end up with one in our old age.
