The largest Hindu population resides in India

OUR SCHOOLS AND SPIRITUALISM

The largest Hindu population resides in India, but the Hindu population residing in the western world is rising to a sizeable minority. It is time for us to examine the social, cultural and religious significance of childbirth and child caring practices in the Hindu culture.

Our schools, supported by a strong spiritual foundation at the core, follow a specially designed  curriculum, with the spiritual aspects tucked in as opportunities present a teacher’ personal spiritually inform their teaching approach in a most beneficial manner.

We begin each school day with a moment of silence or period of meditation and prayer. We teach a "wide view” of Hinduism to the children, beginning with the concept that each one is a divine soul. They then explain that the Divine is both outside us and inside us, and that there are many ways to reach the Divine. Spirituality is also imparted through art, dance and storytelling. One teacher teaches her students a few simple Sanskrit shlokas, a training with a remarkable impact. One girl's proud parents thanked the teacher, "My child is the first person in our family to know any Sanskrit” knowing just this small bit of Sanskrit, the language of worship in Hinduism, both parents and children feel more a part of the religion. In one school, the children actually worship at their own “Pooja”

We have a strict policy against corporal punishment, and the small class size allows them the personal time with a student necessary to implement benign means of behavior modification. As enlightened educators around the world have discovered, the cause of bad behavior at school often lies in a child's difficult personal situation. We approach misbehavior as a teaching opportunity. We involve all the children in working out difficulties of any one child. Such problem-solving sessions offer the best opportunity for the teachers to personally demonstrate a spiritual approach to life.

It I sour strong belief that if our children receive all the religious principles ingrained before that tumultuous age group of teens, the youth will eventually become exemplary citizens of this universe.

TRADITION VERSUS MODERNITY:

In all avenues of life, we see them pulling in opposite directions. But never more than when there is a new baby in a house.

We know that they used to isolate the newborn child and mother to ensure that there was minimum exposure to the outside world during the first few weeks after delivery?

The Indian system of medicine has, for years, been the prime source of information for several medicinal practices associated with general health in a household. It is often the arrival of a newborn that triggers enquiries for more information on health and hygiene. Over the years many of these practices have made way for modern medicine, yet there are many that still continue to thrive on the simple fact that they are traditional and hence there has to be something correct about them. Though reasons for many practices remain unknown, there are a quite a few that have been explained scientifically.

However, nurturing of a newborn baby (post-natal care) remains a bone of contention between the elder generation and the modern practitioners.

For thousands of years, people have lived Hinduism, knowing it to be an admirable way of understanding the world based upon values such as respect for diversity and sensitivity to the pain of fellow living beings. However, in the past few decades, even as the world has become supposedly better informed though the spread of mass media and modern education, it has barely grasped what either Hinduism, or the basic values it embodies, are about.

The contrast between how Hinduism sees the world and how some parts of the world are seeing Hinduism these days makes one wonder if this is the result of some cosmic challenge. Perhaps, just as Lord Siva asked Sage Markandeya's parents to choose between the boon of a son with a long but average life and that of a son with a short yet noble one, maybe some God or Goddess asked the sages to choose whether Hinduism would be a religion well understood by the world or one that would understand the world beautifully. Perhaps the sages, selfless and noble, gave up the allure of fame and chose the latter instead.

The result today is a huge gap between how Hinduism sees the world and what it is being made out to be in the media and the classroom. This profound disservice to a great religion must be changed. It is even more of a disservice to a world caught up in a global catastrophe of epic proportions which sorely needs the insights of Hinduism today. Simply put, the concern is whether a world in which cruelty is a way of life, violence the language of communication, selfishness the touchstone of culture and falsehood truth, can ever overcome these problems if it continues to turn its back on the great truths enshrined in Hinduism.

The answer is raising our children through strong religious upbringing in the family and school, the extended family.