Making Your Family Divine

Have you seen the maternal love between a cow and a calf or a cat and a kitten? How sweet and moving! Is the love between a human mother and an infant any different? The animals care for their loved ones, so do we. Our relationships become higher than theirs when we do everlasting good to our loved ones by caring for their souls, not just their bodies. Else how are we better than the animals,because they too care for the bodies of their loved ones as diligently as we do? As eternal souls we have all been transmigrating for many, many lifetimes in different families within various species of life. Only in the human form can we develop our relationship with our original, eternal family member God. Then our wandering becomes an
odyssey with God and ultimately we return to our eternal family and home with Him in His spiritual abode. A family becomes truly human, and divine, when its members assist each other in attaining this topmost happiness.

Spiritualizing family relationships was the essence of Vedic culture and the spirit behind matra deva bhava, pitra deva bhava. The mother and father do not become like God just by procreation. When they are themselves devoted to God and
inspire, guide and assist their children to become devoted to God, then they become the emissaries of God for their children assisting them in their journey back to God. Devotion to God benefits us not only in the next life, but also in this. A family that prays together stays together. When God is in the center of our hearts and homes, we see our family members as representatives of God in our life and we naturally serve them with respect and love.

Conversely the more people neglect or reject God, the more their view of life and family becomes materialistic and they see their family members as nothing but facilitators for their enjoyment. When they stop getting the desired enjoyment from their family members, they dump them as fast as they would dump a dysfunctional TV. No wonder that with the increase in godlessness and materialism, joint families have disintegrated into nuclear families. And sadly now nuclear families are shattering into solitary protons and neutrons orbiting aimlessly in the voidness of the modern concrete jungles. We can easily avoid this catastrophein our families if we make it our primary responsibility to awaken our devotion to God and help our family members do the same. Then we can live happily ever after – in God’s eternal family.

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE
HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE

From IYF CHD Newletter