Educare and Children- How Kids can Influence Parents

Mangala Shankar

(Mangala Shankar has completed her Masters in Chemistry from the Madras University in 1997 and moved to United States since 1998. She has worked in an International Organization in Quality Control for several years. Mangala Shankar has keen interest in Music and Vedam and she plays veena. She is also a lead Bhajan singer and teaches kids with bhajans and is also an SSE Teacher.)


I would like to take an opportunity to share a sweet and loving incident that I witnessed regarding how Swami pulls each one to His fold. God is Universal and He lets all His devotes enjoy the ambrosia of His love irrespective of which form we may be attached to.

There was a kid from New Jersey who was 7 years old learning bhajans from a bhajan teacher in New York over the phone for 8 months. The kid had not met the teacher.

His mother was an ardent devotee of Swami. The boy’s father was a devotee of Lord Muruga. On Guru Poornima day this year, the boy, his mother and father came to attend the program and speech at New York. Since the boy’s father was not interested in hearing the speech, he sat outside in his car during the morning program. The boy and the mother were attending the program.

During the lunch break, the boy told his mom,” Please ask dad to also come inside and sit and attend the program instead of standing outside. We will ask him to think they are talking about Muruga and not Swami”. He told his dad, “Dad please think of Lord Muruga and not Sai Baba during the speech and kindly attend”. The dad reluctantly agreed to the child’s request. All three of them sat together in the afternoon program. His father sat through the program and enjoyed every bit of it as the speaker was talking about the God aspect in general. On the way back the Dad was constantly talking about how nice the session was and regretted that he missed attending the first half of it.

The Dad continued to remember the speech even after several days. Finally the bhajan teacher met the kid during the Gurupoornima program. This incident was shared by the Mom to the bhajan teacher and she thanked immensely Swami’s grace and blessings on her husband. She felt how sweetly the son brought his Dad to attend and enjoy Swami as Lord Muruga.