April 27

The Child Will Understand You

There is a beautiful Tamil lullaby: “Oh my beautiful baby, I call you my baby. I don’t know who you are and who I am. I don’t know what this relationship is. Where did you come from? Where are you going to go? It happens that we are together. You are my baby, I am your mother; so let’s do our job well. You do your job, I’ll do my job. You have done it today, you are sleeping today.”

In that simple lullaby there is a great spiritual philosophy. “You are pure, you are absolutely clean, you are not tainted by anything. You are that Self. All the rest is just illusion.” You might wonder if the child can understand. Simply say it; the child will understand you. The child understands better than many of us. When we can’t understand the child, we think the child cannot understand us. Even when the child is in the womb, we can educate it in this way. So instead of simply making all kinds of funny sounds, “Rock-a-bye baby in the treetops,” sing a beautiful peace chant: “Hari OM” or “OM Shanti.” Let all the babies sleep listening to “OM Shanti.”