I teach my daughter prayers because it has been drilled into me as the right thing to do. Sometimes when we visit elderly relatives they ask her to do something – sing, dance or at least tell a sloka – they urge her -as if she were a performing monkey! At such times a quick sloka seems to be the easy way out.
Last week I was reciting some slokas with my daughter when she stopped me and asked me the meaning. I was flummoxed! I knew the overall meaning but did not know the line by line explanation – the way she wanted me to explain. “If you don’t know the meaning, why are you teaching me!” she said and ran away.
I completely agree with her.
I know that our Sanskrit slokas are profound and full of several layers of meanings and interpretations. But we no longer learn the language in such detail. We perhaps learn it as a third language and that’s about it. I do not the meaning of these profound slokas. So I don’t know what I’m praying for!
I remember in my school they taught me – prayer is talking to God. For me that makes sense. If God is there inside me – then its best we converse in a language I understand! I also remember going into the Chapel in my college and silently ‘talking to God’ whenever I felt disturbed. That used to feel so good!
So why force someone to ‘pray’? Or if we insist that we must teach our children to pray – then we must teach them these prayers with the meaning. In schools they don’t seem to think that is very important. Recently there was a Bhagawat Gita recitation competition in school in which my daughter participated. They have made the kids learn these wonderful slokas without explaining the meaning to them. What’s the point I ask? If Gita is the science of life – then why not teach them with meaning? If they are too young to understand then why teach them at this point?
I’ve decided that from now on I will not teach my daughter a prayer for which I do not know the meaning. Now, each night we ‘talk to God’ and ‘thank Him’ for a nice day. We tell him all the naughty and nice things we did on that day. And we hope that the following day will be just as naughty and nice! She’s all giggly and happy doing this because she feels ‘connected with God’ I guess. Is this prayer or not? I don’t know. But it somehow ‘feels’ right. So it must be right. What say?
