Page 4 - Jul 2018 Newsletter

FOOD FOR THOUGHT :

Q & A

With

Mrs Asha Manoharan

ANBU (LOVE)

Anbu or Love is an essential component of everyday life. As the great

Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar said:
If love and virtue in the household reign,

This is of life the perfect grace and gain.

Love consists of three ingredients:

1. Strictness: This is something that is absolutely essential when dealing
with our children. Sometimes, we get confused whether to be strict or to

explain softly to our children when they make mistakes or behave badly.

Being soft with our children will only take us so far in correcting them.
Therefore, it becomes necessary to be stern with them at times and nip

things in the bud, before it is too late to change their mannerisms. To

quote an example from our puranas, when Yashoda tied Lord Krishna to
the mortar for stealing butter, we cannot say that she did not have affec-

tion towards Lord Krishna, but rather, she was being strict to discipline

him.

2. Selflessness: This is the source of true love. Every member of the fam-

ily should practice having a selfless attitude towards the other. We
illustrate this with an example from Hindu Mythology. According to our

puranas, the devas and asuras worked together for a millennium to
churn the ocean of milk to release Amrita (the nectar of immortal life).

The churning brought out various treasures which was distributed

between the asuras and devas. However, this churning also released a
terribly destructive poison which the asuras and devas wanted no part of.

So, Lord Shiva drank this poison to prevent it from engulfing this uni-

verse. This selfless act caused his neck to turn blue with the poison, and
as a result, he was called Neelakanta. Lord Shiva thus demonstrated that

one should have a selfless attitude for the benefit of the society.

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