Ensure your child lives in a wondrous world

Children these days have replaced a sense of wonder for life with "www." They know the whole universe before they are six! But if you look at scientists, they are more freaked out than ever – they don't know which direction to go because wherever they look, it all looks deeper than it ever was. For example, they are telling you there are over a hundred billion galaxies – not stars, a hundred billion galaxies. As you explore, as you know, the wonder will increase because you realize the nature of the existence.

A sense of wonder is gone in people today because what we call knowledge are stupid conclusions about life. Today, people are carrying their attention deficit like a qualification. Anything in this existence will yield to you only if you pay substantial attention to it. But people have become such that they can't pay attention to anything. In this condition, there will be no wonder, only conclusions in your head. There are only monologues going on in your head; there is no perception. If there is perception, all the noise in your head will just stop. If you are looking at something absolutely beautiful and engaging, everything stops.

This is why people enjoy the cinema: you switch off the lights and they are focused on the film for those ninety minutes. Their usual monologues are gone – something else is happening. They don't know what is going to happen next, and that is what keeps their attention. But the important thing is, their attention is engaged continuously, which makes them feel something has happened to them on that day, going to the cinema hall. What is playing on the screen is instrumental in grabbing their attention, but it is the continuous attention that makes the experience what it is. This is a rudimentary form of meditation which is called dharana.

Every school should bring in a dimension that requires a child to pay attention to something continuously. It could be music; it could be dance. You cannot do music or dance unless you pay attention to it. But you can pass an examination without attention. If you just so much as make children walk in the forest in the darkness, without torches, without cell phones, without anything, in a protected atmosphere, you will see that their ability to pay attention and their sense of wonder will explode.

This is something that parents must take care of. Bringing up your child does not mean just sending him to school so that he gets marks and grades and all that nonsense. In body and mind, your child should develop his full capabilities. That is when success will manifest in his or her life. Just marks will not manifest as success.