Family Satsang Brings Balance and Joy

Ellen Tamakloe

For me, fulfilling my responsibility as a parent and serving my family with gratitude is one of the many ways of living a life full of love.

A few years ago I realized how much I was lacking in service to my family and particularly to my children. My job took so much of my time that I barely had enough left to spend with the children and the family.

One evening when I was tucking my oldest son into bed, he asked me, “Mommy, how can I talk to God?” I answered him, “Just sing HU, and as you sing It God will see and hear everything on your mind and in your heart.” That was a wake-up call for me because I had thought he already knew this.

Even though my husband and I do our spiritual exercises with the kids, I realized we had not really paid enough attention to their spiritual needs. Perhaps we simply considered them kids, but I was missing out on my responsibility in their spiritual growth.

About two days later, on the weekend, I was getting ready to step out of the house when my youngest son said, “Mommy, please stay at home with me today. Every day you leave me for a long time.” That was another wake-up call letting me know I needed to make a change.

Through these two experiences with the children, the ECK reminded me of my responsibility as a parent and the need for me to balance my life and serve my family.

I contemplated how I could best serve my family, as I felt a gap was being created in my home in the name of my career. This is not to say that we don’t fulfill our career, but we need to have a balance. More important for me was how I could help my children build a strong foundation in ECK.

So, during my spiritual exercise I asked the MAHANTA to guide me. In my contemplation, I had a nudge to let my children lead the family HU Song.

I discussed this idea with my husband, and we started putting things in place to balance the spiritual needs of the family. I realized I needed to find balance and harmony in my own life in order to bring it into my family. So I began to leave work early to make time for the family. We also got the ECK youth discourses for our children and consciously made time to study them with our boys and spend more time together. Among the many fun family activities we did was our ECK family spiritual discussions (or Satsang) and singing HU together. To get them more involved, we invited the children to lead the family HU Song. Our ECK discussions sometimes ended up with fun quizzes about what we had learned.

We all really enjoy these moments, which are fun and full of love. I also really enjoy studying the ECK youth discourses with the children and find it enhances my own understanding of the ECK teachings.

These changes, which the MAHANTA guided us to make, are really bringing so much joy and love within our family!