May The Force Be With You
Photos: DeenanathMangeshkar with his wife Shevanti. On her lap is Asha. Lata stands between herparents. On the right is Meena; The Mangeshkar siblings: (from left, frontrow) Usha, Lata and Meena; Asha and Hridaynath; LeBron James with hismother Gloria; The philosopher Osho
By ShevlinSebastian
Recently, I read a book on thelife of the legendary playback singer Lata Mangeshkar. In it, she recounted amemory when she was nine years old. She did her first performance with herfather at the Bhagwat Chitra Mandir auditorium at Solapur in 1939. After theduet, she fell asleep on her father’s lap while he continued to sing throughthe night. She felt her father’s love enveloped her. It also gave her a senseof security.
Lata adored her father,Deenanath Mangeshkar. He had realised his daughter had talent and strived toencourage her. It devastated the family when Deenanath died on April 24, 1942,at the age of 41. Lata, as the eldest, bore the responsibility of looking afterthe family. It comprised her mother, Shudamati, and siblings, Meena, Asha,Usha, and Hridayanath.
Throughout her life, Lata alwaysremembered her father with great fondness. She recounted the incident of hersleeping on her father’s lap many times.
Because she had such a goodrelationship with her father — the first male in her life — her laterencounters with men were positive. Many of them helped her during the earlystages of her career. These included composers, singers and directors.
It led me to a conclusion. Thefirst relationship with the opposite gender played a vital role in the way aperson regarded himself or herself. It would colour their reactions to theopposite gender later on in life.
When a daughter had a father whowas loving, she usually made the right choices in men in her later life. But ifthe relationship was one of fracture, lack of respect, and emotional damage,this had an opposite effect. Her attraction would be for a man who displayedthe same qualities. This resulted in unhappy and violent relationships.
The same is the case with theboy’s relationship with his mother. One of America’s greatest basketballplayers, LeBron James, spoke about the influence of his mother Gloria on hislife. Gloria was only 16 when she gave birth to James. His father, AnthonyMcClelland, a career criminal, had abandoned the family when James was a child.But it was Gloria’s faith and undying love that saved her son’s life.
Parents play a phenomenal rolein shaping their children’s mindset and attitudes. But too many parents taketheir responsibilities casually. Many fathers appear distracted at home. Liketheir children, they are also constantly staring at mobile phones. Many arereeling under immense office pressures. Sometimes, they take out their stressby saying hurtful statements to their children. They do not realise it then,but this has a lifelong impact.
As for the mothers, they have tobalance the pressures of running a home, as well as having a career and being amother. It can get overwhelming. Mothers, under stress, can also say things inanger that might hurt their children. And there is the added problem of parentsnot having successful marriages. This results in arguments and shouting betweenthem in front of the children. Sometimes, there is domestic violence.
All this has a devastatingeffect on the children. When they grow up, they will inflict the same damage onpeople around them and to their children. And the cycle carries on.
So, how to break it?
Mindfulness is one way.
This is something I have beenreading a lot about these days. How to watch your thoughts and get detachedfrom them. How to create a gap between the mind and the thought. In onlineresearch, I read that we have about 60,000 thoughts a day.
Wellness guru Deepak Choprawrote that behind every thought, there is a chemical reaction in the body. Thatmeans, daily, we have about 60,000 chemical reactions. Most of them arereactions to negative thoughts. Our body is a roiling furnace of negativity. Nowonder many of us have health issues.
Self development author WayneDyer said that our thoughts make or break our life. While some thoughts areoperating on a conscious level, and are easy to recognise, others are embeddedin the unconscious.
Almost all these thoughts arenegative. How to get rid of them?
John Selby, author of the book,‘Quiet your mind,’ wrote, “When you feel any negative emotion in your heart,it’s time to catch the thought or memory or buried assumption that isgenerating the emotion — and process that underlying thought so that it nolonger determines your mental and emotional condition.”
This is easier said than done.
The key is to live in thepresent moment. The philosopher Osho said we cannot do this by using the mind.
“The mind cannot exist in thepresent,” he asserted. “It exists only in the past or it projects into thefuture. It never comes in contact with the present.”
Osho felt we could live in thepresent by silencing the mind and its stream of thoughts. He called it theNo-Mind. This requires a superhuman effort. Spiritual seekers take decades ofmeditation to achieve this inner silence. How can ordinary people do it? But wehave to make the attempt.
Deepak Chopra believed thathigher consciousness is the only answer to the dark side of human nature. “Itis that part of you that is beyond the thoughts and feelings of the moment, thepart that never tires and never sleeps. Can you feel the deeper current ofconsciousness within you?”
This current is also called God,the Cosmic or the Universal Energy or the Source.
In January, American GrammyAward-winning record producer Rick Rubin published a book called ‘The CreativeAct: A Way of Being’.
In it, he said, “The Source isout there. A wisdom surrounding us, an inexhaustible offering that is alwaysavailable. We either sense it, remember it, or tune in to it.”
If parents can transformthemselves by silencing their minds and learn to live in the present moment,they will experience a life-changing spiritual experience. For this, they willhave to set aside time every day for meditation practices. Physical exercisealso has a calming effect on the mind. If parents can change, this will have aprofound effect on their children. They will grow up psychologically healthy.
Parents will then be able tounearth many more versions of geniuses, like Lata Mangeshkar and LeBron James.
