Raising Kings of Kindness

Sanskar is a mental impression, recollection, psychological imprint. As a loving parent, I’d like to imprint my children with our family’s sanskars: a strict adherence to kindness, a steady work ethic and relentlessly grateful nature. Through my words and actions as their mother, I aim to transmit these lovely sanskars every single day. Most fortunately, this subtle transmission is most fruitful and charming while reading. Reading together. Reading aloud. Devotedly reading stories, poems and even non-fiction pieces. Reading as a daily practice.

Throughout the day, my three and four-year-old flit from task to task like bees from flower to flower – making it difficult to articulate virtues, values and corresponding behaviors. But while reading, they sit like statues. Each night, after a splash in the bathtub, my children make their way to the cozy daybed for our evening reading ritual. I sit in the middle, my three-year-old daughter on my left, my four-year-old son on my right. Each have chosen two books for me to read aloud. A game of Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe decides whose book is read first.

With a warm jar of milk in hand, the children permit their bodies to relax, losing themselves in the words of the story. It’s a gentle opening into their hearts, their minds, their vast consciousness. They let their guard down, their attention stands waiting to absorb vocabulary, images, narratives and character traits. They’re an open book to open books! That’s why what I read to them is of utmost importance. I want to fill their cups with love, generosity, perseverance. Not violence, greed and helplessness.

Mother to Writer. Once I realized the sheer power of reading goodness to my kids, I couldn’t help it. I had to start writing for my children myself. Not a minute to waste! At the age of thirty-one, I’d spent the better part of a decade in the pleasant company of words. Sweeping Shakespearean dramas. Ancient Indian wisdom in the Bhagavad and Ashtavakra Gitas. Expansive nineteenth century historical fiction. Self-help paperbacks. Poetry in every conceivable form – super old, old, new, spoken word and rap. I’d studied every manner of classically respected writing at my time as a literature fanatic at Stanford University – but what I read and wrote there was intended for fully-formed adult minds. Could I really presume to write for children? I decided to try. To leap, actually.

I composed a rhyming train bildungsroman! The train finds his fuel in the greatest force on earth – gratefulness! I wrote a lyrical book about little Om the Gnome who learns to chant Om from his grandmother’s magical comb. Both the contents of the book, and the words themselves, if read aloud, are a way to chant Om! Simplicity was a must. Repetition and rhyme, too. Clean, straight to the point words that could dance in children’s hearts.

I kept writing, partnering with brilliant illustrators who understood my mission. For me, the Begin Within series of children’s picture books is a system of planting seeds. Beautiful seeds right from the start. Cultivating kindness. Encouraging a disposition of “thank you.” Steering children towards the truth – that they are the luckiest ones! Very fortunate in every way. They are lit candles that must light candles all around them. They are intensely capable of goodness, greatness and all-encompassing love. Fly! Dive! Live within your light. Begin now.