Category: Relationships

In one of my first posts (Personal Mastery and the Journey Within), I had introduced the concept of personal mastery. In this post, I would like to highlight the relevance of this concept to parenting.

Parenting has probably always been a challenging job – across generations, whichever parents one talks to. However, the challenge seems to have gotten amplified in recent years – I reckon the growing prosperity, rise of individuality, decline of family and other social structures, and a decline in meaning in people’s lives are significantly contributing towards this.

There’s been a tremendous rise in the sense of individuality and need for personal success in recent years – particularly in developing nations. This has happened with growth of prosperity and the disproportionate rewards for individual success – creating a culture driven by desire to get ahead and win at any cost. The growing prosperity also brings with it a multitude of choices – for consumer goods, for gadgets, for leisure etc. As a result, parents are focused on maximizing their individual pleasure by chasing their careers and their personal pursuits – and they now have real choices to do so too. Alongside, the social structures are breaking down. The joint family system has come apart – in fact, in the race for financial success, a number of nuclear families maybe faced with a situation where one of the parents is working in one city and the rest of the family lives in another. All this puts tremendous pressure on parenting…

To complicate the situation further, children these days on the other hand, have enormous exposure during their childhood years. Because of television and the Internet, a 14 year old today has about the same exposure has her parents had in their lifetime. When the parents do not have time for their children, television, Internet, and the peer group take over as the biggest influencer for them.

Some of the results are disturbing. More than one-third of all murders in the US are committed by…

In one of my recent posts (Personal Mastery and the Journey Within), I had introduced the concept of personal mastery. In this blog, I would like to highlight the relevance of this concept to our most cherished relationships.

What’s happening to relationships in today’s society? The numbers of failed marriages are on the increase just about everywhere, and in most of the western world, the divorce rates have reached dramatic proportions – in many countries like the US and Australia, only 1 out of every 3 marriages survives. Over the years, the sense of individuality seems to have got heightened and the time and space for each other has declined. The emotional strength of individuals, growing up in a fast paced society that rewards its winners and looks down on the losers, is under enormous pressure as well. Individuals are seeking perfection in everything, including in themselves and their spouses. As the honeymoon period gets underway and each one finds the other to be less than perfect and different from their earlier expectations, the silent dissatisfaction begins to build already.

Where does personal mastery fit in to all this? As I mentioned earlier, personal mastery is the journey of self-discovery leading to consistently living the purpose of one’s life. It requires a high emphasis on self-knowledge, clarity of one’s personal vision and its interconnectedness with the people and the world around. This journey is all about becoming comfortable with yourself; accepting yourself as you are and not living in the constant pursuit of what you should be (the relentless pressure to be perfect). This begins to happen as you start to understand the truth about yourself and your existence.

As Jesus Christ said, “I am in this world but not of it”. We all are part of the same whole, the same universal life energy – just happen to be in seemingly different forms through different physical and mental manifestations. Even though we seem to primarily operate from our minds (as a result, over the…