By Swami Chinmayananda

Question: How can one impart values?

Swamiji: Values impartation must be started from the very beginning. Values are so subtle that even an elderly person will not be able to conceive the idea unless it is concretized in an individual acting those values in a given set of specific conditions. Thus when you relate Harishchandra's story to the children, they understand the compelling situations. Harishchandra's own son died, then the mother brought the body for cremation to that fellow who happened to be her husband who said, "Sorry, ten paise is the tax, you pay it." She said "I haven't got a pie. ""Then get out of here. My master has fixed me here to collect the tax. Wait here. When the master comes in the morning you discuss it with him. If the master says he has no objection, the matter could be settled." So the truthfulness, the honesty of words, you know all these from the story alone. You may forget the story but the idea goes in. This is the method. In our modern education we don't give the children any ideal. Data is given but no ideal to pursue. Ideals must be given. The story is not for history, it is for imparting an ideal. Give it to them and they will always check whether their action was morally good or not, beautiful or not. These children will grow up and in their togetherness will constitute the society.

The social behaviour in any part of the world, in any period of time, will be the sum total work of the team of people that constitute the society. Each individual functions in the world outside ordered by and governed by his thoughts. The quality and the nature of the thoughts are determined by what values the individual respects. If the values respected by the individuals are wrong, the individual's activities can never be good.

Similarly, if the values entertained by the community or the society are wrong, their total behaviour will be only bringing more and more sorrow to them. Hence, in modern times we are insisting upon value based education. The healthy values, psychologically healthy for the individual and, therefore, healthy for the community have been experimented upon and given out as moral and ethical principles.

First, we have to conceive and understand and appreciate these values. Thereafter, a mere possession is not sufficient. Each individual should learn to live upto them. In order to impart them to our growing children there is no way other than concretizing these values through the heroic stories of people who have lived these values… Hence the need for stories. The mythological stories of India are perfect and artistic examples on how to impart these values to children. Never can children's education be complete unless we impart to them a true appreciation of the eternal values of life and also help them to open up their sense of beauty and rhythm, their aestheticism and ethicism. That is the reason why we not only try to mould them with our stories of heroism and excellence in character but also give them a free choice to discover and develop their inner secret talents for music, dance, painting, etc. if has been found very rewarding in all our centers.

Q: Although each action in itself is relative, yet there are certain commandments, what we call values in life, that are recommended by all religions. For instance, truthfulness. What makes speaking the truth valuable? Why is it advised as a general principle?

Swamiji: Truthfulness consists mainly in uttering a thought as it is actually perceived. Ordinarily, a liar is one who does not have the moral courage to express what he sincerely feels. This disparity between thought and words creates in his mind a habit to entertain a sort of "self - cancellation" of thoughts. This impoverishes the individual's mental strength, will power, and dynamism. Such an exhausted mental character is too weak thereafter to make any progress in life's pilgrimage.

Truthfulness in its essential meaning is not merely giving a verbal expression to one's honest feelings, but in its deeper import it is the attunement of one's mental thoughts to his or her intellectual convictions. Unless we are ready to discipline and marshal our thought - forces to the unquestioning authority of our own reason, chastened with knowledge, in the ensuing chaos within, we could not grow to realize the fuller unfoldment of our true and divine nature.