Today Gurudeva talks about gossip, the karma of talking behind someone's back. He explains more about family home evening and the need to always encourage children and others, not tell them, "You're naughty," which only convinces them to be naughty. Rather we should always bring forward the positive things they do and are.

Unedited Transcript:

Today at Kauai Aadheenam, it is the thirteenth of March. Greetings everyone! Here we are in cyberspace again. We just had a beautiful day yesterday. You have seen the pictures on the internet.

Today, we have been thinking about gossip. That is the occupation of a lot of people, carrying stories about other people from one person to another. It creates negative karma for you if you gossip about another behind that person's back. If you hear gossip about somebody else, the wise thing to do is to let it die with you. If you have anything to say about that person, say something good that will get back to that person. They will like you better and you are spreading good karma around in a very wonderful way.

We hope that answers that question. Another question here is about the family evening on Monday.

That seems to have attracted some attention in our cyberspace congregation. The family evening on Monday, when the family gets together and praises each other. To put somebody down, to destroy their self-confidence is like hurting them. You hurt their future because if you gave them more self-confidence, you would help their future and the good karma of what they did, will go right back to you.

You cannot adjust the law of karma. It is unfailing, but you can mitigate it with intelligence. That means you can modify it.

So, if you hear gossip about someone, or you hear someone putting somebody down to their face or behind their back, you be the one to put them up. In Hindu society, it is almost a negative cultural expression of knocking someone down, to lower their esteem. To talk one way to their face, and another way behind their back. That is all the instinctive, the lower instinctive, intellectual mind. It has nothing to do with success. It has nothing to do with a balanced life or a loving life. It is destructive.

Praise your children. Find the good things that they do and tell them how well they have done. Avoid tearing them down and mentioning that they are stupid, that they don't have enough brains, that they are too slow or that they are naughty. If you tell a child that he is naughty constantly, he will be naughtier. If you tell a child he is nice constantly, he will be nice. It just works like that. All psychiatrists agree with that philosophy to be sure, as well as mothers and fathers who really love their children and take an interest in their children.

Well, I think we answered a lot of questions today. We'll be back again in cyberspace tomorrow. We'll be seeing you in our familiar place. You, right in front of your computer. Me, sitting right here at Kauai Aadheenam, looking psychically at you.

Aum Namah Sivaya.