There is an art (and hard work) to working on ourselves, and most don’t want change enough to make the effort. But some do, especially those on the evolutionary path. A couple of years back Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami wrote a most earthy and unusual book with the above title. He developed it as a tool to help children and adults build, transform and improve their character. He created a list of sixty-four character qualities and presented them in such a way that anyone could pick a trait and work to improve it. He includes examples of each trait, and its opposite. For instance, attentive/distracted, compassionate/uncaring, grateful/thankless, selfless/selfish. For families with pre-teen children old enough to understand the concepts, the booklet can be used in a simple way by choosing one character quality at a time, posting it in big type somewhere in the home and discussing it now and then for a few weeks. It’s a way to get everyone in the family to focus on improving life by improving themselves. Recently, a devotee in Bengaluru put the entire book into Tamil and we have now posted it online. You can find it (and download the pdf or epub) here: bit.ly/TamilCharacter
If you know Tamil-speaking families looking for good tools for improving our habits, reactions and nature, please share the link with them.
Sample pages from the book are shown below.
A typical spread from the book is shown below. It’s about being hospitable.
