In our indic culture there is galores of stuff written and taught about parents. The most fundamental is respect towards older folks, specifically parents and grandparents. It is almost basic norm for us kids to touch feet of older folks. And some other respect related habits which only after seeing western or other very different cultures do we realise that it is a choice. In Indian society it doesn’t feel like a choice at all but a norm. 🙂

There is also a strong narrative that when a great child is born, his/her parents were chosen by the devas. I met one Gujju couple of my parents age in Tiruvannamalai and they were quite impressed with me (as a lot of folks are nowadays what with my cycling and solo travel and yoga related stories). This lady on multiple times suggested that I must be from some great background and I tried to not get into such a conversation. On one occasion she even suggested that my parents must be amazing considering the way I was.

Such is the strong parent & kid association in our culture.

So it was very interesting and a little culture shocking when I got such a different view point from a monk and nun I was chatting with in Thailand. Both of them were non-asian, the nun from Germany while the monk from Australia. That probably explains their comments.

The conversation started with the monk sharing about his fathers illness and how he would have to go and visit him. (Buddhist monks can do this unlike other ordained folk who would not be able to leave their monastic order for such visits). It led to further discussion about the nuns father and his dying moments.

We must truly have some bad karma with the people who become our parents. There tends to be so much bad blood. Probably we murdered them in our past lives. Hence, we had to come back in a parent-child relationship which is fraught with so much aggression and suppression and complex emotional dynamics.

*culture shock*

But after pondering on it, I could see what they were saying. Generally, it is said that we keep taking our next birth around the people we were most closely associated with in our past lives. Not necessarily the people who were most dear to us. But the people who we had strongest emotional / other ties with. And so definitely someone we might murder or oppress or some such would also be included.

So it is kind of like the same souls playing a new game every birth. And the heroes and villians of the game keep getting interchanged. Until we dissolve a lot of those karmas and thus are freed of them in a true sense.

It has been quite some time since I had that conversation but it has been coming back to me. I think it shows a deeper way of looking at our relationships with our parents (and children if any). It may help us become wiser with our interactions with them. When the same frustrations, angers and even love and respect arises, we can reflect that these have been in our life for many births. It puts everything in a new perspective and we might find it easier to rise above it.

Something to ponder on.