VEERESH: The Pune Talks Part II

VEERESH

The Pune Talks

Chapter II

Parenting

Veeresh:
These are the parents, or hopeful parents. You don't have to be a parent to be here. Thank you all for coming and wanting to be here this afternoon.
A little background...
I was born in New York City. My mother came from the Dominican Republic and my father came from the Philippines, Manila. I was born in Harlem Hospital in New York City. I never had any brothers or sisters; therefore I was always outside my house with other people, my friends.
I remember as a kid I had a good friend and I was always with him next door. When his mother put him in the bathtub, I was also put in the bathtub. I liked that; I was part of a family.
My father was always away on a ship travelling; he was a merchant seaman. Every time he went to travel my mother would take me to another house to live with another man. This man was an alcoholic. My father would come home, my mother would bring me home and I would never be allowed to talk about this other man, just saying anything was not allowed. I remember once I said to my father, "My mother is with another man." My mother got so upset and she smacked me all over the place and I got the message - never say that again. I understood also that my father seemed to understand this, but he never did anything about it. So I had a strange situation; my father would go away on a ship six-seven months, then my mother would take me to another man's house and I grew up with this alcoholic stepfather.
I remember as a kid, he would come to the house, drunk and he would start to beat my mother. I was a little kid... I would hide under the bed, trying to block it all out. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, she would be screaming, he would be beating her, and again, I would just try to block it all out.
Here I am feeling hopeless; I can't understand why my mother wants to put me in that situation. Every night this guy comes home beats my mother, she freaks out and finally I am so happy that it's over and I can sleep.
Many years later...I asked her why she did it, why she put me in this mad situation. She gave me an answer that I could not believe, I would never have thought she would give me this answer. She said, "I loved him." I was shocked. She loved him and I was absolutely shocked. I never considered my mother as a person, my mother was only supposed to be there for me. That was about five years ago. That was interesting, I never thought that she could put me in this horrible situation because she loved the guy. I didn't understand that. She was supposed to be there for me. I never even considered that she had feelings. She was MY mother, supposed to take care of ME.
At the age of 14 I started to use heroin. I joined this gang on the block. Whatever they were doing I wanted to be a part of it, it didn't matter. They could have been robbing banks. I didn't care; I wanted to be part of this gang.
One day in New York City, at the age of 14, we broke into a supermarket, this gang. I was the youngest guy. Here we are in the supermarket, we climb down from the ceiling, like little thieves...and you have to imagine, this whole supermarket is open to us - and what do we do? We grab ice cream and throw ice cream at each other. The chief of the gang says, "Hey, stop that stuff! Get the cigarettes". So we get all these cigarettes and put it at the side of the door. There are about 12 of us and we were not professional at all. We open the door, there might be an alarm, and we stand about 15 minutes to decide whether we should open the door. We open the door, we look and there is nothing happening.
You have to imagine these kids walking across the street with boxes of cigarettes, in the middle of the night, and Coca-Cola bottles and all these things that we really wanted. We sold the cigarettes and I remember that everybody put five dollars into a pot. I put my five dollars in there, too. And they bought heroin. They were sticking each other with needles, I went like this (Veeresh is closing his eyes and turning his head to the side) and they stuck a needle in me. Suddenly I got sick, I started throwing up and I couldn't understand why the guys wanted to get high on heroin. I felt like I was going to die, throwing up and throwing up. That was my first experience and I thought, "I don't need this."
Weeks later they started to do the same thing, I said, "I don't like it, I got sick." One of the older guys said, "You had too much, if you just get a little bit you will feel OK." "So why not, here I go again." I got this high! In a sudden...wow!
I never felt this way before. Therefore, every day I would ask my mother for lunch money, she would give me my lunch money, I would go with the gang, get a little shot and that was great. Once a week, twice a week. My lunch money...
My mother had no idea what was going on. If she would have looked at my arms, she would have seen the injection marks. She didn't know, she was busy working. My father was away and my alcoholic father didn't care.

* * *
Veeresh:
One day in New York there was what they call a panic for the drug addicts. A panic is that all the dealers who are selling drugs hold on to the drugs. They hold on to it for two-three days and then the prices go up. That is called panic. Suddenly there is nothing on the streets; all the drug addicts are walking in the streets looking for drugs. We bought some drugs, but it wasn't true drugs and I ended up with an overdose. It was mixed with something; I don't know what it was.
I wake up in a hospital. The Daily News, this newspaper that has a lot of pictures, I am on the front page - "Teenage drug party". There is a detective looking like he has busted this 14 years old kid and he shows the drugs. And there I am on the front page. I wake up and I see this and my father standing in the hospital crying. He says, "Look, look!" Like what I have done to him. I just remember saying that I didn't want to look at it and passed out again.
My father was so embarrassed, so shocked. I was his Filipino son and I was not allowed to embarrass him like this.
They put me in a hospital for seven months, age of 14, to get rehabilitated in a teenage drug hospital. I walked in with a little bit of knowledge about drugs. When I left I was a professional. I knew more about drugs, how to mix it, how to take people out of overdoses, where to buy it, how it was made...
I came out with a great education. You take a light bulb, you break the light bulb and there is a tube, you crack the tube and you have a tube. You take a fountain pen, you take the rubber out of the fountain pen and you attach it to the tube. You take a football pin and you grind it in a shop, a shop for occupational therapy, put this football pin on the tube of the light bulb with the rubber from a fountain pen. And what do you have? A hypodermic syringe! Real education, seven months - this is what I learnt in the hospital, how to get stoned! I found out if you eat nutmeg, put nutmeg in hot water and take a spoonful that you get stoned for hours! If you get maizena, which is what you cook with, and you also get a spoonful of that with hot water, you get stoned for hours. We were supposed to get rehabilitated and all the teenagers are walking out the hospital stoned! This was my education.
My father and mother could not afford very much money, but they decided to get me out of the hospital and to put me in a military academy. From New York City into the Oakland Military Academy. They didn't have much money but worked their arse off to keep me there. They didn't know what else to do and they said, "Take him out of New York City."

* * *
Veeresh:
Here I am, in the middle of the park of this military academy out of this hospital. This little kid walks by and I am just walking around. He says, "Hey, don't you know how to salute an officer?" This little kid... And I say, "What?!" "You're supposed to salute an officer. I'm an officer." I grabbed the kid and threw him towards the wall, saying, "Leave me alone!" I was walking around for hours with a rifle after that.
It is tough grounds. I thought, "Aha, the only way to make it in this military academy is to go into the system so that I have control over it."
Every summer and every holiday I would go to New York City. I would get a habit again abusing drugs, and when I would go back to the military academy I would say that I have the flu. Every summer that I came back I had the flu, I would go to the infirmary and they would just leave me there. There I would kick off; I would withdraw from heroin. "How are you?" "I have a flu." They had no idea about what was going on with me.
I graduated. It was my father that worked so hard to keep me there, he could not afford to keep me there. When I graduated, when I was in the military academy, I thought, "What can I do in order to say thank you to my father?" And I thought, "I will become captain of the football team. That's very prestigious. I'll become president of the senior class and chairman of the student's council." These were the highest possible things and I decided to make it. When I graduated I was captain of the football team, president of the senior class and chairman of the student's council. I remember walking over to my father. He was standing there with all these expensive people and their kids. This Filipino guy coming from the ship, was standing there looking like one of the workers of the place. I came down from the stage and handed him all these achievements. He was really proud. I did it all for him. I had a teacher and he thought I was intelligent. For him, because he cared about me... He said, "You have to go to College." I liked this guy and because he cared about me I went to College. I had no idea that I wanted to go to College, but the fact that he cared about me made me go to College. I went to Niagara University.
I get to Niagara University and have this heroin addiction again because I've been out. I go to infirmary again, I am in the infirmary of the hospital and what happens? This priest comes by and ding, ding, ding... Confession. "What?! Confession?" This priest comes and sits by my bed. Everybody at the university is a catholic. I am a catholic, but not a practising catholic. He says, "Anything to confess?" I say, "Well, yes..." And I tell him EVERYTHING. He looks at me shocked, "You use drugs, you are a drug addict now?! You see me every week from now on, I am going to be your Counsellor. So I developed again a relationship to this guy because he cared about me.
I remember challenging him saying, "If you died and found out that there is no heaven and no hell, and you had a chance to come back and tell everybody, what would you say?" Without hesitation he said, "I would tell everybody that heaven is a beautiful place." A gangster, I loved this guy. He was a gangster; I loved that so we ended up with an amazing relationship. Again, because he cared about me.
I am trying to give you the key here. Every time I have been to hospitals, and I did that for 14 years, prisons, hospitals, institutions... Every time I found out that somebody cared about me I opened up. Every time I felt that I was just a statistic, that people did not care about, then I just played the game with the system.

* * *
Veeresh:
I remember coming to Poona, years ago, and I hear that the teenagers are into drugs, prostitution... And I say to myself, "Something has to be done with the teenagers, they have to have some meditations, some programs." The answer from the Ashram was, "Right now we don't have the facilities or the people to take care of the teenagers. The parents have to be supervising them."
I could not understand the bureaucracy and I saw myself complaining. "They are going to become like me..." Prostituting, carrying drugs around - horrible. I remember from complaining I decided to do something about it. That is how Tan Ju got started, which means Tangerine Juice... We are big oranges, the teenagers are little tangerines, so I called them Tan Ju. Chandrika is in charge of our Tan Ju Programme. She will give you a little overview.
Chandrika:
Because teenagers need to go to school, so that they get an education, we take the time between for Tan-Ju, in the summer for a month and over Christmas for ten to 14 days, when they have holidays.
We have a very special school, where they learn about how to deal with their emotions, where they learn how to be friends with each other, how to live together, how to ask questions, and to have time to just hang out.
Basically we open up all the facilities that we have in the house, the group work, the social meditations, the emotional work, martial arts etc. and I guide them along the big group. I teach them how to get angry with one another in a safe way, so that the can go into catharsis, that they can express whatever the negativity is inside of them, and to learn how to use it in a constructive way.
We teach them also self-defence. We teach them what they can do when they come into a situation where they are physically threatened. We make them strong, so that they can defend themselves. We believe that when they are able to say properly no, they can also say really yes.
We make them emotionally strong; we make them physically strong and we encourage them to make friendship with one another. So we teach them encounter and they love it, especially open encounter. We make one big circle, there are mattresses in the middle and then they can invite each other to come and to clear out problems they have with each other. It's one of the most favourite structures in Tan-Ju.
We usually get extra attention, when Veeresh is talking. The Tan Ju's are always in front, and they have interesting questions. They are very proud, when Veeresh says that they have the most interesting questions, more interesting than the ones from the adults.
Sometimes we take care of special functions in the house, or we play the Boozeria, that is the discotheque, and then we tell the adults how to come and how to dress up. We run the bar, the DJ, make special entertainment, and it is a beautiful way to contribute back to everybody of the house.
We are also taking part in House Care. That is always something that they have to learn. In the Humaniversity everybody who is in the house is taking care of it; that means cleaning, dishes, gardening, construction and more.
We always have experienced Tan-Ju's and new ones, because they come over and over again over the years. Every time they come they get a degree more, so the older ones are teaching the younger ones.
Most of the time we have only one or two adults who are helping to guide the whole group; mainly the teenagers take care of themselves. We believe that in their own peer-group they can relate and teach each other the best. When somebody has done it once, next time he teaches the young ones.

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Veeresh:
I entered a programme called Phoenix House in New York to get rehabilitated. They had a teenage programme there called Step 1. Step 1 to growing up, Step 1 to being yourself.
They took these teenagers, drug addicts, out to the country-side and it was amazing what happened. A couple of teenagers saw a cow - they never saw a cow in their life - and they beat the cow to death. That is how out of touch they were. What's going on? This cow- with sticks - they just killed it!
How do these things happen, how does it happen?! They had their parents drinking all the time. They open the medicine cabinet, and they see their parents have a pill to go to sleep, a pill for getting up in the morning... And then the parents end up saying, "Why is my son a drug addict?" It is, because they learn addiction from our addictive society. They learn addiction from us.
I am giving a big lecture in Montreal, and for the first time I see my son. He is 16. I haven't seen him since he was 3. I left him because I was dealing drugs and I did not want him and the family to get into trouble.
I am giving this big lecture, my son is there and he is 16, and I am saying this about drugs and that about drugs because I want to impress him. I am meeting him for the first time in 13 years. We leave; we get into a car. We are driving, both shy looking at each other. He looks like me, I look like him. I hope he likes me... I love him automatically, because he is from my heart, from my blood, but I wanted to like him, too. I look at him and we like each other, which is great.
And then he says, "Veeresh, I want to tell you something. I have been experimenting with drugs." I remember that I like died. Anybody I could understand, but not my son! I looked straight into his eyes, "What have you been using?" "I have tried pot, LSD and this and that..." I am supposed to be the expert in the field of addiction. My son confronts me with this. I looked at him straight, "Listen, you know my history, you know what I have been through - 14 years of addiction, in and out of hospitals, prisons, everything... I was working my arse off to get to this point " and then I said, "If you ever use any addictive drugs like heroin, opium or anything like that, I will break your legs!" And I am the expert... He looked at me and said, "I understand."
And until this day he has kept his word. I took a position. Bring me somebody else's son, yes, I could be understanding and tolerant, and yes, try this... But with my own, that was my position. My parents could not do that with me, they didn't know how. But I did it with my son. There is a warning, and this is the warning, "If you use anything that is addictive, I'll break your legs!" I meant it and he respected me. He respected that that was important to me, that it would kill me if he did that. He is coming, I hope to get the chance to meet him. He looks a bit like me; he is a little bit...

* * *
Veeresh:
If you have a child, a son or a daughter, they need to be free, but they need a balance with responsibility. You need to be able to say, "Listen, this is a lie. If you fuck around, use drugs, violate yourself or hurt yourself, I can't stand that. No, I won't buy it." And that is a clear NO.
The worst thing that can happen is that they are into drugs. Can you imagine this? You walk home and they had an overdose in the toilet in your home and they are dead! Because you couldn't say, "No, I don't buy this, this kind of behaviour. In my home I don't buy it. I don't care what it is..."
If they are playing Russian roulette and you don't like it, "NO!" Not in your home, not in your place, not in your area of responsibility. "No, you don't play Russian roulette here! I won't allow that! No, you can't use heroin, or whatever it is! If you believe that it's a violation, that it's going to hurt you, you have to take a position! And that position is, if it feels good for you, great. If it doesn't feel good for you, get some help and say, "No, I won't buy it".
Here is this kid that goes into a rehabilitation programme, (and I have seen this), they stay in the programme for about a year, and then the parents want them home. You ask them why and they say, "He stopped using drugs." We found out that the parents need this co-dependent relationship. They need to have their kids fucked up, so that they can have the feeling that they are doing something. Because if the kid grows up, what will they do, then they have nothing to do any more. So they maintain this mad cycle.
They come to the rehabilitation programme in Phoenix House, trying to get their sons and daughters out and they have not finished the programme. And we were wondering why they wanted them out. Then we understood that they wanted their kids to come home every day and the parents freaking out. They want to maintain that, because if the kid grows up, they have nothing. Then you start to see that the parents in some way play a very heavy role in negative acting out behaviour.
If you have a child that is running around and you don't like it, you have to draw a clear line. You have to take a position. If you don't, you will end up saying, "I tried so hard." Bullshit, in some way you supported it. My mother knew every time she gave me money, and I said that I would get a job, she knew deep down that she didn't want me to steal so she would rather give me the money for the dope. She didn't have the understanding to say, "Not in my home. No! If you want to destroy yourself, I will not let you do it here! This is my line."
Pragan is another Graduate from Phoenix House. Pragan is working with abused kids in the military. Can you imagine that? The military is supposed to be taking care of business and they abuse our kids instead. Pragan you have to tell them how you are working with the kids and the parents.

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Pragan:
What we do, with progress about, is family therapy, it is called child abuse, spouse abuse. What we found is that kids, who experience that parents have severe conflicts, get effected emotionally. It effects their self-esteem, their self-confidence, and their self-image. With all this negative going against them, there is nothing for them to feel good.
What makes us feel good, is how we see ourselves, how we feel about ourselves and what we believe in ourselves. When parents are constantly in conflict, they never have the time to give their child the attention that would help them to develop their self-image, self-confidence, self-respect and positive attitude about themselves. So we found that when we want to help children, we have to work with their parents.
Even parents that are divorced, single parents, they still need to come together and work together, resolve their problems because the child is what we call triangulated in the whole mess. The child is so neglected; we can call that emotional neglect, which is even worse than physical abuse. But if the whole focus is on the parents; so we have family therapy, where we have to work with the unresolved parental conflicts that the parents have, and which the children are acting out.
We see these model families; we have some TV-programmes in American TV about perfect parents. On the surface they are millionaires and have lots of money. People think that these kids come from prior families, but they come from well-to-do-families. People that have money don't have time to do emotional investment in their children. So then there is a neglect happening. So we start to try to work with them.
These people can't argue with each other, so the kids act out so that their parents don't have to look at their conflicts. We came up with the idea that in order to help the kids, we just work with the parents. Then involve the kid at another time, in the therapy with the parents. Again it goes back to how to create the support for a self-image and how you feel about yourself. If you have no self-confidence, how can you deal with a feeling of pain? If my self-esteem is low, my attitude about myself is low... Where else can I find appreciation and acceptance from someone else who is just like me, who I will not feel so inferior around. There is a lot of work in this area of emotional child abuse in the States. But it is focused on resolving parental conflicts. So the children don't have to suffer their parents misery and pain.

* * *
Veeresh:
The way my father would punish me when I was a little kid was in the following way. I was by myself without any brothers or sisters... I built all this imaginary houses and had these little war games by myself. When I made too much noise and he was sitting there with his newspaper, he put down the newspaper like this, he looked at me...and that was it. There was a whole conversation, "Stop running around making noise while I am reading the newspaper." But he wouldn't say anything, just put down the newspaper and look... There was a whole communication there. That was his way of saying "be cool".
My mother was different. She would say "stop it!" and when I didn't stop, she would go "stop it!" and BANG - and "OK, I got the message..."
So I had these two ways from my parents... One was a threat, but my father never hurt me, never physically beat me, only emotionally he beat me. At 14 I suffered so much, I am in this hospital and he comes to visit me and tells me that I'm not his son. Because I had embarrassed him...as a Filipino. So I thought, my father is out of the picture.
I went through a rehabilitation programme, they said I had to go back and work this out with my parents. I remember my father; he was pretty old at the time. I got him to come in the park. He came to the park, we sat on a bench and I said to him, "Listen, Dad, when I was small you were away, I missed you and I was so hurt about that..."
I started to talk to him and encounter him. I had learnt the art of encounter. I was screaming and I know that he was in so much shock that he just started to stare. I was screaming because I wanted to tell him that he hadn't been there in my life. That Sunday I realised, "What am I doing? The man can't handle this, this is not his way." He grew up in a totally different culture where the child is supposed to honour the father.
And here I am screaming at him and he couldn't even take it. Then I realised, wow...this man tried in his way to give me the best, in his way, not my way. And I have to accept that. I just had to stop that stupid trip trying to confront him about my history, why he had not been there. I couldn't tell him all the negative things I had. He couldn't accept it; it just wasn't his way.

* * *
Veeresh:
I remember that I needed to go to New York and I didn't know why. I was working in England. I flew to New York and my mother was looking very strange and I said, "How is my father?" She said, "You better talk to your uncle, who is a doctor." Then I knew something was wrong. Everybody kept avoiding telling me where my father was. He was in the hospital. Then I got it, he was dead. I understood it because nobody wanted to tell me.
They didn't want to tell me, because even if I had been clean for many years, they thought that I would be running out in the streets and start using drugs again. They were trying to protect me.
I came walking into the funeral and I was dressed in really loud orange ; this is cool orange. In the beginning you looked like a carrot as a sannyasin. I came walking in looking like a carrot and everybody in the funeral was dressed in black. I looked like this mad Hare Krishna.
There was my father, dead. I walked over to him and looked at him. All the negativity I had to him just dropped. I started to say to him, "Thank you so much for laying your trip on me, thank you so much for trying so hard to make me into this image of a Filipino son." I kept on saying "Thank you, thank you" and I ended up crying. My mother was holding me and cooling me down. She was crying, too. Finally I started to scream to the ceiling, to God, "Thank you for giving me the most beautiful father in the world!" I was crying hysterically. When I had finished I turned around and the whole funeral parlour was crying, everybody was crying. That was my ending, he wasn't alive.
It took me years to reach that point. I went into groups, punching pillows, screaming "Where was my father all my life?" and hating him.
Finally when I saw him laying there I thought, "What am I trying to do." He gave me his best shot, and I wanted him to be perfect. I just thanked him. And I thanked God for giving me the best father in the world. He laid his trip on me.
I used to look for Filipinos in movies because I didn't know what they looked like. Because he always said I had to be a proud Filipino.
I think parents have to lay their trip - you have to. What else are you there for? Things you like you have to say them, things you don't like you have to say them. Your job is to lay your trip on your kids, so that they can have that trip to say, "OK, this is what you want, now I can understand what I need."
If you don't give them anything and say "sure, do whatever you want", they don't have any boundaries. They don't know how to relate to authorities, to anybody. I prefer that you lay your negative trips on them so that they can say "I don't buy it". Then they have something to compare. If you say "sure" and in your belly you know it's wrong, it's a double message. Please, lay your trip. That's what parents are here for.
I would like you to do a communication exercise. Face each other and make some kind of physical contact - knees, toes, hands, it doesn't matter.
I want you to have a conversation as friends. The conversation goes like this, You are sharing what you miss with your parents, as friends, there is no right or wrong, not an encounter, you just share. It's an ongoing, flowing conversation as friends. What I miss from my parents...

* * *
Question:
My daughter is 22 years old. One year ago she started smoking hashish and three weeks ago I saw her in Goa, on Anjuna Beach. It was really tough. She came back and she is healthy. I saw my co-dependency, like doing a little bit here, a little bit there to keep her close. The other side of the coin is that, if I say "no" and close all the doors, she will go and she will be so angry. I feel that she will fuck up everything. I see the point in saying no.
Veeresh:
I am going to give you the ideal. And then from the ideal we will work down to the reality.
The ideal is that your child is born, opens his eyes, looks into your eyes and gets the message "I am the most beautiful child in the world", because the parent says "You are mine and you are just the most beautiful child...and wow!" And as he grows up the parent is so open that he can come to you with every question - about sexuality, about relationships, drugs... This is the ideal. "Mama, what do you think?" "Because you are so open to me, you are my best friend, I need some of your opinion." That's the ideal.
Often it doesn't work that way. I could not talk to my father about sex. I got information about sex from the boys on the block. When I started to use drugs I would NEVER think of talking to my parents. They were the last persons I wanted to know.
She is 22. Give her your heart, give her all your worries, all your anxieties, all your fears. That's the most you can do. Be open so that she can come back to you and say, "I fucked it up. I just need your reassurance that I am OK." You can not walk with her through life. Try to establish that. There are parts which you don't like. You have to tell her that.
There are three human emotional needs. First human emotional need, The baby needs to feel love from the parents. A baby can't give love. When he opens his eyes and the parents say "Wow!" The baby needs to be loved. As he grows older, the kid takes a shit, he looks at it and he says "Wow!" and the parents say "Yak!" The child needs to learn to give love back. That's a need. First he takes and then he says "Wow, I can give you this back", to give love back. He smiles, brings home a report, whatever, he gives it back. This process of receiving and giving gives you the third need, self love, where you can stand on your own two feet and go off to the world.
Usually one of those needs are off. I work with people in groups. I tell them to stand in front of the group and say "I am loveable". They don't buy it, because love has always been associated with pain. They are not trusting, "Why should I open up to you. Every time I have shown you my love I was slapped."
Love her, and let her know that you try to accept her. The most beautiful thing that can happen is that she can come to you and say, "Mum, I'm in trouble."
My mother, she is a shoe freak. She loves shoes, she has more shoes than a shoe store. I walked down a street and there was a shoe shop. I went over to the shop and said, "Which shoes do you like?" She said, "No, no, I have too many shoes." I said, "Which shoes do you like?" I bring her into the shop and she says, "No, no, no!" As soon as the shoes come... I buy her all the shoes she wants, I don't care if she is ever going to use them. It has nothing to do with that. I feel like now I am her parent. I try to give it back, I can give it back now. As a kid it was like "Where have you been?!", always reacting.
What can I tell you? Keep it open. Love her. Tell her what you don't like, tell her what hurts you, tell her your fears...everything.
I told you about my father. I missed talking to him. I understand I have stepbrothers, halfbrothers and -sisters, but he never told me about it. And I missed that.
With my son I made up for it. I talk to him about anything, the most ridiculous things, football... I missed out with my father. He grabs me, lifts me up and kisses me - and I get very embarrassed. He knows I need that. I missed that so much with my father and I don't want to miss it with my son. I really talk a lot, I want to know about the most ridiculous things, I'm not interested in football, but I talk about football.

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Veeresh:
Who else have difficulties with their kids?
Question ,
I have a kid he is 17 and he grew up with his father. He stayed with me till he was 4, now he is 17 and he is looking for me. He doesn't like to see me as a mother. He wants to see me as a sister, as a friend, as a lover. He likes to tell me that he is smoking, he likes me to see that he is strong. He tells me that he hates his father, that he can not tell him everything, that he has to lie to him and that he can be honest with me and tell me anything. This is what is happening between him and me. Maybe he is coming to stay with me for a couple of months. I'm a little bit worried because he is really strong, his energy is strong. He wants to discuss and to fight. I don't know how to deal with it.
Chandrika:
When I heard you, I thought you should come to the AUM Meditation. Is he here in Poona?
Woman:
No. I would like to bring him to Veeresh' place. But he doesn't want to. He is so cool.
Chandrika:
He needs to measure how strong he is. I think that is natural. I think it is beautiful if you also can be the mother to him.
My experience with my Tan-Jus is that they like me as a mother also, they like me as a girl friend, they like me to fool around with them, they like me to talk with them, they like me also wise. They like me as a mother, they like to ask questions and to listen. I think that is a need, too. I think that is also a need for you. That is what I hear in between.
If he is very strong... He is challenging you so you have to be yourself. That is what he finally wants, he wants to meet you as a person. There you have to trust your own heart, your own integrity that you can say what you feel. If he is threatening you with this powerful energy, I know that teenagers can be like that, I tell them, "Listen, you scare me. Come and sit next to me, be more gentle."
Sometimes their energy goes all over board and they are banging things.
I always try to make friends with them. It's important that I have a space and they have a space. That's somehow my line with the Tan-Jus.
Veeresh:
How about this scene in the United States,
There it gets really mad, kids go to school and they shoot each other. Where is this happening? Somewhere the parents are not taking a position, they are not saying, "This is the line. This is not a jungle, we are not creating a wild animal. I want you to be able to live in this world."
In the United States, in New York, at the age of 18 the child is responsible, until 18 the parents are responsible. So take a position, try to become friends. I understand the struggle, and he is challenging you. But like Chandrika is saying, somewhere he also wants a mother with you. Don't give up.

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Question:
I have a 25 years old son. Sometimes I think that I do my best, but the more groups I do, the more guilty I feel. How can I solve this? I am sure that in that moment I do my best, but now I notice that this was not the best.
Veeresh:
If I offer you love, as a package, and say "here", and you miss it, that is called mis-take. If you learn that you are missing him, learn how to retake it. In the past I fucked it up, I wasn't a perfect parent. But now I'm going to try really hard to give you my best. Don't beat yourself. You learn. That was a mistake, you learned from that. Change it if you are not happy with the relationship, then change it now. Don't say, "In the past, if I had done it better..." Pragan...
Woman:
I feel guilty sometimes.
Pragan: Are you Italian? I lived in Italy and an Italian told me that the guys still live with their mothers when they are 25 and the mothers have the control.
What is the opposite of guilt? What is the opposite of feeling guilty?
Woman:
Healthy!
Pragan:
If you have the option of feeling bad and feeling good... Is your son OK? If he is OK, you should feel good about that. You don't have to be perfect. Parents try to be perfect. Drop the perfect trip and you are OK. He is OK, he is not in trouble. Do you want him to be married?
The opposite of guilt is to feel... And you have a choice to feel one or the other.
Veeresh:
A part of being a parent is feeling guilty. If you want your kids to be perfect, if you want to be the perfect parent, that is a part of it. But that is not the only part. If you made mistakes, you felt guilty, also be proud that you gave your best. That creates the balance.

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Question:
I don't have children. But I know about myself, my parents told me not to smoke, not to get addicted. They didn't want me to smoke cigarettes. It started with that and then drugs. The only reason I started with drugs was... Nobody was drinking alcohol or taking pills around me, they really tried to play clean. But I took drugs because they said no. This was my trip. I went for it because everybody said "Don't do it!", just because it wasn't allowed.
Pragan:
Oppositional! Just being the opposition! What parents need to do is let a kid know that you do have options. When the kids feel that you don't have any options, they are going to take a position and do what they want. Give the child and option, "You can do this or you can do that", and let them choose. It's up to them to make their choice. You're role is to educate the children about all the options and they choose what they want to do. Then you don't get into that power struggle and they don't feed into the oppositional. Let them have the option, "These are the consequences if you do this, these are the consequences if you do that". You teach your child to make a choice. If they make a bad choice then you educate them.
Veeresh:
When Daddy says "Shit there!", the kid says "No!" and shits here.

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Question:
I have a boy, I am an Italian mother. I feel bad talking about it, but I want to say what it means to me. Marco came here ten years ago and I sent him to your community in Holland some years ago. When he came back from the commune, it was a very strong and important experience... I don't know what happened, but he came back a bit afraid. He felt isolated.
What I want to express, is my wish as a mother that my sons become sannyasins. How can I do this with my sons, with kids in general? He is not meditating now and I would like to come back and give him something.
Veeresh:
My son came to visit me when he was 18. He told that he had a ticket to go up and down Europe, on the railways, to visit all the countries. I said, "Before you do that, come with me to Poona." He said, "What is Poona?"
I figured that the only thing I could give him from my life was to introduce him to Osho. He was overwhelmed of it. I wasn't even sure that he could take it, he was just shocked. I wanted him to meet Osho, it was so important to me.
I think the best way he can get turned on, is by watching you meditate and being a beautiful mother. When he is ready I am sure he want to go little bit further to see what it is all about. I wanted my son to be a sannyasin so badly. It was quite an imposition from my part, I really laid a trip on him. I pulled him all the way here - "Don't go up and down there, come with me". Then I threw in front of Osho and..."
One day he might look at you and say, "I'm curious." I wouldn't do what I did. I just kidnapped him and put him in front of Osho. I hear that you want him to be a sannyasin and that it's important. I think in time, just watching you, he'll understand.
I did the same thing with my mother. I made her a sannyasin. My mother is also into Jesus. She came over and I was joking with her, "Jesus was a homosexual." She said, "Why did you say that?" I said, "Because he wore a robe and was hanging out with men all the time." She looked at me and said, "You can't say that!" Then she went to bed, she came out the next day and said, "Bhagwan wears a robe, too!" And that was it.
Give him time and I am sure, with a beautiful mother like you...
Comment from a man:
Some years ago I wanted to give a gift to my nephew who was 19 years old. The gift I wanted to give to him, he lives in Portugal, was to go to the Tan-Ju Programme for a month. "Hey, you are 19 years old, you are starting to wake up. I'll pay you the Tan-Ju and you go to Holland." He looked at me and said, "I am afraid to go because it could hurt my religious feelings." It never occurred to me that a 19 year old kid would come up with this answer. In the latest letter that came a few days ago, he has a French girl friend that he met at a camping in Portugal. She has been in Poona and now he wants to come to Poona.

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Question:
My son is nine years old. I would like to send him to the Osho Ko Hsuan School in England. I am worried he will be so far away from us and he will ask that he will feel rejected by us.
Veeresh:
How old is he?
Man:
Nine years old.
Veeresh:
Chandrika, he wants to send his son all across the world to England, to Ko Hsuan.
Chandrika:
Does your son also want to go?
Man:
He doesn't live with me. I don't know exactly. I am worried that he will ask me afterwards why you sent me there?
Chandrika:
My sister's boy, he was eleven, when he got turned on to go out of Switzerland to the Ko Hsuan School. My sister didn't really know, but in a way she liked it because it meant that she would have more time to do her things and she thought it was important that he started to fly by himself, and find his own way.
So they went to Ko Hsuan School, they looked at everything, they talked with everybody and he got really turned on. He loved it so he wanted to go. He went and I think he was there half a year. After half a year he came back, "Mummy, actually I would prefer to come home again." And she listened to him and she took him back home again, so now he is home.
Last summer they came visiting in Holland. We had the Tan Ju School and all the Ko Hsuan kids came, all the kids from 14 to 20 years old, they were there for 14 days with the Tan Ju Programme. He was so happy to see them all again. That was his way of connecting up again with the Ko Hsuan kids. Now he is asking to come back when the Ko Hsuan kids are coming back, so he kept a relating. But for him it was important to go back into a smaller family again. He needed it. He could talk about it and he could ask. I think it was important for both; it was important for the parents that they let him go, and it was important that he could come back again.
So I think you should talk with him. I would say, go there if you have the time and the money and the space, go together with him. Take a week, or whatever, check it out, be there, look if he can feel at home, if can get turned on. And if yes, give him the space. And if not, take him home again.
If I get kids in my Tan Ju Programme and they don't want to be there, I tell them to go back home again. Even if that means that the parents have to come and pick them up and they don't like it. If the kid doesn't like it, it doesn't make sense. I think he should have a priority.
Veeresh:
It must be universal that all parents somewhere feel guilty that they are not perfect. It must have been set up that way. I would like to end this by everybody goes over to each other saying, "I forgive myself for not being a perfect parent" and hug.

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