Hari Om.I was sitting in the tea garden earlier talking to a very senior educator and, strangely enough, the topic he touched on is the very topic I was going to speak about, a topic we've killed a hundred times and buried. But for some reason, it gets up and starts its business again. The topic is cellphones.
I thought about what he said and about when I was young. When we were young life was so different. We didn't have burglar-guards on the windows or doors, the key remained in the door and nobody used to enter. Burglaries were so scarce, they were unheard of. If you heard of a burglary you didn't know the individual, they were in the next town. Fathers used to make sure the house doors were closed. Every home had a tower-latch, and some couldn't afford one so they had a bent nail for security. Fathers and mothers used to go to sleep pleased with themselves that they had their children in total security. And I see the same thing happening today. Fathers or mothers go around, and make sure all the gates are closed. They start with the driveway, then check the electric fence is on, make sure the gates and windows are all closed. Lastly they make sure the alarm is on. We are so secure. Am I right?
But, unknowingly, there's one thing they didn't lock, and make sure it's secured. They didn't lock the cellphones. A thief enters your house through a cellphone. That stuck with me because in all our homes we let our children go to bed with a cellphone and all this so-called rubbish comes through in the night when we're all asleep. Nobody can enter your house, but your children have a cell phone that allows a thief to enter your house and disarray your child's mind totally. And yet it is not physical, we cannot see, but the destruction it causes is everlasting and, in many cases, cannot be corrected. Yet I've been saying the same thing about cellphones and many of our parents still think a cellphone is necessary, even in the night. And the teacher made another statement: he said one parent said to one of the individuals who advised her against the her children taking their cellphones to bed with them that if she takes the cellphone away from her child then she's 'not cool'. I mean, this is the society we live in - 'I'm not cool'.
Listen, parents - that's why we gave you this title - behave and act your position as parents. You don't have to be 'cool', you don't have to disco with your daughter or son. This is where we fail miserably in our lives as parents. Our children download every kind of rubbish that you can get on the internet, Facebook, and whatever other kind of book there is. They download all the rubbish. When I was speaking to this individual, I had a beautiful reflection of my own life growing up with no cellphones, no internet, PCs, tabs, or ipads. My life growing up was playing three-tin in the neighbour's yard with a tennis ball, but we really had fun. You might think you are cyber-kids but you're far from that. You're just being destroyed in your brain, every cell, and the most powerful part of the body is the brain, it stores things there forever. But we will not listen to the guru or to anybody who talks us out of our children having cellphones.
The other day Steven was in the kitchen and he couldn't use the phone. I was sitting there and he asked one of the twins to show him how to use their phone. He already made his excuse by saying they need the phone because he doesn't know what time they finish school. As I told you, do not make a mess out of an apology by an excuse. He said, 'It's just a simple phone'. A cellphone is a cellphone. I didn't know the phone only knows how to dial Steven's number. You can dial any number you want. Yet we will give a phone to our kids. The twins were in Phoenix and they needed a phone. I've got no problem with that. We have excuses ready when the guru asks why. If you are in university you need a phone. But if you are in grade ten and you finish school at two o'clock, and your parents know when to pick you up – then you don't need a cellphone! Schools don't finish at random times. Do schools finish at random times? No, they have a fixed closing time. So why does a child need a phone? One mother says to me, “Sometimes when the child has to finish early, they need to phone”. That's why you pay school fees, so the school can contact you to fetch your child. We're always finding excuses for why we made the mistake of giving our children a cellphone. We say it's 'not cool' for them not to have a phone.
The cellphone, as I said the other day, is the kolavery. It is the madness, and, as parents, we are all caught in it. You must be disciplined with your cellphone. At two o'clock today my cellphone went off. It only goes back on on Monday. Can you do that? You can't do that. If it doesn't ring then you are upset. It's like you sit and wait for it. And nowadays you know who's calling because you have a different ringtone for each person. When your boyfriend phones you, I heard on the Gautrain two days ago, “I'm calling you, my babe...”. I mean, look at that, so we know who it is, we know he knows it's his girlfriend. The kolavery comes and you walk up and down. Nobody stands in one place and talks on a cellphone. Even if they're sitting at a desk they'll get up and walk around. Why? Because it's a madness, it's damaging your brain daily, cell by cell. The only thing you have at the end is a cellphone, without any cells up here – all are dead.
Please parents, I don't have long to live. I'm an old man. I'm going to go soon, but I hope that you all take the advice that I give you every Friday. I think the cellphone has had the greatest number of discussions on Fridays. That's because I know it's destroying your child. I know your child won't come to service on Fridays now. They're thinking, 'that guru talks nonsense'. What I just gave you was spiritual advice.
As I said to you many of you, you wait for messages on the cellphone when there are such beautiful messages in the Bhagavad Gita. But none of us turn to those pages. If you want to know about love, go to chapter Twelve in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna tells Arjuna about the yoga of love. If you want to know about wisdom, go to chapter two, verse fifty-four where there's a very nice discourse by Krishna on how to be wise. If you want messages, go to the Bhagavad Gita. Carry it with you. Seventy rand for a pocket Bhagavad Gita is too expensive but we'll pay 340 rand for a cellphone. This is the way we think.
Let's compare the Bhagavad Gita to the cellphone: the cellphone messages will only come from your friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, and fifty percent of the time they are lies. Messages from the Bhagavad Gita come directly from God – there are no lies.The cellphone is battery-operated but the Bhagavad Gita doesn't need any batteries – you just need to flip the pages, and you don't go mad when the battery's flat. See the madness, this kolavery? You have to type your messages into the cellphone but in the Bhagavad Gita all your messages are already there, given to you by God. When you carry a cellphone on you all the time, it causes cancer. The Bhagavad Gita carried on you and read, makes you more spiritual – it doesn't give you cancer. And yet we prefer to carry a cellphone, these complicated cellphones, Blackberry Bold. It's called Bold because parents are very bold to give their children a Blackberry. Change now. Don't have any problems later. Cellphones will destroy your children. I see some of the children aren't even looking at me, they're looking at their mothers, and thinking, 'Please let him stop talking before my father takes my cellphone away'.
Cellphones should be used for specific purposes only - just to make contact, nothing else. But you're invited out for coffee, and the Blackberry is there next to your plate. You're just looking a the Blackberry. Whenever a message comes you reply. Poor me, I'm sitting there watching you, thinking that I should put your phone between the sandwich and chew it up. So please, people, when you are enjoying your food, and the doctor here will confirm, you should not be distracted, but we are distracted. There's one thing about Seelan – he has a cellphone as well, it has a whistling ring tone - as long as I'm eating with him he'll never pick it up. I was thinking he was very disciplined but afterwards I realised it's because I was there. When I'm not there, he answers the phone. Yes, we're laughing at ourselves, but as parents we really should think seriously about what's happening in our child's room with the cellphone. Please don't do these things that are wrong.
Hari Om
