Duty to Parents

QUESTION: I left home a long time ago, and I call occasionally, maybe once every few months. I called the other night, and after I hung up I felt bad. I did not feel any kind of attachment to my sister and my mother, but I felt an obligation, a duty, to do things for them. I am wondering where my duty for my family lies.

BAWA MUHAIYADDEEN: Duty towards parents is necessary, but now, you in turn have become a parent. The father and mother who gave birth to you are still living. If you had married at the proper time and had a daughter earlier in your life, today you might have been a grandmother. Then your parents could have seen you, your child, and your grandchild. They would have seen three generations. But that state of parenthood has come to you only now. Therefore, conduct your life with your wisdom. If children are under eighteen or twenty, you need to look after them. Do your duty toward them according to their nature and their needs.

Several times I have said that in this country, some people give birth to children and hand them over to the hospital or the church. Or they give them up for adoption, and the child is gone. That child has lost the love of the parents completely. Parental love and attachment can get cut off in many ways.

When I am speaking about these things, I am speaking generally, to everyone. You have to apply what is said to your own situation and the way you were brought up. If you were separated from your parents early, if your attachment toward them is gone, you need not think, "Oh, I heard Bawa say this once. I'd better go back and try to revive my connection to them." That was not the meaning.

You have to consider the situation you are in now and maintain the connection with your child. However, if you become aware of some difficulty or illness that your family is undergoing, then certainly you can go and help them. Do what you can at that time. Do you understand?

QUESTIONER: My mother belongs to a very strong religion, but she is grateful that I found Bawa. I sent her Bawa's books to read and she writes back with beautiful quotes from them. I have the desire to bring her here, but her health is not too good.

BAWA MUHAIYADDEN: Give her whatever help you can in that direction.

QUESTIONER: Should I bring her? She is so engrossed in her religion that I am not sure if I should.

BAWA MUHAIYADDEEN: Even if you do not bring her here, it is your duty to make her realize that there is a God somewhere. But you cannot fashion the ship to carry her to God. Your effort should be just to help her realize that God and truth do exist. That is all you need to do. Help her to understand that. But do not set out with the idea that you might take her to God. If she herself decides, that is another matter.

Muhaiyaddeen, M.R. Bawa. Questions of Life – Answers of Wisdom Volume 1. Philadelphia: Fellowship Press, 1991. 139-140.

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