Growing Up with God

This is part of article written by Jessica Kraft printed on Yoga Mates, excerpted here with their permission.

It’s an ancient hindu saying that “the mother and father are the child’s first guru.” Children learn the most basic human skills from their parents: along with eating, walking and talking, children readily absorb spiritual lessons from Mom and Dad, including how to commune with nature, how to seek calm in the midst of chaos and how to reach out to a higher power. Likewise, spiritual leaders guide adults on this path, helping to tune our spiritual instruments so that we can play in harmony with the universe. In a sense, spiritual leaders are parents to our souls.

So are children born to spiritual leaders given a boost in their spiritual development? How did their early exposure to the enlightened practices of their parents influence them? We asked several kids of leaders from different traditions about their childhoods to see what, if anything, they might recommend to parents looking to cultivate a child’s inner life.

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Mallika Chopra, 35
Daughter of Deepak & Rita Chopra

Mallika Chopra, daughter of Deepak Chopra, mother of two, doesn’t like to think of her background as particularly spiritual. “Everyone assumes I grew up in a very spiritual environment. But while my parents were on their journey, I really had a regular childhood,” Chopra recounts. She did, however, start meditating from the age of 9, and was given mantras to focus on while playing. “It was nothing structured, or dogmatic, though,” she says. “Meditation gave me a real sense of security and self identity… we would meditate as a family sometimes, and as I grew older it became something I could do for myself — but they never made us meditate.”

As an adult, Chopra prefers not to label her practice, but rather focuses on integrating service to others, sharing knowledge and stories and fostering her children’s growth as global citizens. “I don’t try to shield my kids from reality. They’ve been exposed to extreme poverty in Indian slums, and I talk to them about how all children are similar — they laugh, they play, they cry. And even though we all have different circumstances, we should all be cherished.” Mallika has written books inspired by the process of parenting and now runs a website with her
father covering health and wellness at intentblog.com.

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