Development and Upbringing: Keys to Harmony in the Family and Within Yourself // Alexander Volchek

AVAlexander Volchek

How do I know it's great? Because it's my dream, an illusion of mine. I don't actually know it's great, because I've never done it. Some of you will say, “That's complete nonsense, rubbish, absurdity. How are those things connected?” First and foremost, nurture a child's sense of love for themselves. I'm the only one responsible for conveying something to my children as honestly, truthfully, and sincerely as possible. What's the most important quality to instill in a child? What is the quality children need? You're on Alexander Volchek's channel about life, business, and spirituality, about each person seeing their own next step, finding their own personal next step in every video. Today we'll discuss the next step needed in raising a child, developing yourself as a parent, or understanding the situation of raising children in general. What is this quality to instill in a child? Can you instill anything in a child at all? Can you place something in a child—a quality, a uniqueness, or conversely, something common and universal that works equally in every child, regardless of where they live, their parents, heredity, karma, state, what they want to do, or what they'll do? What is it that you can put into them?

Does such a quality exist? Let's establish a foundation, because this topic is incredibly important. It matters to every person, even if you're not a parent right now. It lets you see your own personality differently. Many people become parents at a point in their lives when—

when particular circumstances and events occur in their lives, in terms of their own reflection and understanding of how to move forward. So, a foundation. A child comes into your family. I have four children: two boys and two girls. First came the girls, thirteen and nine, and then the boys, seven and three, at least as of filming this video. A child comes into the family. The child chose where to come, based on a whole range of circumstances. They're a spiritual being, just as every person is a spiritual being, living in a spiritual world, in the world between death and birth, between birth and death. They decided to come in order to work through and live within certain tasks. When a child becomes like their parents, it's not because the parents wanted that or took particular actions. It's because the child, coming into the family, wanted to be like this family, these parents, and live and go through at least part of their life with them, entering this life through these parents.

In anyone's life, there are three causes of particular events, three foundations. First, their karma and what's formed before birth. What's important is that what was formed before birth doesn't start unfolding immediately. It fills out over roughly twenty-one years so it can unfold later. It begins unfolding at twenty-one, but at twenty-eight it really starts operating and changing. You can see how many people undergo a shift at twenty-eight. What happens to many people at twenty-one—

the shift many people undergo at twenty-one is something everyone seems to have seen. It's associated with growing up, or with being considered an adult at that age in certain places, and so on, or being allowed to do certain things. But look at twenty-eight. At twenty-eight, people often undergo a truly radical shift. They might move to another country, get married, have children, or something might change. Radically different changes. Or they die. Different changes happen during this period. One major foundation is their karma, which takes shape by twenty-one and then, at twenty-eight, begins unfolding very strongly. Between twenty-one and twenty-eight, some formation continues while karmic fulfillment is already happening. Accordingly, what happens during the first twenty-one years is, among other things, not a karmic event but a cause of what will happen in the future. Because there's karma in the future, the events happening here are both an effect and a cause of what will happen in the future.

There's a second component: heredity, what happens because of your lineage and the kind of family it is. It often has tremendous significance, so profound that the first component, the karmic circumstances of your spiritual individuality, may never unfold at all. That reveals a very important point. People often come and say, “Tell me my main task, or what I should do right now.” Depending on the period of your life, a completely different state may arise within you. You can become a different person. Together, we all observe many people in the world who change significantly, could change, or changed at a particular time. Of course, some don't change at all. For them, essentially—

they don't change. Events unfold fairly linearly and within very narrow limits. The third component with an enormous influence is what a person has done or acquired themselves in this life. Newly created karma usually moves forward; you may not even experience it in this lifetime. But many circumstances and changes you've created in this life will influence this life. Returning to the child and asking what the most important quality is to introduce so something happens, we need to rely on at least these three foundations: karma, heredity, and actions happening here and now, and consider how capable we truly are of exerting influence. When we say “introduce a quality,” we mean we want to exert influence, right? Let's call things by their names. How much do we want to influence our child, and how much are we capable of doing so? Knowing there's karma, heredity, and different life circumstances, we need to understand that the qualities we're trying to instill may affect just one small parameter. Often it may be entirely unnoticeable, just one millionth of something.

Or it may actually become incredibly important. What you introduce may matter in terms of the child's heredity. Or the quality you instill may, in fact, have already been formed, established, and predictable in advance. That's also important to recognize. When you want to exert influence, you need to understand that you're taking responsibility for that influence. Ask yourself clearly: Do I really understand this? Do I genuinely, sincerely, truly understand how it works?

Do I sincerely and truly understand how it works? Do I really understand cause and effect, see broadly, and understand what truly influences my child and will influence them in the future? For example, there are accounts saying that if a boy pees standing up at four, five, or six, then at twenty-five or thirty-five his capacity to perceive warmth and love toward other people will diminish. Imagine how many people see patterns like that. Do they see them? Some of you will say, “That's complete nonsense, rubbish, absurdity. How are those things connected?” But if we look at actual life, we'll see that a huge number of events, most events, occur entirely without our influence, involvement, or awareness. Without awareness at all. Even when we want to eat a banana, our awareness is quite limited, and we often do it entirely intuitively. Our digestion certainly works without us making all our organs switch on. That's the minimum. I'm not even talking about other events, such as the anger, aggression, or joy arising within us. We can create certain conditions or circumstances: travel to a particular place or environment, interact with certain people, shut ourselves in a room, or go to work at a particular place.

But all of this can only conditionally influence our state. One person will feel good in a forest; another will feel intense depression and apathy there and die by suicide. As a parent, when you understand that wanting to instill particular qualities means, first and foremost, wanting to change and influence your child, you need to tell yourself, “I really am capable of honestly and truthfully seeing what this person needs.” Otherwise, you're acting out your own ambitions, ego, or inability to see and perceive. Your ego is simply putting on a grand display here.

Your ego is acting itself out. Many parents want to instill what they've achieved themselves, and their ego is so large that they say, “I went to this school. Look how I turned out. My child will go to this school.” Or, “I can't ride a horse, but I've dreamed of it my whole life, so my child will be a rider. They'll definitely ride and practice horseback riding. They'll spend their whole life with horses, because I know it's great. How do I know it's great? Because it's my dream, an illusion of mine. I don't actually know it's great, because I've never done it or been involved in it. I've never spent time doing it, even if I've seen a horse once, in person or in a picture. It has nothing to do with me.” Once you've grasped this even a little, at least asked yourself that question, you then need to look and ask: how much right do you have, even if you see it as truth, to introduce something into your child's life, to change this quality? How much right do you truly have?

As a father, I definitely bear responsibility and guide my children's lives up to a certain age, and I have the right to forbid or allow things. That's obvious up to a certain age, which can vary a little: sixteen, eighteen, twenty, give or take. I have that right until the person fully and deeply connects with their entire spiritual system. At the same time, I'm actually helping them become who they're meant to become. The best action I can instill in my child—which means the best action I can take—is to continually remember that my key, fundamental task is to do my utmost to see who this child is meant to become and try to guide them toward that—

try to guide them toward that life. Don't intrude on it or load it with your whims, amusements, desires, endless knowledge, hobbies, thoughts, or attitudes. The child will pick everything up from you anyway, don't worry. They'll pick up everything: your behavior at home with your husband or wife, whether you live together joyfully, harmoniously, or are divorced; whether you truly, sincerely love each other or create an illusion; how you communicate and hear one another, and in fact, how you hear yourself. Your husband or wife isn't responsible for raising your children or ensuring the child takes in what's best, most honest, and purest. You yourself are responsible. I'm the only one responsible for conveying something to my children as honestly, truthfully, and sincerely as possible. My wife bears responsibility on her side. Looking ahead in life, it's an incredibly important, wonderful state to remain aware and study how my perception or movement forward has influenced things, and how my wife's movement forward has influenced them. But many other things influence them too. At the very least, the most important influence on your child is the child themselves.

That's why no two children repeat one another, and no two events repeat one another. I have four children, and all four are different. Not just in character, behavior, or how they perceive the sky, forest, nature, large groups of people, cars, or food. They're completely different in appearance too. My—

completely different, of course. Look at my two girls: they're completely different physically and in their behavior, habits, and desires. We can see how children influence other children, how older children bring something to younger ones because they spend so much time together. The place a child attends, a school or preschool, also has an enormous influence. It's funny: people say, “Of course you should send a child to preschool as early as possible. They need socialization.” Someone very close to me, a Brahmin from India, says, “It's amazing how people think. Who told them all these people, all these children their child meets at preschool, are good? Who told you all children are good?” Children become adults, and at that point we clearly distinguish good people from bad. But the child already contains that spiritual being, that adult person. When you send a child to preschool or school, you need to understand that this group of souls has an enormous influence on one another.

Usually, the group isn't accidental. No one is there by chance, because they exert a tremendous, powerful influence on one another. This certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't send anyone to preschool or school. It means making the decision consciously, rather than simply shouting that the child needs socialization. It's phenomenal! A huge number of people have decided that a child absolutely needs socialization, lots of people around them. Why? Because they've seen, and see, lots of people who behave badly in society or can't cope with large groups. Yet those people who can't cope with large groups attended preschool as children—for example, a Soviet preschool with lots of people. What's your logic? Where did you find that cause-and-effect relationship? You could argue the opposite causal connection. Doesn't it seem to you that all these people who can't communicate went to preschool—

communicate. They went to preschool, and something happened there that left them withdrawn now, unable to talk to other people or to perceive anyone with ease, love, and joy. The best quality you can instill in a child, an incredibly powerful and important quality, is the understanding: I love myself as a person; I have a responsibility to myself in this life; I deserve to move forward in this life; I can move forward no matter what. Difficulties around me give me an opportunity to move forward and develop. All the opportunities around me let me move forward and develop. Whether I write well or badly, speak well or badly, have beautiful eyes or not, a beautiful body or not, have pimples or not. Whether I speak quickly or slowly. Whether I draw a white snowman or a pink one. No matter what, first and foremost nurture a child's sense of love for themselves. A parent can bring that sense of love for oneself when the parent loves themselves deeply, truly, and sincerely.

Loving yourself isn't ego. Loving yourself lets you love everyone else. The ability to love others means seeing many children and finding a spark and significance for your life in all of them. They're all equal. You don't pick out which one is yours and which belongs to someone else. You don't divide them according to particular circumstances. You see the same human being in each—

the same human being, whether it's your own child or someone else's. Do you have that quality or not? Or would you kill another person but spare your own? Who is closer to you as a human being? With my children, I'll always try to remain in a state of not wanting to influence them, consciously understanding that a child is a unique person with their own life. I'll introduce my ideas very carefully, understanding that I could be wrong and might not truly see what this child's life should be. Support this person with heart and love, with real, honest human help. Don't manipulate them for my own benefit and, most importantly, don't manipulate them because of my own fears about the future. People fear their child will get sick. They fear their child won't get into a particular class. They fear the teacher will say their child is doing poorly. They fear their child will do something bad, make them look bad, or turn out worse than them. They fear that while they're connected to this child and haven't yet died, something bad will happen to this child, this person.

But you know, everyone will die someday, and good and bad things happen to everyone. That's human life. We need to raise people through love, through the heart, through our own work and example. Most importantly, through our own development. When I develop as a person, work on myself, look for my path of development, and give it a lot of attention, instead of declining at home—

declining at home in front of the television or a series, with a bottle of beer, vodka, or whiskey, or living in my own illusions and debauchery involving others, manipulating and deceiving other people. Because a child reads all of it, absorbs it, takes it in: both the vodka and the love. It's a difficult, incredibly important topic because it allows a person to expand their consciousness and thinking. Only a person with expanded thinking, a person who operates on a large scale, can take many different actions on a large scale. Something that seems so remote to many people—the importance of love and children's development—affects your business results, your professional work, your partnerships, how you feel, and the freedom you truly have in life. That freedom in the world, in perceiving nature, space, partnerships, the social environment, countries, all the horror in the world, and all the kindness, warmth, and sunshine here. Be sure to like this video. Subscribe, and leave comments, gratitude, or even irritation about what you've received and heard. Watch the other videos. I try to make them for you. I try to make them something other than a pill for everyone.

I try to make videos where you personally can hear and find your next step, a step you can take in life. We're constantly deciding where to go. How important it is to know the right actions we need to take today, tomorrow, in a week, or at any moment. Until next time!

Or at any moment. Until next time! Alexander Volchek and my channel about business, life, and spirituality.