LEARNING ABOUT LIFE FROM THE FAMILY
Continuous Experience
THE family is a unit of larger humanity. The conditions found at the macro-level in mankind are also found, on a smaller scale, within each family. In this sense, for every person, the family serves as a training school. Within our own families, we can learn all the many things that are necessary in order to lead a successful life in this world. But there is one condition for this—you must not idolize your family. You should view your family in just the same way as you view other people.
It sounds strange, but it’s true: you can find all the many different types of characters that exist in the world among members of your own family! For everyone, one’s family is like the legendary cup of the Persian king Jamshid.
If you looked into this cup, so the story went, you could see every single thing in the universe! In the mirror of your family you can see models of all sorts of moral standards, high and low. In this way, by interactions with one’s family members, one can gain valuable experience. The wisdom gained from these experiences will be of immense help in the course of planning realistically.
Most people fall prey to a one-sided way of thinking about members of their families. This is due to lack of objective, unbiased thinking.
Very few of us, however, take proper advantage of these potential learning experiences afforded to us by our families. Why does one miss out on such a learning opportunity? There is just one reason for this—it is lack of objective, unbiased thinking. Most people fall prey to a very one-sided way of thinking about members of their families. They ignore or seek to ignore the faults of their near and dear ones. They view people outside their families critically, but they generally don’t think in the same way when it comes to their family members. Because of this, they fail to draw the lessons they could from both members of their families as well as others.