A few articles in the news last week seemed to relate to the rising trend in irresponsible sex in today's youth.
In Wales over 2000 legal abortions where carried out in 2007 over half of these teenage girls had had a previous abortion!! According to the BBC this is now the highest in Europe.
Last weeks Time magazine talks about the global increase in pregnancies in girls aged 15 - 19 and what to do about it.
There was more related news, all rounded off by a 7 year old girl who has been hired as an agony aunt by a radio station in the south of England, giving out sage advice such as 'girl, if you want a man you have to shake your booty'.
All of the respective journalists give their views on how to solve the problems, all being very liberal and almost encouraging future "headaches"........have more abortion clinics and advertise them to remove their stigma........ have sex education at an earlier age so kids have an open an progressive view of sex...........ahhh isn't she cute, she doesn't know what she's saying (or doing).
Now at first I was condemning all of this and saying how society was degrading, I'm disgusted etc etc, but what would my answer to the problems be??? It's all very well for me to judge others actions and opinions from my supposed higher moral ground but do I have an answer?
As a monk would I immediately try and convince the general youth of today about the freedom afforded by celibacy, the way it liberates one from the pressures of modern society? I don't think I would have much luck. No, after much thought I came to a simple solution, some may say naive.
My Answer, chant Hare Krishna.
Too simple?
Well it worked for me and believe me before I became a monk 12 years ago calling me a tart would've been an understatement, I'll leave it at that.
Seriously though, just off the top of my head I can see how this could work.
In a school with regular meditation programs that give the kids a practical taste of how fulfilling an internal relationship with Krishna (the all attractive personality of godhead) is, that introduced them to a higher pleasure, that requires a lot less hassle than sex. Revolutionary sex education with mantra meditation.
Later on in life when these kids were looking for happiness where would they turn? sure maybe to the material but also to the higher, more satisfying activity of chanting krishna's names. Of course it requires much more discussion and thought than I can afford in a blog ( I mean, are you still reading this far down let alone if I carried on for another 2000 words :) ) but I have some experience of the process of chanting Hare Krishna working, attracting me away from the temporary delights of material pleasure and giving me a happiness stronger than sex and a lot longer lasting.
so there is my very short abbreviated answer to the above problems. If we could implement it then maybe the abortion and teenage pregnancy rates would decrease along with the mental and physical suffering that goes along with it.
We'll never know if we don't try.
Hey nice blog Prema, definitely better than the one I started up! This is nicely situated at the top of my bookmarks now..
ReplyDeleteAs for your ideas, I think it would be an interesting social experiment to try out, but as for the success, hmm, the media and peer influence is mighty powerful.
Keep them coming, I thought I knew how far things had fallen, but seven years old?! I think I was just getting introduced to pokemon at that age!
Pokemon? Try Power Rangers!
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of bringing Krishna into school would turn out alot like putting Christianity into schools, kids would rather bunk off and spray paint on walls than give up there time to become happy, I for one wouldn't like the idea at that age, being rather fresh (2/3 years)out from school and having gone to several schools through my life - have seen alot of people disagree with religions and various way of life's, I can only openly say that I'm on this blog and interested in the life of a Monk because it comes to be interesting in my eyes.
I do agree the rate of teenage pregnancy is just, unbelievable and no doubt it's my generation to blame, but to bring more religions into the school will start to play with peoples heads, learning about Christianity in primary school felt more like I was trying to be forced to become Christian, we would be forced to prey our daily bread and thank Christ everyday, it wasn't even a Christian school as such.
Great blog though, very interesting and funny, you have a great way of writing.
RE: Alan
ReplyDeleteMy thinking was less trying to bring Krishna into the schools like a forced Theology class but more of a simple meditation class not a religious studies class just to give them a taste of the benifits of meditation. A lot of schools do it with yoga and the stats show that the schools with yoga classes tend to have a better class of students, more rounded as individuals and with better results. So i really believe it would help not just with the teen sex problems but also with the whole education system.