Who Is Your Real Family?

We have heard much about the value of family and how, in the end, family is really the most important thing. It is the relationships within family that brings us the greatest happiness and are the foundation and the stability of our individual lives and our society.

But what if we considered the whole world as our family? Every country a part of the family of nations? And everyone we meet as dear to us as our own folk? As the Tamil poet Poongundranar wrote over two millennia ago, “every place is my hometown, everyone my kith and kin…”

Oh, how this world could change! Economics, politics, government and distribution of global resources would all be transformed. This is the ideal behind the saying “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,” from Vedic literature and Hindu traditions. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam  translates approximately as “the World is my Family.” This declaration of spiritual philosophy gives us the key to making all of our relationships sacred.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam goes hand-in-hand with the Lakota prayer phrase “Mitakuye Oyasin” which translates closely to “all my relations” or “we are all related.”

All children are our children.
All elders are our elders.
The illness or health of one of us, is the concern of all of us.
We are our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers.
We survive and thrive depending on our relationships to one another.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is the 2015 theme for Shiva Sai Mandir, Denver, Colorado USA.

Here are two uplifting music videos:
Click here for a VasudhaivaKutumbakam music video!
Click here for a MitakuyeOyasin music video!

“We all have families who are longing for peace in the world and an end to the suffering caused by poverty, disease, and hunger. Untold numbers of our friends, our neighbors, our parents, and our children, are hoping that there is more understanding, more generosity, more genuine friendship, and more caring among people of all faiths and cultures.”

-John Conyers, Politician & Social Change Advocate