“We have schools for everything, but not for parenting,” said celebrated monk and motivational speaker Gaur Gopal Das, underlining the need to treat parenting as a discipline that requires learning and understanding.
Das was speaking at a special Symposium Dialogue, “Strong Families. Strong Minds,” held in Hyderabad on August 20, where he joined noted psychiatrist Dr. Pratima Murthy, former Director and Senior Professor of Psychiatry at NIMHANS, to discuss the role of families in building emotional resilience and stronger minds.
The symposium, a platform for community conversations promoted by Girish Mallpani, founder of MPM Group, brought together perspectives from spirituality and contemporary psychiatry to explore how families can become safe spaces for emotional support, resilience and mental well-being.
Das stressed that today’s children are growing up in a very different environment and that parents need to understand their children’s perspectives rather than simply impose their own experiences on them.
He illustrated the point with a humorous story about a child who was asked how old his parents were. The child replied that they were the same age as him because they had been parents only since he was born. The example, he said, reflected the reality that parents are also learning the “ABCD of parenting” as their children grow.
He said that parents, teachers and families often make judgments based only on what they can see, without knowing the circumstances or experiences that may be influencing a person’s response. Understanding the unseen context, he suggested, is essential for empathy and meaningful communication.
Explaining that challenges help us grow, he said, “You can never grow without resistance, and resilience is about seeking help. Repression is about rejecting a problem.” He also explained the importance of a strong family environment and the role of family support in building resilience.
Strong families, he said, provide safe spaces where people can speak without fear of being compared, judged or lectured. Such spaces allow individuals to seek help rather than suppress their difficulties. He urged people not to fight their battles alone, but to draw strength from their families and support systems. A strong family, he said, can make even difficult problems appear less overwhelming.
“No plane has ever crashed because of turbulence. Planes are built to withstand such disturbances. They may cause difficulty and inconvenience, but they are part of the journey. So are the problems in our lives,” he said. “The end of life is not in our hands and there is no point worrying about every turbulence along the way,” he added. “We need money to go up in a plane, but we need naseeb (luck) for the landing. The turbulence is not in our hands. So is life,” he told the audience.
He urged the audience to focus on living rather than merely existing. “God gave us life not to die every day, but to live — not just exist. Enjoy every moment of life,” he said. Observing that people today were “living less and dying more,” he described ours as a “generation of fake smiles,” where people often have little time for one another. In many relationships, he said, couples may not share what they are going through with anyone; “only their pillows know what they have been going through.” “No one looks better than their DP on Instagram and no one looks uglier than on an Aadhaar Card,” he said in his trademark wit.
He emphasised that strong families help build strong minds, just as an expert pilot knows how to navigate through turbulence. The turbulence may be beyond our control, he said, but how we respond to it — and the people we turn to for support — can make all the difference.
Das also underlined the importance of communication and referred to Gary Chapman’s concept of the five love languages — words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch — to explain that people express and receive affection in different ways.
Drawing on his own relationship with his father and family, he spoke about the emotional “deposits” family members make in their relationships over the years, which can become a source of strength during difficult times.
“If you did not invest in a relationship, you don’t get to withdraw,” he said, encouraging people to reflect on what they contribute to their relationships. He suggested a simple exercise of asking oneself at the end of each day: “What did I deposit in my relationships today? What did I withdraw?”
The fireside conversation with Dr. Pratima Murthy brought together complementary perspectives on human well-being — spiritual wisdom and contemporary psychiatry. The discussion examined how families can remain emotionally connected amid increasing stress and isolation, how spiritual perspectives can complement mental-health approaches, and what individuals and families can do to develop resilience, compassion and emotional strength.
Dr. Murthy brought a professional mental-health perspective to the dialogue, creating an intersection of lived experience, spiritual reflection and contemporary psychiatric understanding.
Das later responded to questions from members of the audience, extending the conversation to practical issues around parenting, relationships and emotional resilience.
The dialogue was attended by more than 250 people, including senior bureaucrats, former police officials, business leaders, industrialists, policymakers and professionals from different sectors.
Among those present were Naveen Mittal, Special Chief Secretary; former Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi; former DGPs Anurag Sharma and Anjani Kumar; former Commissioner of Police A.K. Khan; FTCCI President K.K. Maheshwari; FTCCI Senior Vice-President Srinivas Garimella; Swathi of GreenCo; veteran business leader Raj Kumar Mallpani, and several prominent members of Hyderabad’s business and professional community.
