Recently I was asked by my son’s teacher to write a note. The note was to share the beliefs and values we hold with our son (11 years old). It was a good exercise to reduce the Analytical Faith to a practical set of values and beliefs by which one should lead their life. And to make it understandable for an 11 year old made me really think hard about the essence. Here is what I wrote.

Dear Anand,
In your humanities class you are going to learn about beliefs and values. So I wanted to share some of the beliefs and values that we—your mother and I–adhere to and would like to pass on to you.
1. Knowledge: We must always be open to learn new things. An ignorant person makes bad decisions, and does not even know it. Learning enables us to know what is good or bad. You should continue to learn throughout your life; both about the world and yourself. For example, once we ate snails and they tasted good, French food did not seem that weird after all.
2. Good intentions: Once we know what is “good” (see point 1), we should think, say and act with good intentions at all times. Everyone has a right to be happy. We should not do anything to hurt them. Of course, you have a right to be happy as well. And you should not do anything which will make you unhappy. Sometimes things seem good but are really not that great overall. So skipping homework to watch a movie might give happiness immediately. But it may not be worth the trouble in the class next day!
3. Hard work: As long as you are doing the right things with good intention (point 2), you should do them with passion and a lot of energy. Anything worth doing is worth doing with all your heart and energy. You remember the great amount of fun we had in building the robot late into the night before the science fair?
4. Patience: Sometimes in life despite having the knowledge (point 1), good intentions (point 2) and working hard (point 3) you will face difficulties. Maybe the grades will not be good, or some kid will continue to bother you. In such cases, you should remember to be patient. It will turn out for the best. Remember when we moved to India, and you did not have that much fun in the new school. With effort and patience, you have gotten to love the school and the same place seems like a lot of fun now.
5. Sharing: As you observe the values listed above, you will meet with a lot of success. You should remember to share that with your family, friends and even less fortunate strangers. Do you remember how good you felt when you shared the five pound note (which was your pocket money) with the poor old man outside the London tube station?
I hope you will adopt these five simple values. They work well together. Once you come up with your beliefs and values please do share them with us. You see, our belief is that it is good to keep learning new things!

Yours lovingly,
Dad