Page 12 - All India Magazine Jan-2025

capacities: one dreams of being able to rise into the air, of being
wherever it is necessary to be, of setting things right when they
go wrong, of healing the sick; indeed, one has all sorts of dreams
when one is very young.... Usually parents or teachers pass their
time throwing cold water on it, telling you, "Oh! it's a dream, it is
not a reality." They should do the very opposite! Children should
be taught, "Yes, this is what you must try to realise and not only is
it possible but it is certain if you come in contact with the part in
you which is capable of doing this thing. This is what should guide
your life, organise it, make you develop in the direction of the true
reality which the ordinary world calls illusion."

Cultivate enthusiasm and faith
This is what it should be, instead of making children ordinary,
with that dull, vulgar common sense which becomes an inveterate
habit and, when something is going well, immediately brings up
in the being the idea: "Oh, that won't last!", when somebody is
kind, the impression, "Oh, he will change!", when one is capable of
doing something, "Oh, tomorrow I won't be able to do it so well."
This is like an acid, a destructive acid in the being, which takes
away hope, certitude, confidence in future possibilities.
When a child is full of enthusiasm, never throw cold water
on it, never tell him, "You know, life is not like that!" You should
always encourage him, tell him, "Yes, at present things are not
always like that, they seem ugly, but behind this there is a beauty
that is trying to realise itself. This is what you should love and
draw towards you, this is what you should make the object of your
dreams, of your ambitions."
And if you do this when you are very small, you have much
less difficulty than if later on you have to undo, undo all the bad
effects of a bad education, undo that kind of dull and vulgar com-
mon sense which means that you expect nothing good from life,
which makes it insipid, boring, and contradicts all the hopes, all the

12 All India Magazine, January 2025