So he said, ”Great!” And that’s how later on he did it for the rest of his life: ”Doctor (Seth)
Govindadas.” He could not leave out that seth either. And when Jawaharlal saw those brackets,
he said, ”Who has suggested these brackets to you? Can’t you leave out that seth, or put it at the
end?”
He said, ”I cannot leave it out. It is one of my great friends who has suggested it to me, and he
cannot be wrong. The brackets are perfectly right.”
Jawaharlal said, ”To me there is no problem. You write whatsoever you want, but two titles in front
simply make you a laughingstock.”
Govindadas again asked me what to do. I said, ”You don’t be bothered by Jawaharlal; the
brackets are meaningless. The brackets simply mean ”underground”: doctor aboveground and seth
underground – and you are both. Tell Jawaharlal clearly, ‘I am both. If people don’t write two titles in
front, the simple reason is they don’t have them. There is no other reason; they don’t have them. I
have got two titles so I have to write them.’”
What is the difference? But so much attachment to names, titles, professions, religions – and this is
all your identity. And behind all this brown bag is lost your original face.
You are asking me how, in our commune, we can save the original face of our children.
You don’t have to do anything directly.
Anything done directly will be a disturbance.
You have to learn the art of non-doing.
That is a very difficult art.
It is not something that you have to do to protect, to save, the original face of the child. Whatever
you do will distort the original face. You have to learn non-doing; you have to learn to keep away,
out of the way of the child. You have to be very courageous because it is risky to leave the child to
himself.
For thousands of years we have been told, if the child is left to himself he will be a savage.
That is sheer nonsense. I am siting before you – do you think I am a savage? And I have lived
without being interfered with by my parents. Yes, there was much trouble for them and there will be
much trouble for you too, but it is worth it.
The original face of the child is so valuable that any trouble is worth it. It is so priceless that
whatsoever you have to pay for it, it is still cheap; you are getting it without paying anything. And
the joy on the day you find your child with his original face intact, with the same beauty that he had
brought into the world, the same innocence, the same clarity, the same joyfulness, cheerfulness, the
same aliveness .... What more can you expect?
You cannot give anything to the child, you can only take. If you really want to give a gift to the child,
this is the only gift possible: don’t interfere. Take the risk and let the child go into the unknown, into
the uncharted. It is difficult. Great fear grips the parents – who knows what will happen to the child?
Out of this fear they start molding a certain pattern of life for the child. Out of fear they start directing
him into a particular way, towards a particular goal, but they don’t know that because of their fear
they are killing the child. He will never be blissful. And he will never be grateful to you; he will always
carry a grudge against you.
Sigmund Freud has a great insight in this matter: he says, ”Every culture respects the father. No
culture on earth exists, or has ever existed, which has not propounded, propagated the idea that
the father has to be respected.” Sigmund Freud says, ”This respect for the father arises because
sometime back in prehistoric times the father must have been killed by the children just to save
themselves from being crippled.”
It is a strange idea, but very significant. He is saying that the respect is being paid to the father out of
guilt, and that guilt has been carried for thousands of years. Somewhere ... it is not a historical fact,
but a meaningful myth, that young people must have killed their father and then repented – naturally,
because he was their father; but he was driving them into ways where they were not happy.
They killed him, but then they repented. Then they started worshipping the spirits of the ancestors,
fathers, forefathers, out of fear, because the ghosts of those can take revenge. And then slowly,
slowly, it became a convention to be respectful towards the elders. But why?
I would like you to be respectful to the children.
The children deserve all the respect you can manage, because they are so fresh, so innocent, so
close to godliness. It is time to pay respect to them, not to force them to pay respect to all kinds of
corrupted people – cunning, crooked, full of shit – just because they are old.
In my commune I would like to reverse the whole thing: respect towards the children because they
are closer to the source, you are far away. They are still original, you are already a carbon copy. And
do you understand what it can do if you are respectful to children? Then through love and respect
you can save them from going in any wrong direction – not out of fear but out of your respect and
love.
My grandfather .... I could speak a lie to anybody – even if I met God I could speak a lie without any
trouble – but I could not speak a lie to my grandfather because he respected me so much. When
the whole family was against me I could at least depend on the old man. He would not bother about
all the proofs that were against me. He would say, ”I don’t care what he has done. If he has done it,
it must be right. I know him, he cannot do wrong.”
And when he was with me of course the whole family had to shrink back. I would tell him the whole
thing, and he would say, ”There is no need to be worried. Do whatsoever you feel is right, because
who else can decide? In your situation, in your place, only you can decide. Do whatsoever you feel
is right, and always remember that I am here to support you, because I not only love you, I respect
you too.”
His respect towards me was the greatest treasure I could have received. When he was dying I was
eighty miles away. He informed me that I should come immediately because there was not much
time. I came quickly; within two hours I was there.
It was as if he was just waiting for me. He opened his eyes and he said, ”I was just trying to continue
to breathe so that you could reach me. Just one thing I want to say: I will not be here now to support
you, and you will need support. But remember, wherever I am, my love and my respect will remain
with you. Don’t be afraid of anybody, don’t be afraid of the world.”
Those were his last words:
”Don’t be afraid of the world.”
Respect the children, make them fearless.
But if you are yourself full of fear, how can you make them fearless?
Don’t force respect on them towards you because you are their father, you are their daddy, their
mom, this and that.
Change this attitude and see what transformation respect can bring to your children.
They will listen to you more carefully if you respect them. They will try to understand you and your
mind more carefully if you respect them. They have to. And in no way are you imposing anything;
so if by understanding they feel you are right and they go on that way, they will not lose their original
face.
The original face is not lost by going on a certain way. It is lost by children being forced, forced
against their will.
Love and respect can sweetly help them to be more understanding about the world, can help them
to be more alert, aware, careful – because life is precious, and it is a gift from existence. We should
not waste it.
At the moment of death we should be able to say that we are leaving the world better, more beautiful,
more graceful.
But this is possible only if we leave this world with our original face, the same face with which we
have come into it.
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