Theosophy - Our relation to children by C.W.Leadbeater
OUR
RELATION TO CHILDREN
C. W. Leadbeater
[abridged]
CONTENTS
In
Oriental Countries
Better Understanding Needed
The Child and Reincarnation
Shaping the Child's Future
Strengthen the Good
How Thought Works
Responsibility of the
Teacher
Children are Egos
Theosophy for Children
Physical Training and
Purity
It cannot be denied that from the theosophical standpoint the subject of our
relation to children is an exceedingly important and practical one. Realizing,
as we must, the purpose for which the ego [ relatively
permanent self, not the personality ]
descends into incarnation, and knowing to how great an extent its attainment
of that purpose depends upon the training given to its various vehicles during
their childhood and growth, we cannot but feel, if we think at all, that a tremendous
responsibility attaches to all of us who are in any way connected with children,
whether as parents, elder relatives, or teachers. It is well, therefore, that
we should consider what hints Theosophy can give us as to the way in which we
can best discharge this responsibility.
It may seem presumptuous
that a bachelor should venture to offer suggestions to parents upon a subject
so especially their own; so I ought, perhaps, to preface such remarks as
I wish to make by saying that, though I have none of my own, I have always
been fond of children, and in very close relation with them through almost
the whole of my life —
for many years as a Sunday school teacher, then as a clergyman, school-manager
and choir trainer, and as headmaster of a large boys' school. So that I am,
at any rate, speaking from long, practical experience, and not merely vaguely
theorizing.
Before making suggestions, however,
I should like to draw attention to the present condition of our relation to
children in the midst of European civilization. Our children regard grown-up
people (in the mass) with scarcely veiled hostility, or, at the best, with a
kind of armed neutrality, and always with deep distrust, as foreigners whose
motives are incomprehensible to them, and whose actions are perpetually interfering
in the most unwarrantable and apparently malicious manner with their right to
enjoy themselves in their own way. I should strongly advise every parent to
read Kenneth Grahame's The Golden Age; it puts the children's point
of view better than any other book which I know.
Many a man, or woman, thinks of children
only as noisy, dirty, greedy, clumsy, selfish and generally objectionable; and
he never realizes that there may be a good deal of selfishness in this point
of view of his, and that if any part of his indictment is true, the fault has
been not so much in the children themselves as in the unreasonable way in which
they have been brought up; furthermore, that in any case his duty is not to
widen the chasm between them and himself by adopting an attitude of dislike
and distrust, but rather to endeavour to improve the position of affairs by
judicious kindness and hearty, patient friendliness and sympathy.
Surely there is something
wrong about such unsatisfactory relations; surely some improvement might
be brought about in this unfortunate condition of mutual hostility and mistrust.
Of course, there are honourable exceptions — there are children who
trust their teachers and teachers who trust their students, and I myself
have never found any difficulty in winning the confidence of the juveniles
by treating them properly; but in a sadly large number of instances the case
is as I have described it.
In
Oriental Countries
That it need not be so
is shown not only by the exceptions mentioned above, but by the condition
of affairs which we find existing in some oriental lands. I have not yet
had the pleasure of visiting Japan, but I hear from those who have been there
and have made some study of this question, that there is no country in the
world where children are so well and so sensibly treated — where their
relations with their elders are so completely satisfactory. Harshness, it
is said, is entirely unknown, yet the children in no way presume upon the
gentleness of the older people. In India and Ceylon also, on the whole, the
relations of children and adults are certainly more rational than they usually
are in England, though I have occasionally seen instances of undue severity
there which show that those countries have not yet attained quite so high
a level as Japan in this respect.
No doubt this is partly due to the
difference of race. The oriental child usually has not the irrepressible animal
spirits and the intense physical activity of his English representative, nor
has he his pronounced aversion to mental exertion. Strange and incomprehensible
as it would sound to the ears of a British schoolboy, the Indian child is really
eager to learn, and is always willing to do any amount of work out of school-hours
in order that he may make more rapid progress. It is no injustice to the average
English boy to say that he regards play as the most important part of his life,
and that he looks upon lessons as distinctly a bore to be avoided as far as
possible, or perhaps as a kind of game which he has to play against the teacher.
If the latter can force him to learn anything, that counts as a score to the
side of authority: but if he can anyhow escape without learning a lesson, then
he in turn has scored a point. In the East, such a child as this is the exception
and not the rule; the majority of them are really anxious to learn, and co-operate
intelligently with their teacher instead of offering him ceaseless though passive
resistance.
Perhaps if I describe a little incident
which I have more than once witnessed in Ceylon, it will help my readers to
understand how different the position of children really is in an oriental race.
Readers of The Arabian Nights will remember how it constantly happens
that when some king or great man is sitting in judgement, a casual passer-by
— perhaps a porter or beggar — breaks in and offers his opinion
on the matter in hand, and is politely listened to, instead of being summarily
arrested or ejected for such a breach of the proprieties.
Impossible as this seems to us, it
was undoubtedly absolutely true to life, and on a smaller scale the same sort
of thing occurs today, as I myself have seen. It came in the course of my work
to travel about among the villages of Ceylon, trying to induce their residents
to appreciate the advantages of education, and to found schools in which their
children could be systematically taught their own religion instead of being
left either to the rather haphazard instruction of the monks at the pansalas,
or to the proselytizing efforts of the Christian missionaries.
When I arrived at a village I called
upon the headman, and asked him to convoke the inhabitants to hear what I had
to say; and after the address the chief people of the place usually held a sort
of council, to decide where and how their school should be built and how they
could best set about the work. Such a council was generally held in the verandah
of the headman's house or under a great tree close by, with the whole village
in attendance around the debaters.
More than once on such
occasions I have seen a small boy of ten or twelve stand up respectfully
before the great people of his little world, and suggest, deferentially,
that if the school were erected in the place proposed it would make it exceedingly
inconvenient for such and such children to attend; and in every case the
small boy was treated precisely as an adult would have been, the local grandees
listening courteously and patiently, and allowing their due weight to the
juvenile's arguments. What would happen if in England an agricultural labourer's
child publicly offered a suggestion to the county magnates gathered in solemn
assembly, one hardly dares to imagine; probably that child's suppression
would be summary and unpleasant; but as a matter of fact the situation is
absolutely unthinkable under our present conditions — more is the pity!
Better
Understanding Needed
But how, it may be asked, is it proposed
that this position of mutual mistrust and misunderstanding should be improved?
Well, it is evident that in cases where this breach already exists, it can be
bridged over only by unwearying kindness, and by gradual, patient but constant
efforts to promote a better understanding by steadily showing unselfish affection
and sympathy; in fact by habitually putting ourselves in the child's place and
trying to realize exactly how all these matters appear to him. If we, who are
adults, had not so entirely forgotten our own childish days, we should make
far greater allowances for the children of today, and should understand and
deal with them much better.
This is, however, very emphatically
one of the cases in which the old proverb holds good, which tells us that prevention
is better than cure. If we will but take a little trouble to begin in the right
way with our children from the very first, we shall easily be able to avoid
the undesirable state of affairs which we have been describing. And this is
exactly where Theosophy has many a valuable hint to offer to those who are in
earnest in wishing to do their duty by the young ones committed to their charge.
Of course, the absolute nature of
this duty of parents and teachers towards children must first be recognized.
We cannot too strongly or too repeatedly insist that parentage is an exceedingly
heavy responsibility of a religious nature, however lightly and thoughtlessly
it may often be undertaken. Those who bring a child into the world make themselves
directly responsible to the law of karma for the opportunities of evolution
which they ought to give to that ego, and heavy indeed will be their penalty
if by their carelessness or selfishness they put hindrances in his path, or
fail to render him all the help and guidance which he has a right to expect
from them. Yet how often the modern parent entirely ignores this obvious responsibility;
how often a child is to him nothing but a cause of fatuous vanity or an object
of thoughtless neglect!
The
Child and Reincarnation
Now, if we want to understand
our duty towards the child we must first consider how he came to be what
he is —
that is to say, we must trace him back in thought to his previous incarnation.
Fifteen hundred years ago or so your child was perhaps a Roman citizen, perhaps
a philosopher of Alexandria, perhaps an early Briton; but whatever may have
been his outward circumstances, he had a definite disposition of his own —
a character containing various more or less developed qualities, some good
and some bad.
In due course of time that
life of his came to an end; but remember that whether that end came slowly
by disease or old age, or swiftly by some accident or violence, its advent
made no sudden change of any sort in his character. A curious delusion seems
to prevail in many quarters that the mere fact of death will at once turn
a demon into a saint
— that, whatever a man's life may have been, the moment he dies he becomes
practically an angel of goodness. No idea could possibly be further from the
truth, as those whose work lies in trying to help the departed know full well.
The casting off of a man's physical body no more alters his disposition than
does the casting off of his overcoat; he is precisely the same man the day
after his death as he was the day before, with the same vices and the same
virtues.
True, now that he is functioning
only on the astral plane he has not the same opportunities of displaying
them; but though they may manifest themselves in the astral life in quite
a different manner, they are none the less still there, and the conditions
and duration of that life are their result. On that plane he must stay until
the energy poured forth by his lower desires and emotions during physical
life has worn itself out — until the astral body which he has made
for himself disintegrates; for only then can he leave it for the higher and
more peaceful realm of the heaven-world. But though those particular passions
are for the time worn out and non-existent for him, the germs of the qualities
in him, which made it possible for them to exist in his nature, are still
there. They are latent and ineffective, certainly, because desire of that
type requires astral matter for its manifestation; they are what Madame Blavatsky
once called 'privations of matter', but they are quite ready to come into
renewed activity, if stimulated, when the man again finds himself under conditions
where they can act.
An analogy may perhaps, if not pushed
too far, be of use in helping us to grasp this idea. If a small bell be made
to ring continuously in an airtight vessel, and the air be then gradually withdrawn,
the sound will grow fainter and fainter, until it becomes inaudible. The bell
is still ringing as vigorously as ever, yet its vibration is no longer manifest
to our ears, because the medium by means of which alone it can produce any effect
upon them is absent. Admit the air into the vessel, and immediately you hear
the sound of the bell once more just as before.
Similarly, there are certain qualities
in man's nature which need astral matter for their manifestation, just as sound
needs either air or some denser matter for its vehicle; and when, in the process
of his withdrawal into himself after what we call death, he leaves the astral
plane for the mental, those qualities can no longer find expression, and must
therefore perforce remain latent. But when, centuries later, on his downward
course into reincarnation he re-enters the astral plane, these qualities which
have remained latent for so long manifest themselves once more and become the
tendencies of the next personality.
In the same way there are qualities
of the mind which need for their expression the matter of the lower mental levels;
and when, after his long rest in the heaven-world the consciousness of the man
withdraws into the true ego upon the higher mental levels, these qualities also
pass into latency.
But when the ego is about
to reincarnate, it has to reverse this process of withdrawal — to pass
downward through the very same planes through which it came on its upward
journey. When the time of its outflow comes, it puts itself down first on
to the lower levels of its own plane, and seeks to express itself there as
far as is possible in that less perfect and less plastic matter.
In order that it may so
express itself and function upon that plane it must clothe itself in the
matter of the plane, just as an entity at a spiritualistic séance, when it wishes to move
physical objects, materializes a temporary physical hand with which to do it,
or, at any rate, employs physical forces of some kind to produce its results.
It is not at all necessary that such a hand should be materialized sufficiently
to be visible to our dull, ordinary sight. But to produce a physical result
there must be materialization to a certain extent — as far as etheric
matter, at any rate.
Thus the ego aggregates
around itself matter of the lower mental levels — the matter which
will afterwards become its mind-body. But this matter is not selected at
random; on the contrary, out of all the varied and inexhaustible store around
him he attracts to himself just such a combination as is perfectly fitted
to give expression to his latent mental qualities. In precisely the same
way, when he makes the further descent on to the astral plane, the matter
of that plane which is by natural law attracted to him to serve as his vehicle
in that world, is exactly that which will give expression to the desires
which were his at the conclusion of his last birth. In point of fact, he
resumes his life on each plane just where he left it last time.
Observe that those are not as yet
in any way qualities in action; they are simply the germs of qualities, and
for the moment their only influence is to secure for themselves a possible field
of manifestation, by providing suitable matter for their expression in the various
vehicles of the child. Whether they develop once more in this life into the
same definite tendencies as in the last one, will depend very largely upon the
encouragement or otherwise given to them by the surroundings of the child during
its early years. Any one of them, good or bad, may be very readily stimulated
into activity by encouragement, or on the other hand may be, as it were, starved
out for lack of that encouragement. If stimulated, it becomes a more powerful
factor in the man's life this time than it was in his previous existence; if
starved out, it remains all through the life merely as an unfructified germ,
and does not make its appearance in the succeeding incarnation at all.
This then is the condition of the
child when first he comes under his parent's care. He cannot be said to have
as yet a definite mind-body or a definite astral body, but he has around and
within him the matter out of which these are to be built.
He possesses tendencies of all sorts,
some of them good and some of them evil, and it is in accordance with the development
of these tendencies that that building will be regulated. And this development
in turn depends almost entirely upon the influences brought to bear upon him
from outside during the first few years of his existence.
Shaping
the Child's Future
It is simply impossible to exaggerate
the plasticity of these unformed vehicles. We know that the physical body of
a child, if only its training be begun at a sufficiently early age, may be modified
to a very considerable extent. An acrobat, for example, will take a boy of five
or six years old, whose bones and muscles are not yet as hardened and firmly
set as ours are, and will gradually accustom his limbs and body to take readily
and with comfort all sorts of positions, which would be absolutely impossible
for most of us even with any amount of training. Yet our own bodies at the same
age differed in no essential respect from that boy's, and if they had been put
through the same exercises they would have become as supple and elastic as his,
though now that they are definitely set no efforts that we could make, however
long continued, could give them the same easy flexibility.
Now if the physical body
of a child is thus plastic and readily impressible, his astral and mental
vehicles are far more so. They thrill in response to every vibration which
they encounter, and are eagerly receptive with regard to all influences,
whether good or evil, which emanate from those around them. And they resemble
the physical body also in this other characteristic — that though in
early youth they are so susceptible and so easily moulded, they very soon
set and stiffen and acquire definite habits, which when once firmly established
can be altered only with great difficulty.
When we realize this, we see at once
the extreme importance of the surroundings in which a child passes his earliest
years, and the heavy responsibility which rests upon every parent to see that
the conditions of the child's development are as good as they can be made. The
little creature is as clay in our hands, to mould almost as we will; moment
by moment the germs of good or evil quality brought over from the last birth
are awakening into activity; moment by moment are being built up those vehicles
which will condition the whole of his after-life; and it rests with us to awaken
the germ of good, to starve out the germ of evil. To a far larger extent than
is ever realized by even the fondest parents, the child's future is under their
control.
Think of all the friends whom you
know so well, and try to imagine what splendid specimens of humanity they would
be if all their good qualities were enormously intensified, and all the less
estimable features absolutely weeded out of their characters.
That is the result which it is in
your power to produce in your child if you do your full duty by him; such a
specimen of humanity you may make him if you will but take the trouble.
Strengthen
the Good
But how? you will say;
by precept? by education? Yes, truly, much may be done in that way when the
time comes; but another and far greater power than that is in your hands — a
power which you may begin to wield from the very moment of the child's birth,
and even before that; and that is the power of the influence of your own
life. To some extent this is recognized, for most civilized people are careful
of their words and actions in the presence of a child, and it would be an
unusually depraved parent who would allow his children to hear him use violent
language, or to see him give way to a fit of passion; but what a man does
not realize is that if he wishes to avoid doing the most serious harm to
his little ones, he must learn to control not only his words and deeds, but
also his thoughts. It is true that you cannot immediately see the pernicious
effect of an evil thought or desire upon the mind of your child, but none
the less it is there, and it is more real and more terrible, more insidious
and more far-reaching, than the harm which is obvious to the physical eye.
If a parent allows himself to cherish
feelings of anger or jealousy, of envy or avarice, of selfishness or pride,
even though he may never give them outward expression, the vibrations which
he thereby causes in his own desire-body are assuredly acting all the while
upon the plastic astral body of his child, tuning its vibrations to the same
key, awakening into activity any germs of these sins that may have been brought
over from his past life, and setting up in him also the same set of evil habits,
which when they have once become definitely formed will be exceedingly difficult
to correct. And this is exactly what is being done in the case of most of the
children whom we see around us.
As it presents itself to
a clairvoyant, the aura of a child is very often a most beautiful object — pure and bright
in its colour, free, as yet, from the stains of sensuality and avarice and from
the dull cloud of ill will and selfishness which so frequently darkens all the
life of the adult. In it are to be seen lying latent all the germs and tendencies
of which we have spoken — some of them evil, some of them good, and thus
the possibilities of the child's future life lie plain before the eye of the
watcher.
But how sad it is to see
the change which almost invariably comes over that lovely child-aura as the
years pass on — to note how persistently the evil tendencies are fostered
and strengthened by his environment, and how entirely the good ones are neglected!
and so incarnation after incarnation is almost wasted, and a life which,
with just a little more care and self-restraint on the part of the parents
and teachers, might have borne rich fruit of spiritual development, comes
practically to nothing, and at its close leaves scarce any harvest to be
garnered into the ego of which it has been so very one-sided an expression.
When one watches the criminal carelessness
with which those who are responsible for the bringing up of children allow them
to be perpetually surrounded by all kinds of evil and worldly thoughts, one
ceases to marvel at the extraordinary slowness of human evolution, and the almost
imperceptible progress which is all that the ego has to show for life after
life spent in the toil and struggle of this lower world. Yet with so little
more trouble so vast an improvement might be introduced!
It needs no astral vision
to see what a change would come over this weary old world if the majority,
or even any large proportion of the next generation, were subjected to the
process suggested above — if all their evil qualities were steadily
so allowed to atrophy for lack of nourishment, while all the good in them
assiduously cultivated and developed to the fullest possible extent. One
has only to think what they in turn would do for their children to realize
that in two or three generations all the conditions of life would be different,
and a true golden age would have begun. For the world at large that age may
still be distant, but surely we who are members of the Theosophical Society
ought each to be doing our best to hasten its advent: and though the influence
of our example may not extend very far, it is at least within our power to
see that our own children have for their development every advantage which
we can give them.
The very greatest care, then, ought
to be taken as to the surroundings of children. People who will persist in thinking
coarse and unloving thoughts should at least learn that while they are doing
so they are unfit to come near the young, lest they infect them with a contagion
more virulent than fever. Much care is needed, for example, in the selection
of the nurses to whom children must sometimes be committed; though it is surely
obvious that the less they are left in the hands of servants the better. Nurses
often develop the strongest affection for their charges, and treat them as though
they were of their own flesh and blood, yet this is not invariably the case,
and, however that may be, it should be remembered that the servants are almost
inevitably less educated and less refined than their mistresses, and that, therefore,
a child who is left too much to their companionship is constantly subjected
to the impact of thought which is at least not unlikely to be of a less elevated
order than even the average level of that of his parents. So that the mother
who wishes her child to grow up into a refined and delicate-minded individual
should entrust him to the care of others as little as possible, and should,
above all things, take good heed of her own thoughts while watching over him.
Her great and cardinal rule should
be to allow herself to harbour no thought and no desire which she would not
wish to see reproduced in her child. Nor is this merely negative conquest over
herself sufficient, for, happily, all that has been said about the influence
and power of thought is true of good thoughts just as much as of evil ones,
and so the parents' duty has a positive as well as a negative side. Not only
must they abstain most carefully from fostering, by unworthy or selfish thoughts
of their own, any evil tendency which may exist in their child, but it is also
their duty to cultivate in themselves strong, unselfish affection, pure thoughts,
high and noble aspirations, in order that all these may react upon their charge,
quicken whatever of good is already latent in him, and create a tendency towards
any good quality which is as yet unrepresented in his character.
How
Thought Works
Nor need they have any fear that
such effort on their part will fail of its effect, because they are unable to
follow its action for lack of astral vision. To the sight of a trained clairvoyant
the whole transaction is obvious; he would distinguish the vibrations set up
in the mind-body of the parent by the inception of the thought, would see it
radiating forth, and note the sympathetic vibration created by its impingement
upon the mind-body of the child: and if he renewed his observations at intervals
during some considerable period, he would discern the gradual but permanent
change produced in that mind-body by the constant repetition of the same stimulus
to progress. If the parents themselves possessed the astral sight, it would,
no doubt, be of great assistance to them in showing exactly what were the capabilities
of their child, and in what directions he most needed development; but if they
have not yet that advantage, there need not, therefore, be the slightest doubt
or question about the result, for that must follow sustained effort with mathematical
certainty, whether the process of its working be visible to them or not.
And not only should a parent watch
his thoughts, but his moods also. A child is quick to notice and to resent injustice;
and if he finds himself scolded at one time for an action which on another occasion
caused only amusement, what wonder that his sense of the invariability of nature's
laws is outraged! Again, when trouble and sorrow comes upon the parent, as in
this world it sometimes must, it is surely his duty to try, as far as possible,
to prevent his load of grief from weighing upon his children as well as upon
himself; at least when in their presence he should make a special effort to
be cheerful and resigned, lest the dull, leaden hue of depression should extend
itself from his aura to theirs.
Yet again, many a well-meaning
parent has an anxious and fussy nature — is always fidgeting about trifles, and
worrying his children and himself about matters which are really quite unimportant.
If he could but observe clairvoyantly the utter unrest and disquiet which he
thus produces in his aura, and could further see how these vibrations introduce
quite unnecessary agitation and irritation into the susceptible auras of his
children, he would no longer be surprised at their occasional outbursts of petulance
or nervous excitability, and would realize that in such a case he is often far
more to blame than they. What he should contemplate and set before him as his
object, is a restful, unruffled spirit — the peace which passeth all understanding
— the perfect calm which comes from the confidence that all will at last
be well.
It is further obvious that the training
of the parents' character which is necessitated by these considerations is in
every respect a splendid one, and that in thus helping on the evolution of their
children they also benefit themselves to an extent which is absolutely incalculable,
for the thoughts which at first have been summoned by conscious effort for the
sake of the child will soon become natural and habitual, and will in time form
the background of the parents' entire life.
It must not be supposed that these
precautions may be relaxed as the child grows older, for though this extraordinary
sensitiveness to the influence of his surroundings commences as soon as the
ego descends upon the embryo, sometimes long before birth takes place, it continues
in most cases up to about the period of maturity. If such influences as are
above suggested have been brought to bear upon him during infancy and childhood,
the child of twelve or fourteen will be far better equipped for the efforts
which lie before him than his less fortunate companions with whom no special
trouble has been taken. But it must be remembered that he is still far more
impressionable than an adult, and the same strong help and guidance upon the
mental plane must still be continued in order that the good habits both of thought
and of action may not yield before the newer temptations which are likely to
assail him.
Responsibility
of the Teacher
Although in his earlier years it
was naturally chiefly to his parents that he had to look for such assistance,
all that has been said of their duties applies equally to anyone who comes into
contact with children in any capacity, and most especially to those who undertake
the tremendous responsibilities of the teacher. The influence of a teacher for
good or for evil over his pupils is one that cannot readily be measured, and
(exactly as before) it depends not only upon what he says or what he does, but
even more upon what he thinks. Many a teacher repeatedly reproves in his children
the exhibition of tendencies for the creation of which he is himself directly
responsible; if his thought is selfish or impure, then he will find selfishness
and impurity reflected all around him, nor does the evil caused by such a thought
end with those whom it immediately affects.
The young minds upon which
it is reflected take it up and magnify and strengthen it, and thus it reacts
upon others in turn and becomes an unholy tradition handed down from one
generation of children to another. Happily a good tradition may be set up
almost as easily as a bad one — not quite as easily, because there
are always undesirable external influences to be taken into account; but
still a teacher who realizes his responsibilities and manages his school
upon the principles that have been suggested will very soon find that his
self-control and devotion have not been fruitless.
I am convinced that there
is only one way in which either parent or teacher can really obtain effective
influence over a child and draw out all the best that is in him — and
that is by winning his love and confidence. It is true that obedience may
be extorted and discipline preserved by inspiring fear, but rules enforced
by such a method are kept only so long as he who imposes them (or someone
representing him) is present, and are invariably broken when there is no
fear of detection; the child keeps them because he must, and not because
he wishes to do so.
But if on the other hand, his affection
has been invoked, his will at once ranges itself on the side of the rule; he
wishes to keep it, because he knows that in breaking it he would cause sorrow
to one whom he loves; and if only this feeling be strong enough, it will enable
him to rise superior to all temptation, and the rule will be binding no matter
who may be present or absent. Thus the object is attained not only much more
thoroughly, but also much more easily and pleasantly both for teacher and pupil,
and all the best side of the child's nature is called into activity, instead
of all the worst. Instead of rousing the child's will into sullen and persistent
opposition, the teacher arrays it on his own side in the contest against distractions
or temptations; and thus results are achieved which could never be approached
on the other system.
It is of the utmost importance always
to try to understand the child, and to make him feel certain that he has one's
friendliness and sympathy. All appearance of harshness must be carefully avoided,
and the reason for all instructions given to him should always be fully explained.
It must indeed be made clear to him that sometimes sudden emergencies arise
in which the older person has no time to explain his instructions, and he should
understand that in such a case he should obey even though he may not fully comprehend;
but even then the explanation should always be given afterwards.
Unwise parents or teachers
often make the mistake of habitually exacting obedience without understanding —
a most unreasonable demand; indeed they expect from the child at all times
and under all conditions an angelic patience and saintliness which they are
very far indeed from possessing themselves. They have not yet realized that
harshness towards a child is always not only wicked, but absolutely unreasonable
and foolish as well, since it can never be the most effective way of obtaining
from him what is desired.
It often happens that a
child's faults are the direct result of the unnatural way in which he is
treated. Sensitive and nervous to a degree, he constantly finds himself misunderstood,
and scolded or ill-treated for offences whose turpitude he does not in the
least comprehend; is it to be wondered at that when the whole atmosphere
about him reeks with the deceit and falsehood of his elders, his fears should
sometimes drive him into untruthfulness also? Certainly in such a case the
karma of the sin will fall most heavily upon those who, by their criminal
harshness, have placed a weak and undeveloped being in a position where it
was almost impossible for him to avoid it. If we expect truth from our children,
we must first of all practise it ourselves; we must think truth as well as
speak truth and act truth, before we can hope to be strong enough to save
them from the sea of falsehood and deceit which surrounds us on every side.
But if we treat them as reasonable beings — if we explain fully and patiently what we want from them, and
show them that they have nothing to fear from us — for 'perfect love casteth
out fear' — then we shall find no difficulty about truthfulness.
A curious but not at all uncommon
delusion is that children can never be good unless they are unhappy, that they
must be thwarted at every turn, and never by any chance allowed to have their
own way in anything, because when they are enjoying themselves they must necessarily
be in a condition of desperate wickedness! Absurd and atrocious as this doctrine
is, various modifications of it are still widely prevalent, and it is responsible
for a vast amount of cruelty and unnecessary misery wantonly inflicted upon
little creatures whose only crime was that they were natural and happy. Undoubtedly
nature intended that childhood should be a happy time, and we ought to spare
no efforts to make it so, for in that respect as in all others, if we thwart
nature we do so at our peril.
Children
are Egos
It will help us much in
our dealings with children if we remember that they also are egos, that their
small and feeble physical bodies are after all but the accident of the moment,
and that in reality we are all about the same age. Our business in training
them is to develop only that in their lower nature which will co-operate
with the ego — which
will make it a better channel for the ego to work through. Long ago, in the
golden age of the old Atlantean civilization, the importance of the office
of the teacher of the children was so fully recognized that none was permitted
to hold it except a trained clairvoyant, who could see all the latent qualities
and capabilities of his charges, and could, therefore, work intelligently
with each so as to develop what was good in him, and to amend what was evil.
In the distant future it may be that
that will be so once more; but that time is as yet far away, and we have to
do our best under less favourable conditions. Yet unselfish affection is a wonderful
quickener of the intuition, and those who really love their children will rarely
be at a loss to comprehend their needs; and keen and persistent observation
will give them, though at the cost of much more trouble, some approach to the
clearer insight of their Atlantean predecessors. At any rate, it is well worth
the trying, for when once we realize our true responsibility in relation to
children, we shall assuredly think no labour too great which enables us to discharge
it better.
Theosophy
for Children
A word should be said in conclusion
upon the subject of religious training. Many members of the Theosophical Society,
while feeling that their children need something to take the place filled in
ordinary education by religious training, have yet found it almost impossible
so to put Theosophy before them as to make it in any way intelligible to them.
Some have even permitted their children to go through the ordinary routine of
Bible lessons, saying that they did not know what else to do, and that though
much of the teaching was obviously untrue it could be corrected afterwards.
This, however, is a course which is entirely indefensible; no child should ever
waste its time in learning what it will have to unlearn afterwards. If the true
inner meaning of Christianity could be taught to our children, that indeed were
well, because of course that would be pure Theosophy.
Nor is there any real difficulty
in putting the grand truths of Theosophy intelligibly before the minds of our
children. Certainly it is useless, at first, to trouble them with rounds and
races, with lunar pitris and manasaputras; but then, however interesting and
valuable all this information may be, it is of little importance in the practical
regulation of conduct, whereas the great ethical truths upon which the whole
system rests can, happily be made clear even to the childish understanding.
What could be simpler in essence than the three great truths which are given
to Sensa in The Idyll of the White Lotus?
"The soul of man
is immortal, and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendour
have no limit.
The principle which gives life dwells in us and without us, is undying and
eternally beneficent, is not heard, nor seen, nor smelt, but is perceived
by the man who desires perception.
Each man is his own
absolute law-giver, the dispenser of glory or gloom to himself — the
decreer of his life, his reward, his punishment.
These truths, which
are as great as is life itself, are as simple as the simplest mind of man.
Feed the hungry with them."
We might express these
more tersely by saying: 'Man is immortal; god is good; as we sow, so shall
we reap.' But surely none of our children can fail to grasp these simple
ideas in their broad outline, though as they grow older they may spend many
a year in learning more and more of the immensity of their full meaning.
Teach them the grand old formula that 'death is the gate of life' — not a terrible fate to be feared, but
simply a stage of progress to be welcomed with interest. Teach them to live,
not for themselves, but for others — to go through the world as friends
and helpers, earnest in loving reverence and care for all living things. Teach
them to delight in seeing and in causing happiness in others, in animals and
birds as well as in human beings; teach them that to cause pain to any living
thing is always a wicked action, and can never have aught of interest or amusement
for any right-thinking or civilized man. A child's sympathies are so easily
roused, and his delight in doing something is so great that he responds at
once to the idea that he should try to help, and should never harm, all the
creatures around him. He should be taught to be observant, that he may see
where help is needed, whether by man or by animal, and promptly to supply the
want so far as lies in his power.
A child likes to be loved, and he
likes to protect, and both these feelings may be utilized in training him to
be a friend of all creatures. He will readily learn to admire flowers as they
grow, and not wish to pluck them heedlessly, casting them aside a few minutes
later to wither on the roadside; those which he plucks he will pick carefully,
avoiding injury to the plant; he will preserve and tend them, and his way through
wood and field will never be traceable by fading blossoms and uprooted plants.
Physical
Training and Purity
Do not forget also that
the physical training of the child is a matter of the greatest importance,
and that a strong, pure, healthy body is necessary for the full expression
of the developing soul within. Teach him from the first the exceeding importance
of physical purity, so that he may regard his daily bath just as much an
integral part of his life as his daily food. See to it that his body is never
befouled with such filthy abominations of modern savagery as meat, alcohol
or tobacco; see to it that he has always plenty of sunlight, of fresh air
and of exercise. So shall he grow up pure, healthy and happy; so shall you
provide for the soul entrusted to your care a casket of which it need not
be ashamed, a vehicle through which it shall receive only the highest and
best that the physical world can give
— which it can use as a fitting instrument for the noblest and the holiest
work.
As the parent teaches the child,
he will also be obliged to set the example in this as in other things, and so
the child will thus again civilize his elders as well as improve himself. Birds
and butterflies, cats and dogs, all will be his friends, and he will delight
in their beauty instead of longing to chase or destroy them. Children thus trained
will grow up into men and women recognizing their place in evolution and their
work in the world, and each will serve as a fresh centre of humanizing force,
gradually changing the direction of human influence on all lower things.
If thus we train our children,
if we are thus careful in our relations with them, we shall bear nobly our
great responsibility, and in so doing we shall help on the grand work of
evolution; we shall be doing our duty, not only to our children, but to the
human race
— not only to their egos, but to those of the many millions yet to come.
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