"There is another quality which must be cultivated in a child
from a very young age: that is the feeling of uneasiness, of a
moral disbalance which it feels when it has done certain things,
not because it has been told not to do them, not because it fears
punishment, but spontaneously. For example, a child who hurts
its comrade through mischief, if it is in its normal, natural state,
will experience uneasiness, a grief deep in its being, becausewhat
it has done is contrary to its inner truth.
For in spite of all teachings, in spite of all that thought can
think, there is something in the depths which has a feeling of a
perfection, a greatness, a truth, and is painfully contradicted by
all the movements opposing this truth. If a child has not been
spoilt by its milieu, by deplorable examples around it, that is,
if it is in the normal state, spontaneously, without its being told
anything, it will feel an uneasiness when it has done something
against the truth of its being. And it is exactly upon this that
later its effort for progress must be founded.
There is only one true guide, that is the inner guide, who
does not pass through the mental consciousness.
Naturally, if a child gets a disastrous education, it will try
ever harder to extinguish within itself this little true thing, and
sometimes it succeeds so well that it loses all contact with it,
and also the power of distinguishing between good and evil.
That is why I insist upon this, and I say that from their infancy
children must be taught that there is an inner reality—
within themselves, within the earth, within the universe—and
that they, the earth and the universe exist only as a function
of this truth, and that if it did not exist the child would not
last, even the short time that it does, and that everything would
dissolve even as it comes into being. And because this is the
real basis of the universe, naturally it is this which will triumph;
and all that opposes this cannot endure as long as this does,
because it is That, the eternal thing which is at the base of the
universe.
It is not a question, of course, of giving a child philosophical
explanations, but he could very well be given the feeling of this
kind of inner comfort, of satisfaction, and sometimes, of an
intense joy when he obeys this little very silent thing within him
which will prevent him from doing what is contrary to it. It is
on an experience of this kind that teaching may be based. The
child must be given the impression that nothing can endure if he
does not have within himself this true satisfaction which alone
is permanent."
[Mirra Alfassa]
