 |
Chapter 6
CONTROL OF THE MIND
30. A Child As Preceptor
23. Learn to behold the surging waves of the sea within. Look up at the clear blue sky outside and make your mind pure and unsullied like it. In fact, attaining one-pointedness of mind is a child’s play. It is the occupation of the mind in umpteen matters that is unnatural. Look into the eyes of a child intently. He looks with a constant gaze, while you blink every few seconds. A child’s mind easily becomes one-pointed. If you show the greenery outside to a child, four or five months old, he will be absorbed in observing it. Women, in fact, believe that such an intent observation of the greenery causes the children’s stools to be green. It is as if all their senses come together in their eyes when they see. Any small thing can make a deep impression on the minds of children. Educationists say that what the children learn within the first three to four years is what is firmly imprinted on their minds. You may open any number of schools or colleges or any other institutions to educate them; it is during the early years that real learning takes place. I have been associatedwith education and I am getting increasingly convinced that only the impressions formed in the early years prove to be indelible; subsequent formal education has little effect. That is nothing but outer polish. A soap can remove a stain; but can it wash off the black colour of skin? The impressions of the early years are likewise hard to remove. Why are these impressions strong and indelible and t he subsequent ones weak? It is because a child’s mind gets concentrated effortlessly. Such is the wonderful power of the concentration of mind. Nothing is impossible for those who have achieved it. 24. Today our whole life has become artificial. We have lost childlike innocence. Life has become dull and joyless. Our behaviour lacks any rhyme or reason. It is not Darwin who proved that human beings are the descendants of apes; we ourselves are daily proving that through our actions! A child is trustful. He believes in everything that the mother tells. He never questions the truth of even the fairy tales wherein crows and sparrows speak like human beings. His mind can quickly become one-pointed because of such an attitude. |
 |