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Elders Should Change Their Attitudes First
We start off with an innocence that is native to the human being, natural
to the human being. We call it in all languages, I think, childlike
innocence. Not childish, but childlike Why childlike innocence? Because
for the child, there are no opposites. It exists, it reacts. A child
never feels guilty until we make it feel guilty. It drops an egg, and
it splatters and the yolk is all over the carpet. And you say, "What
have you done?" The child begins to feel guilty. If an elderly
person dropped a glass of whiskey and it went on the carpet, you cannot
blame him. "Oh it doesn't matter." This is hypocrisy, you
see. You have one attitude for the child, one attitude for yourself,
one attitude for your guest, one for somebody you hate, one for somebody
you love. This is precisely disintegration of character. If people are
schizophrenic, paranoid, it is because we cultivate this in ourselves
by our own behaviour, adopting different attitudes towards different
people, different situations. And end up not knowing which is the real
me. And then I am in trouble. I have to go to the psychiatrists.
In yoga we try to bring back the whole thing. Reintegration of character.
When there is only one person, he reacts in the same way to everything.
It's like a telescope. Whoever looks through it, it shows the same thing.
How can the telescope show you different things? One for the white man,
one for the black man, one for the rich man, one for the poor man. It
doesn't exist. Anybody who looks at the moon sees the same moon. So,
you see, from a disintegrated, diversified, lost multiplicity of characters,
we try to bring them back together by meditating on the inner self,
which is essentially a unity.
If we live the life in the right way the children automatically
lead the life in the right way. That is the importance of
parenthood. That we provide the right environment, the right
example. That is why I have always said that it is a big
and onerous thing, you know, being a parent. Whether you
are the father or mother is not relevant. We have to be
alert. What is the use of a father, you know, smoking hash
and telling his child, "You should not do it."
And then when he starts doing it, the father cannot even
muster the courage to tell him, "Do not do it,"
because he is guilty.
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