The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan

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In speech, in movement, in action the child must be conscious of its childhood and must know its place. If not what happens? How few thoughtful people one meets in one's everyday life! When one sees the ordinary life in the world of today there is no end to the lack of consideration. Why? Because they have left out all those things which are of most importance in education; they have left them out in order to make room for mathematics. The primary cause of the loss of all the finer principles in the education given today is that it has left out the ideal.

  • And the fifth ideal that can be inspired in the child is the ideal of the unknown, of the unseen. If that ideal is not inspired, what does a person live for? Only to earn a loaf of bread? Only to strive in this life of competition day after day, ruining one's health, weakening one's mind, humbling one's spirit? And what does one gain? If earthly gain is all there is, it is a very small gain after all. If a higher ideal, a spiritual ideal, or Go& ideal is not inspired in the child, then it is as you see today, thousands and millions of souls who are lost in the crowd, who do not know anything except living from day to day. Their whole energy is spent in the struggle to live, and there is a still greater struggle to live more comfortably; beyond this there seems nothing else. But how long can they be contented with this ideal? A time comes when they may lose their mind. They may have millions in the bank, and yet they are not satisfied because they cannot see where they are going and whether there is anything to look forward to. It is in childhood that the spirit is responsive, and if the God-ideal is inspired at that time then one has done what Christ has said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God... and all these things shall be added unto you"; one has given the child a start on the path of God; and that is the first lesson that should be given in childhood.


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