Sathya Sai Baba The World-Avatar Teaching and Revelations

they grow up in their company and learn their vocabulary and habits
and styles of thought. This is very undesirable.
When the child is five years old, the father has to take up the task of
bringing him up. Then, he must be entrusted to a guru; the guru must
teach him a standard of value with which to deal with the family, the
village, the country and mankind. Teachers must be aware of their
good fortune as well as their duties; some teachers shirk their duties
and betray the expectations society has of them. (...)
Children are like new cloth: they can be given any colour you like. Just
dip them in that colour, that is enough. Adults are like old clothes that
will not imbibe colour so easily and well. Hearts that are green and soft
will learn habits and disciplines quicker. For learning good habits and
manners, age is no bar; training will make even children learn
them.(...)
Childrens are fearless. (...) That is why it is said that you must either
become as simple and straightforward as a child or as wise and discriminating
as a deeply learned scholar to win the grace of God. (...)
The childhood stage is the pure stage and if you only manage to live
on with that innocence as pleasurably as you did you can achieve
merger quite naturally. The sun's rays wait outside your closed door,
silently and patiently. Open it to the width of a chink - and it gladly rushes
in through that chink. Open it wider; it bathes you in light and
warmth. Children's minds are always open; they have no closed doors,
which bring in the darkness. That is why their smile is like sunlight in
a grief-stricken home. 18.5.62, (16-204/207)
You should hang your heads in shame when you learn from the papers
that human beings like you are inventing and testing weapons which
can wipe out millions and injure even coming generations. But you feel
proud of man's intelligence and cleverness! Some people even admire
such inventors! By all means feel proud of people who invent something
which will help man to live happy lives, but use the proper words
when you have to describe those who manufacture such killers of entire
populations. In the mental hospital, you will find all kinds of madness
affecting man; some spit on others, some bite, some scratch,
some throw stones, some hurl abuses. These mad men are engaged
in hurling bombs, that is their madness.
The world is full of people who suffer from insanity, but who are still outside
the asylums! Suddenly, when hatred envelopes a country, even
ordinary sane people go mad and behave like savages. But in the
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