Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Our Relation to Children
By C. W. Leadbeater
Theosophy for Children
64. A word should be said in conclusion upon the subject of religious training. Many members of the Theosophical Society, while feeling that their children need something to take the place filled in ordinary education by religious training, have yet found it almost impossible so to put Theosophy before them as to make it in any way intelligible to them. Some have even permitted their children to go through the ordinary routine of Bible lessons, saying that they did not know what else to do, and that though much of the teaching was obviously untrue it could be corrected afterwards. This, however, is a course which is entirely indefensible; no child should ever waste its time in learning what it will have to unlearn afterwards. If the true inner meaning of Christianity could be taught to our children, that indeed were well, because of course that would be pure Theosophy.
65. Nor is there any real difficulty in putting the grand truths of Theosophy intelligibly before the minds of our children. Certainly it is useless, at first, to trouble them with rounds and races, with lunar pitris and manasaputras; but then, however interesting and valuable all this information may be, it is of little importance in the practical regulation of conduct, whereas the great ethical truths upon which the whole system rests can, happily be made clear even to the childish understanding. What could be simpler in essence than the three great truths which are given to Sensa in The Idyll of the White Lotus?
66. "The soul of man is immortal, and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendour have no limit.
67. The principle which gives life dwells in us and without us, is undying and eternally beneficent, is not heard, nor seen, nor smelt, but is perceived by the man who desires perception.
68. Each man is his own absolute law-giver, the dispenser of glory or gloom to himself — the decreer of his life, his reward, his punishment.
69. These truths, which are as great as is life itself, are as simple as the simplest mind of man. Feed the hungry with them."
70. We might express these more tersely by saying: 'Man is immortal; god is good; as we sow, so shall we reap.' But surely none of our children can fail to grasp these simple ideas in their broad outline, though as they grow older they may spend many a year in learning more and more of the immensity of their full meaning. Teach them the grand old formula that 'death is the gate of life' — not a terrible fate to be feared, but simply a stage of progress to be welcomed with interest. Teach them to live, not for themselves, but for others — to go through the world as friends and helpers, earnest in loving reverence and care for all living things. Teach them to delight in seeing and in causing happiness in others, in animals and birds as well as in human beings; teach them that to cause pain to any living thing is always a wicked action, and can never have aught of interest or amusement for any right-thinking or civilized man. A child's sympathies are so easily roused, and his delight in doing something is so great that he responds at once to the idea that he should try to help, and should never harm, all the creatures around him. He should be taught to be observant, that he may see where help is needed, whether by man or by animal, and promptly to supply the want so far as lies in his power.
71. A child likes to be loved, and he likes to protect, and both these feelings may be utilized in training him to be a friend of all creatures. He will readily learn to admire flowers as they grow, and not wish to pluck them heedlessly, casting them aside a few minutes later to wither on the roadside; those which he plucks he will pick carefully, avoiding injury to the plant; he will preserve and tend them, and his way through wood and field will never be traceable by fading blossoms and uprooted plants.
