Daily Meditation: Friday, August 12, 2005

Spiritual education - its usefulness for children

08/12/2005

Claiming they don’t want to influence their children, some parents decide not to give them any religious education. They say: ‘We want to leave them free; it is they who will choose later on.’ Well, this reasoning is completely misguided. Obviously there are certain forms of religious education which oppress the spirit, which render people narrow-minded and lead them to intolerance and even fanaticism, and we must be wary of them. But do we take away children’s freedom when we make them aware of the world of the soul and spirit? No, and children who have received a spiritual education are better equipped for life than those who have received none. They will face the same difficulties, the same obstacles as everyone else, but because they have learned to enter into contact with the divine world, when conditions are such that others become weak and discouraged or follow tortuous paths, they, on the contrary, will advance and improve themselves. They will become a support and a light for those around them.