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Main Index
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deceived. Or you can get pacifiers from the market and give the child a pacifier. Just a rubber breast -- he goes on sucking it thinking and believing that something is going to come out of it. Nothing comes out of it.
Consolation is a pacifier, it is not real nourishment. I am here; be nourished by me. Eat me, drink me; be nourished by me. Let me become a part of your being, then I will be available forever and forever. There is no other way.
The fifth question:
Question 5
MY LITTLE SON WAS NEVER BAPTIZED. WILL THIS BE OF IMPORTANCE 7
It is very important! It is good that he was never baptized because baptism is such a significant thing -- it cannot be forced upon anybody. When you force it on a child you are creating an artificial religion for him, and if that artificial religion remains there he may forget all about the real religion. He may become a Christian and he will miss Christ.
Good, your child is fortunate. Blessed is he who is not baptized by his parents -- then he is available, clean and clear. Whenever he becomes ripe enough, when he becomes aware, then he can seek his religion.
A religion is to be sought. A religion has to be chosen consciously. Nobody should be made a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Jain by birth. Birth has nothing to do with religion. Because of this association with birth, the whole world seems to be religious, and nobody is religious. Everybody is religious: somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Christian. Nobody is a Hindu and nobody is a Christian -- people have been befooled.
Leave children alone. Never impose any religion on them. Don't condition their minds. Leave their enquiry free. Help so that they can enquire, but don't give them answers. Help so that their questions become very penetrating, help so that they can ask intensely, help so that someday they can ask so intensely that their very intensity becomes a transformation, but never give them answers. Ready-made answers are very deceptive. Religion has to be lived, religion has to be chosen. It is a commitment -- how can you commit for your child? Who are you to commit for your child? Help the child to grow,
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