If anyone should attempt to forcibly extract a babe from the
protecting womb of its mother, the outrage would result in death, because the babe has not
yet arrived at a maturity sufficient to endure impacts of the Physical World. In the three
septenary periods which follow birth, the invisible vehicles[pg 195]are still in the womb of mother nature. If we teach a child of tender years
to memorize, or to think, or if we arouse its feelings and emotions, we are in fact opening
the protecting womb of nature and the results are equally as disastrous in other respects as
a forced premature birth. Child prodigies usually become men and women of less than ordinary
intelligence. We should not hinder the child from learning or thinking of his own volition, but we should
not goad them on as parents often do to nourish their own pride.
When the vital body is born at the age of seven a period of
growth begins and a new motto, or relation rather, is established between parent and child.
This may be expressed in the two words Authority and Discipleship. In this period the child is taught certain
lessons which it takes upon faith in the authority of its teachers, whether at home or at
school, and as memory is a faculty of the vital body it can now memorize what is learned. It
is therefore eminently teachable; particularly because it is unbiased by pre-conceived
opinions which prevent most of us from accepting new views. At the end of this second
period: from about twelve to fourteen, the vital body has been so far developed[pg 196]that puberty is reached. At the age of fourteen we have the birth of the
desire body, which marks the commencement of self-assertion. In earlier years the child
regards itself more as belonging to a family and subordinate to the wishes of its parents
than after the fourteenth year. The reason is this: In the throat of the fœtus and the young
child there is a gland called the thymus gland, which is largest before birth, then
gradually diminishes through the years of childhood and finally disappears at ages which
vary according to the characteristics of the child. Anatomists have been puzzled as to the
function of this organ and have not yet come to any settled conclusion, but it has been
suggested that before development of the red marrow bones, the child is not able to
manufacture its own blood, and that therefore the thymus gland contains an essence, supplied
by the parents, upon which the child may draw during infancy and childhood, till able to
manufacture its own blood. That theory is approximately true, and as the family blood flows
in the child, it looks upon itself as part of the family and not as an Ego. But the moment
it commences to manufacture its own blood, the Ego asserts itself, it is no[pg 197]longer Papa's girl or Mamma's boy, it has an“I”-dentity of its own. Then comes the critical age when parents reap
what they have sown. The mind has not yet been born, nothing holds the desire nature in
check, and much, very much, depends upon how the child has been taught in earlier years and
what example the parents have set. At this point in life self-assertion, the feeling
“I am
myself”, is stronger than at any other time and therefore authority
should give place toAdvice; the parent should practice the utmost tolerance,
for at no time in life is a human being as much in need of sympathy as during the seven
years from fourteen to twenty-one when the desire nature is rampant and
unchecked.
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