5. From the age of 5, the practice of silent prayer should become a daily routine irrespective of the denomination or religion to which the child belongs or does not belong. The value of prayer can never be overstated. No one can reveal God to another. But by revealing the value of prayer and inculcating the habit of prayer we place the child in a position to receive God-experience, in due time. Spiritual experience can come only through the correct understanding of prayer. Prayer is the point of contact with God. Silent prayer is the preparation of consciousness for the experience of Divinity within. The child should be tuned up from childhood well enough so that at adult age it is ready to receive the inevitable message that unhappiness and suffering are necessary for the unfoldment of the soul within and to stand theat unhappiness and suffering, prayer is the nutrition needed. So much does not have to be told to the child; but the habit of prayer must be made a second nature. This should not be left for the child to learn by itself after it reaches adult age -- as is the experience of many a materialist adult who has learnt things the hard way and then, turned to the ways of the Orient in the past few decades. This is where the plea of the rationalist that, to pray or not to pray should be left to the individual for a decision on his own, when he becomes an adult, is totally unacceptable; because it assumes that each man, without standing on the shoulders of the men of earlier times, begins all over again to learn all that the earlier civilization has already discovered and recorded for us to take the torch from there.

6. From the age of 7, children should know and learn the habit of sitting for an introspection and meditation. Any time the child errs in its social habits, obligations, table manners, discipline or routine, it should not receive corporal punishment but only an opportunity to introspect. The habit of introspection has all but disappeared in this modern age when everybody uses more than his leisure time to sit glued to the idiot box, without ever devoting any time to think about anything, not to speak of oneself -- except of course, when they worry about something, which any way is not a productive activity.

7. From the age of 11 onwards, regular lessons on meditation should form part of the curriculum. Meditation need not be sectarian. But meditation is an effort to be done at the individual level and since Indian culture has an under-current of unity inspite of its plurality of traditions, it should be possible certainly in India which has the advantage (see No.8 further on) of several religions coexisting over the centuries, to integrate sectarian meditation into a classroom activity.

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February 20, 1999

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Copyright Ó V. Krishnamurthy