Passage 4

In English

The path of life has both ups and downs

I like children; I take great care of them; I pay them great attention. I give, and advise parents to give them, proper advice at the proper time. I insist on discipline, on reverent obedience to parents, on regulated food and play, on rigorous allocation of time for study, , meditation, etc. I also recommend some items of service, like nursing the sick. I condemn frivolous talk, luxurious living, deleterious habits, addiction to films, horror-comics, pen-friends, exotic dress, outlandish coiffures designed to draw attention to oneself etc. By these means, boys and girls are slowly drawn into unrighteous and immoral ways. Discipline trains you to put up with disappointments; you will know that the path of life has both ups and downs, that every rose has: its thorn. Now, people want roses without thorns, life has to be one saga of sensual pleasure, a picnic all the time. When this does not happen, you turn wild and start blaming others. If each one cares for his own pleasures how can society progress? How can the weak survive? Mine, not thine, this sense of greed is the root of all evil. This distinction is applied even to God! - my God, not yours! Your God, not mine! I am indeed very happy today that I could spend some time with you, children of the Remand Home. To spend some time in Divine Presence is a fortune which is the reward of past merit. You are here going through sentences from coups for delinquencies. Let me tell you that all men are undergoing sentences for long or .short periods, with simple or hard labour, to atone for misdemeanours and crimes done by them in past lives. Every fall makes a dent; every fault has to be corrected; every sin has to be-cleansed. Every one is a prisoner.