The Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
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No doubt it is very easy to be insolent, and it is very amusing to teach others; and when a person is grown-up he may also try to teach his parents. They are old and weak now, and perhaps also declining mentally; naturally they give in. But there is no beauty in it. The beauty is to give a counsel without giving counsel, if necessary even without speaking. On the other hand, thoughtful parents, when a child has won their confidence, naturally wish for counsel. But when the child has the right understanding he will have the right attitude, he will never make the counsel seem like a counsel; he will always put it in such a way that it will seem as if it came from the parents and not from himself. The third ideal that one can inspire in the child is a sense of pride, a self-respecting attitude; because this is the time when the child could lose its self-respect and that little sense of pride or honor which is now growing in it. It is natural to see the child pleased with a toy or attracted to a sweet that is placed before it; but it is better still when you offer to the child a toy or a sweet which it likes and it refuses it out of self-respect. It is pleasant to see a child saying to its guardian, "Please get me this," and "Buy this for me," or "I would like to have this"; but it is better still to see the child holding back its desire out of self-respect. If pride is not developed at that age, then what is life going to be without pride? Nothing. In the days when communications were not as they are now, it happened that children of good families came to a country far from home and where they were unknown, either because they were exiled or because circumstances or destiny had brought them there. And what made them prove to be what they were was pride, not pearls or jewels or money or anything. A sense of honor is such a great treasure that, in the absence of all jewels and money and wealth, this will prove to be most valuable. |