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Encouraging the Dreams of Children · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We could say that it is almost a universal experience.
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  A child expresses some sentiment, some idea about what
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  he or she would like to do, something that soars beyond the
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  mundane daily existence, something that makes things
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  better, increases the beauty and harmony of life, cherishes life.
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  And then the elders, parents, relatives, teachers, make it
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  clear to the child that their dreams are not practical and
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  they should instead focus on their studies and preparing for
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  a career or job that will provide them a stable livelihood
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  in their adult lives. Rare are those elders who can
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  nourish and encourage the dreams of these children and who take
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  steps to help them actually work toward achieving them.
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  An example that seems to frequently come up is the
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  natural and spontaneous love for animals that children exhibit
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  and their aversion to eating meat when they find out that
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  meat is actually a slaughtered animal.
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  Parents in meat eating societies often force the children to eat
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  meat despite the child's aversion, and many is the time
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  that a family dog benefited from the child's resistance as the
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  meat seemingly disappeared down to the floor.
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  Many children seem to have an innate sense of beauty, harmony,
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  harmlessness, justice, truth, goodwill and basic harmony.
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  We could ask how it is that. Children.
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  Have such dreams or aspirations? Where do they come from if they
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  are not part of their daily external lives or education?
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  It is clear when 1 looks closely.
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  That they bring them from another domain of being those
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  who understand these things. In depth speak of the
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  development of the psychic being.
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  Over many. Lifetimes, the maturity of the
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  understanding. Without the intellectual.
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  Words to. Express it comes with them into
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  the new. Life.
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  They have taken on. It is.
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  Also in such a manner that we can understand how a young.
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  Mozart five years old. Can be writing music and at age
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  6 performing before Royal Courts in Europe, speaking to a
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  maturity and power of expression far beyond that of.
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  Toddlers generally, the mother notes quote.
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  When one is very young, and, as I say, well born, that is, born
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  with a conscious psychic being within, there is always in the
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  dreams of the child a kind of aspiration which for its child's
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  consciousness is a sort of ambition for something which
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  would be beauty without ugliness, justice without
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  injustice, goodness without limits, and a conscious constant
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  success, a perpetual miracle. One dreams of miracles.
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  When one is young, one wants all wickedness to disappear,
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  everything to be always luminous, beautiful, happy.
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  One likes stories which end happily.
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  This is what one should rely on when the body feels its
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  miseries, its limitations. One must establish this dream in
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  it of a strength which would have no limit, a beauty which
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  would have no ugliness, and of marvelous capacities.
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  One dreams of being able to rise into the air, of being wherever
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  it is necessary to be, of setting things right when they
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  go wrong, of healing the sick. Indeed, one has all sorts of
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  dreams. When 1 is very young, usually
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  parents or teachers pass their time throwing cold water on it,
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  telling you, oh, it is a dream, it's not reality.
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  They should do the very opposite.
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  Children should be taught. Yes, this is what you must try
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  to realize. And not only is it possible, but
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  it is certain if you come in contact with the part in you
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  which is capable of doing this thing.
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  This is what should guide your life, organize it, make you
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  develop in the direction of the true reality which the Earl
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  ordinary world calls illusion. End Quote Reference Srioro Bindo
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  and the Mother Powers within, Chapter 16 Body, pages 124 to
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  125.