The whole function of our so-called schools, colleges and universities is to de-mystify the universe. Even scientists brag about it, that they are doing a great service to humanity by de-mystifying the universe. In fact, they are creating more and more boredom in the world.
No child is ever bored; he is always finding something or other which is immensely interesting for him. He can get absorbed in any small thing – a butterfly, a flower, a stone, a rock – anything will do. He immediately becomes aware of something extraordinary in it. That is insight, that is intelligence.
If we help children in every possible way to remain as intelligent as when they come into the world, then there will be many grown-up people. Right now you can count the grown-up people in the whole world on your fingers very easily – because everybody has been manipulated, has been poisoned. It needs a totally different society, a totally different vision of life in which the child is respected.
For centuries we have respected the old man: the older the man is, the more we respect him. Why do you respect the old man – just because he has existed for a hundred years? Just existing is not enough for respect; living is a totally different matter. Existing is very ordinary, living has a totally different flavor to it.
Living means living out of agnosia, living out of a state of not-knowing, living life as a mystery. That is the only way to live it. Others only exist, others only survive.
A grown-up person moves in a deep harmony. His body, his psychology, his spirituality are always attuned; they all move together. This does not happen to the people who only grow in age. Their bodies become older but their minds remain retarded.
At the time of the First World War, psychologists became aware for the first time of this fact, because for the first time on a large scale they tried to observe, experiment, to know how many people are really psychologically grown-up. And they were amazed, shocked: the average psychological age of human beings is only twelve years. The body may be eighty years old and the mind is lagging far behind. In fact, there seems to be no connection…the gap of seventy years or eighty years. And the eighty year-old person pretends to know because he thinks he is eighty years old, and he stopped growing when he was only twelve years of age. Really he should be counted as only twelve years of age, not eighty. And as far as the spirit is concerned he may be still in the womb of the mother, he may never have come out of the womb.
These three together, in deep harmony, create beauty, grace, light, love. When they are all in accord, life is an orchestra – but they are in discord, the spirit is almost non-existent. Hence George Gurdjieff used to say, “I have come across very few people who have any soul.”