But Miss Judith Martin…. I don’t know how many times she has become “Miss.” I think at least a dozen times certainly, because no husband can survive her; either he will escape or commit suicide, but he will have to do something to make her Miss again. And she must be now very old.

Perhaps finally when she became famous and the most well-known authority on child-rearing, nobody dared to marry her again, because such a woman, who has no compassion on children – do you think she will have some compassion on husbands? She will train them exactly the way animals are trained in a circus. She will make them dance to her tune; and her being a world-famous authority, what can the poor husband do except dance?

This kind of person has existed down the ages around the world everywhere. They have prescriptions, recipes, disciplines for everybody, not only for their contemporaries but for all future generations, as to what is right. They are so idiotic – although they are known as great sages who have given you religions, disciplines, moralities, ethics, codes of conduct: great law-givers. But I say again to you, these people are idiots. Only an idiot can think in a generalized way when human beings are concerned.

There is no average human being; you will never come across the average man. And all these authorities are concerned with the average man, who does not exist! The average man is just like God – omnipresent, yet you cannot find him anywhere. God is so omnipresent that….

I have heard about one nun…the whole nunnery became concerned about her. Is she sick or something? – because she was taking her bath with her clothes on! And the doors were closed in the bathroom. And when they asked, “What is the matter? – why don’t you undress when the doors are closed and nobody is there?” she said, “Nobody? God is omnipresent. Yes, there is none of you, but God is there, and to undress before God does not look right.”

They all must have thought her a crackpot, but she really, literally had accepted the idea of the omnipresence of God.

Exactly like omnipresent God is the average man: he exists nowhere and is supposed to exist everywhere. And all the principles are addressed to the average man.

You ask me how to help the child in the right way.

The right way is not to help the child at all. If you have real courage then please don’t help the child.

Love him, nourish him.

Let him do what he wants to do.

Let him go where he wants to go.

Your mind will be tempted again and again to interfere, and with good excuses. The mind is very clever in rationalizing: “If you don’t interfere there may be danger; the child may fall into the well if you don’t stop him.” But I say to you, it is better to let him fall into the well than to help him and destroy him.