It is a very rare possibility that the child falls into the well – and then too, it does not mean death; he can be taken out of the well. And if you are really so concerned, the well can be covered; but don’t help the child, and don’t interfere with the child. The well can be removed, but don’t interfere with the child.

Your real concern should be to remove all dangers but don’t interfere with the child; let him go on his way.

You will have to understand some significant growth patterns. Life has seven-year circles, it moves in seven-year circles just as the earth makes one rotation on its axis in twenty-four hours. Now nobody knows why not twenty-five, why not twenty-three. There is no way to answer it; it is simply a fact.

The earth takes three hundred and sixty-five days to make one round of the sun. Why three hundred and sixty-five? Nobody knows, nobody needs to know. And it does not make any difference. If it were taking four hundred days, what difference would it have made to you?…or three hundred days…? The question would have remained the same: Why?

So remember one thing: any question is absurd if with every answer the question still remains standing the same. In twenty-four hours the earth makes one turn on its own axis. Why? Make it twenty-five, make it twenty-six, make it thirty, sixty – as much as you want – the question still stands the same: why? Hence I call the question absurd; it will always remain the same.

So don’t ask me why life moves in seven-year circles. I don’t know. This much I know, that it moves in seven-year circles. And if you understand those seven-year circles, you will understand a great deal about human growth.

The first seven years are the most important because the foundation of life is being laid. That’s why all the religions are very much concerned about grabbing children as quickly as possible.

The Jews will circumcise the child. What nonsense! But they are stamping the child as a Jew; that is a primitive way of stamping. You still do it on the cattle around here; I have seen stamps. Every owner stamps the cattle, otherwise they can get mixed up. It is a cruel thing. Red-hot steel has to be used to stamp the cattle’s leather, skin; it burns the skin. But then it becomes your possession; it cannot be lost, it cannot be stolen.

What is circumcision? It is stamping cattle. But these cattle are Jews.

Hindus have their own ways. All religions have their own ways. But it should be known whose cattle you are, who your shepherd is – Jesus? Moses? Mohammed? You are not your own master.

Those first seven years are the years when you are conditioned, stuffed with all kinds of ideas which will go on haunting you your whole life, which will go on distracting you from your potentiality, which will corrupt you, which will never allow you to see clearly. They will always come like clouds before your eyes, they will make everything confused.

Things are clear, very clear – existence is absolutely clear – but your eyes have layers upon layers of dust.