“What does ‘comrade’ mean, Daddy?” asks the little boy.

“‘Comrade’ indicates all those who think and act alike,” answers the father.

“Our government…” continues the speaker, and again the little boy asks, “What is ‘government’, Daddy?”

“‘Government’ are those who are responsible for the well-being of everybody and make decisions accordingly. At home, for instance, your mum is the government.”

“…and the people…” goes on the speaker.

“What is ‘people’?” asks again the boy.

“The ‘people’ are we who are in need of organization and defense. At home, your baby sister is the people.”

That night the father is awakened by the little boy who whispers, “Listen, comrade, tell the government that the people are full of shit up to here!”

Man lives in a state of immaturity; he is childish. He goes on growing physiologically but not psychologically. What to say about his spiritual growth – even his psychological growth is retarded, very much retarded.

Only in the First World War, for the first time in human history, we became aware that the average man’s mental age is not more than thirteen years, because for the first time in the army people were psychologically tested. It was a shock all the world over. People who think about humanity and its progress were really in a great shock: thirteen years is the only average psychological age…?

The person may be seventy years old or eighty years old and his age, psychological age, is only thirteen. What about his soul? Nothing can be said about his spiritual growth because only when the body and the mind grow together in synchronicity, when the chronological age and the psychological age go together simultaneously, then only there is a possibility of spiritual growth, never before it.

People are immature, people are childish. And they talk about God and they talk about nirvana, enlightenment, and they talk about Tao, Dharma, they talk about truth – they talk about great things without being at all aware that their psychological age is that of a child. All they need is toys to play with. And that’s what they have done with their religion: their churches, their temples their mosques are nothing but big toys; their popes, their shankaracharyas, their ayatollahs are nothing but people who go on giving them new games to play with. All they need is some new game so that they can remain engaged and occupied.