What do we look for in raising the next generation

When you look at the world
when you look at the way of behaviour
when you look at these kind of symptoms of children
who refuse to go to school, who are being bullied
who are into violence, who are very early into drugs
and all escapism
I can’t make another conclusion
than the one that says
we are completely on the wrong way

We are not educating our children
We are trying to shape our children
into economic units
that may be useful
for those who rule society
That’s what we’re trying to do
We don’t teach them the love of wisdom
we don’t teach them the love of art
we don’t teach them the love of music
certainly not in the north

In China yes, in China music is part of the curriculum
Why? Because it makes better engineers
A child who plays the piano
learns to communicate better
in the mind, in the brain
So it trains the brain
It synchronises the body better

I think we are very artistic creatures
we have been making music since the ancient time
we have been painting on walls
every, every, every community has done that
I think everybody should do that
everybody should be encouraged that
because it’s a very personal
it’s a very enriching way of living
Therefore we should try
to educate children as human beings
with all the qualities
and all the potentialities of human being
And we should certainly
certainly stress the spiritual aspect

I don’t say the religious aspect
because religious aspect is very often a prison
That limits
We should teach them the spiritual side of life
How we can communicate with the birds
how we can communicate with the plants
how we can communicate with ourselves
and with nature as a whole.

And of course the children
you shouldn’t talk about transcendence with children

Children have first have to learn to be egos
have to learn to be the ‘I’s
It’s very bad
to open them for transcendental concepts early in life
Because they get confused
They have to have a strong foundation
But this foundation should be based
on the love of each other, the love of nature
and the love of their lives
Not on stress of getting a new examination
and learning a lot of useless things

So, if you want to have a healthy future generation
you really have to do something very profound
with the educational system
I’m afraid
Very very profound
And I hope it will happen
But before that maybe
we have to go through a crisis
Before the politicians will realise
that something is wrong
At the moment we don’t have politicians
we have managers
We have bank managers who are managing
We don’t have people with vision
And that’s the way it is, we can’t change that
And I think that if more people become aware
of their spiritual nature
and the resonance of this becomes more normal
automatically other kinds of people will emerge

You see, we lack people of vision
Now why do we lack people of vision?
Because our society is dead
because a society which is healthy
will automatically produce people with vision
The last generations we had people with vision
you can call them, you have books about them
People with vision
With all their limitation
but at the same time with vision
And do we have people with vision nowadays?
I don’t see them
And it’s society which produces them
So we shouldn’t lament about the fact
that we don’t have people with vision
we should think as why aren’t we producing them
Big task ahead
Very big task ahead

Source: https://abbahji.org/en/look-raising-next-generation/