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The Rosicrucian Mysteries by Max Heindel

V. LIFE AND DEATH

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There are two mottoes which apply during this period, one to the child and the other to the parent: _Example_ and _Imitation_. No creature under heaven is more imitative than a little child, and its conduct in after years will depend largely upon the example set by its parents during its early life. It is no use to tell the child “not to mind,” it has no mind wherewith to discriminate, but follows its natural tendency, as water flows down a hill, when it imitates. Therefore it behooves every parent to remember from morning till night that watchful eyes are upon him all the time waiting but for him to act in order to follow his example.

It is of the utmost importance that the child’s clothing should be very loose, particularly the clothing of little boys, as chafing garments often produce vices which follow a man through life.

If anyone should attempt to forcibly extract a babe from the protecting womb of its mother, the outrage would result in death, because the babe has not yet arrived at a maturity sufficient to endure impacts of the Physical World. In the three septenary periods which follow birth, the invisible vehicles are still in the womb of mother nature. If we teach a child of tender years to memorize, or to think, or if we arouse its feelings and emotions, we are in fact opening the protecting womb of nature and the results are equally as disastrous in other respects as a forced premature birth. Child prodigies usually become men and women of less than ordinary intelligence. We should not hinder the child from learning or thinking of _his own volition_, but we should not goad them on as parents often do to nourish their own pride.

When the vital body is born at the age of seven a period of growth begins and a new motto, or relation rather, is established between parent and child. This may be expressed in the two words _Authority_ and _Discipleship_. In this period the child is taught certain lessons which it takes upon faith in the authority of its teachers, whether at home or at school, and as memory is a faculty of the vital body it can now memorize what is learned. It is therefore eminently teachable; particularly because it is unbiased by pre-conceived opinions which prevent most of us from accepting new views. At the end of this second period: from about twelve to fourteen, the vital body has been so far developed that puberty is reached. At the age of fourteen we have the birth of the desire body, which marks the commencement of self-assertion. In earlier years the child regards itself more as belonging to a family and subordinate to the wishes of its parents than after the fourteenth year. The reason is this: In the throat of the fœtus and the young child there is a gland called the thymus gland, which is largest before birth, then gradually diminishes through the years of childhood and finally disappears at ages which vary according to the characteristics of the child. Anatomists have been puzzled as to the function of this organ and have not yet come to any settled conclusion, but it has been suggested that before development of the red marrow bones, the child is not able to manufacture its own blood, and that therefore the thymus gland contains an essence, supplied by the parents, upon which the child may draw during infancy and childhood, till able to manufacture its own blood. That theory is approximately true, and as the family blood flows in the child, it looks upon itself as part of the family and not as an Ego. But the moment it commences to manufacture its own blood, the Ego asserts itself, it is no longer Papa’s girl or Mamma’s boy, it has an “I”-dentity of its own. Then comes the critical age when parents reap what they have sown. The mind has not yet been born, nothing holds the desire nature in check, and much, very much, depends upon how the child has been taught in earlier years and what example the parents have set. At this point in life self-assertion, the feeling “_I am myself_”, is stronger than at any other time and therefore authority should give place to _Advice_; the parent should practice the utmost tolerance, for at no time in life is a human being as much in need of sympathy as during the seven years from fourteen to twenty-one when the desire nature is rampant and unchecked.

It is a crime to inflict corporal punishment upon a child at any age. Might is never right, and as the stronger, parents should always have compassion for the weaker. But there is one feature of corporal punishment which makes it particularly dangerous to apply it to the youth: namely, that it wakens the passional nature which is already perhaps beyond the control of a growing boy.

If we whip a dog, we shall soon break its spirit and transform it into a cringing cur, and it is deplorable that some parents seem to regard it as their mission in life to break the spirit of their children with the rule of the rod. If there is one universal lack among the human race which is more apparent than any other, it is lack of will, and as parents we may remedy the evil in a large measure by guiding the wills of our children along such lines as dictated by our own more mature reason, so that we help them to grow a backbone instead of a wishbone with which unfortunately most of us are afflicted. Therefore, never whip a child; when punishment is necessary, correct by withholding favors or withdrawing privileges.

At the twenty-first year the birth of the mind transforms the youth into a man or a woman fully equipped to commence his own life in the school of experience.

Thus we have followed the human spirit around a life cycle from death to birth and maturity, we have seen how immutable law governs his every step and how he is ever encompassed by the loving care of the Great and Glorious Beings who are the ministers of God. The method of his future development will be explained in a later work which will deal with “The Christian Mystic Initiation.”

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