I've got a lovely,
Lovely quote for you.
A few sentences that I would write in letters of gold that I picked up from this book,
Summerhill,
Written by this guy,
Neil.
I must give you the background.
He was a man who was in education for 40 years.
He developed this kind of maverick school where he took in these boys and girls and he just left them free.
That's all.
You're free to do whatever you want.
You want to learn to read and write,
Fine.
You don't want to learn to read and write,
Fine.
You can do anything you want with your life,
Provided you don't interfere with the freedom of someone else.
He says,
The worst ones were the ones who came to me from convent school.
He said it took them about six months to get over all the anger and the resentment that they had repressed.
So they'd be six months a rebelling,
Fighting the system.
He says the girl who had the record would take a cycle and for six months would be cycling in town,
Avoiding class,
Avoiding school,
Avoiding everything.
Once they'd got over their rebellion,
Everybody wanted to learn.
Everybody was protesting.
Why don't we have class today?
Everybody was interested,
But they would take what they were interested in.
A.
S.
Neil,
The author of Summerhill.
He says,
Every child has a God in him.
Your attempts to mold the child will turn the God into a devil.
Children come to my school,
Little devils,
Hating the world,
Destructive,
Unmanly,
Lying,
Thieving,
Bad tempered.
In six months,
They are happy,
Healthy children who do no evil.
And I am no genius.
I am merely a man who refuses to guide the steps of children.
I let them form their own values.
And the values are invariably good and social.
The religion that makes people good makes people bad.
But the religion known as freedom makes all people good,
For it destroys the inner conflict.
He says the first thing I do when a child comes to Summerhill is destroy its conscience.
You don't need conscience.
When you get consciousness,
You don't need conscience.
When you have sensitivity,
You don't need a conscience.
You're not violent.
You're not fearful.
Now you think this must be an unattainable ideal.
Well,
I have run into an individual here or two,
Here or there,
Who suddenly stumbles upon this and knows.
So that's one more thing you must understand.
The root of the evil within you.
As you begin to understand this,
You stop making demands on yourself.
You stop having expectations of yourself.
You stop pushing yourself.
And you understand.
But you've got the kernel.
You've got the seed.
You can develop it.
Nourish yourself on wholesome food.
And I'm not talking about physical food.
I'm talking about sunsets,
About nature,
About a good movie,
About a good book,
About enjoyable work,
About good company.
And hopefully you will break your addiction to those other feelings.
Just think,
What kind of feeling comes upon you when you're in touch with nature or when you're absorbed in your work that you love or when you're really conversing with someone whose company you enjoy in openness and intimacy without clinging?
What kind of feelings do you have?
Compare those feelings with the feelings that come when you win an argument or you won a race or you become popular or everybody's applauding you.
A different type of feeling.
Those feelings I call worldly feeling.
The other feelings I call soul feelings.
Lots of people gain the world and lose their soul.
Lots of people live empty soulless lives because they're feeding themselves on popularity,
On appreciation,
On praise,
On look at me,
Attend to me,
Support me,
Value me,
On being the boss,
On having power,
On winning the race.
You feed yourself on that,
You're dead.
You've lost your soul.
Feed yourself on other more nourishing material.
Then you see the transformation.
Giving you a whole program for life,
Haven't I?
