Q: We were asking about whether to have a child or not, and you said it would be better if you learn the child within before becoming a mother.
John: Would it be better? Yes.
Q: From the self point of view I was upset. How can one help not to have a child?
John: When you think of having a child, you think of this sweet adorable little baby that will become this cute little toddler running around that you love, and loves you, but that’s not what’s there. What is there is a being, and if you’re not coming from your being, then this little being is going to be covered up by how you relate to it. So you’re going to turn this being into an adorable little child that is not going to stay adorable.
Q: But any person can make his own passage, his own mistakes, so why not?
John: Go to an old folks home and talk to these old people that are at the very, very end of their life. Ask them what mattered most in their life. You can tell whether they really have deep roots to what they are saying or whether they don’t. Ask them what their life was all about and what they learned from their whole life.
How many really old people really have something to show for having been here for a whole life? Do they have little to show for it or do they have much? If they don’t have much, that’s a serious problem because then much of their life is wasted. If much of their life is wasted, then they were not learning from their mistakes. We’re here to learn from our mistakes, but if we’re not learning there are just mistakes day after day, year after year, until a life goes by. Many mistakes, but little learning.
If you really love meaning and love learning, you will make mistakes. You’ll do things and you’ll realize, while you’re doing them or immediately afterwards, what fell short. When you see what fell short, then you grow because what you love the most is meaning.
