You will be surprised to know that if a child does not get his nourishment through his mother’s milk, if he is not fed with his mother’s milk, then his life-energy remains weak forever. He can be fed milk in other ways also, but if he does not regularly receive the warm touch of his mother’s heart, then his life becomes frustrated forever and the possibility of his living a long life is reduced forever. Those children who are not fed on mother’s milk can never attain to much bliss and silence in their lives.
The whole younger generation in the West, and gradually in India also, is becoming filled with great rebellion. The deepest reason for this, the root cause, is that Western children are not being fed on mother’s milk. Their respect for life and their relation to life is not full of love. From their very childhood their life-energy has received many shocks and they have become unloving. In those shocks, in the separation from their mother, they have become separated from life itself – because for a child there is primarily no other life than his mother.
All over the world, wherever women are becoming educated, they do not like to raise children close to them – and the effect has been extremely harmful. In tribal societies children are fed on mother’s milk for a long time. The more a society becomes educated, the earlier the children are weaned from their mother’s milk. The sooner the children are separated from their mother’s milk, the more difficulty they will have in experiencing peace in their own lives. A deep restlessness will prevail in their lives from the very beginning. On whom will they take revenge for this restlessness? The revenge will be taken on the parents themselves.
All over the world children are taking revenge on their parents. On who else will they take revenge? They themselves do not know what kind of reaction is happening within them, what kind of rebellion is arising within them, what kind of fire is arising within them. But unconsciously, deep within, they know that this rebellion is the result of being separated from their mother too soon. Their hearts know this but their intellects do not. The result is that they will take revenge on their mothers and fathers – they will take revenge on everyone.
- OSHO
