AND REASONING  trembled in front of the great word. And the mountains echoed, and the valleys shuddered, and the flocks were startled, and the dogs howled.

     Speechless, the shepherd boy watches and wonders.

     - What can this be, that is coming and its walk makes everything roar –- everything remain silent.

     If it is big, how come I do not see its looks; while I am able to extend my sight to the stars, and I have the sun as measurer and builder of my house?

     If it is small, how can it move everything?

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IN THE BIG  city, it seems that life flows carefree. You seek to see everything, to hear everything. You seek to experience joy in everything.

     But it is the child that attracts you more than anything, at this moment. All things have disappeared in front of her. Even you, yourself. The child leads your glance. You want to see her everywhere. In the park, in the house. In play, in the cradle. You seek to enjoy the child. To get to know the child.

     To the child, play is life, it is joy, it is food.

     And, if at some moment those little eyes get tears, which become like waterfalls, and something great shakes the foundations of the child’'s insides, with a toy everything calms down.

      And also, if the toy slips out of the child’s hands and falls on the hard floor and the doll's head breaks – Anguish. The long deep crying starts. The great struggle.

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YOUR WORDS,  which seek to give healing, advice, reproof for some deed.  Nobody listens to them.

     The child is far away. In her own lands. She walks in lands, which are high and big. Sound is full there. You do not hear the debris of speech as an echo.  And your foot does not leave a trace as you walk. Your form is without a crease. There are no mirrors. No shadows anywhere. All is light. Inside and outside and up and down and all around.

     Only creators exist there. Not one creature. Builders are there. Not even one building. Truth is punisher and judge and accuser.

     One only lives there. One does not die. Everything is clean, fresh, healthy, strong. And they remain like this forever.

     Nobody watches you. Everybody attends to his work. Everything gives out sound. Nobody hears it.

     There are no stairs. There are no protective walls.

     Everything is in a jumble. Order is everywhere. Joy is the tamer, the catalyst, the leader, the usher, the life-giver, the healer.

     Everything gives. There is no debt. You do not have anything. Nothing is asked from you. You always ask for. Everything is yours. You do not see further than where your eye can reach. You do not hold more than what your palm can contain. You do not go further than where your feet can take you.  You do not catch anything farther than where your hand can reach. You see everything as it is. There are no comparisons there. There is nothing greater than what you can hold. Nothing farther away than what your eye can see. Your eye reaches everywhere. Everything fits into your hand. Your foot does not leave anything untrodden.

     You see all in the one.

     They do not ask "when?" there. There is no clock. They do not remember there. They know everything. They do not keep anything that is not necessary. Equality is everywhere.

     Everybody learns one trade. And he knows everything. He may become a farmer, a digger, a leader, a worker. Every trade teaches love, eagerness and the way to discovery in work.

     Wonder and harmony is everywhere. You do not seek to learn there. You only wonder.

     Work is everywhere. No movement. The colors give sound and the voices paint. Whatever you make, they will find it good. They will always say “yes” to you. You will do whatever they order you to do. You will get whatever they promise to you. If you promise something, it will be done.

     Nothing stops there. Everything is calm. Everything is silent. You hear an uproar.   Whatever starts, it does not stop, it is never broken.

     There is no energy anywhere. Force is everywhere. You see pairs of forces everywhere. Everything is self-powered. There are forms without limits there. No preparation. Everything is done at the moment it is needed.

     There are no enemies. Parallels meet there. Nobody is alone. His companion is always his enemy. Water and fire embrace each other. Peace is everywhere.

     Whatever you let go from your hands, it does not fall down. It stays where you left it. The same holds for your life, too. No danger anywhere. Not any fear.  Forgiveness and the laws are together in one form.

     Supreme law: That all keep one form, their own form. This is what the child remembers and her heart breaks.

     - The form I was holding fell down! It is broken!

     The child cries with a plangent voice. Feel the sorrow. How can she not cry?  Strong arms pull her. They grab her and carry her to the court. There, the child chooses her fate. She has found the purpose of her life. She knows what she must do. She sets the path of her life. She makes the decision. She takes an oath in a supreme court: to raise the debris into a form.

     Whenever she sees a doll, she runs to watch well, whether it has resurrected the broken head. No, it is not so. Whatever she finds, she makes it a doll. She holds the pencil in her hand and she draws wherever she has the opportunity.  Many heads. But none of them looks like that one. That one was beautiful. It was perfect. And so she makes a big decision.

     She will make a vessel. She knows. She remembers the trade she had learned in her land. She will make a strong vessel and she will go to Hades, to find the doll. She will take it, to bring it back up, to her own land. Where anything that you let go does not fall. And the vessel to come back to her. And when that time comes, to take the vessel where the doll is.

     How strongly you want to help her in this titanic project that the child has undertaken! Even with a little something. But how?

     The child does not listen to you. But there is a way.

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IF YOUR HEART  can break and cry for the broken head of the doll. And if joy can lighten your foggy eyes and if laugh can bloom on your wrinkled face, when you see the clown.

     If, forgetting everything else, you can bring little stones to her for the house she builds. If you can collect little pieces of material for the doll’'s dress, its bed, its mattress. And if you can lose all your thinking, your money, your sleep and your time for a toy, which can make her wonder for a moment.

     If you can believe in what she tells you and give her the precious old violin in her little hands. You will hear it give sound without strings.

     She can take apart the expensive little watch and restore it again and you will hear the beat of her heart. She can raise the broken head of the doll and there it is, in front of you.

     If you can answer to what she asks. If you can put yourself in her size and face with eyes wide open her glance. If you can bend down, to become smaller than her. If you can give her your hand with faith and make her the leader in your life.

     Then, yes, the child will turn to see you. It will call you grown up and master, it will allow your voice to enter her ears and come near her so that they speak together. The child will listen to you.

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THE CHILD WILL  take you with her, to show you her world. To show you the climate in which she lives and breathes.

     To show you how she lived before coming to our land. To show you what she wants to grasp here on earth, so that she, too, can take roots, live and spread her wings healthy and strong.

     The child knows the path she must take. She stands steady on the earth. She reacts with great stubbornness to anybody seeking to take her out of her path.

Stand aside. With eyes wide open, watch where she goes.

     Light is her joy. The baby sets its eyes on the light. This reminds her of her land. If she has the light, she can live also down here. Darkness - what a horror. The child does not know it. She sees it for the first time. Does something like this exist in the world?

     She will collect whatever she finds. Whatever she holds will enter the mouth. She will bend down to take up anything she finds and she will put it back to the same place. She does not make any distinctions.

     She longs for the moment when she will be holding a little bucket and a shovel. She will run to knead the earth in order to make the house, the oven, the well, the garden. In the end, she will kick them so that they fall down. She does not need them. She created their form, she took their form away. She will place it near the other ones she collects in order to make the vessel. This is the way she makes it.

     To the child, the fable is a big and unquenchable thirst. With it, the dream feeds the imagination. The dream, which she will make as she wants it. So that she may live and breathe there without barriers. Without limits and restrictions, which are things totally unknown to her.

     When the baby is left alone, she will take off socks, shoes and whatever she is wearing. She wants to embrace nature as it is and undefiled. To take in, through all of her pores, whatever is found around her.

     Great concern for the doll. Where she will place it. How she will dress it. What she will teach it. The ball is always her good toy. You will see her always holding a form in her little hand. A monkey. A dog. In the dead shape of the bathtub you throw little toys, little fishes, little ducks, so that she can go in. With a toy in her hand, she will stand the torment of eating.

     She does not care about the body at all. The child seeks what her soul desires.

     Tireless in play. Totally committed to it. During play, no exertion, nor hunger, nor thirst is felt. The whole world has been lost. The toys are her world. To them she will speak. With them she will live. Whatever she will say, they will feel it.   Whatever she will tell them, they will do. They can even turn into pieces, if she wants so. But she also rests her life on them. If she misses them, her little eyes see the chaos. She has no place to rest. Away from them is the nothing. Her soul falls down. She dies. The child feels safe near the toy. The toy is the lung of her soul. From the toy she breathes. From it she gets strength and moves forward.  Overcoming obstacles, she easily conquers the big things.

     You remind her that she must eat, she must wash herself. That she must leave the play. And she wonders.

     - Leave the play? In order to eat. To wash myself. To live. To stay healthy. If you take joy away from me, you take away the earth on which I stand. You take away the power that raises a form out of the debris. In a moment you take away life.    And you seek, by embalming, to keep a corpse in the form of life.

     The child will do what she sees. She will take apart whatever she can, in order to learn how it functions. She will ask about everything. She is very eager to learn. To make everything herself. To run. To jump.

     How freely she enters and leaves everywhere. She passes the threshold of the kitchen with courage. No walls have been raised for her. She speaks to everybody. She will go near all. She will dip her little hands everywhere. She will grasp the fish, the meat. She will eat with her hands. She does not feel the food with forks, spoons, knives. For her, digestion begins from the hands. Even knowledge starts from there in order to become her own. She spreads her brain on her palm and she grasps the traces of everything. The little hand will glide everywhere. On doors, on walls. In order to grasp their form. In order to know. With forms, she will feed her spirit. It is forms that she seeks to create.

     Stand aside. Do not speak. Leave her free. Do not shut your ears when she speaks to you. Listen to her carefully. And try to feel her. Understanding is what she asks from you. That you converse as equals. That you answer correctly to what she asks. If you do not know, say "I do not know". Try to put yourself in her place. To reach the place she is at the moment she speaks to you. To her eyes, you look like a god who knows everything. You must keep this position of yours well. Listen. She asks you, in order to learn or in order to get to know you. You may find the truth. Do you have the courage to tell it, if you find it, or do you distort it, when it is not favorable to you. Whether you prefer another child, and why. She wants you to find her own value, the value that she has inside and has not become visible yet. The value that only she feels and which you, as a grown up, must find. She wants yo to know it, without the need to see it.

     When she says “I cannot”, she poses a big problem to you. She wants you to be able to find why. Do not hasten to scold her. If you have a soul and a brain, you will always regret it.

     And the great moment comes for her, to get to know your esthetics. Alas, if you say in your thoughts: She is too young, it does not matter, she cannot understand these things. She has ranked you inside. Do not expect her to ever say this to you. She will never insult you. The child is very serious, polite, to a degree a grown up cannot even imagine. Do not mind her awkward ways. She has an immense goodness inside. She is sensitive. Do not mind her harsh behavior. She is silent. Do not hear her excessive talk. Do not mind her torturing you. It is a far-fetched play. She does not know when she must stop. Nor does she feel that she annoys you.  She thinks that you are a toy without nerves. On the other hand, she counts greatly on your forgiveness. She has silently forgiven you many times. She also counts on your love that tolerates everything.

     Whatever she makes, tell her it is beautiful. You must find, where she places what she tells you and she finds it beautiful. How long she wants to leave it there. For a moment or forever. And sometimes she expects from you that you only feel the effort she has given in order to reach her work at that level. She might even have achieved something that was very difficult for her until now. Do not forget this. The child’'s imagination is great. It adds whatever is missing. Also, the child is on the first step. Drawing a line is important for her. Do not correct her works. They will look like babies wearing hats made for grown ups.

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THE CHILD  does not offer her hand to an adult. As soon as she sees him, her little eyes work. They look at him from head to toe. They try to get to know who he is.

     - Who are you, who do not resemble me in size. You, whose hand is not holding any toy. Your garment is without a crease, perfectly clean, shining. My hand cannot touch it. It will spoil it. I cannot hold it im my palm, like I do with my ball. I cannot squeeze it as I do with the mud. It will crease.

     And you smell soap, which is painful and blinds the eyes. What a horror! Oh! You have a head! But what do I see? In the place of the eyes you have two dim pieces of glass. How nice. You do not see me. I can make faces to you. I can take my tongue out to you. I can kick you and tell you it was not me, it was somebody else.  You also have a mouth. You open it. You will speak.

     The child opens the eyes wide, the ears. She comes near to you. But the body gradually relaxes. She yawns. The eyes close. How sweetly she sleeps.

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CHILDREN. HOW  many, innumerable toys they have. Some of them hold guns and play with them. Why do children want guns, a mother always wonders. Smaller children, who do not have guns, look at them from a distance. They are impatient.  A little 3-4-year-old boy, on the way home, runs to his mother.

     - Mummy, buy a gun for me, too.

     Mother gets the gun. The child grabs it. He looks at it carefully. He weighs it. He wonders, what this is. What I am holding in my hands is not a toy. It has great power inside it and it makes me powerful, too. It is a gun; it kills and also liberates.

     He will take it with him, when they go for a walk. But what will he kill? He runs to mother again.

     - Mummy, what will I kill with the gun? And mother, who always stays aside, in order to leave the child uninfluenced, answers. Whatever you want, my child. The child immediately becomes a man, he holds his head up. His eyes shine, you cannot look into them. Fully armed, his will rises inside him. He makes the decision. He has found the answer to the great question.

     - I will kill the houses, mummy.

     And, one day, mother says to that same boy, with words that she thinks would stimulate the child’s pride.

     - You said you have grown up. Where is your greatness, when you do such childish things? And the child answers.

     - My greatness is when you all go out and you leave me alone in the house.

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ONE EVENING,  mother takes her youngest boy for a walk. The child is four years old. They walk silently for a long time. What are they thinking? Mother may be thinking about fashion. She watches the ladies. The old dresses. The feather on the hat. The narrow, short skirt. What can she tell the child about these. The child does not have a feeling for these things. So they both walk in silence. The little boy wants to say something, but hesitates. How can he disturb the high thoughts of mother. But, finally, with a broken voice, he gives voice to what has been moving in his head for a long time.

     - Mummy, that which we think that exists. It truly exists.

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THE TIMES  were difficult. The country under a foreign occupation. Athens of 1944.  The four-year-old girl asked too much from her mother. Where could mother find these things. So she always answered: We will get them when the good times come. And the little girl asked one day:

     - How long are the good times going to stay, when they come?

     And mother, who wants to offer a bright picture, which erases shadows and darkness and gives the wings of joy, and as she deeply believes it inside, answers.

     - Forever.

     The girl'’s face remains unresponsive. It shows neither joy nor surprise. Serious 

like a dead person with eyes wide open and full of life. She is not asking for charity. She is not asking for opium, which sends to sleep and temporarily benumbs pain. She is not seeking to cover darkness with golden mantles. She wants you to tell her the truth. Or whether life’'s rhythm will change some day. The little girl puts all these in one question and she asks:

     - Mummy, will day and night stop coming?

     This is what the child had to tell you.

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AND NOW IT  is your turn to speak.

     The child expects you to show him, how he can leave his trace on earth without any part of it being lost. And how he can live tightly embracing life until the end. And not be wrecked in the great voyage of life.

     Great is the responsibility you have undertaken. And the task that the child assigns to you is serious and great. But the honor he gives you by choosing you, remains above everything else.

     Do not fear. The child will help, he does not leave you alone, if you do not deny it. The work is great, but you are capable. It suffices to commit your whole self to it.

     Leave the child free to stretch his body. To spread his trace on the earth. In such a position, that arms and legs and head and body stretch comfortably. He will take care that they do not reach out of the earth. Nor break when they want to fit in it. He will also take care that they do not fall on somebody else’'s trace. They will project his own form.   All of it. The earth is big, there is enough room. To seek and find his own limits. So that his form may remain intact.

     Forms exist also here, in our land. But, here, forms have limits, placed by time. This is what he has to learn, first of all.  

     Limits exist everywhere, here. Boundaries, which all the time tend to break, to get lost and change. There are visible limits, which can be seen by the eye and sensed by the touch of the hand. But there are also invisible limits. You feel these, without seeing or touching them. A secret voice reveals them. A strong pain. A law. And so you always find the correct path and you pass alive, you go on and proceed further. The child should seek the limit as long as he lives. Something totally unknown to him. If we leave the child alone, violence introduces the limits to him. A strong hand, a need, pain, hunger, thirst, drowsiness, death. He must learn to find limits, boundaries, everywhere. And to keep them strong and steady in their place. But, in order that boundaries be introduced and stay strong, they need a healthy, strong and immovable base. They need calmness. Peace. With an agitated mind, a stormy heart, a body that gallops, nothing can be done. All these must calm down. But the baby does not listen to you. He does not feel what you tell him. Then it is us, who must keep calmness around him. So that he is fed by it. And it is only for this, that all people on earth must work for many years.

     For Peace.

     When this is achieved, everything else will come by itself. This is the material, on which the child will embroider the limits. You will teach him how to find the boundaries from the first moment he comes to the world. How much he will eat. How much he will play. How much he will sleep. Where his feet will take him. Up to where his hands will reach. What they will touch. When his lips will open and what they will tell us. Arms and legs and mouth move in an uncontrolled way, if they are not harnessed, and they take him with them. He must control everyone of their movements, if he wants to live safely with them.

      And, in whatever we do, our mind should be present. If the foot takes a wrong step, he will fall in the abyss together with it. If the mouth moves wrongly, he is going to pay for it. And, alas! If he puts the hand on the fire, it will be burned. Only with the eyes he can enjoy the fire. Fire is not a toy. Fire has a serious and hard and great task in this world. In life. And it has additional work to do for us humans. There are three worlds, which live entangled inside man. Fire will knead the mixture so that it can work on it. To separate at some point, to unite at some other point, to melt at some point, to boil. So that the mixture can be cast into a mold. To reach its form. We stay afar. The work is delicate and serious. And we do not progress without it. These three worlds must get separated. Three worlds totally different. But the three of them, tightly united. Of the same substance. The soul, the body, the spirit. Man finds boundaries without fences. He must set the boundaries himself. Without restrictions. At each moment of his life, he must seek to find them and observe them faithfully. So that these three worlds may live freely. Be fed. Bear fruits. The product of one of them will be given to God. The product of the other one belongs to men. And the product of the third one belongs to immortality.

     Nothing is ours. Everything will be shared. And calmness is what will remain to us. This is what you will teach the child.

     But be careful, to not put restrictions, where they are not given by nature. You will sow walls, prisons, you will open graves. This is what you will tell him:

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FIRST OF ALL  you must see your own limits.

     Hold steadily the part of the earth, which has been cut by following your trace. Do not think about how big the earth is. The mind may contain it, but your palm 

cannot hold it. Your glance embraces the blue sky. You extend your hand but it does not reach there. You will retract the glance. The mind. And you will see up to where your hand can reach. If you want to see further, the whole of you, you will not leave out any part of your body as useless. You will reach there with your own powers. In this way you will gradually progress.

     In your land, you have learned to see everything in the one. Here you must learn to see differently.

     To see the one in all. To admire everything without exception. In this way you walked on earth. You climbed to the highest mountain peak. You tasted its rich fruits. But your insatiable spirit always seeks to know, your soul seeks to enjoy everything, your glance is fixed on the heavens. How you can reach there.

     You want everything for yourself and play is your joy.

     You tell me that you want to sit on the highest branch of the tree, like a bird. To unite your voice with the voice of the bird. To open your wings. To make the sun your toy horse. To hold the stars like marbles in your hands. The earth, with its myriads of voices, like a top. The clouds, like wings to take you where thousands of birds smile at you. You want everything to be yours and these are many. Many without end. Inexhaustible. You give everything for a toy. You give your joy to reach the world.  Learn, therefore, how you can obtain all these.

     Deep in the earth there is a force, which makes the trees tall, gives wings to the birds, makes the stars gigantic. You have a piece of this earth, too. If you only can reach there. You will dig deep in order to find it. You will reach its center. The heart of the earth. Your heart.

     Become one with it. Allow its rhythm to take you with it. Allow your hearts to beat together. Your bodies to feel the pain together. And always keep company to cool reasoning.

     Mind and heart to live in union.

     Mind being the reins and heart the obedient horse.

     But the earth is a sphere and you have boundaries that you cannot trespass.

     So you have to learn also this: To match the opposites.

     So, the deeper you reach, the smaller you will become. You will let go of everything useless that you hold. But you will always keep your mind with you. There is no more room for you to bend down. You stand erect with your arms raised and still. You only look at the heavens. So you think that you walk there, because you do not see anything else. And you will have parted from the world.

     You descend by the weight of your own body. Lava burns your body but a cool breath always reaches you from heaven.

     Only your feet touch the earth. The body must not lean anywhere. It will be burned. The dirt will fall and close the opening that gives you life.

     Until a moment comes, when there is no room for the body to pass. But the strong heart pulls your heart, which is dressed in only the trace of your body. Only spirit is left to you.

     A beat of that heart gives you the strength to fly as high as you want. You have opened the way. Now you can reach the trees, the high mountains, the birds and the stars. And after you have enjoyed all, you want to go higher. To reach your land. There, where all meet again. There, where you see all in the one. There, where what you let go does not fall. It is there, where the beat of your heart seeks to go and find rest.

     And your trace, to return and put on the body and together ascend on the earth.

     However, in ascending, the body does not help. It gives you a great obstacle and pain, but you must find a way to take it with you. Remember. It has carried you up to now. And you will not be able to live without it. It holds your heart.

     Now it is time for the hands to work hard. In every task. Until they are wounded and bleed. In order that the body can live and walk forward, much pain by the hands is needed. The hands will open the way. The body does not fly. It goes step by step.  Much time will pass until it ascends. And, what is more, the opening that was giving you breath will have closed. And now that you have known the wide heavens. The forms without boundaries. The all in the one. You must be torn into pieces. To live like a worm, like a bug in sunless depths.

     But this is necessary if you want to ascend. Not to step on anybody you meet, but to live his life. And also to share joy with him. To admire him. To live with him, not as equals, but with you being a little lower. He is the master there. Do not expect the worm, the bug, to see and feel this. It will always sting you, you will be a stranger to it,  it will laugh at you. And it will always be helping you. Do not forget this.

     Opposites, everywhere matched. Until some ray breaks the darkness and gives you the power to ascend to the earth and live again with the world.

     The great mission of man will have been finished.

     You have touched heavens with your own wings. You have made the earth a ball in your hand and you take it with you. And so you will be able to also live without it.  Because that is what happens on earth. Whatever has stood near us to help us, a day will come when it will be lost. Let us be united with it while we have it. Let its pulse vibrate inside us and in this way we possess it. Mother, father, the doctor, the teacher will disappear some day. Sometimes even the clock, the measure, the book and many other things. We must be able to live also without these.

     And when the time comes, that you lose all, together with the earth that holds you well, you will wear your wings and fly to the heights.

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AND THE ROAD  we have taken today in the big city, you feel that it goes up high, very high.  And you feel that you ascend comfortably on it, like in the big cities. And you reach the point where you can see its forms united in one perfect form. And you hear the myriads of voices united in one song.

     And the echo of the big city goes even higher. With a purpose to arrive somewhere. With the purpose to stop and stay in one word:

RESPECT.

     And the echo of the heavens will come and stay near it and they will sing together:

RESPECT FOR THE CHILD.

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