Osho on Children

Intelligence is the source of all religiousness and morality, and children are more intelligent than you are.

Learn from them rather than trying to teach them. Drop this stupid idea that you have to teach them. Watch them, see their authenticity, see their spontaneity, see their watchfulness, see how alert they are, how full of life and joy, how cheerful, how full of wonder and awe.

Religion arises in wonder and awe. If you can feel wonder, if you can feel awe, you are religious. Not by reading the Bible or Gita or Koran, but by experiencing awe. When you see the sky full of stars, do you feel a dance in your heart? Do you see a song arising in your being? Do you feel a communion with the stars? Then you are religious. You are not religious by going to the church or by going to the temple and repeating borrowed prayers which have nothing to do with your heart, which are just head affairs. Religion is a love affair — love affair with existence. And children are in that affair already. All that is needed from your side is not to destroy them. Help them to keep their wonder alive, help them to remain sincere and authentic and intelligent.