 A very interesting question, can children do mind training? Or do you have to reach a certain age before you do mind training? I had actually worked with children very, very closely on mind training, and I had very good results with it. I was just sharing this story comparable at the dinner at the lunch table maybe yesterday or the day before. And I was working with a group of parents that were Course in Miracle students and they were kind of like a little community around me. And they had children, so I was interacting with all the children and everything up in Michigan. And this was probably about around early to mid-1990s. And the parents, who were course students, every day wanted to have sessions like this. It couldn't get enough of it. They just were like wanting to just absorb everything, every day, hours and hours of these kind of sessions. And it got to a point where children started coming up to me and saying, our parents are really boring. They really suck as parents. They're like these metaphysical zombies. Course in Miracle with Gap all day and talk about what's an illusion and this and this and this. And then they go off and try to mediate. You know, they sit there and they just, they're no fun. They don't play anymore. They don't cook. I mean it's just like fire the parents. The worst the parents. And so the kids come up to me and they're saying, can we do something about this? This is not good. They're not good at being spiritual, but they're just like zombies and they're talking metaphysics all day. So I say, well, the parents are doing the best that they can. But the thing about this is that to the parents, I told the children, they just see you as children. And in some cases, the worst case scenario, they see you as obstacles, burdens, like why did I have children? I'd probably be in the same state of mind as the Buddha right now. If I didn't have you. Like go out and play. And come in at eight o'clock, I'll give you some food and put you to bed. I've got meditating and discussions to do. I can't be actually splashing around with kids. And I say that's the worst case scenario. In a little lighter case, it would be more like you're just more of an annoyance to them. Because they only have so much time in the day. They believe that the best way to spend the day is having these kind of discussions and meditating. And because they believe that, then you're kind of like second choice. You're kind of pushed away. So the kids were like, that doesn't sound good at all. I mean that sounds, thank you for giving it to us straight, but that's not good. So what can we do? I said, well, what you can do is you can train your minds. If you want to work with me, I'll work with you as a group on mind training. And I'll work with you so deeply and so sincerely that that's the only way that you'll get your parents back in the equation. Is you have to impress them with your mind training. We have to show them that your method is far superior to their method. That will get their attention. And really, that's all that will get their attention. It's kind of like, you know, Jerry Maguire, show me the money. It's like, if you can show them the mind training, I guarantee you that will get the parents' attention. So I work with the kids. Got the kids over there. The parents were all meditating and discussing. I got the kids outside, then we went out and I said, now the first thing we're going to do is I'm telling you that nobody can make you feel anyway. It's your mind. You can feel exactly the way you want to feel. Nobody can make you feel anyway. And so it's a practical application that nobody can make you laugh. If you don't want to laugh, you can actually train your mind to not laugh. To just be in a state of peace. And nobody. People can tell you jokes. They can make funny faces at you. They can do all these things. But unless you really want to laugh, you don't have to laugh. You're in control of that. It's totally a voluntary decision. So I said, now I'm going to practice. Make faces and do all this. Just talk to each other. Be like little comedians to each other. We'll pair you off. I want you to try to practice at staying in a state of mind where you don't laugh. Where you're just peaceful. No matter what people look like and listen to that. So they practice very... They have a lot of incentive. They really practice, practice, practice. So then when they advanced past that section where they could actually just stand there very stoically with no laughter at all. No smile at all. No matter what anybody would do to us. Now we're going to get physical. Because your parents will immediately try to come at you with the physical things. Nobody can make you feel tickled. Nobody can make you feel tickled. They can't do anything to you to tickle you unless you want to be tickled. You are completely 100% responsible for your mind and if you don't want to be tickled you can't be tickled. They were like, what? Really? They said yes. And we will practice this. So they went at it. They went at it. Under the arm. Under the knees. Under the knees. On the toes. The bottom of the feet. They practiced. They practiced a lot of not being ticklish. This was like a matter of life and death for them. The only other option is divorce the parents and they weren't going to go for that. So they practiced and practiced and practiced. And finally I could tell by their practicing that they had achieved mastery of that. So then it was time to bring the parents in. They said, now we're going to do this in two phases. Let the parents think that they've got a shot. Do the same with the laughter first. Say, go in and say to the, as a group, go into them and say, try to make me laugh. And then the parents will try to do all the faces and will try to do all the things that they think they know how they can push your buttons and everything. And then after you start to light with them, then ask them to try to tickle you and make you laugh through tickles. And then it was kind of like they did. They went in, they did it. And then the parents were there and then they said to the parents, try to tickle me. And the parents went, ah, they came charging in on them. And these were like little Buddhas. They were totally unaffected by the parents' surge of all this and this. In fact, they were like, they were like the majors like, come on, bring it on. Well, needless to say the parents were extremely impressed. They were like, what have you been doing? You know, it was almost like suddenly the parents and the children were on equal ground. Because what was that equal ground? It was mind training. That's the goal. And that's really the answer. Can children have mind training? Yes. In fact, I've worked with so many children and a lot of them come in, they call them like indigo, crystal children and so on and so forth. They're more ready for this kind of mind training, we could say metaphorically, than a lot of adults that have just got a lot of conditioning and baggage that have kind of adapted and adjusted to the world and have a lot of undoing to do. So I find it amazing. I mean, I've met some of my students who had children that already were kind of transcending the laws of this world. One of them was very transcendent in terms of like temperature. He would, up in Trevor City, when the bay would, all the snow and ice would melt in the spring. When the water, when the ice was just melting, he would go out and go swimming in this bay. And adults would just see him out there in the water and would just actually get out of their cars and go up and go out and actually touch the water. Because they always thought it was like a hallucination or something, seeing a little boy swimming out there like a fish, you know, in this icy water. So this is good news in the sense that we can't pawn it off and say that children are just innocent victims because they're so young, because young and old are just part of the construct too. And it's really one mind, one ego, and as you free your mind of that ego, you literally free people, places and circumstances beyond what you even are aware of. Like the Course says in the beginning, during those 50 miracle principles, you will touch those that you aren't even aware of. It's almost like the entire cosmos as you start to awaken starts to morph and starts to change, become more and more unified because your mind is the mind and as your mind is cleansing itself, is purifying itself, then the whole perception of the cosmos is completely morphed along with that change.