你們年輕的時候並不是要去教導真相(truth-teaching)，而是要去收集真相(truth-gathering)。你如何能在你還沒有收集到真相時，去教導孩子呢？
你當然沒有辦法。因此你們也就只能把別人教你們的真相去教導孩子。任何事情、所有事情的真相，只是沒有你自己的。因為你們自己還在找尋那些真相。
聽神談【高度演化社會的「育兒工作」如何運作？】
當年輕人終於明白他們一直被愚弄了——發現原來性是人的經驗中美妙的、可敬重珍惜的、極其愉快的部分——他們開始對別人憤怒：憤怒父母對他們的壓抑、憤怒宗教對他們的羞辱、憤怒異性對他們的挑釁、憤怒整個社會對他們的控制。
最後，他們變得「因為自己讓所有這些人與事來禁止他們」，對自己懊悔生氣。
大部分這些被壓抑的憤怒，已導入「你們現居社會被扭曲和誤導的道德價值」的建構——一個用紀念碑、雕像、郵票、電影、圖書、攝影和電視節目，在美化和推崇世界上最醜陋的暴力行為，卻隱藏，或更糟的賤低，一些世間最美麗的愛之行為的社會。
而全部的這些——所有的這些——問題的發生，都是源自一個觀念：那些生孩子的人，必須獨自承擔起養育孩子的責任。
尼爾：但如果生孩子的人不是負責養育孩子的人，誰才是呢？
整個社區(The whole community.)。特別是社區中年長的人。
尼爾：年長的人？
在大部分進步的種族和社會中，是年長的人在養育孩子，教養孩子，訓練孩子，並將該民族與社會的智慧、教誨與傳統教傳給後代子孫。在我們這對話後面講到一些先進文明的社會時，我會再談這部分。
任何一個不會視年輕人生小孩是「不對」的社會——因為在這樣社會裡的種族年長者會養育小孩，因此年輕人不會有不勝負荷的責任與負擔——性的壓抑是從未聽說的事，同樣，強暴、異常性行為、社會性功能障礙，也是聞所未聞的。
尼爾：我們的地球上有這樣的社會嗎？
是的，隨然它們已逐漸在消失。你們一直在根除他們，同化他們，因為你們一直認為他們是野蠻人。在你們所稱為的非野蠻社會裡，孩子（妻子、丈夫也因同樣理由）被認為是財產，是私人的所有物，而生孩子的人也就因此必須成為養育孩子的人，因為他們必須照顧他們所「擁有」的東西。
你們許多社會問題的根源，是出自你們的一個觀念：認為妻子與兒女是私人所擁有的，認為他們是「你的」。
在這對話後面我們探索和討論高度演化生命(highly evolved beings)時，我們會再談整個關於人類「所有權」(ownership)的問題。但現在，先讓我們思考一下這個問題：是否有人在生理上能生小孩時，就真的已在情緒上準備好可撫養小孩？(Is anyone really emotionally ready to raise children at the time they are physically ready to have them?)
事實是，大部分人類到了三十、四十歲都仍未具備養育孩子的能力，而且也不該被視為負責養育孩子的人。他們還沒有真正活到足以把深刻的智慧教傳給孩子的階段。
尼爾：我聽過這類的想法。馬克吐溫就曾提過。有人曾聽他說：「我十九歲的時候，我爸爸什麼都不懂。但當我三十五歲時，我很驚訝這老人已經這麼有見地。」
他說得很好。你們年輕的時候並不是要去教導真相(truth-teaching)，而是要去收集真相(truth-gathering)。你如何能在你還沒有收集到真相時，去教導孩子呢？
你當然沒有辦法。因此你們也就只能把別人教你們的真相——來自你們父親的、母親的、社會的、宗教的——去教導孩子。任何事情、所有事情的真相，只是沒有你自己的。因為你們自己還在找尋那些真相。
而你們會一直找尋，一直實驗，一直發現，一直失敗，形成又再形成「你們的真相(your truth 你們認為的真理)和你們對自己的看法」，直到你們在這星球上有半個世紀，或近半個世紀的體驗。
然後，你們才終於開始在自己的真相中安定下來，並妥協於你的真相(begin at last to settle down, and settle in, with your truth)。而你們每個人所承認的最大真理，可能就是「根本沒有恆常不變的真相」；真相，像生命一樣，是個一直在改變的的東西，是個一直在成長、在演化的東西——並在你剛認為演化的過程已停止時，它卻沒有，而它真的才剛開始。
摘自《與神對話III》第1章
Then, when they finally realize they’ve been duped—that sexuality is supposed to be a wonderful, honorable, glorious part of the human experience—they become angry with others: parents, for repressing them, religion for shaming them, members of the opposite sex for daring them, the whole society for controlling them.
Finally, they become angry with themselves, for allowing all of this to inhibit them.
Much of this repressed anger has been channeled into the construction of distorted and misguided moral values in the society in which you now live—a society which glorifies and honors, with monuments, statues, and commemorative stamps, films, pictures, and TV programs, some of the world’s ugliest acts of violence, but hides— or worse yet, cheapens—some of the world’s most beautiful acts of love.
And all of this—all of this—has emerged from a single thought: that those who bear children, bear also the sole responsibility for raising them.
Neale: But if the people who have children aren’t responsible for raising them, who is?
The whole community. With special emphasis on the elders.
Neale: The elders?
In most advanced races and societies, elders raise the offspring, nurture the offspring, train the offspring, and pass on to the offspring the wisdom, teachings, and traditions of their kind. Later, when we talk about some of these advanced civilizations, I’ll touch on this again.
In any society where producing offspring at a young age is not considered “wrong”— because the tribal elders raise them and there is, therefore, no sense of overwhelming responsibility and burden—sexual repression is unheard of, and so is rape, deviance, and social-sexual dysfunction.
Neale: Are there such societies on our planet?
Yes, although they have been disappearing. You have sought to eradicate them, assimilate them, because you have thought them to be barbarian. In what you have called your nonbarbarian societies, children (and wives, and husbands, for that matter) are thought of as property, as personal possessions, and child- bearers must therefore become child-raisers, because they must take care of what they “own.”
A root thought at the bottom of many of your society’s problems is this idea that spouses and children are personal possessions, that they are “yours.”
We’ll examine this whole subject of “ownership” later, when we explore and discuss life among highly evolved beings. But for now, just think about this for a minute. Is anyone really emotionally ready to raise children at the time they’re physically ready to have them?
The truth is, most humans are not equipped to raise children even in their 30s and 40s—and shouldn’t be expected to be. They really haven’t lived enough as adults to pass deep wisdom to their children.
Neale: I’ve heard that thought before. Mark Twain had a take on this. He was said to have commented, “When I was 19, my father knew nothing. But when I was 35, I was amazed at how much the Old Man had learned.”
He captured it perfectly.
Your younger years were never meant to be for truth- teaching, but for truth-gathering. How can you teach children a truth you haven’t yet gathered?
You can’t, of course. So you’ll wind up telling them the only truth you know—the truth of others. Your father’s, your mother’s, your culture’s, your religion’s.
Anything, everything, but your own truth. You are still searching for that.
And you will be searching, and experimenting, and finding, and failing, and forming and reforming your truth, your idea about yourself, until you are half a century on this planet, or near to it.Then, you may begin at last to settle down, and settle in, with your truth.
And probably the biggest truth on which you’ll agree is that there is no constant truth at all; that truth, like life itself, is a changing thing, a growing thing, an evolving thing— and that just when you think that process of evolution has stopped, it has not, but only really just begun.
