The only difference between a child and a grown-up man is in the mind. All the weaknesses are there, beginning with hunger, with sensitivity, with naivete; there is no difference. The same things are in a child and in a grown-up man: love, hate, everything. Functions are the same, receptivity is the same, equally, they react, equally, they are given to imaginary fears. In short, there is no difference.
The only difference is in the mind: we have more material, more logic than a child.
Now as an example: A. looked at me and called me a fool. I lost my temper and went for him. A child does the same.
But a grown-up man, who will be just as angry, will not hit him; he will restrain himself. For if he does hit him, the police will come and he is afraid of what other people will think; they will say: “What an uncontrolled man!” Or I refrain for fear he will run away from me tomorrow, and I need him for my work. In short, there are thousands of thoughts that may stop me or fail to stop me. But still, these thoughts will be there.
A child has no logic, no material, and because of that, his mind is only function. His mind will not stop to think—with him it will be “it thinks,” but this “it thinks” will be colored with hate, which means identification.
There are no definite degrees between children and adults. Length of life does not mean maturity. A man may live to a hundred and yet remain a child; he may grow tall and be a child all the same if we mean by a “child” one who has no independent logic in his mind.
A man can be called “grown-up” only from the moment his mind has acquired this quality. So, from this point of view, it can be said that the Institute is only for grown-up people. Only a grown-up person can derive any profit from it. A boy or a girl of eight can be grown-up, and a man of sixty can be a child.
The Institute cannot make people grown-up; they have to be grown-up before they come to the Institute. Those who are in the Institute must be grown-up, and by this, I mean grown-up not in their essence but in their mind.