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When my first daughter was five or six years old, I used to ask her the same question again and again. Usually we were on a walk and I presented her with the following:
"Dear Shyama, I will ask you to imagine something and then I will ask you a question. Imagine that you have two girl friends of the same age as you. One of this girl friends is a human being like you, while the other is a perfect robot, perfectly build in the image of a five or six years old girl, perfectly programmed to display the behaviour, attitude and speech patterns of such a girl. There is virtually not the slightest evidence that there could be something wrong with her. Do you think that you can find out, which of these two girls is a real conscious living entity, a human being, and which one is a machine just imitating the symptoms of a real girl?
She thought for a moment and answered: " Yes, I will know the difference."
"It is simple", she answered, "I will feel it".
During the following walks we expanded on the subject and her answers became more and more clear and concise. I never gave her a hint, just asking the same question from different perspectives. All her answers were an extension of her original answer. She described that she would miss something, some energy, some personal warmth too subtle to be imitated.
This shows that even a child can easily understand this most essential fact that life is different from matter. I said "even a child", but actually I think that for children it is much easier to understand this simple fact of the difference between the consious essence and its symptoms, because their mind have not been indoctrinated by artificial beliefs. Therefore personal development ist not depending on academic erudition. It is simply a matter of a clear mind.
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