Question: Please tell us the difference between "childlike" and "childish".

Sri Chinmoy: "Childish" means that a grown-up person is doing something superficially, unnaturally and very cleverly. A childish man has a destructive propensity, an unnatural quality that only wants to break things. The childish quality is found in someone who is not actually himself, who does things in a very immature, irresponsible way. A childish human being knows in a mental way what a proper thought is, but he will not use the mental truth. He will only frustrate the world by acting like a juggler. There is no reality in what he does. He knows that he is not showing the real thing to the world, but he is trying to prove to the world that it is real. A childish person knows that what he is saying and doing is all false, but in spite of knowing that, he is trying to fool the world.

But the childlike quality is constructive, real and flower-like. The flower of the childlike quality blossoms petal by petal, not all of a sudden. A child grows up and matures. But if he is an immortal child then he is constantly blossoming like a flower. If one is childlike, then he is blossoming at every second. He looks at the sun and light enters into his seed-reality. Then, petal by petal, he grows into a flower and becomes more perfect in his worship of God. A childlike heart is pure. If someone has this heart, it illumines the creation in the world around and within himself. A childlike person does something not because he knows on the mental plane that it is true, but because spontaneously something is urging him to do it. But a childish person will create something that he himself has no faith in, and then he will try to convince the whole world to have faith in it.

In your case, your enemies will say that you have childish qualities while your friends will say that you have childlike qualities. I am your friend, so I wish to say that you have all childlike qualities.