Becoming Like A Child Again

Reflections on some ancient wisdom

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I have recently been reading lots of the ancient texts like The Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, and The Gospel According To Jesus.

It's been a season where I’m enjoying going to the direct pointings that have lasted the test of time. Revisiting things that I’ve read before feels like a new experience from a different perch of awareness.

One of the themes that struck out to me reflecting on my own journey is the notion of becoming like a child:

“Truly I tell you, unless you return and become like children, you can’t enter the kingdom of God.” - Jesus

“He who is in harmony with the Tao is like a newborn child.” - Lao Tzu

I’m sure there are many interpretations of this idea, but a few themes really ring home to me.

Humility

Up until a certain age, many children lack the inflated sense of self that thinks they know things. As we age, we collect information and experiences that result in mental positions.

The ego becomes identified with these mental positions. It likes to think it knows something and even that it’s wise. Any threat to this self-concept and its intelligence feels like an attack.

This part of self has been put on its ass enough times for me to recognize I know very little.

I’ve seen how the inflated sense of knowing can cause the heart to close, preventing you from receiving nourishment and teachings. For example, you may resist following a certain teacher because “you already know.” This happened to me.

At a certain point, life humbled me and made it clear I knew very little. I finally accepted this which opened up my heart to this teacher. After this happened I was able to receive their profound energy for the first time. It became apparent that the arrogance from the limited self was a major roadblock in my experience.

Even when you’ve experienced greater understanding than you had before, I think it’s better to remain like a child who isn’t identified with their knowledge.

Openness

We are our own biggest limiters of experience. If we think something can’t happen, it won’t. Our realities around us conform to the contents of our inner material, much of which we are unconscious of. This isn’t just some spiritual woo-woo, it’s well documented by the placebo and nocebo effect.

I think this has far greater implications for the human experience than a medication working or not working. 

There are many reports of children being able to experience things inaccessible to adults. For example, many parents report their children talking to ghosts and seeing phenomena beyond the scope of the average adult's perception. In the book Superminds cited in The Ra Material,  John Taylor, a Professor of Mathematics at Kings College (London), demonstrated how children could bend and break multitudinous objects with their minds. In the absence of the idea that they couldn’t do something, it turns out that many of them could.

A counter-example can be found in the Bible. Jesus rose to prominence because of the remarkable miracles he performed that defied what humans thought possible. He was able to do this everywhere he went with the exception of his hometown of Nazareth. The people there were so caught up in their mental conceptions around his atypical birth that they were closed to the healing powers of one of the greatest beings ever to grace the earth. What a shame and testimony to the power of our beliefs.

The more I’ve observed consciousness, the more I desire to return to that blank canvas of potentiality we experience temporarily as children. Devoid of inherited concepts and ideas, we can meet reality with a vastness of potentiality more akin to our natural state.

Meeting What Is Unfolding

I have a 7-week-old child. One minute she is crying and a minute later she has a big smile on her face. 

She meets what’s unfolding with a singular presence and allows her untempered emotions to be expressed freely. There is no sense of self-consciousness to mediate her experience.

Practically speaking, I’m not sure it’d be great for adults to constantly project their experience in such an unfettered way. However, I certainly strive for a similar presence and fluidity to meet whatever is arising at the moment. These conditions create space for the childlike awe and wonder that eludes us when we’re focused on the past or future.

Resilient Optimism

I get a massive kick out of watching kids skiing. They are so courageous and their ability to pop back up after a fall is something that now eludes me in my mid-thirties.

Time and time again, we get humbled on the path of self-discovery. I’ve had many moments after conversations with my teacher where I’ve just had to lie down afterward. Why is this so confusing? Why is this so hard?

I admire the resiliency of children to get back and keep playing on the mountain no matter how many times they fall.

Faith and Trust

“Today the Lord has revealed to me what a tiny child I am on the spiritual path. When a child is in danger, his only means of protection is to appeal to his mother or father. And today the mother and father of this tiny child have come in the form of their holy names to give me shelter.” - The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami

I played the game of “it’s all up to me” for a long time.

It’s exhausting and at a certain juncture of experience, it seems like it no longer works. After we receive the call, we’re moved increasingly to an experience where life forces us to stop relying solely on our sword and Capital L, Let Go of the outcomes of various circumstances to the powers that be.

Children seem to take comfort and joy in letting their parents handle things. Us adults, less so.

Closing Thoughts

When we’re kids, we spend all this time wanting to grow up.

And now that I am an adult and growing in awareness, I recognize how it is wise to become like children.

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