What Children Know...part 3...Digging for Truth

 

I think that one of the most important things we can do in this life is to recover that Knowing…
that Original, Authentic Self. 

And here I want to say “Blessed are the Stubborn!”  
You know, some children are hard to break!  They are strong-minded, willful, defiant!
And that is a good thing!  They have a chance of holding onto their truth, their essence.
It is much harder for the child who is softer, more fearful, more compliant. 
For them, it is a longer journey back to Self.

How does one go about recovering one's Self?
What happens if all we can unearth of our original selves are fragments that we are unsure of? 
Actually, that is almost always the case...  Still, it is a legitimate Beginning. 
"Beginning" is a holy enterprise in itself. 
Sometimes we find a whole vase or a weapon or a piece of jewelry, but many times what we find
is broken, seemingly useless amidst messy layers. 
But the ruins call to us of earlier, finer and more illustrious times in our souls.
Once you begin to find those fragments a certain excitement builds, a thirst for knowing who and what we were before we became diminished…before we became cogs in society’s various machineries. 

The Soul is eager to be recognized even if it’s 50 or 60 years later. 
While there is life and energy, there is possibility...
At some point a key is unearthed…something that says ‘Aha!’  THIS is the real me!
I remember...   It may be faint, but it is still there...
Then the chase is on!  You want to recover more! And more!  
You start to see yourself...experience yourself … your True Self. 
The very foundation of your life emerges and a real life can finally be built. 

We are sometimes like a city that has been conquered, destroyed and built upon by successions
of marauding armies. 
Along the way, family, religion, culture, marriages, jobs have all imposed their rule
and sought to destroy what does not serve their purposes.
We may have to dig through the rubble and confusion to find who and what we are. 
When the pressure of having lost touch with our essence is too much, one might dismantle
or blow up their current situation and a mid-life crisis or breakdown results. 
If the work is not done-through disbelief or avoidance, depression is the likely result.


How does a parent, teacher, partner, friend learn to not harm the Self in another…
to recognize and honor the true Self and not drive it into further hiding?

                                               ***              
Recovering our Knowing...
As a bodyworker of some years, I am more and more dismayed that while we are so-called

highly educated in the west, we know virtually nothing of value about our own bodies.
All of our education points to things outside the body.  Math, English, History, Science and the like…

But what do we know of our bodies?  When we have problems, we hand them off helplessly
to doctors and the medical establishment who go on to encourage that ignorance. 
I’ve worked on enough doctors and the like to know that they don’t know much about
the basic workings of their bodies either.
They are as hopelessly cut off and at war with their bodies as they are with ours.
Instead of learning the language of the body with its treasure house of sensing and obtaining information, we are taught to ignore, override, belittle the incoming information.

All real learning has to originate with our Selves…the body-mind that carries the expression
of Soul and spirit. 
This is the foundation, the vehicle for our journey of life.  Outside comes later. 
We are systematically directed outward and AWAY from our Selves at all times. 
After enough damage is done and suffering is experienced we are finally admonished by the overculture to ‘seek within’, but even that is as artificial, confusing and useful as the rest of the programmed ‘knowledge’ we are fed.

In the end, it may be more useful to set ALL of that aside for the time being and see what we can recover of ourselves.   
                                                ***

Start with the simple idea of not being a blank slate. 
We KNOW things…LOTS of things, as we come into life.
We know what we like, what we don't like...We know WHO we like or don't like.  

That innate knowing should not be over-ridden.  It is vital information.  It is the child's Truth.
A baby who rejects the nipple or bottle of milk knows something.  They convey that directly
with their actions. 
Perhaps the nursing mother is angry or fearful or is taking a medication that is harmful to the baby.
Perhaps the child is lactose intolerant or chemically sensitive.  We should observe and learn from these actions rather than overriding forcing.  If a child does not want to be held or passed around to everyone that wants to handle the child, the child's wishes must be taken seriously. 
The child knows what is good for it.  That knowing should not be dismissed or violated.  
                                              ***
A child wants to make music or climb trees or bang on things or take things apart…
all rightful expressions of what is inside. 
As an acorn becomes an oak tree quite naturally, a child becomes what they are meant to be...
and they may be many things. 
Our pigeon-holing culture would have us think...a mommy, a firefighter, a scholar, or a soldier, etc.
Better put: part mommy, part artisan, part farmer, etc.  Many aspects or facets come into play
as a life unfolds.  Just as some gemstones are more complex than others. some have fewer.
These are just differing expression of Life. 

Maybe, as children, we didn’t like our family, or town, or the manner in which we were raised. 

These are things to note…they MATTER!  We do not have to downplay or sugarcoat our truth. 
We diminish ourselves when we do...
Perhaps a parent wants a son to become a doctor.  The boy wants to work with his hands
and travel the world   Whose desires survive?
Perhaps daddy or mommy want a boy instead of a girl.  A daughter grows up trying to please that parent and then society goes on to blame HER for being "gay".
The girl wants to be whatever it is she decides to be…it will come to her in time if she is not meddled with too much.
A child should have the best influence and training from its' parents, but beyond that, there are lines that should not be crossed. Raising children calls for guidance in helping them become the person
that lies within. It is a voyage of discovery rather than a call for programming.
I side with the venerable Kahlil Gibran when he says:   
"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you."

We, as children, endure so much wringing and twisting up of our Selves that we often throw in the towel and live a life of someone else’s choosing.  And then, much of the time, go on to enact that same damage to succeeding generations. We wind up supporting the agendas of our captors

as well as the over-culture.

Like tender blades of grass finding a way up to the sunlight through concrete, the Truth within us
will try to find a way out and up or it will wither and die and pass out of this life unmanifested. 

There is a wonderful example of a toddler who, at the age of 3, asked his parents for a violin
for his birthday… a real one, he insisted, quite precociously. 
The family had little money or concern for music.    
They were sure that a toy violin would be more than adequate.  When the boy unwrapped the gift,
he flew into a terrifying rage, smashed the toy violin to bits and screamed at his parents
for trying to fool him with a fake violin. 
He insisted on the real thing...at once!   He went on to become a world-famous violinist. 
It was his destiny….and he knew it from the start.  It was imprinted in his soul. 

I was once married to a man who, as a boy, had an astonishing talent for the piano. 
He was a savant, someone who could listen to a complex piece of music once and sit down
and play it flawlessly. 
He never learned to read music. In fact, he flatly refused lessons.  It would have been torture to force lessons on him. 
He already exceeded anyone who might teach him.  All he needed was to be supported in his giftedness.

Another curious description of a child’s inner life comes from a woman in Atlanta, Georgia. 
I knew her as a metaphysical teacher.  To others, she was a psychic, to others an accomplished painter. 
She once shared with us the experience of her 1^st years of life.  This was in the context of not being
too quick to judge so-called autistic children, for she was one of the early ones.
She remembered clearly her birth into her body in this life.  
Once she realized that she had once again been sent to earth-a place she detested more than anything,
she was furious beyond words…and beyond words she remained for the first 6 years of her life. 
She felt as though she was being punished, insulted, imprisoned down here once again against her will.  She hated almost everything about this life from prior experience. 
Strong-willed as she was. she took up her battle with the Home Office or God, if you will. 
The battle was furious, determined and protracted.  As she put it, she "had a six year long hissy fit
with the Almighty and firmly refused to serve humans (that’s what she knew she was assigned to do here once more).  She raged within the whole time, refusing food, water and contact. She wanted OUT! 
In the end, she realized she was not going to win this argument.
Once reconciled to that fact, she turned around to face her life and began speaking in full sentences.  She began to interact with the world, much to the amazement of her parents and the ‘experts’
who were brought in on her case. 
She brought herself around to serve with reluctance and difficulty, but she made it. 
As she described it, she went through the motions of what was expected of her as a child and young woman, pretty much in a huge sulk the whole time.  She knew what she was capable of but kept it to herself.  She resolved to live a selfish life as much as possible.  She married and entered the workplace, bent on avoiding her calling.  But a series of strange events dogged her efforts to have things her way. 
She would take a job somewhere and within a few months of her arrival, the business would fail. 
At first it seemed coincidental, but several failed businesses later, she knew the score.
This would keep happening and more and more people would suffer until she finally surrendered
to her calling…her reason to be here…her destiny. 
When I first learned of her, I was very leery of psychics, but I came to realize how many people
she had helped-in particular, how many suicidal people she had helped through life. 
She provided a kind of help and insight that was wonderfully beyond what pastors and psychiatrists and the like could offer.  There was no denying the power and the scope of her gifts.  
She was teacher, mentor, spiritual mother and guide beyond compare.
                                                   ***
She was no-nonsense, at times blunt and true...
She took me aside after class one day and counseled me along these lines, saying   “Debra, as you are experiencing all of these new things, all this new growth…do not let go of your foundation in Christ.  This is an extension of your walk with God.  It is not apart or separate from it.  It is the fulfillment of His Being. Hold onto your good foundation.  But!  Do not be limited in your beliefs!  Not by the church and not by yourself!”

She paused a bit and then went on to explain.  “You know, sadly, most Christians still do not know Christ.  When they say they believe in Jesus, they might as well be saying they believe in Santa Claus. 
They use His Name in the same way. 
He is just there to provide presents to them.  He is just someone they want to use.  There is no reality…no real following…just make-believe…
She was characterized by that kind of razor sharp expression and loyalty to the Truth.
She was right, of course...a little hard-hitting, but Truth can be like that. 
That kind of Truth can save a life...or salvage it.

continued in Crib Stories...