Child Natures

Higher yoga-meditation. Compare Yoga Sutras

A Dream

One day a man set out on a journey. At a certain place he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream. In it he saw a stairway [or ladder] resting on the earth. The top of the ladder was reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

There above it stood YHWH [I Am, I Will Become].

The man got afraid, woke up and said, "How awesome; this is the gate of heaven." [Genesis 28:10-19, retold].

Compare Jack and the beanstalk.

Swift and deep meditation

Deep meditation. Yogananda said, "Do not waste time in negative thinking." (Yogananda 1958, 3). "Always look to the bright side of life," is a tune by Eric Idle. Still, be a smart realist as well.

By repeated, swift and deep meditation life can get better. Fit skills serve that too.

Reduce Garbage

Lessen the faith in much faith. Have you considered that the faith that has been handed to you in the tradition you are in, could be wrong? For there are many conflicting faiths and beliefs around, about a whole lot of issues. It boils down to this: Many faiths or dogmas in the world cannot all be right if they differ. They do differ in many ways. Q.e.d. (Quod erat demonstrandum.)

One could flounder without education, skills, resistance. At any rate, refrain to do and invest much on top of hearsay and blind faith. However, tentative or provisional faith may be tested carefully, guardedly and well for as long as it takes, with clarifying or gladdening results too, says Buddha somewhere.

Not to be fooled around helps too. To get entertained by tales of common, abounding tricks, may save us troubles in real life.

• Turn to imagery in the art of education.
• Turn to decent understatements if you feel for it. Besides, good things and nice scenery have to be guarded.
• Artistically formed, terse wisdom may hope to survive better, not unlike the Confucian analects.
• Tact, a decent culture and wise use of skills may help too, even without research that confirms their value.

One of the fable features is called distance-making. When animals portray gross, typical conditions of mankind, distance-making is at work. It tends to make fears less. Blossoming cartoonists use it too. And wisdom so portrayed can survive if it brings few or no problems to those who hand it over to next generations. It tends to be like that.

Address the Inner Child

I have taught the truth which is excellent in the beginning, excellent in the middle, and excellent in the end; it is glorious in its spirit and glorious in its letter. But simple as it is, the people cannot understand it. I must speak to them in their own language. I must adapt my thoughts to their thoughts. They are like to children, and love to hear tales. Therefore, I will tell them stories to explain the glory of the Dharma. If they cannot grasp the truth in the abstract arguments by which I have reached it, they may nevertheless come to understand it, if it is illustrated in parables. - Bhagavan Buddha [Link]

Deep inside a human is his id, or the Child, in Eric Berne's terminology. It says there is a Child in grown-ups too, if it is not dead. In that case the grown-up is dying. The id-system sees to that, also in grown-ups. That is a side to psychodynamic theory - that id gives zest and keeps us functioning on many levels and through many stages. [Erik H. Erikson's stages]

We may assert with Eric Berne that the Child level of mind is seldom reached through abstract presentation, but can be reached through imagery, allegorical mastery and emblems that fit. Presentations and tales that suit a child of five or six, may reap heartfelt thanks, and even better, may help in solidifying their lives so that they know better what to do or not to do, as the case may be. That could be good entertainment.

Primal moral seems to be linked to that the inner Child, (Dr. Berne's term), so the roots of good moral may dry up or die if they are not catered for in fit manner - imagery and devices found in fairy tales, fables, good proverbs and good parables. (Berne 1973)

Fables, allegories and cartoons of quite mature calibre, ride high on some distancing. Solid parables can hit the target fairly well.

Brisk-looking and adequately attuned poetry (Aristotle's concept poesis in new and old ways) can also enter a Child mind.

But a candid, terse gentleman and his gentleman humour may not be understood and welcomed, and thus risks falling short in some settings.