Lou Gold wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 3:48 am
It means having a conscious dance more aligned with reality
Lou, things get much deeper than that.
First, we have to differentiate between healthy imagination and wishful fantasy. The latter turns the child into a person identifying with his/her fantasies and then being crushed at every step when the fantasies themselves are being crushed by reality.
Think of a thing as simple as Santa Claus. Sooner or later children understand that there's no fat guy going through the chimney. It is grossly underestimated what the effects of this are for the fragile child soul. Think of it: you (the child) find out that it's all been a big lie, the world is a much more prosaic, dry, wicked place. Then why we wonder when children become hardened egoists? We are preparing them for that! We're basically telling them "it's all lies around you, it's a jungle, you'll have to do on your own, grow up!".
Contrast this with a legend of a prince that conquers and tames the dragon, and saves the beautiful princess. Now we are again stirring the child's imagination, it lives in feelings and pictures but there's a great
difference. What we thus convey to the child is reality - even if dressed in pictures. As the child matures, it finds out that the prince (the Spirit) conquers and tames the dragon (the lower nature - unrestrained desires and passions) and sets free the beautiful princess (the soul). And if the child asks "But is the dragon real?", we can answer "Yes, it is absolutely real. But you won't find it outside on the streets. It exists in the same world that you visit every night when you sleep in your bed. One day you'll meet him. But you have to be patient and prepared. You have to get strong first. Now eat your breakfast." Note that we have said not a single
lie to the child. We are nourishing the child's imagination not in order to make it into a fantast but to prepare the most fertile soil for its development.
We can't talk to the child directly about soul, spirit, lower nature and so on. It is simply not in position to think about these things because it has not yet
differentiated them within itself. Take some highly developed individuality, a spiritual master, that is incarnating today. Despite of his (or her, could be incarnating as a woman) high development, he still needs to pass through a long adaptation to his new environment - especially to the body of emotions and desires, of pain and pleasure. Even this lofty individuality cannot help but be dominated by cry when he can't get what he wants. The child does not think to itself "Yes, I'm a mature, creative being, but I can't quite come to grips with my emotional life". This comes later. At the early stages, even this evolved spirit must grow
anew and in the process he cannot distinguish himself from the emotions that are ruling him. Sadly, even most adults can't do that. That's why we speak to the child "in parables". We are planting seeds that will grow into reality.
There's very little understanding of these things today. Parents take great pride when their three year old can count to one hundred and add numbers. Little that they know is that they are preparing a cripple. And we're not singing "We don't need no education" here. It's just that there's time for everything and the knowledge of this time can come only from clear understanding of the human being. Conceptual and abstract thinking should emerge only after the child has expanded its soul volume as healthy imagination. Through play, music, crafts, it first learns to
feel numbers, to live with them as pictures. Only later, as the imaginative space increases in "resolution", in a completely natural way, these pictorial feelings precipitate as concepts of the mind. In this way the conceptual knowledge of the child proceeds from reality and is not simply grafted to it. This is exactly what happens when one force feeds the child abstract math or any other purely abstract facts. This has rigidifying, sclerotizing effect on the organism. The soul loses its plasticity way too early. Then, at later age, all kinds of diseases start to emerge and the poor being wonders what he or she has done to deserve it. There's a massive difference in the way abstract numbers are
felt when force fed in this way. They are not felt at all. The depth of living number is as little felt and understood, as a parrot understands the words it's repeating. Of course, the child shows great creativity and ingenuity in the process but nevertheless, this knowledge creates out of it a cold calculating mind, out of touch with any soul depth. But this is not surprising... especially in an age where it's the official knowledge that consciousness is equal to computation.
So we see that great knowledge and wisdom is needed for educating a child. It is not at all easy to reach these things. Everything must be fought for by sweat on the brow, so to speak. Even if we change a single word and say "destroys the dragon" instead of "tames", we'll be inviting quite different soul forces into the child. These things can never be arrived at by wishful thinking or by staying with legs crossed, eyes closed and imagining that the world does not exist - which paradoxically is considered the highest wisdom.
It is not enough to subscribe to ahimsa and hope for the best. Even if we educate our children not to kill animals and cut down trees, this is not enough. The child must be gradually led towards true understanding of what it is. If we understand what man really is then all these things follow as natural consequence. This is not to say that they should not be talked about. But the child must see in the adult, a being that has wisdom, strength and love, that it is yet to attain. It will naturally try to copy the behavior of those it admires but it's only when it reaches its full self-consciousness, as a free spiritual being, that it'll understand the right place of minerals, plants, animals and humans - not as something implanted on it from outside but as direct spiritual intuition.
So to bring it to the topic of the thread. Personally, I hope and pray that one of the
many things that should see gradual change, would be concretely child development. And one of the central problems that stays on the way of this, is
lies. Lies are so engraved into our civilization that it cannot exist without them! And it's considered "natural". But it's precisely the opposite of natural. And this is just one of the checkboxes in the task list of evolving humanity - make lying a thing of the past. And hoping and praying, although necessary, are also not enough. We have to start from ourselves.
Now this gives us a way to see Matthew 18:3 in a more constructive light. The Kingdom is not entered when everyone becomes a wishful dreamer but when the
heart is pure as in a child. We can't ignore the world we're living in. We should have the mind of an adult - clear as crystal, as bright as the Sun, objective, precise, impartial and sober. And this mind paves the way to the Kingdom
only when the heart is pure, humble and loving as that of a child.
Here we go again. I believe I said, I'll leave it to you to not "get bummed out by the current state humanity is in." From my POV it would be better to look clearly, feel the sadness, grieve the losses and get on with the work. It's not all about love and joy. But maybe that's what you mean by "not getting bummed out" ? If so, I would not challenge that. BTW, innocence does not equal ignorance when it comes to the Emperor having no clothes.