The archetypal state of child

by Monica Dascălu

And Jesus said: “Let the little children come to me,

and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven

 belongs to such as these.”
(Matthew 19:14)

In order to better understand all the aspects we present here, let us evoke an image right at the beginning:

“It is a sunny summer’s day, and we are a child walking towards a shaft of light. We feel light and free. We don’t care about the road we walk on, as long as it goes towards the sun. We look around with our eyelashes bathed in light; we are without a care, free and bright. We know that someone is taking care of us, so we don’t worry about tomorrow or the future; we have no problem. We are not bound to the past; there is only the present moment. Everything we see around us we take as it is, without judging or conditioning. There is no good or bad, beautiful or ugly, there is only light. We don’t want to have anything or to accumulate things, to have a social position. Even the personality of a child like this is not conditioning him; he just is and does not think he is a certain way.”

Let’s compare this image with the image of a saint: full of light, he knows he is a child of God, he knows that God takes care of him and will give him everything he really needs. He doesn’t care what others think of him, he can be whatever he wants, but in essence he always remains the same child of God. He doesn’t care about yesterday or tomorrow; he lives in the state of communion with God the Father here and now. There is no good or bad for him, beautiful or ugly, everything exists in the same light. He is pure, bright and free. We notice immediately the resemblance of these two images.
 
In our mind, man’s evolution from child to adult and then to old age it is deeply rooted during our lifetime, associating them respectively with innocence, strength and wisdom. A yogi has to accumulate and simultaneously achieve the state of innocence of a child in the heart, the strength of a mature man in the body and the archetypal wisdom of old age.
The state of innocence implies that we have a pure soul, untouched by negative, destructive passions or emotions, such as sadness, jealousy or hatred. Seeking to live almost always the state of innocence, we will notice gladly how all these negative states and emotions can no longer touch and influence us. Why? Because they are incompatible with the inner state of purity, which is very elevated. Basically, we will notice when we are confronted with such states that the simple attitude of adopting the state of a child will make them instantly disappear – and not through fighting, stopping them with force, but through transcending, by entering a completely superior state of mind, just as we would rise above a storm. It is very easy to approach the attitude of a child – we could start even by imagining that we have very pure, bright eyes, with their eyelashes bathed by light, evoking the previous image. We will discover an infinite light that will invade us almost instantly; we will feel very light and free.

Why do we lose the state of innocence and purity?

All the wonderful features of the archetypal childhood fade away or even completely disappear in the mature man. Why? Because it makes more sense to us to be “a serious person”, because we have problems, we want to become somebody, to achieve material wealth. We no longer trust that we will receive everything we need and start worrying so much that we forget to be happy again. We are confronted with the imperfection of society and people’s wickedness, failures and deceptions. It is somewhat understandable, but those who wish to be their own masters are not allowed to accept this state. They would better start to see everything as a game and play it in a detached way.

For “grown-ups” the values are practically reversed and they even start to wish for things more than for being happy. Being caught in their problems and being focused to achieve certain goals, most of the time they can’t even remember why they wanted them in the first place, they want to live, fight, accumulate things, without actually living – they become like robots in the service of goals which don’t belong to them.
 
Furthermore, they are caught in the web of their own strengths (which most of the time is nothing but the strength of a man who has reached biological maturity); they love to feel strong and independent. They will see the state of innocence as being damagingly “infantile”. They will stay the way they are, irremediably moving towards the decline of the force supporting them now, being more and more submitted to the external conditions and dependent on those around them.

But maybe each of us know also some “grown-ups” who have not forgotten they were children once, and still know how to be joyful and have preserved the purity of their heart. If we know such a person, we will always discover that they are very pleasant company and in their presence optimism and candour seem to irresistibly contaminate us.

We are children of God

By evoking the state of child, characterized by purity and innocence, we will gradually come to rediscover the feeling of affiliation to God. This way, it will awaken in us an unbreakable faith, based upon direct perception of the Divine, which is equivalent to very high states of consciousness. The permanent and intense experience of the fact that we are God’s children will not only help us, but is also a practical method of evolution (similar to Karma Yoga) which opens us towards the ultimate, divine aspects of our being.
 
With this attitude we will paradoxically discover that we are stronger, but not like some giants defined by our strength: we have an amazing capacity of acting with huge energies only because of the fact that we are above them. As children of the Divine, we can firmly ask for a lot, but should completely obey to the wisdom of our Father and not aim for something personal.

We will rediscover the joy of childhood

Furthermore, this attitude confers an immense joy and cheerfulness, a permanent state of hope and optimism, the feeling that we are protected. And we will see how we become even wiser; we understand things to which we didn’t have access before, because we begin to effectively live spiritual truths. It is amazing how many inner achievements can be accomplished through the simple approach of an innocent attitude and therefore, the fact that it is so easily and often forgotten is regrettable.

Let’s never forget that spiritual Realization doesn’t mean to know from others, to understand or to accept something as being true, but it means to live on our own the wonderful things that we were told about and even to discover new ones. Therefore, it is essential to genuinely live this state of innocence as well, because it is very necessary and even a sort of “shortcut” which, if is walked with awareness, it will save us from useless efforts or delays.

One last warning: we should not confuse innocence with infantility or weakness and not forget how unbearable spoiled children are.

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