It's Natural !

I have spoken before about how children are open to the unseen worlds when they are very young and how that ability to perceive and communicate, to tap into the universe's wisdom shuts down around age 7. For some children, this shutting down process is not automatic. There are many reasons why children shut down and some are doing so quite consciously.

One of my kids told me that she was simply too scared of hearing people talk when their lips weren't moving. She was clearly telepathic and could hear other people's thoughts. Going out in public with her was always fun, we always said that she had an excellent "BS detector" when it came to people. She knew with certainty who was trustworthy and who wasn't. However, each outing was met with an hour long session of crying, shouting, freaking out and acting up once we had received the safe confines of our home. This behavior began very early in her life and presisted through age 5 or 6. Then she was less verbal with her discernment about people and whew, didn't throw a fit after getting home anymore.

I knew that her fit throwing wasn't personal. It wasn't that she misbehaved - it was just release from sheer overload. What happened at this young age was that she had shut off her ability to perceive peoples' thoughts. She simply had managed to turn her mind on like a radio so that it would chatter so loudly, that she wouldn't hear the thoughts that weren't hers anymore. Thus, she was prepared to be in a room with 20 other kids without problems - yes, school !

What I see today, is how mind chatter gets created by a child. Simply turn on the mind - sounds very simple... just like a radio. I have asked her how she did that and she said, I just moved to thinking about the future continuously. There we have it - move out of the oneness connection, out of the HERE and NOW and whoops, the mind begins chattering to drone out the extra-sensory perceptions that are naturally inherent. No wonder wisdom traditions admonish us to meditate, meditate, meditate.... to get back to what ? ...something that is natural ! something that we once knew how to do, but had no guidance with. (Some children share and you can guide them, some don't share and take action for themselves without you knowing and there may be a reason for that).

So what's meditation actually ? I've meditated many times in my life. Yeah the 80s held a clear renaissance for meditating and so meditating I did. Clear the mind - no toughts... I managed to achieve a state of "thoughtlessness" and it stuck, it's natural again, but I failed to see that by releasing one thought at the time (yes, the hard way) I moved closer to the now, away from my attachment to future or past. Away from drama, away from excitement to the neutral point of NOW, of balance, of quietness. Whilst meditating and achieving this goal with arduous practice, I failed to see that it could have been a lot easier had I fully comprehended the connection between the mind chatter and being removed from the balance point of now. Perhaps, (refering to my previous post "Critical Mass") it is now easier for people to come to the point of balance, the now, than it was before.

If you have endless mind chatter and have grown so accustomed to your state, that it is "normal", know that you may perhaps not be in the now. In the now, things are quiet, they are simple, neutral, there is no attachment, no desire - yes, for drama-driven people the now is rather unattractive, even boring. However, in the true now, the exact point of neutrality, balance, there is no attachment, no desire, no suffering (one of the bhuddist tenets) I find it rather remarkable that by moving into the now point, one can achieve these lofty goals of different wisdom traditions and achieve this natural (child like) state. Not just wisdom traditions speak of this - I'm not one to quote the bible often, nor have I really studied it, but I recall this phrase from my childhood visits to the protestant church in Switzerland: (I quote the International  Standard Version 2008)

"Then he said, "I tell you with certainty, unless you change and become like little children, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven."  (and we all know who is meant by "he").

I am aware that there could be many interpretations of any bible passage. I am absolutely not informed what the current interpretation is of this passage in any given church, country, or what have you. My personal interpretation is this: Become like you were as a child, sitting in the point of NOW, being open to spirit (kingdom of heaven) - it's natural !