Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Grown-up - Are we??

Last night, I saw this cute little girl, probably less than two years old, dressed up in a beautiful white frock, running around while her mom was standing nearby. I was watching her playfully running around enjoying the moonlight and after a few seconds, she cheerfully sat down and lied down completely on the road. I could clearly see that she was playing with a big grin on her face. Her mom on the other side was looking all around and started scolding her, 'you should not lie down like that here... get up .. get up ...' After a few seconds, the kid jumped up and started running all around...

Such incidents are a not new. They keep happening everywhere. The first thing that comes to our mind when we talk about or look at children is their innocence, playfulness and cheerfulness. They are full of energy (literally). They are not bothered about society. They jump, they whirl, they run, they laugh, they do everything and they are not bothered who is around, where they are, what people say.

We all were in that state and along the way of so-called 'growing-up' we have forgotten our true self. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'We have forgotten our true nature, that of innocence, that of bliss, as we grew up. Layers and layers of societal and parental conditionings have been built up on us and we forget our true nature.'

Our true nature is that of bliss. We expressed that bliss when we were kids but now if someone says one word against us, we are upset the whole day. We don't smile for weeks or don't talk to that person again for days or even years. If we look at children, they cry but just after a few minutes they start smiling.

We see a number of times how children effortlessly walk barefoot on surfaces where we can't even imagine to walk. I have seen kids running around barefoot in the ashram where some stretches have gravel and stones. When we walk, we think of the pain, the heat of sand, the piercing stones even before we walk. Children on the other hand, don't know what is pain unless you tell them what it is. You might have seen it many times; children fall but immediate get up and start running around. If they are hurt, they just point towards it but they don't cry immediately until we adults go and ask them, 'is it paining?'

We have been constantly bombarded with all kinds of negative ideas and conditionings and we do the same thing with our children. We were constantly bound by society and we bind the children also in the same way. The way we speak, the way we walk, the way we lead our life are completely dependent on how the society wants us to be but not on how we want to express ourselves. Just because we mold ourselves to fit into the society, we go through all our problems. The insecurities, fears, guilt, stress, worry and whatever emotion we can think of, even love, is because of our inability to express our true nature and our fear of being quarantined by the society.

Children on the other hand are centered. They are not bound by the society (atleast initially). They just express their energy and bliss. They can jump for hours together; can we adults do that? No! They can whirl continuously; can we adults do that? No! What is the difference? They simply do not associate themselves with the body. They don't see their body as an obstacle to express their bubbling energy. But we, so called adults, we have become more body conscious and society conscious. We simply do not know what we are. We define ourselves based on the society but they aren't like that. We so bound by society and its concepts like status, name, fame, money, caste, religion etc. ete. that most of the times we don't know who our neighbour is. Leave two children in a room; they start playing; they start interacting even if they are new to each other. Forget an unknown person, we sometimes don't even speak to our relatives and friends openly.

If you get a chance to go to the Swamiji's ashram in Bidadi, see the Gurukul kids there. They radiate bliss. They will come and serve you food, they help you get around the ashram etc. During one of the programs, I remember how beautifully they were helping us understand and do the guru puja. They simply radiate that bliss to everyone, wherever you are from.

All we have to do is break all these conditionings. All our so-called problems simply disappear with this one understanding and some of the meditation courses by Paramahamsa Nithyananda work exactly on this... Once we do that, all we are left with is nothing by eternal bliss - nithyananda. Enjoy this short 2-minute clipping on this subject by Paramahamsa Himself.

1 comment:

Vane said...

Love this! I have been working with children for over 9 years and i have learned, discovered and realized so much!! It is such a joy to be around them!! I myself feel im getting younger and younger... :)