Your children do not belong to you. They are not a property or a possession. They are not here for you to command, but are in need of your considerate guidance. Children possess wisdom that most adults have long forgotten. How you treat (or even consider) your children and others less powerful, reveals a lot about you. For example, when you harshly punish a child, and they resist, and you push against their resistance with even more punishment — you are actually pushing against yourself. This is your imbalance that the child is showing you, as an emotional mirror to yourself. The struggle originated with you, and while amplified and escalated, your original act of force is the source issue — not what you considered to be the child's misbehaviour. These cycles of vying for control and domination tend to escalate. Many adults who become angry with their children, and punish and blame them, are actually themselves the unknowing sources of the child's behavior. What they believe they despise in the child, they unconsciously despise within themselves. They create what they hate within the child. Children and animals are psychological mirrors that allow us to see and understand ourselves; they reflect back our psychological energies. Violence instructs to violence; calm instructs to calm. Your message means less than the way the message is delivered, because in actuality, the way the message is delivered, IS the message. How we treat any being less powerful than ourselves, is a startlingly clear window into our personal nature.
The idea of children as individuals — independent from their parents, isn't commonly considered in our society. Rather, they are considered necessarily subordinate to parents because of their very limited life experience. Less appealing, but no less common, is a tendency to view offspring as a legacy of patriarchy; from there, it's a short distance to children being treated as possessions. Our children and family members are individuals, not hereditary keepsakes. We do not own them, and they do not belong to us; we can only know them. They belong to the world and to themselves, and for a brief period in this ephemeral existence, we have the privilege to share time with them, and to serve them and their needs.
In many ways, we live in a domination culture, where what is often called love is really suppression. Those with the spirit of domination are the most psychologically and spiritually crippled. Love has nothing to do with control, and people who are obsessed with control have neither self-control nor love for themselves or others. What they hate is their own lack of self-control, so they control you. What people who try to dominate you hold in utmost contempt is your refusal to be controlled; stunted, they must stand upon you to reach the height their underdeveloped psyche has never attained. They are no different from any tyrant. The more control they try to exert on others, the more they are out of control in their inner life as an immature and diminutive being. Your obedience will earn the trappings of their deceptive rewards of protection and affection, but it will never grant you freedom. Freedom is the one thing the dominative personality can never offer, because it is only a freedom with conditions, expectations, rewards and punishments — which is not freedom at all, but bondage. Real respect is more concerned with your freedom than your obedience. Real love gives without expectation, while hate carries an endless tally of debts. Hate controls everything it touches, but love sets everything it touches free. Love is not about others; love is a practice of self-mastery. Mature and loving beings desire to create a space of safety and freedom for everyone and everything in their presence. A loving person will master himself and contract, to open the space for another to expand and be free in his presence. The more mature and loving you become, the more you become concerned with people and creatures less powerful than you, and the more careful and gentle you become with their handling.
Our children can be our greatest teachers if we are humble enough to receive their lessons. Respect is the most generous and wise teacher you will ever have in your life. But you cannot learn from what you dominate because anything you suppress, you also smother and silence what it had to teach you. Anyone you seek to control you secretly despise; this includes your children, companions and yourself. The spirit of control is supremely hateful. The nightmare spirit of control has always been, and is, profoundly stupid.
I remember in vivid detail the moment each of my daughters were born into life's keeping. Two things about that moment had a true, lasting impact on me. What I consider most awe-inspiring was their very first amazing and miraculous breath, and with that breath the animations of life and their helpless, compelling cries. I have thought intently about it over the years, about its profound implications on my understanding of the mysterious world around us and ultimately about its beauties. The second thing that has continued to impact me is that as this happened — in that instant of their springing into being — I helplessly wept tears of utter and absolute humility and joy as a witness to the sacred gift of life and creation. Each time I think about the moment of their births, it poignantly reminds me that I have, continue, and will forever cherish each breath and every beat of their precious hearts. My children's births forever command me to accept that each soul I encounter also once took that first breath, and was — and is — a beautiful child at heart. Basic respect for life is the foundation for treating all people and all life with the utmost dignity. The gift of life carries in its compelling innocence an implied mandate to protect all life, and this is the noble striving of respect.
There is a huge difference between learning about truth and experiencing truth. Touch the source. Your mind can take in endless pearls of wisdom, and your mouth can repeat them, but until you have essential experience — you only have noise. Talking and listening are nothing without understanding. We only truly understand what we experience. When people have understanding they tend to be quieter and seek quietness. Consider the possibility that many of the things you hear and say are utter nonsense and meaningless repetitions of noise. Cut it all out. Quit getting your information second hand. Take any concept, lesson, story, book, quote or conversation and look for a way to touch its source of origin — which is always through direct experience alone.
Having a purpose is one thing, but the quickening is a total animation of passion. After becoming mindful that your purpose is unique to you; that your unmatched spirit is an emerging expression of the fingerprint of life — the power of "awe" may occur to you. This "awe" leads to gratitude and perhaps even enthusiasm. When recognition of your unique value is enjoined with awe, gratitude, and enthusiasm — this is when the FIRE happens. The fire is a quickening of passion; a white-hot reverence for the simple gift of living. It quickens your soul and ignites a sequence that was written into your heart and your DNA. That sequence is called, your destiny. When you are set on fire, and your mind and heart burn with appreciation, your total intelligence galvanizes into one electric, master-expression. Through this expression, you become the supreme architect of your own unfolding, and the passion in your heart burns so brightly that the blaze is felt and seen by everyone who comes near you. Brightly burning passion is the releasing of your essence, your specialness and your gifts to the world. Every person has a destiny and a gift, but not everyone releases their gift fully. There is no greater sensation of consciousness than to expend yourself completely through the quickening fires of passion. The animating fire of life is merely a total devotion to living. Devote yourself to living completely and sharing your unique brilliance. There is no such thing as a person without brilliance. One passionate heart can brighten the world. From person to person the chain reaction burns through us — setting heart to heart ablaze, and lighting the way for us all!
In a world that wants you to be something else, simply have the courage to be beautiful, and let your heart's unbridled truth flow and move upon each person you encounter. In one transformative quickening, you are freed from the tyranny of self-doubts, simply by seeing and acknowledging the treasure of your own soul. When you truly see yourself, it will be love at first sight. You are such fineness. There is such quality in your life. No substitute can ever compete with your matchless qualities. Every peace of mind you ever sought begins by forgiving yourself and loving yourself. It all starts with the way you see yourself. If you cannot see your own beauty, then you are not looking with honest eyes. If your life is not a love story, then you are not living the life meant for you.
Who you are is unique to all other consciousnesses that have ever lived on earth, or that shall ever live on earth. Relish with joy in the great gift of life, and in who you are. Be true to yourself. Dare to live as you really are, and never audit yourself, or bend, or lie, or be ashamed, or hide from who you really are. Your value comes exclusively from who you are as a unique soul. Be proud of who you are, and have no other needs or considerations, other than the joy that you have air in your lungs, and eyes to witness your own unique life as it unfolds. Life is a beautiful gift. You are a beautiful gift. Live the inner-life, have a smile in your heart, and know that the greatest purpose that you will ever have is simply daring to be yourself.
The greatest success is to have a lightness in your heart, and to be completely at ease and comfortable by being exactly what you were created to be; your own unique and beautiful expression of the divine. The respect of intelligent people does not matter at all, neither does the appreciation of honest critics. Betrayal of false friends, criticisms, and all societal markers of so-called success are meaningless. When laying on your deathbed you will care very little what critics had to say, how much money you had in the bank, what type of car you drove, or, whether so-called smart and intelligent people respected you.
