Bringing Up Children

I came to Seeing when I was expecting my first (of two) children who are now both in their thirties with children of their own.

What I love about this business, which all the recent posts demonstrate so well, is that there aren't any rules. And this applies to bringing up kids. Like Marc and Stuart, I felt tremendous respect for "the natural process", which largely consists of the child real-ising (more or less) that for others she/he is not the centre of the universe but merely one human being among billions of others.

Encouraging this sounds illogical for one who is concerned, above all, with Who We really are, but there never seemed any conflict in practice. In a sense, children know all too well what it is to be nothing-everything and it may be entirely appropriate that they do not wish to be reminded of it! They've got opposite work to do, building up something out of Nothing, which, at certain times, may require all their energy and attention. If I ever tried bringing up the Subject when my children were very young, both would always immediately, and quite unconsciously, and uncannily effectively, manage to change the subject. Eventually, I got the message!

Since Being Who One Is includes and transcends Seeing Who One Is, there are potentially any number of ways and means of conveying the deepest truth. If one's not open to this, opportunities may be lost. Interestingly, (when the girls were older) I nearly always found myself referring to "It" in terms other than Seeing, which mostly didn't seem relevant.

Stuart's account of the workshop participant feeling she had been brought up by the Void appals. Perhaps this is the kind of thing that happens when one gets stuck on "the means", clings to the door frame (e.g. " two-way seeing") instead of stepping over the threshold by letting go of every thing--but everything--and waking up as Infinity, for which any concept/percept is totally inadequate. It's like stepping down a step that isn't there, isn't it? This house, in which we all live and move and have our being, has no floor!

Being sensitive implies Infinite acceptance, unconditional love, from which all follows naturally and appropriately. It may mean one never finds oneself referring to "It"--who knows? I would say that what matters is not your child's Seeing (or equivalent) but your spiritual connection with her--which may or may not explicitly express Itself. A.S. UK.

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to test two of Douglas' contentions. My brother and his 3 small children were in for a weekend visit. While sitting at the table, his oldest, Alex, age 6, was talking about school and first grade. Josh, age 3 1/2, bragged he could count. There were 5 of us at the table, so I asked Josh to count how many of us there were. He counted my brother, Alex, my son, and myself, and proudly stated "4". Alex corrected Josh and told him he forgot to count himself. I stated maybe Josh was right from his perspective. That drew a few puzzled looks, so I let it go.

Later, I was holding Liz, 20 months old, and while passing in front of a hallway mirror, asked her who that was. She said, "Baby". I asked her where Liz was, and she pointed to herself, not the mirror. She didn't identify at all with the reflection in the mirror.

It was exciting and reaffirming to see this actually play out. Young children apparently really do have it right. Where is it said, "Truly I tell you, unless you return and become like children, you can't enter the kingdom of God." B.M. USA.

Wonderful how it works for all of us who are built open to see. Yesterday I passed a child walking down the street. She was about 4 years old and said out loud: "My legs are walking, I am not, it's just my legs walking !" It touched me how bright the girl was. And reminded me of seeing what is right in front of me and of the Seeing experiments. Hilde.

See: Sharing It With Children by John Hawkins

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