Freedom from the magic projection
The Heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam.
Bhagavān Nityānanda
In the heart there resides an antelope. It runs fast and free and wild and strong. It covers vast distances and see sights of astonishing grandeur and great beauty. In fact, it only sees beauty. It runs through all the cosmos in complete freedom. And we can follow it there if we choose.
The great conundrum in life is that even though we have been given enormous freedom, we choose suffering. True, we are faced with a delusion of grand proportion, yet, again and again, we align with limitation. These limitations are the beliefs that become our identity. They are handed down from our parents, our society, our culture, our race, our gender and our humanity. We are also born with them, samskaras from lifetimes past. We are born believing in our separation.
O wonderful Mahamaya
The substance of every suffering will vanish. From Mother of the Universe Ramprasad Sen translated by Lex Hixon
who can analyze your dream power
that project the momentary universe?
O Goddess eternally mad with wisdom bliss,
why have you driven us mad instead
with habitual diversion?
Lost within your magic projection
we cannot recognize each other
as strands of one consciousness.
One of the 11 belief statements of Religious Science written by Ernest Holmes that describes the problems inherent in the limitations of the mind to perceive heaven on Earth is:
WE BELIEVE that heaven is within us, and that we experience it to the degree that we become conscious of it.
As parents we battle constantly with this illusion; especially recognizable in those moments when despite the magnitude of our love and best intentions, we feel we have failed. Failure as a parent can look like many things. Judgment of failure is completely personal. It could mean losing your patience, losing your temper, yelling, physical violence, neglect, alcoholism or drug abuse, abandonment. Failure can also be reflected back in the child you hold so dear, who even though loved, is argumentative, rebellious, depressed, violent, suicidal or homicidal.
It is really difficult in those times to remember and to believe that all is perfect. That you are the perfect parent for your child as you are and that you were chosen by sacred contract for this Divine learning. It is hard to remember that there are no victims. It is hard to remember or believe that we are playing roles. It hard to remember that you have a choice in every moment, not only in what you say and how you act, but in what you choose to believe about yourself, your child, and life. Its hard to believe that you are free.
You are who you believe you are. Other people are, for you, who you believe they are: they can be nothing more than that. If you realized that the mind is one, that everyone and everything is your own projection (including you), you would understand that it’s only yourself you’re ever dealing with. You would end up loving yourself, loving every thought you think. When you love every thought, you love everything thoughts create, you love the whole world you have created.
Byron Katie
To choose to love yourself, despite all the evidence proving otherwise, is truly radical. To be radical means to thoroughly overhaul fundamental nature. It is departure from convention and tradition, unorthodox. It is the formation of new roots. This is radical self-acceptance, radical self-kindness and radical self-love.
You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.
Louise L. Hay
In great gentleness and great love, we can choose to free ourselves from suffering and accept and love ourselves as we are in this very moment. When we do, like the prodigal son returning from the far country (Luke 15:11-32), we find we have come home into the heart, and that heaven expands around us in all directions.
The ultimate love is the mind’s love of itself. Mind joins with mind—all of mind, without division or separation, all of it loved.
Byron Katie
Byron Katie goes on to explain without division, self-love in reality is Self-love, Divine love and with that we come to reside in the heavenly bliss of Union renowned by the poet saints like Rumi, Hafiz, and Ramprasad Sen. We can teach this to our children too through our own inner transformation with self-love, and also through story and play.
Affirmation: I love myself the way I am
Chakra engaged: Heart
Activity 1: Tell a touchstone story
A touchstone is the kind of story where only one word or phrase unlocks its meaning in all its deep complexity reminding you of your own true nature. Not only that, that one word or phrase comes to hold the power of the story itself so that each time you hear that word or phrase, you remember. Does that sound a little like self-hypnosis? It is more like the self recognizing itself, or self-recognition. These stories are like hiccups in the mind placed there by our inner Self, to stop and say, “Oh yeah, I forgot who I really was for a minute!” Any story can be a touchstone. We each have our own. It just depends on how you personally align with it, or in plain language, how much you love it. The story you listened to again and again as a child- whether you chose it or it just happened to be the only book around- the one you still know by heart. That one is one of yours. You’d be wise to look at it more deeply, for it holds some of the answers you seek.
One of my favorite touchstone stories is the Two Wolves from Native America. It has been variously attributed to the Cherokee, Inuit and Mojave, 3 tribes that spanned the continent, meaning that perhaps this story was shared by many cultures. I did not learn this one until I was an adult, but I understood its power very quickly and so do children, especially those struggling with low self image. In those times, you can ask, “which wolf are you feeding?”
This story is very short and there are many versions of it available online. Because it is existential, the story of the Two Wolves is best understood by children over the age of 7, who have now felt the tension in judgment by self and others. Feel free, as I do, to embellish it with a backdrop and setting and to adjust the description of your wolves to your audience (learn more about this living quality of storytelling in the post Why Storytelling with Children?).
Deep in the wilderness, where life is harsh and bitter cold and where survival is only a few meals away, there live two wolves. Each is beautiful and each is powerful. They are huge in size, as big as you. One is gray, sleek and cunning. The other is brown peppered with golden, strong and graceful. They are well matched in all ways except in temperament. The gray wolf is vicious, mean and foul. It kills without respect or remorse. It has no honor. It knows no kindness. It is a trickster. Quite the opposite, the golden wolf is courageous, noble and magical. It is a leader and cares for and guides its pack. It honors and blesses its kill and it is responsible, it never takes more than it needs. It can transform and shapeshift and travel in through mystical realms. It lives by wit and instinct.
Where do you think this wilderness is? Here’s a hint: it is not on Earth.
These two wolves live in you. And, maybe you have already guessed, they battle all the time. Do you ever feel them fighting within you?
Do you know who will win?
The one you feed.
For the younger child, I suggest Grimms’ The Frog Prince. Find it and the link for listening in my post Well-being: 10 easy ways to unlock the secret of happiness for kids.
Activity 2: Embrace your animal totem
The concept of Divine Self, or the relationship with the inner Self, can be a difficult one to access because we are in the habit of relating, ourselves to another. This is why personification of God is so common among humans because God as a concept can be just too abstract to relate to. Native American Sioux aptly called God Wakan Tanka, the Great Incomprehensible. In this activity, building upon our story of the Two Wolves, we can invite our child to honor and embrace their personal power, their Inner Self, in the form of an animal.
You probably already know your child’s favorite animal, or the one they have have dreams about. Let that animal be your child’s guide as a personification of their inner Self. It is easy to love their animal guide and to call upon it in times of need. Listen intently to your child explain their special relationship with their animal spirit and that animals’ superpowers. More likely than not, they are describing themselves.
Animal guides can take many forms. There may be a guide that is constant and life long; one that comes for a certain stage in life; one just for a day; and one for a moment. They need not compete with each other, but can all be welcomed as helpers.
In my class at the Center for Spiritual Awakening, we love to start our circle by picking our animal guide for the day from the Children’s Animal Spirit Cards deck by Steven Farmer.
Another way to be guided by animals is to notice the animal that is always near you. This can be the animal that lives with you, but it also may be a wild animal that you see every day. With your child, start to pay attention to those animals that surround you, even the smallest ones. Don’t overlook especially those animals that bite you. What is it they are here to tell you?
Make a totem pole
To celebrate the relationship with their animal guide, quite naturally a child will want to read stories about that animal, draw pictures of it, and have stuffed animals and other toys depicting it. You can also celebrate this relationship by making a miniature totem pole using paper maché that contains all of the animals that are your child’s helpers; or the animals of your tribe (family). A tribal totem pole would have one animal for each family member. This activity could also be restyled as a family crest drawn and painted on a board or canvas.
Materials
- Toilet paper or paper towel rolls
- Wood base
- Newspaper
- 1 part flour, 2 parts water, 1/4 part Elmer’s glue, pinch salt
- Paint
Make paper maché paste by mixing flour, water, salt and glue to the consistency of thin batter. Take strips of newspaper and apply to your rolls on your support base using the paper maché paste. Build up the newspaper until the paper rolls are covered. Now build the stacked totem images using crumpled newspaper adhered on with strips of newspaper dipped in paste. Alternatively, you may also do this step in advance and use tape to adhere the face forms to the rolls before applying the newspaper strips and paste. Continue building your totem until all the forms are covered. Let dry.
Paint with white gesso or white base. Let dry. Paint with tempera or acrylics and coat with clear varnish.
Activity 3: Nurture nature connection
If you haven’t figured it out by now, parenting is a set up. It’s true, some of you sail through it gracefully, but for many of us in western civilization, we come to quickly understand that the human experience is one of conditions. That is, despite the depth of our love, we quickly start putting conditions on our children in the form of our perceptions of appropriate language, behavior, appearance and so on. Quite naturally, children equate meeting these conditions to the value of our love for them and believe that our approval is love. Not only that, our voices start to override their inner voice of self-acceptance and they confuse our voice with their own. There is no way to get around this. It is the human experience. Trust that it is perfect as essential to the hero’s journey and at the same time, give your child alternatives to this form of conditioned love and approval.
The surest way to lose your self-worth is by trying to find it through the eyes of others.
Becca Lee
To do this, we nourish their connection to Gaia, Mother Earth and Father Sun. Mother Earth loves unconditionally and always takes care of us. Father Sun shines on everyone, exactly as they are.
Find 6 healing activities on how to nurture this essential connection in Earth: 5 ways to unconditionally mother your child.
Activity 4: Love your unique expression
Viewing art can be a humbling experience, especially in viewing masterworks. Unlike words in a book, what impresses upon me most is the powerful sense that the single brush stroke, clay indentation or pencil line was made by the hand of the artist. In that sense, when you are viewing art, you see the spirit of the artist. In some works, especially those vibrant with line, you can actually feel the energy pulsating off the canvas.
For example, do you remember the first time you saw the work of Jackson Pollock? Did you perhaps think, “I can do that,” or did you have that thought when viewing other masters?
The lines we draw hold a part of our essence and feeling. They are unique expressions of our individuality. No one can draw the same line. Embrace this quality when teaching children about their art.
A wonderful children’s book that expresses this magic in story form is The Dot by Peter Reynold’s. It starts out with a girl named Vashti that believes she can’t draw. Find it here on Read aloud Books from Snuggle Bug storytime:
Activity 5: Acknowledge temperament
We, each of us, are here for an express role and purpose. We are unique and unlike anyone else and yet, humans have devised ways of categorizing our psychology, personalities and proclivities into temperaments. There are many tests to choose from and these can become quite detailed, including Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), the Comrey Personality Scales (CPS), Five Factor Model, and many, many more. A lot of these more modern constructs of psychology are highly controversial, but they do point to our unique differences in how we relate to and within the world.
For this reason, it is important to recognize, acknowledge and embrace your child’s temperament, especially if it quite different from your own. Each temperament is important, valuable, and is a vital player in the human landscape and drama. Keep in mind also, that although we play these personality roles, they are not fixed, nor do they define who we are. They are the role we play, for now.
There must be narrow-minded people as well as artists. It would be a bad thing if there were only artists, or if everyone who believes that he or she should get acknowledgment as an artist, would receive such credit. I would like to know what life would be like then. Genius is certainly necessary in life, but narrow-mindedness also needs to exist in the world. And if there were no bourgeois people around any longer, there would more than likely soon be no more geniuses either. One cannot simply apply the categories “good” and “bad” to life, because life is multiform.
Rudolf Steiner – GA 337b – Soziale Ideen/Soziale Wirklichkeit/Soziale Praxis – Dornach, August 30, 1920 (page 109)
According to Greek philosopher Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC) there are four temperaments: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. Waldorf education places much value on temperament in child development and in meeting a child’s individual needs through story and play. To learn more about your child’s temperament, read the free e-book from the Waldorf library, The Four Temperaments by Helmut Eller or detailed exploration in the blog, The Parenting Passageway.
Two other descriptors of personality based on ancient teachings are the three doshas of ancient Ayurvedic medicine (vata, pitta, and kapha), outlined in Yoga Journal, and Human Design. Human Design was received by Ra Uru Hu (née Alan Krakower), a former advertising executive and magazine publisher, from an eight-day visitation in the ’80s with a “Voice.” The result was a four-hundred-page textbook for how we all work, defined by our time and place of birth.
There is an awe-inspiring beauty revealed in mapping Human Design in relation to others in your life, in that you see that each of your lives and personalities complements the other, and that the evolution of consciousness requires everyone playing their role.
Activity 6: Love yourself radically and unconditionally
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.
Thich Nhat Hanh
I can think of no better person alive to help you walk this path than Byron Katie. People have filled entire blog posts with her quotes and wisdom, like this one from the much recommended Sandra Pawula of Always Well Within or in Byron Katie’s book, A Friendly Universe.
The ultimate love is the mind’s love of itself.
Byron Kate, in A Friendly Universe
The Universe is friendly. And any thought that opposes that is going to feel like stress. Reality is always kinder than the story we tell about it.
Byron Kate, in A Friendly Universe
Luckily for us, there are so many videos of her on YouTube and facilitators of The Work all over the country. One of my favorite teachers, a father of two, is Pete Sibley. Find his masterful take on The Work, podcasts and ongoing classes at his website, https://www.petesibley.com/.
If you don’t love yourself, nobody will. Not only that, you won’t be good at loving anyone else. Loving starts with the self.
Wayne Dyer
Activity 7: I love myself the way I am
An easy sing-along with words-to-remember lyrics for home or classroom is I love myself the way I am by Jai Josephs.
I also include for the older child and adult, this beautiful and haunting song by Nessi Gomes, All Related.
Activity 8: Affirmative prayer for self-love
There is only One.
One Mind, One Heart, One Life.
It is the creative force of the Universe, born of pure love, ever expanding in all directions.
This One is God.
This One is being me Now.
God created in utter perfection and love, indivisible and connected to all things.
There is nothing I need to do or be to earn this love.
I already own it always and forever.
I can return again and again to the center of my being a find there a deep well of love and acceptance.
It fills me with love.
It fills my whole world with love.
This deep well never runs dry because its source is God, my true home and the truth of my being.
I love myself the way I am.
How can it be otherwise?
I give anything else that is not love – mean words, mean thoughts, mean acts- back to the well to be transformed into love.
Thank you, God.
And so it is.
Amen.
Related Posts
Why storytelling with children
Dedications
To Pete Sibley, Janie Lundy, Mother Earth and Father Sky who taught me how to love unconditionally.
Image Credits
Images are free for commercial use from Pixabay.com and Wikimedia Commons. Thank you to the following image artists.
Butterflies – Ronny Overhate
Cave painting – Rodrigo de la torre
Byron Katie – Lovingwhatisnt
Wolves – Comfreak
Girl with lions – S. Hermann & F. Richter
Horse – enriquelopezgarre
Number 1, 1949 by Jackson Pollock – Wikimedia Commons
Sponsors
Thank you to my sponsors for supporting this week’s lessons.
Please contact me if you’d like to sponsor a post for Science of Mind child info *at* SOM-child.com. Find a the list of upcoming topics at The Center for Spiritual Awakening children’s program.
