7 SPIRITUAL GIFTS TO GIVE YOUR CHILDREN

7 SPIRITUAL GIFTS TO GIVE YOUR CHILDREN

Help your children build a happy life.

[My deepest thanks to Deepak Chopra for his work and inspiration for this article]

What if you could pass on to your children principles that would specifically and directly help them on their way to a happy and successful life?

Over the years, I’d love to have collected a dollar for every time I’ve wished I had known earlier in life some of the deeper, timeless spiritual laws of the universe. But my parents were no different from any of the rest of us – with a spiritual education limited to the dour, carved in granite dictates of Cornish Methodism, they could not give away what they didn’t have.

But things are different now. For me and for you a wider and deeper knowing is available. In fact it is getting harder and harder to plead I don’t know. Enlightenment is out there in a mind-boggling array of flavours. We can, of course, turn our backs to it, but to do so is to fly right in the face of our very purpose in being here. And as Tevye says in “Fiddler On the Roof” – If you spit in the wind, it lands in your face.”

When kids understand the way this world works from a spiritual point of view, it’s  easier for them to navigate through both the more basic and the more challenging of life’s predicaments, and do so with more joy, love, satisfaction and happiness. Clarity of perspective frees them to confidently think and feel for themselves, to trust the intellectual and emotional intelligence they find they can tap into, and rely less upon the dehydrated dictates of others’ second-hand beliefs and more from their direct experience.

Every child is born a spiritual creature already. This is because every child originates from and gestates and is born into the field of infinite creativity and pure awareness that is spirit. And they come into the world already endowed with a body and  curiosity to explore this world and discover themselves in it.

Having looked deeply into their eyes and closely observed their behaviour as they grow and learn to navigate this “bigger womb” they find themselves in, I suspect that every babe knows that he/she is pure spirit with some human overlays, but they are not yet aware of what they “know”. And it seems that part of the condition of being human is that we will remain in ignorance of what we Know we are until some kind of crisis further down the track triggers a thought like This isn’t working any more.  In the meantime we keep tipping into our minds the impressions, reflections, ideas, concepts, opinions, expectations and beliefs liberally dealt out to us by grownups. It isn’t long before we have enough second-hand stuff in there to begin manufacturing a few of our own preferences out of what’s already in the bins. All the while we’re unwittingly constructing a false self (ego) to bind it all together and protect it from close scrutiny.

Why?

Looking at my own life story and that of everyone else Ive ever been close to, the game seems to be designed something like this --- First experience what is NOT until you come to some kind of crunch point where you realise “This isn’t working: I’ve missed something and maybe mistaken a lot of other stuff”. This enables you to deconstruct what you’ve learned and , inside of your personality – your front, discover who/what you really are, and always have been --- a spiritual being having the distinctly human experience of “Getting Lost So That I Can Be Found”.

Why would we do that? Well, maybe to experience the euphoria of finding our true selves and discovering, as “humans-being”, the awesome potential that lies waiting in this lifetime.

Parents who’ve been through this process of self-discovery now know that, in their children, Spirit must be cultivated; it must be nourished and encouraged. A child raised with spiritual skills alongside physical, emotional and intellectual education and dexterity will be able to find for themselves their answers to the most basic questions about how the universe works. He or she will understand the source of creativity both within and outside of us; he or she will be able to practice nonjudgment, acceptance, and truth, which will be free from fear and anxiety about the meaning of life. They will naturally stand in questions like Why am I here? What is this world all about and what is my place in it? How can I creatively participate in this flow of evolution? And they will find their own answers. They will trust that life itself will deliver all that’s needed for that inner journey just in the process of living each day.

Real spiritual growth changes a person in a paradoxical way, bringing both understanding and preserving innocence (I-know-sense). Deeper than love, the one thing you can’t do without is innocence. Innocence is both the source and the receptor of love. It is unfettered openness.

Seven Spiritual Laws of Life to Live From and Bequeath Into to Your Children’s Keeping:

1. Everything you can imagine is somehow possible. That can be done either by changing or transforming.

Change is the process by which we turn something into something else. If you see an area where change is needed, first recognise that your world is as you create it to be. If you want your world to change, first become the change you want to see. Unless you do that first, you’ll be wasting your time.

We all have the gift of creating – creating being the art and process of bringing something forth from nothing. Learn how you already create what you’ve got, and then learn how to create what you want - deliberately. Once you get the hang of it, there’s no limit to what we can do or be.

2. If you want to get something, generate it and then give it away. Always give with an open heart. The greatest gift is feeling good about oneself. Share it; it’s catching.

3. When you make a choice, you transform the future (karma). Your choices bring about decisions; your decisions bring about changes. To make good choices, follow your heart. Be aware. How do your choices make you feel?

4. Control freaks don’t get far in life. Unless you insist, life’s not about control. It you try to control anyone or anything, life will fight you every centimetre of the way. Life is about learning to master the situation. Don’t say no—go with the flow. Resistance keeps you stuck and struggling. Create peace and harmony within by learning to surrender – ie. engage creatively with what is, just as it is. Surrendering is the polar opposite of quitting – disengaging never changed anything except chaos. Ironically, as any surfer will tell you, you’ve got a better chance of getting the results you want by surrendering to the waves on their terms.

5. Put out for what you want and gratefully accept what you get. Every time you put out for what you want, you plant a seed. Making your wish known is like planting a seed and trusting that it’s designed to germinate and grow in its own time. There is an implicate order to evolution so co-operate with it, do what is there for you to do and let nature do the rest. Don’t forget to patiently water, weed, nurture, hoe, and remove pests. And patiently wait upon the due season for harvesting.

A story is told of a lush and prolific garden in the stony desert opal mining town of Coober Pedy. Its fame is such that busloads of tourists visit almost daily to enjoy the oasis and meet its creators. On one occasion the gardener had just described the immense amount of work – importing soil, creating loam, clearing the stony ground and landscaping, planting, fertilising and collecting and irrigating in a desert environment. He concluded his presentation with a gentle “We did it.” One lady in the group said, “What you’ve done is remarkable, but you forgot to give credit to God who gave you this place.” The gardener looked at her for just a beat, then quietly smiled – “You’re right. God did give us a lot. But you should have seen the mess He left it in before we arrived.”

6.  Be open and available to life and enjoy the journey. Look for new ways and fresh ideas to experiment with. Digging deeper will bypass boredom and lead to more growth and satisfaction.

7. Assume you are here on purpose. If you don’t yet know what that is, make one up in the interim that takes your fancy, involve others and start realising it.  That will get things going. And trust that there are no mistakes. Your dharma is your purpose, path, or vision, the unique talent that you are here on Earth to develop and share. If you’re looking for happiness and connection, it’s inherent in your dharma. Let it reveal itself to you.

As parents, it’s better not to teach our children hard-and-fast rules that must be heeded. We are inviting them instead to launch themselves from our own journey, into our sense of purpose, which never ends, and to get acquainted with, and merge with, universal principles that reveal themselves through the way nature works. It is a journey of ever-expanding significance and meaning.

Although very young children may not be able to understand what this means in words, your child can very quickly sense whether you find life exciting and wondrous and they’ll willingly sign up to join you (except occasionally when they’ll want to try it their way for a while).

Your sense of purpose in the universe speaks far louder to your children than any words.