By Guest contributor
When a child is born he is in MAITRI BHAVANA. MAITRI BHAVANA means a great feeling of friendship, love, compassion. When a child is born, he knows no hatred, he knows only love.
Love is intrinsic; hatred he will learn later on. Love is intrinsic; anger he will learn later on. Jealousy, possessiveness, envy, he will learn later on. These will be the things the society will teach: how to be jealous, how to be full of hatred, how to be full of anger or violence.
These things will be taught by the society.When the child is born he is simple love. He has to be so because he has not known anything else. In the mother’s womb, he has not come across any enemy. He has lived in a deep love for nine months, surrounded by love, nourished by love.He knows nobody who is inimical to him.
He knows only the mother, he knows the mother’s love. When he is born his whole experience is of love, so how can you expect him to know anything about hatred? This love he brings with himself; this is the original face.
Then there will be trouble, then there will be many other experiences. He will start distrusting people. A newborn child is simply born with trust.
I have heard…
A man and a little boy entered a barbershop together. After the man received the full treatment — shave, shampoo, manicure, haircut, etcetera, he placed the boy in the chair.”I’m going to buy a green tie to wear for the parade.
I will be back in a few minutes.”When the boy’s haircut was completed and the man still had not returned, the barber said, “Looks like your daddy has forgotten all about you.””That was not my daddy,” said the boy. “He just walked up, took me by the hand and said, ‘Come on, son, we are gonna get a free haircut!’ ” Children are trusting, but by and by there will be experiences in which they will be deceived, in which they will get into trouble, in which they will be opposed, in which they will become afraid.
By and by they will learn all the tricks of the world. That’s what has happened to everybody, more or less!What are you teaching YOUR children? You can only teach them WHAT YOU ARE! If you have never overcome all the non-sense your parents taught you, all the violence and competitiveness the society has taught you, the same will you transmit to them!
