Enough is enough

In this text I would like to pose the question as to our maturity, as a race.

You see, becoming mature is actually a process. It is a process we go through as children and even as adults. We start from the parent-child relationship and grow into a relationship between adults later in life.

As such, you would expect that children and parents, who once were unequal in strength and ability, come to stand on the same level. You would expect that, apart from children, there is no one in the world considered any less than an equal.

But that is not this planet.

For on this planet, there is the mind, the playground of the self-image, and there is the soul, working, providing, giving birth endlessly to the miracle of creation itself.

And the mind is nothing but a deviation from true and authentic creativity.

The soul inspires in us countless actions, endless stories told, endless gifts of affection displayed and given. Like a puppy who is an endless display of affection and love, wagging his tail frantically, licking away at any part of your face it can find, the soul is joyful and giving, and loving us from the deepest part of who we are.

It is a disposition some never lose, whilst others do away with it already very early in their lives, as they deem it to be inferior and childish, and they find there are better ways of gathering and acquiring riches than to be a lover and a giver.

Some, in fact most, choose the side of the ego.

In a way, you can see this split often between parents and their children.

The children are pure love, and they are giving affection out of themselves to their parents, whoever, rich or poor, pretty or ugly, they may be. Children are love, and they naturally look up to their parents, and give them their best.

But the parents are often so far lost from their own source of love and compassion, that they are hard and harsh, and cunning beings, who may seem to be superior whilst in fact, it is the children, in all of their innocence, who are the superior ones.

The parents often find it hard to love and to give love. But they like to receive. They are egos, and they will demand of their children’s creativity to build for them whatever they desire.

I want you to get good grades.

And because the child loves his parents, he creates good grades.

I want you to poop in that potty.

And because the child loves his parents, he poops in the potty.

I want you to help me do the dishes.

And because the child loves his parents, he helps do the dishes.

Whatever you want, you can get from your children.

And most parents, at least in the West, want a lot. They never stop wanting and demanding from their children, just like the West never stops wanting and demanding from the natural world.

Which is the same.

The soul.

And the children give, and the Earth creates.

And it all is a lot of fun.

What else could we ask for?

What if we asked for X, or Y, or Z?

What a miracle, it is like the wonderful lamp of Aladdin!

We only have to ask, and our children create it, the world makes our dreams come true!

Who would ever stop asking?

Yet, this is exactly my question: when do we finally stop asking?

When do we finally say thank you?

When will we finally be happy, and feel that love that is giving it all inside ourselves, and give a little from ourselves?

When will the creation blossom from within our hearts?

When will it no longer be the mind, the endless pressure, that the children of the Earth experience?

For what happens, I have come to see, if parents never stop demanding from their children, is that the children develop a sense of self that says ‘I am never (good) enough’. I just don’t have what it takes. I always fall short.

And they develop deep sense and fear of failure, and they only identify with being not good enough, being nothing but a neverending failure and disappointment to all and everyone.

So if you want to raise children like that, dear parents, just never give them credit, just never praise their little achievements, just never love them, never say thank you, never acknowledge how wonderful they are.

Indeed, we are too busy with our own wishes mostly, to raise children who are full of pride and belief in themselves. It is such a gift to be part of the growing up of these little babies into full adults, yet mostly all we do is place demands on them. Ever more and never ending.

And they die inside.

Their tiny hearts shrivel up.

They feel small, too small apparently for the world which demands so so very much.

It is artificial.

It is a matter of perception.

It is a game of delusion.

They already are so small when they are ‘little’!

Do you have to make them feel even smaller?

Make yourself a little smaller, and make them feel a little bigger!

Isn’t that the wisdom of true love?

So I believe we are never equals. I believe we are always divided between the ones who can never ask enough, and the ones who can never give enough. Even when children are adults themselves, they will keep feeling small with regards to their parents, they will still feel like losers and they will still feel the need to keep proving themselves, even when they have by far outmatched their parents’ own achievements.

It goes deep, this fading of the heart. And we should not do that to our children.

We should be nothing but praise for them, nothing but thankfulness for all of their miracles, nothing but love for their wonderful natures.

As we should be for the Earth.

As people once were.

And some still are.

Some simple people who live simply by their daily bread, and give thanks for that, in a thousand ways. They honor the Earth. They honor the Great Spirit, they thank the animal for giving its life for them, they thank the trees for bearing fruits, they thank the Great Mother for providing. For the roof over their head, for the love in their lives.

But we, most of us, have never thought of giving thanks.

We have never bothered to show our love.

We have only asked.

Demanded.

And we’re never satisfied.

Because we’re afraid satisfied people don’t get anything anymore.

So we have the parents, in economics too, the rich ones, the bosses, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, the ones with the tax shelters and the private jets, yachts and islands. And we have the ones in the factories, slaving their bones to death, never getting a decent rest, never paying enough taxes.

And politics, at least in my country, has most sympathy for the parents. Of course people have demands! What else is life about?!

Yes, life is about the demands of the bosses, life is about the whole world being lit up like Aladdin’s wonderful lamp and all of us being genies for the mind games the wealthy play upon our hearts.

We are nothing but servants.

Slaves!

Peasants to the lords.

Providing the bread they feast on.

And WE have no demands to make.

The world does not revolve around us.

It’s just a few dozen who can use their minds to come up with demands and fantasies, and it’s a few dozen millions who can die for it on the battlefields, work for it in the factories or slave for it in the gold mines.

But the mind is not the creative one. The mind is a deviation from true and authentic creativity, of Truth with a capital T. The mind is a liar, the mind is impotent. It needs a heart to work for it.

I just wish the rich would count on their own hearts for a change.

I wish the hearts of their children could find some life there, I wish the Earth could reach some love there.

But it is dangerous, for the deviant mind, to give way to the true heart. For then its games are over, its use is done. Who needs lies when you’ve got the truth?

There would be parents no more, there would be mind games no more.

There would be love, there would be gratitude, there would be people making themselves smaller for the world to shine through bigger, as is customary in traditional Eastern paintings.

Enough would be enough.

And the Earth would feel inferior no more, and her children would grow up full of pride and self-worth, and turn in to adults for whom the world is not too big of a challenge, but a brother and a sister, a home and a journey home.

I am speaking with reason, I am trying to make sense, but really, I am angry. I am angry that we are making everything so skewed, so dysfunctional.

Why do we deny each other’s worth?

Why do we hold back our love, our admiration and our thanks?

Does it hurt to say grace?

Is it painful to let someone feel loved?

And can we never get enough, enough of it ourselves?