Finding the Child Within
Jesus overheard the disciples talking about who is going to be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Which one would sit on the right hand or the left hand? When asked about the conversation, the disciples refuse to say what they were talking about. Then Jesus utters these words: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” Jesus followed this expression by placing a child in the midst of them and saying: “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”
Why does Jesus say again and again “Unless you are like a child, you will not enter into the kingdom of God?” He is saying unless we become alive again like a child, who has no past… a ‘child’ means one who has no past: As we get older we have nothing but the past. The older we get, the more the past goes on becoming bigger and bigger and the future starts disappearing. The child has a future, we have the past; the child thinks of the future, we simply remember our past. We yearn for earlier times. Kids call it “old school.” We remember how things were in ’the good old days’ and fantasize how beautiful they were. The problem is we don’t know how to live in today. We live in tomorrow and yesterday and miss the presence of God that is always now! We are trapped, like the disciples, in our egos with only memories of past and future glory.
We need to break out of this nostalgic state and learn to live in the Kingdom of God. When we break out of our egos and wishing for the past or future we find the child within. There are two ways to find the child. First we must eliminate our egos. How does one get rid of the ego? When we fight it, it grows stronger. If we repress it, it gets bigger. When we sublimate it by letting it identify with higher goals it becomes more powerful. Religious people have the strongest egos in the world.
How do we eliminate the ego? I heard the story of a mother standing in a toyshop, and she says to the salesman, ‘Isn’t this a rather complicated toy for a small child?’ The toy salesman says ‘This, Madam, is an educational toy, specially designed to adjust a child to live in the world of today: no matter which way he puts it together, it’s always wrong.’ And that’s how the ego is. No matter what we do to it our ego remains selfish and self-centered! Locked in the past or future! There is a remedy to see the ego from the inside out. To see the complexity, the riddling nature of the ego, to comprehend it in its totality, is the beginning of wisdom. The only thing that can help us truly see ourselves within is regular prayer and meditation. Prayer is gratitude! Meditation is a way of letting go of the ego! Prayer is inner silence, humbleness and love. Meditation is surrendering to God. It is a deep let go of the past and old self.
Another way of finding the child within is by discovering our true self. This discovery is always in the present, never in the past or future. I call it, finding a continuous “inner newness!” This inner newness is the innocence of a child. Jesus took hold of a little child and placed the child in the midst of the disciples and said, “Whosoever shall receive one of these children in my name.” He was saying wherever we find somebody helpless, help. And wherever we find something innocent, embrace it, love it. “Whosoever shall receive one of these children in my name, receives me.” Jesus says, ‘He has received me; he has opened his heart to me.’ In love we become close to Christ like the love of a child. Jesus is saying ‘Not through competition, not by being first, but in receiving and helping others. It means receiving life’s energies that surrounds us and allowing it to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And Jesus says, “And whosoever receives me, receives not me, but Him that sent me.” We don’t know God. He is the great unknown, but we can know Jesus Christ and to know Christ is to know God. And we don’t know the child within until we know Jesus Christ. The innocence of the child within is the innocence of Christ. In His innocence our blamelessness is hidden and the child within revealed.
