The Child's Mind

I do not adhere to the idea that we're born incomplete, broken or in sin.  I believe that society puts this on us.  We are born into this world dependent on others.  This is the natural way in which we are made.  However, there comes a point where this dependence must end.  I'm not talking about abandoning your children-they lack the ability to take care of themselves.  But they do have minds of their own, and it is this I'm talking about.

Anyone who has seen a child grow up has seen how rapidly they can learn.  A three year old can learn to play a musical instrument faster than any adult-even the most gifted of adults can only wonder in amazement at how much slower they learn than children.

So why do children learn so much faster?  Science explains how synapses form more rapidly in the brain of a child-but I think it's more than that.  Imagine you have a blank piece of paper.  On this paper, you write what you're learning.  There is no resistance, you don't have to erase anything, just write.  You can write quickly and fill the entire page.  However, at some point, you begin erasing things.  You find that some things are written in such a way that they're very hard to erase.  These are cherished beliefs, upon which much of who you are rests.  Some things you find out are wrong, yet you do not want to erase them.

Why?

Because you've invested a lot into them.  You pressed deeply with your pencil when you wrote these.  With them, you've formed many acquaintances.  Or perhaps they go even deeper, and you're afraid of what your family will say if you erase these things and replace them.  Other times, you built your ego on knowing certain things.  Not wanting to upset the order in your life, you never bother.  You glaze over them, secretly knowing they're wrong but never saying anything.  This is why we have trouble learning as adults.  We wrote so much down pressing hard into the paper.

We stop learning because we don't want to unlearn anything.

Learning is a constant process.  Though you may get a degree, that doesn't mean you understand your subject.  In the Martial Arts, we say-"The black-belt is only the beginning".  Unfortunately, as in so many other fields of life-here too we are guilty of only saying that and not really practicing it.  So many get a Black-belt or a Doctorate, and stop learning.  Why bother?  We already "know" it-we have evidence that we do-a belt, diploma or our place in life.

But life doesn't work that way.  We are to innovate, adapt and change.  Regardless of whether you believe we were created or a cosmic accident, the fact remains that at least in our habits and customs we do change.  Why?  Certainly there were those who went against the grain.  Some were burned at the stake, others were ostracized, a most were ridiculed or ignored and some were held up as heroes.

There isn't any one size fits all in this category, though.  Some change is good, other change no so much.  So too, with learning.  Jiddu Krishnamurti once said that we are the result of all that came before us, and the cause of all that comes after.

Let's go back to the child for a moment-and contrast him with the adult.  What really is the difference?

The adult has taken a stand on some things.  He becomes an "-ist" following an "-ism".  But we really don't know do we?  That's where faith comes in, we have faith in this or that -ism, be it Communism, Capitalism, Socialism, Fascism, Statism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Libertarianism and so on and so forth.  The child doesn't know and consequently, doesn't care about any -ism.  If he does, odds are that he's been told to be that way by his parents-and it is that this point that he ceased to be open minded and capable of growing mentally.

The -ism is the death of learning.  At that point, we can at best add to the -ism.  Each -ism has all the answers-it's doctrine is certain.  To an -ist following an -ism, change is almost always simply to another -ism.  He becomes an -ist of another shade.  Yet it isn't the superiority or inferiority of any -ism that causes him to accept or reject it, it is his desperate desire to belong to one or another that is the true cause.  He uses the arguments of the -ism to justify his actions, but deep down, he knows that he never bothers to erase the underlying words he wrote on that piece of paper.  While it may seem that he changed his fundamental values, the truth is he did not.

What really is the difference between a Muslim in Saudi Arabia and a Christian in the United States?  Is it that millions on one side or the other are all mislead?  Or is it that they appeal to the same types of people, and that those who convert from one to the other are simply choosing different groups to associate with?

So what about the child?  He or she often is forced into an -ism.  It is said that he or she has a choice, but they really do not.  To go against the local -ism is to almost ensure alienation, isolation, rejection and even persecution.  As children there is a time where we are open to all manner of new experiences and learning.  This sadly does not last too long, as the pressure of the outside world begins to mold us into the local -ism.

They learn this or that, then stop.  It is only important to many to learn enough to get by-to fit into their local -ism.  Rarely if ever do they go out of their way to question their -ism, yet claim to be open minded.  If they do begin to study anything outside their -ism, it is almost without exception merely to justify their own beliefs, so they see only what they want to see-that the other -ism is indeed contemptible, wrong and dangerous.

This is why a child learns rapidly-before he or she can be imparted with an -ism, they approach learning in such a way that gives them more and more blank paper.  An -ism is a single piece of paper, that once written on, cannot be easily changed.  While some parts of it may change, these are never the fundamental factors of the paper, and so the person does not really learn.

Freeing the mind as it were is less about gaining and more about losing.  We lose the constrictive nature of the -ism and approach things anew.  Like a child, we can approach them with enthusiasm when we do so of our own desire. Things that we choose to learn we do so far more rapidly than those we are forced to learn.  The best teachers are those who can make their students want to learn.  No amount of force, coercion or guilt can make a child want to learn for the sake of bettering themselves.

So the child's mind is the unrestrained mind, while the adults mind is held back by hesitation, doubt, fear of reprisal and fear of position.

The other day, I experienced this first hand.  I'm trying to learn Spanish, among other things.  In school, I was forced to take Spanish, and I detested it.  Recently though, I was glued to the computer screen, my mind totally involved in what I was doing-like a child, I was learning rapidly.  It was as if it were my first language, and I was not struggling with what something "should" be called or the familiar way in which I referred to things in English.

Total wonder, total absorption, total energy and total enthusiasm-that is the child's mind.