How does one convey the deeper meaning of life to our children without preaching the dogma of fear-based religions so many of us were raised with? My girlfriends and I discussed this and other God-related subjects most recently. How to bring back the connection to Spirit, the meaning of Love, and the guidance of a spiritual path for children going forth into a world so removed from a God/Goddess that is Love.
It is the age of the spiritual God and that is good. Whatever you call it - whether spiritual, new age, or metaphysics - the purpose of any authentic path is to find connection with the life force of God that exists in each of us and connects us all. Some values and practices are the same no matter what name you give to God and needn't be sacrificed in favour of a free-spirited personality. Even though many would have us believe that a vegetarian meal and pack of incense is enough, real inner change and understanding do come from prayer, meditation, focus, and practice.
It is the thinking that we are different that separates us. Not because God wants it that way but because when we see differences in faith we separate ourselves. This kind of thinking - the kind of thinking that has dominated our Earth for 2000 years - is fear-based thinking. It is not love-based and therefore, it cannot bring peace.
What does being right have to do with believing in God? Nothing, really. What will our children learn about God if all they see is adults fighting about him in avoidance of really living a spiritual path? Not much. The question really is, what is God to you and what is He to your child?
God is love and no matter if you call him - God or Allah, Universal Principle or the Creator, Jesus or Buddha - He (or She) exists the same way in each of us. Love is the creative force of all of humankind and our lives are the greatest works of art any one of us will ever create.
Jesus says in the Bible, "be ye like children." And, in Zen Buddhism, there is a saying that we must "be as empty rice bowls." Like children and empty bowls is the only way to see the world clearly. Perhaps we could learn a lot about God from our children.
Look at your children. Do they judge each other by who learns to walk first, who talks the most, or dresses the best? Do your children not ask you questions about everything? They do not pretend to know the answers. They do not refrain from not knowing and therefore the light is let in.
When your bowl is full of rice, full of dogma, the universe cannot fill it with energy, the Tao cannot flow in inspiration and no light gets in. But, the world is different now than it has been before. We face, as a planet, an environmental crisis that only love and a reconnection to the Earth's spirit can heal. We still face extreme racism and bigotry created by separation of the heart that only a sense and acceptance of the oneness that is the force connecting us all can ultimately fix. Our children are the first of many generations to believe that an iPod is cooler than a seed turning into a flower. Unless we turn things around they will not see that if a seed didn't turn into a flower and embryos didn't turn into babies, where would they be now? What is the miraculous force that effortlessly creates life? What is the miraculous force in the created? How often do you challenge your children to consider the life force that exists in each of us? How do you plan on teaching your children about God?
You might wonder, what does it matter? But what matters, and what we're seeing as evidence all over the world in industry and in war, is that a generation of people evolving the power of their minds without authentic connection to Spirit can lead to some very dark creations indeed. The world is so littered with arms, but I can't think of one good reason to go to war. Food production and agriculture has skyrocketed in technology and production - enough to feed the entire world many times over - yet, thousands upon thousands of people die from starvation each and every day.
Fact is, we can have enough food but if we do not hold Love in our hearts, not enough people will eat. We can get rid of all the nuclear bombs, but if we do not get rid of the hate in our hearts, something worse will be built.
We need to ask ourselves if this is the kind of world we want our children to inherit and if not, and I'm hoping not, then we need to ask God to show us the way. As Gandhi said, "we must become the change we wish to see in the world." If we want a more loving world, then we need to become more loving ourselves. If we want our children to grow up with an understanding of their purpose on this Earth, then we better work on figuring out ours.
Our children need us to wake up - to turn hatred, fear, and judgment back to love. They are looking to you for the answers and they will learn to love or to hate from us. So ask yourselves, if not you - who?
Part Deux: How to Bring Change Into Your Child's World
Bringing Spirit into our children's lives is easier than you may think. For one, most kids are open to the concept, in some cases more connected with their truth than we are after a lifetime of judgment and misperceptions.
The most obvious way to talk about spirit and love with your children is through books. Two great books for toddlers are Incredible You by Dr. Wayne Dyer and Mommy and Emma Talk to God by Marianne Williamson. I really like the Williamson book because it introduces prayer to children in a way that opens them up to communicate with God without being frightened by him. The Dyer book is great in a different way. It offers 10 principles for finding happiness in everyday life for your child. Dyer's message uses real life kid situations to express his ideas and emphasizes building self-esteem through a love for oneself, visualization, and connection with God.
Angel cards from http://www.angelkidzonline.com/ are whimsical play cards expressing different emotions, thoughts and feelings for kids from 3 to 103. The cards offer delightful pictures and their angel messages may bring about the opportunity to discuss the angels who live among us and why that is important. They come in many languages and really support positive parenting.
Via the spiritual cinema circle at http://www.spiritualcinema.com/ you can go to the kids cinema circle and find movies that you trust. The movies there all support the gentle virtues of compassion, kindness, and generosity, as well as, courage and confidence to be an individual. My favourite movie is "Ryan's Well." It is the story of a six-year old kindergartner who learns that in Uganda, children must walk for miles to collect drinking water and as a result sets out to raise enough money to help them build a well.
At Cosmikids, http://www.cosmikids.org/, their motto is "Open minds. Pure potential." Though based in California, their web site offers lots of food for thought and interesting items in their online store.
Do yoga with your kids. They LOVE it. What a does any child love more than moving their body? Not much, but when you do it with them they are even more in love with the process of doing it. You can get great DVDs that teach yoga in fun and kid-friendly ways. From animal yoga to sun and moon yoga, they will learn to connect with their bodies. Yoga focuses on the breath and the breath helps us to focus and connect with the body. Too many children are disconnected from their bodies, allowing them to pollute their bodies with bad food, negative thoughts, drugs, and alcohol without considering the damage they cause themselves. Yoga brings them into a relationship with their body and if nothing else, with regular practice, makes it considerably harder to poison oneself.
Meditate with your kids. Stop laughing - it's easier and way more fun than you think. For me it started one day when my son and I were at the beach in early spring and the those little black flies wouldn't leave us alone. Now those flies are harmless but can be a real nuisance. I asked my son to sit at the water's edge with me and told him to imagine a bubble of white light around his body and head. I played it like a game at first. That the bubble, if we concentrated really hard, would keep the flies off because they wouldn't be able to get through it.
We closed our eyes and imagined as hard as we could. Whether we forgot about the flies or whether in that moment we found peace in the moments of silence that followed, the point was that we focused our minds. When he asked what we were doing, I told him it was called meditation. In that instance it no longer became a foreign concept to him.
Even if all you do is a minute here and there, the practice of focusing their minds and the influence of peace and understanding that can bring into lives will be well worth it. It has been argued in many studies that one of the reasons children have such a hard time with homework these days isn't because they have more of it, but that they simply don't know how to concentrate. Prayer and meditation both take practice and require that children use and focus their minds. It's only reasonable to assume that the benefits of such practice ripple across every aspect of their lives.
Connection with Spirit is what so many of us are missing in our lives and often having children brings that yearning for God back. We want to ground our families in deep spiritual essence and a value system we can believe in because we know that life seems trivial and impossible to explain without it.
Your children will follow you. Really in the end, it doesn't matter which spiritual path you take, as long as you're on it.
About the Author
christina is a freelance writer, appearing regularly in E4W and frequently in many other 'zines and print publications. Her newspaper column concept is called "Babes and the Burbs," a family culture perspective in which she tackles the trials and triumphs of raising children in a modern world with global demands. christina's education includes journalism school, as well as a B.A. in English and Philosophy from UVIC.
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christina is a freelance writer, appearing regularly in E4W and frequently in many other 'zines and print publications. Her newspaper column concept is called "Babes and the Burbs," a family culture perspective in which she tackles the trials and triumphs of raising children in a modern world with global demands. christina's education includes journalism school, as well as a B.A. in English and Philosophy from UVIC. 
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