22 Jan 2012 —
Question
Q198: Openness of a Child?
Question 198:
“Amma says: Always be open like a child. Only then will you be able to keep learning and growing.”
How do you understand this?”
Please make your answer brief and clear (maximum 5 or 6 lines).
As AMMA says, child has no ego. He or she does not have the memories of the past and so child lives entirely in the present. Hence the child can quickly learn and grow.
I think that Amma is warning us here that when we think/believe that we ‘know’ things or Have Knowledge (even what we could call ‘Spiritual Knowledge’), we become closed and thus cannot learn anything new anymore. This is the sate of the ego.
To keep learning, we should always be innocent and open, like a child.
When we are born we have the purest mind we will have in the whole of your life. Born with no ego, innocent and straight & open to our needs and demands – while growing also during childhood, we do not know or mind consequences, but are very innocent in our expressions. Growing more, we all develop ego and start tilting away from innocence to be successful in business life satisfying desires. Amma ask us to go back to your childhood mindset where we are closer to God with the mind not degenerated yet.
When my meditation takes me to a place of suspended freedom, (where thoughts don’t ‘take’ and slide off), it feels like the free flow of a two year old, moving from thing to thing, never clinging. Just pure presence, “open” to where the hands and moment take me. Rambling curiosity, wholesome attention. Child-mind loves so easily.
A child is ever-curious about anything.Our mind is immensely powerful, yet it is limited. A strange fact! Let us not try to judge anything through body and mind only. We have to be open to higher(new) possibilities. Just like a child, so pure, with no ego at all.
When we are closed, we either are closed because of fear or we think we know and have a definition of something, a rigid system of ideas we cling to. To be closed is to be dead to new ways of seeing something. To be open is to be alive. I hope AMMA will help me and all who need her help to be open to Her Love, which is Life and then every moment will be new and full of Life and Joy. Amen.
In order to really learn and grow we need to have certain qualities, like freedom from pressure, being spontaneous, to live in the present and a pure mind and so on. All these positive traits are present in a child and hence it is able to grow. But, as we grow negative qualities creep in and as a result real learning and growth doesn’t take place.
Whenever Amma explains us to our questions,we should have openness of a child, only then we can understand the depth of Amma’s words. Sometimes when Amma speaks, we may not get the indepth meaning of Her words at that time, but after a period of time when we remember Amma’s words we come to know what Amma actually meant to say.
The problem is because we have closed our minds and want to hear things as per our expectations from Amma rather than accepting things as Amma says! So what we all should pray to Amma is to give us the mental strength to interpret Her words correctly and appropriately.
chant heartfelt mantra always purifies the mind to help allow divine guidance (wisdom) in. (lots of selfless service too also help get purer mind)
this gets you more into the heart, and more closer to full god realization where you will know way more. (my opinion right or wrong)
(a child often has this heart based approach to life and willingness to help others)
“Always be open like a child “: to need to purify the mind.
I try to purify my mind with Mantra and Meditation, and I ask Amma’s divine grace.
An open child has a face full of “wonder”. “Wonder” is to marvel; “to entertain some doubt and curiosity.” To marvel over every little beauty in the world as if we have never seen or experienced it before. To believe the moon is following you where ever you go no matter what anyone else says. To play games and have conversations with imaginary friends knowing in Truth that they are not imaginary.This is the heart of a child whom sits so close to God♥
as a child we can listen, adapt, learn. Amma’s children are full of innocence as Amma loves them maximum.
Innocent like a child: As a child doesn;t know who is foe who is friend, any one who loves him he reciprocates back.
This is Amma’s one of the eternal messages which if we can imbibe truly will lead us to bliss and liberation. To be free from ego means openness. That alone will give us grace. The mentality of an innocent child is the true gateway to perfection and liberation.
I understand this that Amma is basically saying to stop thinking. A child rarely thinks much. They just play, eat, fall over, cry, sleep, etc. The child is always so open to every moment, totally engaged. Because they are not thinking. They are totally present. Then, anything anyone tells them, or life tells them, they really learn it. They really absorb it. In this way, they grow very fast, and learn a lot, and don’t miss many lessons, they are present for them all!!!
A child accepts and learn everything positively and innocently. Amma likes all of us to be innocent like a child and accept what ever comes in our life positively.
A little child has implicit faith in its mother. For him, the mother is always right. He may question her, but he knows she has the perfect answer to his every query. He is open to her love as well as to her gentle scolding or spanking.Perhaps, in Her own gentle way, AMMA wants us all to be child-like in our bonding with HER,accepting what we receive, with the faith a child has in its mother.
May we become AMMA’s little children, that SHE may do what’s best for us, not what we want the most.
With ammas grace i understand amma is asking us to keep our mind open and alert like a small child so that we can learn and grasp things from our mistakes and deeds.Then only we can learn from our mistakes and grow in our deeds.Then only we can understand the feelings and emotions of others and serve them better from our deeds.This will at the same time enhance our spiritual growth and help us to reach our goal
Child’s qualities like innocence, openness, not being selfish, most importantly not egoistic makes a person close to God. Children will be always in present. They just will be happy doing whatever they want in any surrounding. If a person carries all these qualities even after he grows up naturally his mind will be pure and open in which God will shine easily.
To live in the present and not to be prejudiced.
I beleave that Amma is the holy child of love and that we should live our own world in Ammas love. Innocence is a child, guiltless and unwanting. we should be like that.
I dont understand it ! I guess its only understandable when we are open enough! opening is being able to see what appears without getting uptight I would say. MaMa MA
Children hold an awareness of their connection to the Divine. They easily embody trust, non-judgement and appreciation of the smallest things. Through their eyes, we see the wonder at each new discovery. They find joy effortlessly, and in this freedom, life flourishes. This natural state of growth comes from the remembrance of our connect to the Divine.
A child can walk naked in public and have no regrets about that later. He/She just doesn’t care about what this whole world think about him/her. One facet of No EGO. !
I think what Amma wants us to do is to try and apply her teachings to our lives. Always be ready to change something that you don’t like about yourself. In other words, if one sees a characteristic that one likes in another person, emulate it but personalize it and make it your own. Don’t be rigid to change. That’s what a child does. The world around us is constantly changing so, we also need to change along with it. We cannot afford to stay rigid if we want peace of mind.
Only a child could have an innocent mind, that’s why Amma always says, be like a child, because only a innocent one can adapt and learn easily.
Aum Namah Sivaya
we are all born with Vasanas and so are deluded from birth itself.A man during his studies in schools and colleges learns to depend upon
his outer conditions,enviornments and circumstances.This makes him to become more identified with the mind-intellect and thus causing disturbances,agitations and imbalance in the mind that pushes him and body into its field of activities and sense pleasure.
But a child with the serene mind and quiet senses with no outgoing tendencies has a zero personality.The elderly person with egocentric vanity cannot easily develop a self-obliterating devotion but to a child it is easily and readily available.The grownup who followed wrong tendencies for a long time need to re-discover their mental purity and right discrimination against a child with divine nature.Freedom from attachments keep their mind purified and free from fear and anger.This help them to be innocent and remain in divine mood and function with heightenedjoy and subtle thrill.This reason, for spiritual excellence,AMMA always exhorts to go” child like”.
A child is free from the identification of body, mind and intellect. That is why he or she is not ashamed of doing anything in front of others. He or she won’t have any guilty conscious or shame in wandering naked or eating something without permission of the parents from the plates of guests. Till the age of 10 they will not have strong ego. whatever they learned in this period of time , will help to make the samskar (vasana). A child is always living in present, and never worry about past and future, but alert also…
To let go of our “adult” faith:-).
Openness of a child – I understand the innocence of a child to be humbleness and a curiousity of a child to learn always. The “I don’t know everything” true feeling. This puts you in a listening mode instead of an advicing mode.
Child has no pre-conceived ideas.
Does not bother about the past,present or future.
Not in the time zone.
Has only bodily needs for which they depend on their AMMA.
Then if we become like a child..
Learning to line moment by moment
Growing to love the whole of creation
With openness comes joy and the lightness of freedom.. A perfect soil to take in knowledge with the heart as Amma stresses and in the heart, where it is supposed to be.Then openness requires some humility hence the possibility of growth and wonder.
i heard a child laughs on avarege 400 times a day, an adult 14. i hear more when i am happy and free from a rigid pattern of thinking, for then the whole body is open and listening.
To be a child is to be innocent without any pre-conceived notions. To have an open mind about everything, to have complete faith in anything that an elder says without doubting,not to keep any grudges,to be spontaneous in all interactions with the world.
Mum,
only with innocence and heart, but with rettitude I can become as a child, but I need your Grace also as my Guru
Not belief, as a Man, but Faith as a Child.
Be innocent and Pure, as a Child , No mind, but enjoy and serenity
Amma is always with us. And totally faith as a Child.