Children are the most spiritual
July 26th, 2009 By Shyleswari M. Rao
You might find this hard to believe, but saints, soothsayers or faith healers are not the most spiritual
beings on Earth. That singular distinction goes to children and them alone. You might ask why and I could
give you a thousand reasons. But above all, it’s the incorruptible nature of their innocent minds that
makes them one of God’s finest creations.
Let’s take a simple analogy to illustrate this. As a child you might remember attending family functions,
ala a wedding, a housewarming ceremony, the baptism of a cousin and so on. And as is common during
such occasions, your parents would’ve prodded you into saying ‘hello’ to that distant uncle or a maternal
aunt whom you haven’t met since God knows how long.
At that age, your response would be pretty natural i.e. if you wanted to greet them, you would instantly do
so. And if you didn’t feel like it, you wouldn’t. But that’s not the case when you grow up. The same request
would be treated in an altogether different context.
A thousand queries begin flooding your mind; like would greeting the person in question open a new
avenue for you — personally, professionally or otherwise? Would it raise your bar in the eyes of those
around you? With so much of premeditation going on in your mind, a simple act of just greeting a person
turns complicated.
But children are devoid of this complexity. They don’t come with any baggage — mental, psychological,
familial, whatsoever. The tendency and ability to scheme and manipulate things according to one’s
requirement is exclusive to adults, not children. For them, every transaction doesn’t begin with the notion
‘what’s in it for me?’
This selfless nature is in itself Godliness, a state where the concern for self is not the highest priority. It’s
just one among the several things adults can learn from children — in this case not attaching a value
proposition to every interaction in life.
In many ways, spirituality is about getting in touch with your inner child. There are some very valid
arguments to support this. For starters, look at the harried lives that millions around the world are living
these days. You can see a pattern of dysfunction emerge right from the time adults begin supervising the
lives of their children in a success-driven manner.
At school, one is expected to be nothing less than perfect. In college, every ounce of imperfection has to
be offset by an exceptional achievement in another sphere; otherwise it becomes impossible to be a part
of the pack. At least, this is how children are being groomed these days. And the same values get
translated to their adulthood as well.
For those overtly concerned about their physical appearance or the fact that they are aging too soon, take
some pointers from children. There’s nothing more important to a child than living in the now or the
present. Sometimes, their need to stay in the present might come across as stubbornness. But have you
ever seen children forsaking a game of cricket with their friends, out of fear of dirtying their clothes or of
getting injured during play?
For them, it’s the pleasure of living in the present that’s more important; shabby clothes and bruises are
just incidental. It is said that spirituality has an answer to almost every question in life. When you’re faced
with seemingly insurmountable odds, you look for salvation in God. But then, one doesn’t really need to
go looking for peace of mind or happiness to reach places. You can find it within yourself, within your
inner child.