How to Help your Baby Attain Enlightenment

It was on a particular night 20-30 years ago in Germany, when a heavily depressed man decided to commit suicide and end his life all the while saying, “I CANT LIVE WITH MYSELF!” repeatedly. When all of a sudden a voice arose in him asking, “Who is this Self that I cant live without? Is this Self me? I don’t think so, is my work, my troubles and problems me? I don’t think so. If it is not me then who am I? ah! I know it, I am the witness, the awareness behind all this. I am!”

And with that, instead of killing himself, it was his ego that got dissolved, it was his ego that got killed, he dis-identified himself with his ego (please note that I don’t mean to say that everyone who asks him/herself this question will attain enlightenment)

Today we know this man to be one of the greatest and most respected spiritual teacher of our time, he has written 2 books which became bestsellers, and he is currently collaborating with Oprah Winfrey in making online spiritual class that can be watched for free or which can be downloaded or streamed via Oprah’s official website, a feat that has never been done before in the spiritual department, it is being viewed by millions and millions of people from around the globe, all the while awakening them to who they truly are. I’ am sure you have guessed who he is by now; he is none other than Eckhart Tolle.

In this post I would like to share with you something rather interesting that I grasped from one of his A New Earth online class.

Eckhart was teaching parents on how to raise awareness of the present moment and to avoid their children from identifying with forms and objects around them, and to teach them from the beginning how to see things as they are and not to identify things with labels that we give them.

The problem with most of us is that we cannot see things as they are, we are too attached with the labels, the moment we see a tree or a bird, our mind gives it a name, and adds a comment to it (good comment or bad comment does not matter, comment is comment), and instead of seeing the tree, the bird as they truly are, which is life, which is energy, which is that, we are too engrossed with the labels and the thoughts.

I invite you to take a walk in the garden and start observing nature, look at the trees and birds, but do not label them, or make comments about them in your mind, just don’t think anything about it, but just look, observe it. You will notice how alive and radiant it is, and by observing its radiance, you will feel alive as well, because you and whatever it is you are looking at is part of one whole being.

Now you, an adult may understand what I am saying, but you can’t expect a small child to understand at all, and it is very important for a human being to understand that things are not the label that you give them from a very early age, so their mind won’t be conditioned into labeling things and identify with them.

Now the question arise how to teach a child this thing, and this is where Eckhart Tolle shows why he is what he is. When he was asked this question he said that whenever your curious little child asks you “mom/dad, what is that thing over there?”

Instead of saying “oh, it’s a bird, sweetie.” You should say “oh, that is called a bird.”

This makes a whole lot of difference, if you answer it like the latter you are implying that what the child is looking at is not a bird, but something that is called a bird in this beautiful planet of ours! What it is cannot be defined; it can only be experienced or witnessed. The moment you consider that thing to be the label that you give it, you are blocking life to yourself, you are blocking the radiance that life has to offer you, through what ever it is that you are observing, because your mind is just making so much noise, that you can’t experience the stillness where life resides in all its glory and might.

Part of what it means to be enlightened is to be able to see things as they really are, to be able to see things through the eyes of a baby, for whom everything in this world is so vibrant, so new, and so alive. To dis-identify the labels you give to the things that you see. I don’t mean that you should not label things, you should, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to address things, but do not identify those things with the label. If you can do that, then you shall witness and experience the glory of this universe first hand! I wish you good luck in your endeavor.