The Little Boy who had always known

 The Little Boy who had always known

The gleeful smile of his innocent openness fills the room as Adam frolics around, pretending to be on an expedition amidst the living-room furniture, where mountain peaks and valleys, vast plains of carpeted “grass” and all manner of imagined creatures roam within the child’s imaginary playfulness. He is so immersed in his imaginings, that he is oblivious of eventually being too loud or too bold in his rearranging of the otherwise tidy room. For him there is nothing else to do but enjoy his adventure so fully that it becomes his entire world in this moment. 

He has not yet been informed of the apparent impossibilities of life or of the fact that he is not infinite, eternal and permanently safe so for him there is no reason to worry, suffer, fear or retract.

The joy that sparkles from his heart is so palpable it can almost be seen with the physical eyes - a rainbow flow of endless power that is pure abundance in and of itself. 

When he looks around him, he sees new possibilities, discoveries, celebration, exquisite beauty and the love that he feels for himself and for all knows no shame or guilt, no fault or judgment. 

He is pure. Crystalline. Available. Present. Alive. Love.

As it were, sooner or later he starts picking up on other people’s worrisome vibes, on potential threats and reasons to allow fear to rule his choices, his actions, he starts being reprimanded and stifled, clearly shown that his glow is much too intense and probably not appropriate. He starts wondering: “maybe I am not good enough, I must find out how to be better” and he starts getting in touch with sadness more and more often. A few monsters begin to roam around his inner world and he becomes frightened even of himself. He starts questioning his knowingness and comes to believe that after all, he too is finite, powerless, generally helpless and possibly quite incapable in many areas of what seems to be essential to survival in a world he now realizes might be dangerous.

He imbibes what he perceives to work for others and grabs onto the beliefs he is taught to be valid. He gets himself into a boxed in reality that he keeps locked up in his heart and gradually the rainbow flow of omniscience dwindles down to a mere intermittent trickle… a soft whisper that sometimes tells him he is Love.

He gets confused about what is true and false and cannot begin to make sense of the whole bundle of reality he comes to know as the collective way to live.

It becomes hard to tap into that sweet innocence he once knew so well and he eventually forgets who he truly is, in order to wear the more convincing garbs of who he is supposed to fit into.

Judgment becomes a necessary signpost at the doorway of each interaction and he becomes a fighter, efforting his way forth towards normalcy, despite the fact that he hasn’t a clue what it is and no one else seems to be very clear on that either.

Sometimes, in his quiet moments, when he is alone, the memories of his infancy come flooding into his heart and he is filled with a longing to go back to that life of endless joy, trust and the feeling of kindness that he felt from deep within - that kind, warm embrace he was permanently in that made him fearless, innocent and free.

But the seriousness of adult life has eventually toppled the joy over and it is now pinned to the ground deep deep down within him, beneath layers and layers of learnt programs, beliefs, habits and collective truths that are the necessary ingredients to make do and survive in the world out there. 

As he goes about experiencing the life he is taught to be that which works, he keeps on finding no exit alleys and endless circles of sameness that never lead him anywhere else but to the very same place of doubt, lack of self-worth and shaky confidence that got him trying to be better in the first place. It just turns out to be a permanent roller-coaster of fleeting victories and deep dark pits of despair until he says “Enough, I’ve had enough of this circus. There must be another way.”

Sure enough, when one seeks, one shall find and after quite a lot of tears, painful experiences and successful breakthroughs he lands right in the place where it had all begun. The warm, soft, safe space in the core of his belly where he knows he is none of the lies he has come to believe about himself… and so is no one else!

Staying. Staying is the secret then! Present within. The peaceful observer. Aware of what is and what is not. For him. 

The innocence is still there. Pure. Crystalline and untainted. Like a diamond. But now, after having experienced all of its reverse, he feels it differently. He can embrace it and merge it with the wisdom of all that he has known and live it from this new place of mature bliss, that is absolutely certain of being whole, eternal, infinitely abundant, the birthing ground of all possibilities and the funeral pyre of all that is ready to transform into new energy, free from the constraints of memory. 

Compassion. Compassion fills him with a serene knowingness that nothing is amiss in the perceived chaos of existence. And thus, he lays a mantle of peaceful harmony over the entirety of his reality. Tangible and intangible. It all becomes One. 

He is in such a space of acceptance that he could not bring himself to be in conflict with anything or anyone, even if he tried. The gravity of this acceptance is all-pervading and in it resides a deep silence that cannot produce the noise of separation. Ever.

Forgiveness? “There is really nothing to forgive”, he realises, with a broad smile of relief. Letting go. Embracing. Letting go. In a continuous opening to the vastness of all that Is.

The ones who showed him the way they knew are no longer to be blamed. He is no longer entangled in their stories. A sudden rush of love wells up from deep down inside and like a tsunami wave, instantly brings all illusions of lack and separation to the ground.

Nothing. He is left with nothing. Finally free to have and be it all. 

He had always known. After all.

 

Text by T. C. Aeelah

Photo by Amine M'Siouri