Just recently, a lovely friend/colleague and fellow Level IV CHEK Practitioner, Kris Timpert, gifted me a copy of her book "If Babies were Buddhas". This "book" appears on the surface as if it was meant for children to read being that it has few pages, simple passages, and vivid illustrations. And yet as we know in Life, not everything is as it seems on the surface and you certainly can not judge a book by its cover.
Kris had asked me to review her book and to give her my perspective of it considering my background with meditation, spirituality, shamanism, and all things of the "Unseen". Here's my take: This isn't a book to be read but more so an Experience to experience. Most people would probably breeze right through it, browsing through the pictures, reading the words, and probably think "Yeah, I get it. But will kids understand this?" The book is presented in a children's book style and it's common for one to assume that it was meant for children but when you truly "Experience" it, you'll find something much deeper. As many of you who know me, I have a close relationship with Rudolf Steiner and his works of Anthroposophy, where Anthroposophy is a path to understanding the connection between our physical lives and the spiritual realities that inform them. As Kris writes, "Perhaps the reason a god can't be seen is because the energy needs us as a go-between." Please do not get caught up in the word "god", for it has so many different meanings for each person which can distract one from experiencing the deeper message. Isn't that so common? Where from our own doings, we can totally miss the point, the moment, because our mind gets stuck on one particular part so we end up missing the Whole. How many times have you purely focused on what another person is saying without your mind thinking of something else? Very rarely (if one is truly honest with themselves). We, as Humans, as part of our nature, want to know everything; so we judge everything before us through comparisons with our past experiences. This is how Humans have a unique gift of Creation, where we can create each moment. We create our boundaries. We experience. And we grow from the experience. Problems arise when we focus so much on the details that we miss out on the bigger picture. Our ego goes "monkey mind" where it attaches to its neuroses, so much so that we've become an ADD/HD society.
In Taoism, they talk about the balance of yin and yang; the Buddha taught the Middle Path; we, as Humans are the Middle Path. What resides within us is the best of both worlds - our lower animal selves and our Higher Spiritual Selves. We all have an inner Light, a little Buddha, that resides within. Catholics have a saying about "seeing Christ in others". The Buddha, the Christ, is the balancing of the Human experience. We are never "stuck" on either end of the spectrum between opposites. Life is a dynamic process of happy/sad, good/evil, tall/short, or young/old. We keep moving regardless of the protective reactions of the distracted ego/mind. If Babies were Buddhas, subtlety gets the message across that You are that dynamic process; You are Buddha, Christ. It describes the archetypal path of the wounded healer, the arduous journey towards Enlightenment in the quest for the Holy Grail.
Just imagine how different the world would be if everyone discovered their little "Buddhas" within them? I recommend reading this "book" initially and then read it again and again, until eventually you realize that you are meditating. That's it. Allow this book to be a meditative experience and Be Open to accept whatever the Experience reveals to You...
....And then pass the book along to another fellow Human.