Children and the Kingdom of Heaven
The simple answer?
A spiritual way of looking at life is free from biases, like a “child,” just as Jesus said in Matthew 18:3 “And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Now, the details.
Getting to such a stage is where the real work of a spiritual begins.
Right from our childhood, the world puts all sorts of beliefs in our mind with which we grow up, and use to make sense of the world/life.
Because we find ourselves in a 3D domain; there are exceptions, but let’s just say that the level of awareness in general here is rather rudimentary. Competition, greed, “survival of the fittest,” “dog eat dog,” “an eye for an eye,” etc. Those are all things we believe in as a collective, you can see it in what we produce as a species (movies, video games, songs, tools, foods, and so on).
It isn’t “right” or “wrong” by the way; life exists throughout the whole universe in different dimensions. Where we are right now, that’s what this dimension is about, and believe it or not, it’s one of the most potent place for great spiritual growth.
Back to subject.
Because we’re infested with all sorts of limiting beliefs we’ve gathered from our parents, teachers, surroundings, friends, communities, the media and so on — we look at life through the biases of our limiting beliefs. This gives us a narrow view of reality.
Let’s have a simple example.
Let’s say we’ve been made to feel bad about ourselves throughout our childhood for whatever reason, perhaps we weren’t as good in mathematics as were other kids. Because we wanted mom and dad’s validation, but couldn’t get it because they wanted us to be good at math — our self-esteem received “hits.” As we grew up, our hurt sense of self made us oversensitive; we fought too hard to please others, our increased sensitivity made us interpret jokes as direct “attacks” to our person, etc.
If someone had a bad day and out of impulse told us nasty words — coming from the place described above, we would interpret their behavior as being directed at us, we would feel attacked, we would make a story out of this transient event, when truly, nothing is personal, the other was just stressed out and it had nothing to do with us.
Of course, we want to use our discernment and have our boundaries established in such a situation.
Now count billions of people having all sorts of limiting beliefs in their subconscious minds, and you have the normal biased “look” people have on life in general.
The spiritual path therefore is all about questioning our conditioning, investigating our inner world, inquiring, getting to know ourselves, and relinquishing all those things we cling to which truly do us more harm than good.
As we free ourselves from limited conceptions and assumptions about ourselves and the world, we get to see the everything in a new, healthier way. Our perspective switches from being narrowed and small, to being broader and more holistic. Others aren’t just others, they’re mirrors of ourselves. Together, while we all have our individuality, we form a whole — we’re cells in bigger bodies (the Earth, the solar system, etc.)
I hope it clarified your question. Blessings and strength to you on the path. We’re stronger together.
As a final note.
If you’ve been meditating, using affirmations and thinking positively for a while now, without necessarily integrating spiritual truths at a soul level even though you understand them intellectually — I’ve written a book to help you understand the main blocks to true spiritual growth, and how to overcome them. I’m sure you’re tired of “knowing” about God because you can’t wait to experience God. That’s what we explore in Spiritual Transition. Give the book a look here.