Do Love, Say Love, Give Love, Be Love: Don't Wait!
At every stage of life, children can be helped to understand when they are being "weak in love", as can adults. Avatar Adi Da describes exactly how the signs of un-love manifest:
Always Actively Be My True Devotee — Always Actively Heart- Radiating (Through and Beyond all "self"-Contraction) To Me — Even (Thus and Thereby) Allowing Your Own (and entire) body-mind To Be "Brightened" In (and By) Me.
Therefore, Do Not Do Fear, Sorrow, Anger, or Even Any Kind Of Un-Love In egoic (or "self"-Contracted, or Heart-Contracted) Reaction To any thing or any one that Actively (or, Otherwise, Apparently) Does Not Love You — but Only (Actively, and Constantly) Do Love.
— The Dawn Horse Testament
Children (and adults) can also be helped to notice that when they release the feeling of un-love, when they release whatever fear, sorrow, or anger might be coming up for them, and when they practice giving love in relation to others instead, they will be much more available to feel and receive love from others as well:
Those who Love Are Love, and "others" Inevitably Love them. Those who Seek For Love Are Not themselves Active Love, and So they Do Not Find It. (And, Even If they Are Loved, they Do Not Get The "Knowledge" Of It.) Only The Lover Is Lovable. Therefore, I Call and "Brighten" Every Heart To Be As True Love Is.
— The Dawn Horse Testament
In other words, the secret to being loved is to be love. In a Talk to a young devotee, Avatar Adi Da summarized this Instruction:
As My devotee, you must not merely wait for love to "happen" to you. You must practice loving one and all and All. You must communicate love to one and all and All. You mustsay and do "I love you" to one and all and All. You must do the things that are full of the feeling of love for one and all and All.
— " Remember The Mystery In Which You Live", What, Where, When, How, Why, and Who To Remember To Be Happy
Give children the real moral strength that derives from practicing ego-transcending love in relationship. Teach them:
Don't wait for love to happen to you.
Practice loving others.
loving things to others.
Do loving things for others.
Give happy, loving energy to others.
Avatar Adi Da describes some realistic, practical means for going beyond the egoic reluctance to love:
Why be reluctant to love? It is your obligation to love. Be aware of your reluctance, but turn the faculties to Me, forget yourself, animate yourself as love, be expressive of love, override your reluctance, do the ego-transcending act.
If at first you are embarrassed about loving, love and be embarrassed. Then do it some more. Animate the throat, the voice of praise, the expression of love.
Say love. Do love. Live love. Oblige yourself. Do not just sit around meditating on your reluctance to love.
"Consider" the matter and do it. Love. Then do it some more. And do it more and more.
Make agreements with others about how you will magnify your expression of love, and then oblige yourself to do so. It does not make any difference how reluctant you are. Love is a matter of your practice of the Reality-Way of Adidam — that is all. Confess all the reluctance, all the embarrassment, if it is there — fine.
But this is the practice: Do it. Love. Override your reluctance. The more you override it, the more you are purified of it. You are purified of your reluctance not by analyzing it and dwelling on it and meditating on it forever but by accepting the discipline and engaging yourself in this ego-transcending effort, this responsible practice
— The Incarnation of Love
Help children understand that the discipline of loving is difficult, and that it is okay to feel reluctant to love, or to be embarrassed to be seen as loving others.
They should be helped to get in touch with their reluctance or embarrassment, and they should be encouraged to confess any such feelings in an environment of acceptance and humor.
Having felt and said it, children should be helped to animate themselves as love anyway — in spite of whatever reluctance they may have to move through. Remind them to remember and feel and breathe and serve Avatar Adi Da and the Mystery and gain the strength to express love to others.
Help children and young people make agreements about specific ways that they can be loving — in all their closest relationships, in specific relationships that may be challenging for them at the moment, with everyone they meet.
To do this consistently is "morally heroic", and it is the only happiness to be found in human relationships. Remind children that Avatar Adi Da's Calling to His devotees in all their relationships is, in a nutshell:
Do it. Love.
Avatar Adi Da makes this Calling to His devotees, young and old, because He Is Divine Love — and because He Gives the strength to love to all who turn to Him. He makes this promise to children very directly:
If only you will always Remember Who and What you must Remember to be Happy, you will forget to be fearful, sorrowful, and angry.
You are all the time tending to remember what you have to remember in order to be fearful, sorrowful, and angry. Instead, you must Remember Me.
You must, by Remembering Me, "Locate" the Mystery of Love-Bliss-Radiance in Which you exist. And, Thus — by constantly re-"Locating" the True Mystery of My Always Already Love-Bliss-Being — you must remember to love. You must do love. You must practice ego-transcending love of one and all and All. . . .
As My devotee, you must not merely wait for others to do something to make you Happy. If you choose to wait for Happiness, you will only wait forever — in your always already and "self"-appointed un-Happiness (at wait).
Instead, you must be Happy — in Me. Then you are living in My Open Field of Heart, That Breathes other people into Happiness, too.
— "Remember The Mystery In Which You Live", What, Where, When, How, Why, and Who To Remember To Be Happy
The First Three Stages of Life Serving the Right, True, and Free Development of Children and Young People and Completing the Human Work of Individuation, Socialization, and Integration of Adults
If you are involved with children, you will undoubtedly find directly usable Wisdom in every section of this book.
You may also observe that the passages concentrating on the practical issues of conscious childrearing are addressed to you, the responsible adult. Other passages, interspersed throughout, are addressed directly to children themselves.
Through this book, children (and people of all ages) can learn:
A healthy sense of autonomy and physical mastery
Sensitivity to the energies of nature, self, and others
Discriminative intelligence and a will to go beyond limitations
To feel the Great Mystery of existence through meditation and devotional practice
Intimacy as the healing principle
To go beyond "Oedipal" sufferings, or unconscious emotional patterning in response to their parents and others
To live as "I love you" and become sensitive to the dramatization of "you do not love me"
To purchase offline, call: 877-770-0772 within the US or 707-928-6590 internationally
New! THE FIRST THREE STAGES OF LIFE Course Learn to Build the Foundation of "Full Human Maturity"
Six 90 minute engaging and interactive sessions online Taught by two experts in Avatar Adi Da's model of the first three stages of life — Richard Silk M.Ed and Debra Helleren BS.Ed.
Time: Thursday from 6 pm to 7.30 pm PST Dates: January 19th, 26th, February 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd. Cost: $125 (The book is a separate purchase)
To register or ask questions email: vmi@adidam.org If you are interested in this course at another time, please email vmi@adidam.org — Richard or Debra will be happy to keep you informed of other opportunities to join.
The First Three Stages of Life