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Advaita for parents
Did “we“ have a functioning mind in the moment of conception in the mother‘s womb? Obviously not. “It‘s a boy!“, “It‘s a girl“ - a baby is born and the happy parents take the little human being to their home and what was as couple before is now a family.
The baby grows and moves without having a mind, and it makes sounds without any help of a mind - this is obvious to everybody. The baby seems to be part of nature without having a “functioning“ mind, it appears more like an animal than a human being. In the beginning the parents love their babies unconditionally.
Man is not aware of the moment when his mind - for the first time - looks at the child believing the illusion that the child is now a “mind-controlled“ human being and not a kind of animal any more. In this moment labels arise in the parent‘s mind: “good child“ and “bad child“. The love to their children begins to be complemented by its opposite: rejection or even hatred. And the parents begin to give instructions and advice for the “right“ behaviour. At a certain point in the growing-process most parents start to feel anger or hatred against their beloved ones from time to time.
When and why does this happen? It happens when and because the parent‘s mind is gripped by the illusion that the child controls its bodily movements intentionally. And the parent‘s mind assumes the child to have a “functioning“ mind when the sounds which it utters appear as words. Now the child seems to be a doer, speaker and thinker and the parent‘s duty is accepted to be the shaping, molding and forming of the child‘s “personality“.
“You are old enough to know what's right!“ There are many concepts about what children should be capable of doing, saying or thinking at a particular time of their growth. Many parents begin to search for educational methods and the psychological market offers many. There is no doubt that parents mean well, and - in the name of love - punishment and rewards, as well as their verbal equivalents blame and praise, enter the relationship between parents and their children. This is nobody‘s fault, this is what is meant to happen, because the parents believe themselves to be responsible for the behaviour of their children. And it is commonly believed that only a “good child“ will be happy and sucessful in life.
The mind is not capable of controlling life, the function of the mind is to reflect an illusion of individuals in an illusory world of time and space. In this show conducted by life man appears to be the doer, speaker and thinker. Man is in fact a sophisticated animal making just sounds. If these sounds appear as “real“ words controlling body and mind, man seems to be in trouble. If words are understood to be illusory, the illusion of sound could be enjoyed.
Life unfolds spontaneously without following the instructions of the mind. This understanding allows parents to love their children unconditionally again.
Marcus Stegmaier
Quote Dr. Vijai Shankar: “Life makes the mind happen.”
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“Love“ is when you live LIFE and not in the mind. “Love“ is when you notice that YOU ARE LIFE and everybody else too, for example your children. The message of the article is: If “parents“ and “children“ are understood to be a reflection of life and not real individuals, then the illusory parents happen to love their illusory children unconditionally. “Unconditional love“ is not a special kind of behaviour but the understanding that man is not the doer.
For me Dr. Shankar‘s dictum “The mind is not in life“ does not indicate a separation between the mind and life, it explains why there is only oneness: Light appears as sound too, thoughts are just sounds which appear in the human mind as words with meanings and make illusory time and space, actions and individuals appear as real. Therefore the mind is not separate from life, it is an expression of life, but nevertheless not capable of controlling life.
Dr Shankar‘s “concepts“ are not to be used, they only show that all concepts which suppose that the mind controls life are illusory. His “concepts“ function like an antidote against the concepts of the conditioned mind. And it is also not a matter of cause and effect. Understanding happens or does not happen.
What Dr. Shankar says is - in my understanding - not a prescription; it's simply a description how life reflects itself as an illusion. Therefore it is not a teaching - you can‘t do anything with it at all (even if you were a doer)!
It was not meant to say that the child is in a kind of “enlightened state“ or something like that. The focus of the article is on the parent‘s mind: How the illusion of parenting gets created.
In my illusory story it happend that I‘ve spent years with reading psychology, philosophy and spirituality, but a qualitative change did not happen, because all these concepts explained the world in such a way that man is believed to be the doer of real actions. This caused endless problems, fear, despair, guilt, blaming, lack of trust, because life could never be controlled by the mind.
A qualitative change happend with the understanding that actions are illusory, meaning that the “actions“ of my children are just thoughts in my mind and not something what my children “do“. The movement of others is never described in every detail in the observer's mind, it‘s always a vague statement. And two observers sometimes even think different "actions" - this is proof how relative "behavior" is.
There was an illusory time when my mind perceived my children as individuals “doing“ actions. Now simply aliveness is perceived in front of me with no divisions - just a “singular movement“. And in the same time happens listening to my mind telling about the deeds of apparent individuals, but it does not appear as real any more.
Therefore there is no question of “parenting“ at all! And yet: The illusory father loves his illusory children, come what may.
Quote Dr. Shankar: “Illusion“ does not mean that it does not exist, it exists, but not in the manner the mind says it exists.“
Its well understood now in Psychology that a vast amount of human learning is a set of conditioned responses which are not in the least bit cognitive i.e. conceptuality or the thinking mind. therefore much of "life" as you use it from shankar's lexicon is only at "the speed of lite" due to this aspect of animal learning i.e. it non cognitive , seemingly instantaneous and so its patently wrong to attribute these vast arrays of human activities to some vague metaphysical notion of "life". since its clearly got something to do with the mind broadly understood.
That's why using shankar's distinction between life and mind often will get us into a muddle if used in a literal sense as is clearly demonstrated by your attempt to make sense of parenting using his concepts whereas if you'd used your "mind" to think about the issues and say read some elementary psychology then this would cast some light on the issues pertaining to parenting.
Are you close to commiting what Ken Wilber called the pre/trans fallacy by projecting onto the image of the child who is pre-egoic, the idea of transpersonal identity which is what is commonly understood as enlightenment and requires "knowledge" (i.e. from the mind) into one's true nature?
It seems to me that this is why the mind is crucial to the attainment of enlightenmnet since a common error of seekers is to think of enlightenment as a permanently blissful state which has nothing to do with the mind which they may attain for a certain time and then it goes as all temporary experiences do and then they're on the loop of trying to get it back.