| its own surroundings. Second, the defense mechanism the child chooses with a limited understanding of the world | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| Otherwise you could not train them. With a child it is similar. An infant or a very | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| is similar. An infant or a very young child knows only the most primitive emotions. It knows | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| the same deductions, emotionally and unconsciously, as the child had made, so long as the image is | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| surprised to find, still living within you, the child that has not assimilated what you otherwise learned | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| your unconscious. It is the reasoning of the child living in you. This is the way you | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| its advantages, but you ignore -- as the child ignored -- that every advantage has a disadvantage | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| consider that in this respect you remained a child because you left the entire reasoning process in | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| you conversed with a four to ten-year old child, you would not be surprised at such reasoning | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| be sure about that. QUESTION: How can a child spirit reason? ANSWER: Why not? Before it was | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| Before it was incarnated, it was not a child spirit. It was a grown-up spirit and it | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| occurrence in a state of shock, for a child or a grown spirit, makes sense or not | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| to go through the hardship of losing a child, you yourself can pay off a great deal | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| to ease the formation of images in a child? ANSWER: Of course it is possible. If the | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| their own problems are, and thus what the child may absorb from them which would be image-material | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| treated right away in consciousness and when the child grows up, the conclusion will alter with the | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| which they can observe the reactions of the child. That would be the ideal case, but as | 41 IMAGES: THE DAMAGE THEY DO |
| state in which you love like a frightened child who cannot see the truth. In the last | 42 CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS -- OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY |
| that continues to exist in your images. The child knows only extremes: good or bad, perfection or | 42 CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS -- OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY |
| security, or utter weakness it must avoid. The child can accept only the first of these alternatives | 42 CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS -- OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY |
| approach the truth because the emotion of the child, for whom seeing an unpleasant truth in the | 42 CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS -- OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY |
| accept imperfection and are thus, emotionally, still a child. So follow in the footsteps of Christ in | 42 CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS -- OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY |
| he does not like to be separate. A child suffers whenever it feels different from other children | 42 CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS -- OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY |
| it feels different from other children. For the child, being different means being inferior. When he grows | 42 CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS -- OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY |
| spiritual childhood, toward becoming a strong and independent child of God, growing in spirit, strength, and love | 43 THREE BASIC PERSONALITY TYPES: REASON, WILL, EMOTION |
| whether sex or anything else. In the growing child who is naturally immature, the sex drive will | 44 THE FORCES OF LOVE, EROS, AND SEX |
| desires, that cancel each other out? Yet the child in you desires two impossibilities, and often more | 45 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS DESIRES |
| fulfillment of two or more contradictory desires. The child in you wants an impossibility because of its | 45 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS DESIRES |
| is the very first conflict for a growing child when it reaches a certain degree of consciousness | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| and later on teachers represent authority for the child. This authority denies the child many a wish | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| authority for the child. This authority denies the child many a wish fulfillment. Therefore, authority seems hostile | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| matter how much love, warmth and affection a child is given, no matter how necessary the prohibition | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| Thus a barrier is set up between the child and the authority, the grown-up. It is worse | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| or is not given in the way the child needs it. But even if love is there | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| conflict still exists. On the one hand, the child longs for the love of the parent, on | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| and rebels against being restricted by authority. The child feels the authority as a hostile force, an | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| is often but one impatient longing in the child: to become an adult so that what it | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| walls will cease to exist. But when the child grows up, authority merely changes: instead of parents | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| same conflicts re-emerge in different ways: as a child you were torn between the desire to be | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| quite unconscious, acts against his will, like a child who is forced to obey. The mature attitude | 47 THE WALL WITHIN |
| part of your personality you have remained a child. Because of your lack of knowledge and mature | 49 OBSTACLES ON THE PATH: OLD STUFF, WRONG GUILT, AND WHO, ME? |
| in childhood, where all images are formed. The child is helpless; it needs to be taken care | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| human beings to a certain degree. Hence the child is incapable of unselfish love. The mature adult | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| as mature emotionally as they are intellectually. The child desires to be loved; in fact, it needs | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| every soul who is not yet pure. The child comes in contact with more or less imperfect | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| Because of the lack of divine love, the child in its ignorance craves an exclusive love that | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| sisters or even with the other parent. The child is often unconsciously jealous of both parents. Yet | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| the parents do not love each other, the child suffers even more. So the first conflict arises | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| two opposite desires. On the one hand the child wants the love of each parent exclusively; on | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| the love-capacity of any parent is imperfect, the child misunderstands that, despite the imperfection, most parents are | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| capable of loving more than one person. The child feels excluded and rejected if the parent also | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| others, however. In short, the exclusive love the child craves can never be gratified. Furthermore, whenever the | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| craves can never be gratified. Furthermore, whenever the child is prohibited from having its way, that serves | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| that serves as an additional proof to the child that it is not sufficiently loved. This frustration | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| is not sufficiently loved. This frustration causes the child to feel rejected, which, in turn, causes hatred | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| conflict of the growing human being. If the child hated someone it did not love at the | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| the human psyche. It is self-evident that the child feels ashamed of these negative emotions, and therefore | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| it festers. The hatred causes guilt because the child is taught early that it is bad, wrong | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| of hating those it loves most, convinces the child that it is undeserving of anything good, joyful | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| undeserving of anything good, joyful, or pleasurable. The child feels that if it were ever to become | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| inevitable, would be that much greater. Therefore the child unconsciously avoids happiness, thinking to atone in this | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| area affected depends on the personal image the child has formed and carried around during this lifetime | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| the divine and never contradicts it. Yet every child of God is different in development as well | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| such love does exist at all, then the child was right, and your parents, or whoever else | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| does not know how to love maturely. The child is not supposed to take that risk; yet | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| that risk; yet the adult is. The inner child has only the immature desire and craving for | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| You will have to see that as a child you were justified in having certain feelings, attitudes | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| there any questions? QUESTION: What happens to a child whose hatred and hostility breaks out in the | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| breaks out in the open? Would such a child still have a guilt feeling? ANSWER: Outer manifestations | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| Outer manifestations often occur in children. Whenever a child has a so-called temper tantrum, these emotions do | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| break out into the open. But invariably the child is scolded and learns how bad this is | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| temper tantrum without the outer manifestation of the child. The mere fact that the hostility may at | 50 THE VICIOUS CIRCLE |
| conformity has a few subdivisions. For instance, the child or the immature person feels different from her | 51 IMPORTANCE OF FORMING INDEPENDENT OPINIONS |
| be quite different from the reaction of a child in certain circumstances. If the child's favorite doll | 51 IMPORTANCE OF FORMING INDEPENDENT OPINIONS |
| the world has come to an end. The child cannot see that this is no tragedy. As | 51 IMPORTANCE OF FORMING INDEPENDENT OPINIONS |
| As an adult, you will sympathize with the child, you will understand its sorrow, but you will | 51 IMPORTANCE OF FORMING INDEPENDENT OPINIONS |
| authority as hostile. When parental authority indulges a child, authority will be felt as benign. When there | 52 THE GOD-IMAGE |
| their image about God. To the degree a child experiences fear and frustration, to that same degree | 52 THE GOD-IMAGE |
| when one realizes the discrepancy. Practically everything the child enjoys most is forbidden. Whatever gives most pleasure | 52 THE GOD-IMAGE |
| usually for the child's own welfare; this the child cannot understand. Parents may also prohibit pleasure out | 52 THE GOD-IMAGE |
| let us examine the case in which a child experiences benign authority to a greater extent than | 52 THE GOD-IMAGE |
| not instill a sense of responsibility in the child so he or she can get away with | 52 THE GOD-IMAGE |
| and avoid self-responsibility. To begin with, such a child will know much less fear. But since life | 52 THE GOD-IMAGE |
| to get something the easy way, as a child does. This desire must ultimately be at the | 53 SELF-LOVE |
| of self-punishment at length previously. Yet in the child, as well as in the immature adult, there | 53 SELF-LOVE |
| well known that every human being, as a child and occasionally also later, when experiencing a hurt | 53 SELF-LOVE |
| that the wish to die is genuine. The child desires to die most often in order to | 53 SELF-LOVE |
| to punish those who have slighted him. The child feels and thinks somewhat like this: Now they | 53 SELF-LOVE |
| not interfere, for otherwise you cannot learn. A child cannot learn to walk unless it has fallen | 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| who has an inclination to bondage. The growing child strives for love, but it may not receive | 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| kind, an imperfect kind of love, leaving the child unfulfilled. Now, if the self-will- current goes into | 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| On a primitive level, this happens when a child has to obey and do certain things it | 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| growth that you cannot stop. If a human child wishes to remain a child in body, it | 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| If a human child wishes to remain a child in body, it cannot succeed. Natural growth takes | 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| on this subject. Why not? Because as a child you kept the infantile sex drive hidden. You | 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| almost as infantile as when you were a child. QUESTION: Will you tell us the spiritual significance | 54 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| And the immature person wants the impossible. A child cannot have an adult sense of responsibility which | 56 CAPACITY TO WISH -- HEALTHY AND UNHEALTHY MOTIVES IN DESIRE |
| despair, which you can observe in a crying child. The issue over which the baby cries seems | 58 THE DESIRE FOR HAPPINESS AND THE DESIRE FOR UNHAPPINESS |
| kind of happiness it wants is unattainable. The child feels dependent on a cruel world which denies | 58 THE DESIRE FOR HAPPINESS AND THE DESIRE FOR UNHAPPINESS |
| fundamental distorted concept sets off. The more the child grows and learns to live in this world | 58 THE DESIRE FOR HAPPINESS AND THE DESIRE FOR UNHAPPINESS |
| and inferiority, of regret and guilt. For the child does not yet know that no one is | 58 THE DESIRE FOR HAPPINESS AND THE DESIRE FOR UNHAPPINESS |
| indulgent god, like a parent who spoils his child. If this god cannot be found -- and | 60 THE ABYSS OF ILLUSION -- FREEDOM AND SELF-RESPONSIBILITY |
| god who rewards you for being a good child and spares you a difficult fate, while another | 60 THE ABYSS OF ILLUSION -- FREEDOM AND SELF-RESPONSIBILITY |
| decisions, you are bound to make mistakes. The child in you, clinging to Utopia, believes you must | 60 THE ABYSS OF ILLUSION -- FREEDOM AND SELF-RESPONSIBILITY |
| this particular way. It may be that the child was constantly frustrated in getting what it desired | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| a teacher harm you in your youth! A child is hardly able to discriminate, yet it is | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| far removed from truth. The impressionability of a child is infinitely greater than that of any adult | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| than that of any adult, and therefore the child is greatly influenced for his or her whole | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| appears as though the parents had harmed the child, nevertheless, in reality it is not so. The | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| trying to shift responsibility from yourself. But a child cannot assume self-responsibility. ANSWER: It is understandable why | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| would think that it is unjust for a child to be born into conditions so imperfect that | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| a small part of a long chain. The child brings along unsolved problems which can find solution | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| does not exist in the soul of a child, the same conditions that accelerate conflicts in another | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| the same conditions that accelerate conflicts in another child will not create any disturbance. You can observe | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| QUESTION: Yes, except in the case of a child and a disaster. Are there within the child | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| child and a disaster. Are there within the child already these positive and negative forces which it | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| it is affected? ANSWER: But of course. The child has brought its entire life plan, its cycle | 61 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| that the sickness brought along and which the child in you could not foresee. QUESTION: Then it | 63 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| will reward you for having been a good child. Your action must be self-chosen for its own | 64 OUTER WILL AND INNER WILL -- MISCONCEPTION ABOUT SELFISHNESS |
| detail and manifestation with every individual. When a child feels rejected -- and you know that every | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| feels rejected -- and you know that every child does -- whether this feeling is justified or | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| it may have more real love for the child than the other parent. But the way the | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| than the other parent. But the way the child feels is what counts as the inner impressions | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| patterns of the person's subsequent emotional life. The child would like to be loved and approved of | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| exclusive tenderness and affection is not forthcoming, the child feels it as a rejection, and a confusion | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| love and acceptance to the degree that the child would wish it seems unattainable. The desired aim | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| it. In the confused, immature mind of the child, the rejecter now becomes desirable, taking the place | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| shameful, to demonstrate all that for which the child within still yearns. An individual's withdrawal from and | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| and ashamed to love. Consider also that the child feels deeply humiliated when it yearns for love | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| humiliating. Since the most desirable person for the child has withheld the love and the free giving | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| not makes no difference, as long as the child feels it to be so. Then, in addition | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| addition to its own experience of rejection, the child witnesses the apparent or actual rejection of the | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| or actual rejection of the loving parent. The child then gains the impression that the loving parent | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| You must not forget that especially as a child, you absorb the inner situation, you register it | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| wrong conclusions of the soul made by the child, which apply correctly to a particular situation. They | 66 SHAME OF THE HIGHER SELF |
| may have had to while you were a child, but, as an adult, the childhood situation is | 67 QUESTION AND ANSWERS |
| frequent tendency to conform, to be the obedient child, is part of this conflict. The entire topic | 69 THE FOLLY OF WATCHING FOR RESULTS WHILE ON THE PATH; THE VALID DESIRE TO BE LOVED |
| you. And forced love is no love. The child in you does not see that. But as | 69 THE FOLLY OF WATCHING FOR RESULTS WHILE ON THE PATH; THE VALID DESIRE TO BE LOVED |
| receive the exclusive, unreasonable, one-sided love that the child in you requests. But as you steadily convince | 70 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| to the degree and in the way the child in you would demand. When some people do | 70 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| your basic respect for the other as a child of God. You will not distort his or | 70 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| good and valuable as the former kind. The child in you knows only one kind, and if | 70 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS |
| discussed how the immature part of yourself, the child in you, requests an unlimited amount of love | 71 REALITY AND ILLUSION CONCENTRATION EXERCISES |
| free. This is why the resistance of the child in you when it comes to fully facing | 71 REALITY AND ILLUSION CONCENTRATION EXERCISES |
| come to see how you reacted as a child -- and still react inwardly, although now you | 71 REALITY AND ILLUSION CONCENTRATION EXERCISES |
| illusion comes from the forcing current of the child in you who must have everything his or | 71 REALITY AND ILLUSION CONCENTRATION EXERCISES |
| although not necessarily attained as quickly as the child in you wanted it. In fact, when you | 71 REALITY AND ILLUSION CONCENTRATION EXERCISES |
| loss is not half as tragic as the child in you thinks. The difficulty here is that | 71 REALITY AND ILLUSION CONCENTRATION EXERCISES |
| childish emotions are involved without your awareness. The child in you exaggerates the importance of what happens | 71 REALITY AND ILLUSION CONCENTRATION EXERCISES |