Gnothi seauton

Teaching our kids about the world is one thing. Teaching our kids about themselves is a whole other enterprise.

I am

What we think about defines and characterizes us.  Proverbially, from the Old Testament: “As you think, so you are.” And, famously, from Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.” Which begs the question: Who are we when we’re not thinking?

Natural man

Desires, cravings, wants—these are mental fixations. They roil and despoil the mind. The natural man is complete. He doesn’t want anything because he doesn’t need anything. The distance between ‘I am’ and ‘I want’ cannot be calculated.

As I am

We think the purpose of the mind is to think. (The mind would think that, wouldn’t it?) But that’s not it. The purpose of the mind is to see the real. In the seeing is the doing, the spontaneous conversion of love into action

The true and the false

So then, how to tell the difference between the true and the false, the real and the unreal? Whatever has a beginning and an end is false. All else is true. From A Course in Miracles: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.”