006 FOUNDATION BLOCKS OF INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT CHAPTER 5: WINDOWS OF THE SOUL

006 FOUNDATION BLOCKS OF INTEGRATIONAL SPIRITAN MOVEMENT

CHAPTER 5: WINDOWS OF THE SOUL

 

i.                   Before you misinterpret this subheading, note that it is only a continuation of “ Lectures from a toddler” but from a different perspective. As I was typing this on my computer it occurred to me that we humans perform similar tasks as the hard disc, floppy diskette or CD-ROM.

ii.                 All computers need windows to function, and so does the human central nervous system. I quickly remembered also that in the science of ergonomics machines are made to fit human operators. Then the really big one is that electronic engineers studied the human brain, how it functions in everyday life, and copied it to invent the computer itself!

iii.              The eyes, ears, nose, mouth and the skin of the infant allow it to communicate with the external environment just as the keyboard, the mouse, and modems permit the computer to appreciate the “garbage in, garbage out “ paradigm!

iv.              So it is with the human soul! It has many windows with which it interacts with, controls and responds to both the internal and the external environments of the human body!

v.                 We feel hot, cold, warm, and have tactile responses because nature’s gift of feeling is a window of the soul! So also are the other windows you may observe in the body of our little lecturer, “the toddler”.

vi.              A brand new hard disc, “the C drive”, is blank until programs are fed into it! And so is the new-born / babe's mind, its early responses and later in life its traits, mannerisms, and ultimately its good and bad behaviours!

vii.            Has it ever occurred to you that differences in children are due to a variety of programmers working on its “CPU”, by the very same ways different soft wares fed into a computer determines the behaviours and services it can render?

viii.         So, we intend to reflect on how we influence the making of saints or criminals in our family interactions with toddlers in this chapter! In reality, we are the products of parental influences, cultural, ethnic and religious stereotypes and social prejudices! This is the hard truth!

ix.              If you rear a set of identical male twins, one in a prison yard and the other in a monastery. What would you expect at the end of twenty-five years? Or, on the other hand, you rear a set of female identical twins, one in a convent and the other in a brothel, what will the results of your experiment behaviour-wise?

x.                That is exactly what happens to us all within our short life span of home upbringing by responsible or irresponsible adults around us! Make no mistakes about it; stealing, aggressiveness, telling lies, cleanliness, carefulness, loyalty promiscuity etc are all programmed behaviours!

xi.              So we must be wary and conscious of what we do or fail to do in the presence of toddlers, teenagers and adolescents! They constitute the best imitators and artistes in the world. The irony of it being that they take it for real and the beat way to survive in he socio-cultural milieu they grew up! And they carry it about to other areas of the world unable to differentiate “the good, the bad and the ugly”.

xii.           When I bought my first computer, I had “Microsoft Windows 95” as its pre-installation program from Compaq, the factory that made it. Later on I learnt that two more windows were already in existence since then, but there was little I could do about a change. I made the best use of that primary learning program, even though most of my more informed friends pressurised me to re-program it.

xiii.         Sooner than later, fluctuations in electric current in my neighbourhood took its toll on my hard disc, and all I got after my computer had booted out was; “operating system, not found”. Truly, that was exactly “experimental neurosis” for my poor CPU, and it won my sympathy. I took the whole compartment that houses the hard disc to Lagos, parted with a large chunk of my income and had “Microsoft Windows 98” installed!

xiv.         Before that decision, however, I had made inquiries on the best program that was in the market, for by then two more windows had been introduced into the computer world! And so it is with every toddler's mind! It is programmed. But unlike the computer, it cannot be reprogrammed easily. There are always traces of the original programs, software, on line, Internet (surfed or browsed) and downloaded programs!

xv.           You can begin to appreciate more why parents and other relevant adults around every new-born must be wise and selective about what the baby sees, hears, tastes, feels or touches within the first five years of life! Do I need to explain an idiom? No! It is never done in my culture. You just have to grow up to unravel the nuggets of wisdom wrapped in an idiom! Do so now!

xvi.         The ‘icons, shortcuts, mouse’ and other methods of recognising and inserting good and bad behaviour patterns in the infant, graduates into more sophistication as it learns to walk, talk, read, listen to radio/ tape recorders and watch television programs!

xvii.      Therefore, bringing up a balanced and well-groomed teenager is not a simple task. Unfortunately that is exactly what obtains in most homes! Parents think that all they need do is; feed the baby well, take it hospital, Nursery school or Sunday service. They are as wrong as they can ever be in life!

xviii.    And such parents are the first to exclaim, “ What’s wrong with junior? Why is this child behaving abnormally? During my teenage years, I never did things like these? What is wrong with children of nowadays? I cannot exhaust the list of embarrassing statements I have heard!

xix.        For an answer, I have only this “They had immature parents who ignored them early in life, but were busy chasing money, and those parents are delinquents!”  We over-emphasise what is trivial, magnify or over-prioritise that which does not build good human relationships but in the same vein neglect our children’s proper upbringing.

xx.           Please rethink after reading this chapter. The greatest investment you can ever make in life is training your child properly, not a fat bank account or landed properties scattered all over the world! Many homes have no children but you are toying with the fruits of love Nature has bountifully gracefully given to you!