Children

The very thought of becoming a dad to a kid in a couple of months, brings to my mind the freshness of my childhood with a state of no-mind, as placid as a lake and unadulterated by thoughts. Every child is born as the very possibility of God, but in its journey, gets exploited and manipulated by the influence of ties, relationships, religion, knowledge, competition, objective and society forming a sheath of stains. The divine potentiality is nipped in the bud and is pulled into the orbit of interdependence, possessiveness and slavery. I am reminded of the following poem of Khalil Gibran from The Prophet.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.