We notice the primordial innocence of the child who is innately trusting. The child has faith in the integrity of adults, and it never dawns in the child’s mind to doubt the truth of what is being told. The young child loves its parents and those extensions of parents called teachers, other family members, peers, playmates, television, and commercials. A child looks at a commercial as though it were just as truthful as its parents because of the child’s trustingness, openness, lovingness, and lack of paranoia.
The innocent, trusting mind is easily programmed, and therefore, out of its innocence, it begins to buy what it hears. The child identifies with those whom it loves as family. As the programs start coming in, the purity of the child becomes programmed because of its intrinsic innocence. Due to that innocence, it buys such statements as, “All of us are allergic,” “Heart disease runs in our family,” or, “We all have a weight problem in our family.”
All the negative programs are bought by the child’s innocence. We might say that the child’s mind is like the hardware of a computer, which will play any software program that is installed on it. And yet, the nature of the hardware, that which is truly the computer itself, is unchanged. No matter what CD we play, no matter what software programs we play on the computer, the intrinsic innocence, purity, and integrity of the hardware has not been sullied. It has not changed at all. Even if all the programs are erroneous, the hardware remains the same.
Within the adult remains that same childlike consciousness, with its innocence, purity of motive, and capacity to remain pure no matter what the programs may be. It remains essential and unchanged in all of us. It is exactly what is reading these words right now. It is the childlike consciousness, with all its purity and innocence, that is reading this teaching right now— not the person or personality, but that consciousness in all its simple purity.