Dump the childishness

The Creator has built in one of the best ways to perpetuate a value system. Our brains learn through repetition because they build dendrites and create synapses all the way through youth so that our values become "second nature" to us. Although we continue to build dendrites at will in adulthood, it is the "will" part that slows down the process in adulthood.

The problem lies with our will in adulthood. We humans have the capacity and hardwired ability in our brains to continue seeing situations and forming informed repsonses. Instead, we rely on the values in place from childhood. Why should we stop there? I know that a proverb from the Hebrew sacred tradition says that if principles are given when people are young, they will not depart from those principles when old. That is an accurate observation, but it is because lazy people in adulthood depend on the value system formed in their childhoods. That's why cultural differences exist. Some people, to give an example, have been conditioned to burp after a meal in order to show their appreciation for the meal. Other people have been conditioned to burp silently, if at all, because the burp is a show of ill manners. It was a value taught in youth and perpetuated into adulthood.

If the idea of this topic is applied to our sacred traditions, then people get nervous for tampering with something "holy." What I like about the Master Teacher's principles is that they are born from experience or are designed for practical application to situations that change from culture to culture, from one generation to the next. Arguments for the existence of God change from one generation to the next and from one culture to another. Which of the master's teachings to highlight change from one generation to another. Three generations ago, the judgment aspect was highlighted, today the love aspect is.

As a child I learned that "going to church" was important. There was a principle behind that, but the outward manifestation of attending a church service became the value that I put in my system. As an adult, I find that stimulus from life's journey really should allow the information traveling through the synapses formed about sacred traditions to change. Church meeting attendance absolutely has nothing to do with the principles of living according to the One who represented the Creator. Or when I read, "You have heard it to be said that you must not commit adultery, but I tell you not to even think about others in wicked ways," I can see that I am bound to repsect other people's personal space. Otherwise they might see my lack of respect for their space and invite me in, or they might reject me and quit listening to other aspects of my life that are worthy of respect. But how does one teach this understanding of adultery to a child? Of course, it is for adult understanding.

So adults need to continue forming synapses so the message from the Teacher can have a refined understanding, not a childish one. Why do so many adults want the rigid teachings designed for children to last on into adulthood? They're lazy. They don't want to allow life's stimuli to grow new synapses or reroute existing ones. New stimuli causes conflict with some of the manisfestations of childhood values. Familiarity with an idea makes it comfortable. Comfort turns into routine. Routine becomes "second nature," opinions and notions. It is not necessarily accurate or refined adult reality.

So, when my heart speaks to others in honest moments, I wish for them to see adult illumination for the real journey through life, the one that leads us all to our home not seen through our earth-bound eyes.