Most of us are caught in a small part of life, missing the whole. Without leaving our room, we want to see the vastness of the sky. We live in a part of the whole, and that part is our pattern, position and ego. Thus, we limit our minds to our patterns and paradigms. We need to drop our shallow way of seeing and develop the ability to see the whole in order to manage our lives effectively. For this, one has to have a childlike perspective.
Life is a thrilling mystery because it is vast and limitless. We become limited by our concepts, ideas and beliefs. We have failed to observe our lives and have thus become lost in our limitations. A childlike approach is innocent and open. We have to learn how to perceive, look and see. A child sees innocently. To be innocent is to be open. Can we be open in our perception? When we look at a flower, we don’t actually see the flower. A person looks at a flower, with strong likes and dislikes. When that happens, the emphasis is on one’s likes and dislikes and not actually on the flower. With growth and the passage of time, one’s mind develops rigid frames of likes and dislikes, opinions, dogmas, fears, conflicts, and greed. When one sees against this backdrop, one’s seeing is influenced by one’s background. So, one’s experience of the external world is a product of one’s mind.
Understand how we learn through books and collect a lot of concepts and words, and then become imprisoned by what we know. Then, when we see or encounter something in the outer world, there is a struggle. The struggle is to see and understand it in the light of what I know from my past. The present should fit into my past, so what I know from my past becomes more valuable than what I see in the present. So, one’s perception is not free. What I know and learn is dictated by the ground of my knowledge, from the background of my past. A childlike perception is to free oneself from that background and hence be inwardly free, and from that freedom, see.
Apply this in the field of relationships, at the office or at home. One has an image of one’s wife, husband, or boss. The image is a product of one’s conclusions and opinions, and with that mental image one relates. One does not connect to the other but instead connects through the image of the other. So, one’s struggle is to see the other first through one’s image of one’s partner or of oneself. This is a complicated way of living. A childlike perception has no image, and then its innocence comes in touch with the other. The struggle to have one’s image validated is not there, and hence there is no pain. By this, one can relate better and not become a victim of bitterness.
Be like a child—open and innocent—and with that perception you will see something new. The ability to see something new is a product of one’s inner being, free from one’s past. The past will exist but will not limit a free perception. Then you will look at your projects freely and openly, and something new will happen in the way you look at a problem in the office, at work, or in any situation.
A childlike perception is pure sensitivity, not sentimentality. Sensitivity is experiencing 'what is’, while sentimentality is reacting to ‘what is’. You may nourish people through your warmth and sensitivity.