I simply cannot say this any better than Native American elder and scholar, Manitonquat (aka Medicine Story) put it in his powerful little book, Original Instructions.
“Since all adults have been heavily conditioned by their culture,” he says, “we can only see what we may call our natural humanness in very young children before the ways of the world have begun to twist and distort their responses to life.” If we wish to understand who we might have been, or still become, “We must observe little babies and tiny infants as they arrive newborn and fresh from creation.”(OI, p.21)
“Human intelligence from the first moments of life seems to want to learn and discover and understand more and more, and to inquire of the meaning and significance of things.”(OI, p. 22) Newborns “are very pleased to be here, very excited to be alive…the sparkling in their eyes…they arrive with a fully developed capacity for joy. They want to play, and they turn their world into a playgrounds everything into a toy.”(OI, p.22)
As my daughter taught me, “Her natural human qualities are curiosity and intelligence, fun and joy in living, spontaneous expression and affection and curiosity, and these are all encouraged by the caring, the safety and the trust of the people of her circle.”(OI, p.23)
“Children who feel safe and loved are naturally tender, gentle, and loving toward parents, siblings, other members of the family and community, and to small animals.”(OI, p.22) “Initially they are entirely open to meet others, having no expectations, only curiosity. Unless and until they feel something threatening from others they are completely trusting… They are spontaneous and immediate about expressing their feelings to us… They want to communicate and to be understood.”(OI, p.2)
Those “negative qualities” we tend to call ‘human nature,’ “such as greed, envy, laziness, gluttony, dissembling, violence, destructiveness, hatred, and so on,” these “begin to develop [only] after the child has…experienced hurts from which they have no loving assistance to recover. Children with a resource of caring people to help them through the inevitable traumas do not carry these negative emotions further in life.”(OI, p. 22)
“The Original Instructions of living in a circle provide that there will always be a caring person at hand for the child who will listen with compassion and assure the child she only needs to express what she feels and the hurt will pass…and that despite the pain of that moment life will go on being good and manageable. When the children spontaneously express their feelings, and are heard and understood and encouraged, they are quickly forgotten, and the children move on.” Whereas “children who don’t have this resource, who have no one to run to, will not finish with the hurt.”(OI, p.23)
“Without such resource and support, when they feel alone and abandoned, they retreat and store the confusing feelings. They will forget them, but they stay in unconsciousness memory and will return, making them once more alone and confused. Children who are neglected or abused will pile up these old hurts inside them,” where “ they will turn toxic and poison from within with negative emotions and destructive patterns of behavior.”(OI, p. 23)
This is how “human beings have forgotten their Original Instructions.”(OI, xvi)
And this is also the reason it is imperative that we revive and pass on the ancient teachings to our young and one another, and soon - because it is just such “human beings that have put [the earth] in jeopardy and only human beings that can save it.”(OI, xv)
“Since all adults have been heavily conditioned by their culture,” he says, “we can only see what we may call our natural humanness in very young children before the ways of the world have begun to twist and distort their responses to life.” If we wish to understand who we might have been, or still become, “We must observe little babies and tiny infants as they arrive newborn and fresh from creation.”(OI, p.21)
“Human intelligence from the first moments of life seems to want to learn and discover and understand more and more, and to inquire of the meaning and significance of things.”(OI, p. 22) Newborns “are very pleased to be here, very excited to be alive…the sparkling in their eyes…they arrive with a fully developed capacity for joy. They want to play, and they turn their world into a playgrounds everything into a toy.”(OI, p.22)
As my daughter taught me, “Her natural human qualities are curiosity and intelligence, fun and joy in living, spontaneous expression and affection and curiosity, and these are all encouraged by the caring, the safety and the trust of the people of her circle.”(OI, p.23)
“Children who feel safe and loved are naturally tender, gentle, and loving toward parents, siblings, other members of the family and community, and to small animals.”(OI, p.22) “Initially they are entirely open to meet others, having no expectations, only curiosity. Unless and until they feel something threatening from others they are completely trusting… They are spontaneous and immediate about expressing their feelings to us… They want to communicate and to be understood.”(OI, p.2)
Those “negative qualities” we tend to call ‘human nature,’ “such as greed, envy, laziness, gluttony, dissembling, violence, destructiveness, hatred, and so on,” these “begin to develop [only] after the child has…experienced hurts from which they have no loving assistance to recover. Children with a resource of caring people to help them through the inevitable traumas do not carry these negative emotions further in life.”(OI, p. 22)
“The Original Instructions of living in a circle provide that there will always be a caring person at hand for the child who will listen with compassion and assure the child she only needs to express what she feels and the hurt will pass…and that despite the pain of that moment life will go on being good and manageable. When the children spontaneously express their feelings, and are heard and understood and encouraged, they are quickly forgotten, and the children move on.” Whereas “children who don’t have this resource, who have no one to run to, will not finish with the hurt.”(OI, p.23)
“Without such resource and support, when they feel alone and abandoned, they retreat and store the confusing feelings. They will forget them, but they stay in unconsciousness memory and will return, making them once more alone and confused. Children who are neglected or abused will pile up these old hurts inside them,” where “ they will turn toxic and poison from within with negative emotions and destructive patterns of behavior.”(OI, p. 23)
This is how “human beings have forgotten their Original Instructions.”(OI, xvi)
And this is also the reason it is imperative that we revive and pass on the ancient teachings to our young and one another, and soon - because it is just such “human beings that have put [the earth] in jeopardy and only human beings that can save it.”(OI, xv)