Conscious Parenting
by Gabriel Cousens, MD
In our current time of global crises, there is an alternative to being consumed and negatively affected by the culture of death—a way of life that puts accumulative materialism, power over others, name, and fame at the center of life. It creates a way of life that leads to personal and planetary ecological destruction, acute and chronic disease, cruelty violence, suffering, and poverty. The bottom line of the culture of death is the effective production of material goods, which maximizes the accumulation of money and power for a few; it is a way of life that sacrifices the health of the many for the wealth of the few.
None of this is needed to create a healthy, happy, abundant world for everyone. There is an alternative—a natural way of life in harmony with the living planet and the network of life. We call it “the culture of life and liberation.” It is a way of life that puts the Divine, and the spiritual evolution of our soul and the planetary soul, as the central purpose of our life. There is a subtle and perennial demand for this way of life that is gently sweeping across our planet, like a fresh breeze dispersing stagnant air and bringing relief from the oppressive heat of the culture of death.
The culture of life and liberation is a sacred lover, wooing us into prayerful, openhearted communion with the Divine, and with the living planet as an expression of the Divine. It is living life as love and harmony with all creation, honoring all life on the planet. Its bottom line is to elevate all souls and maximize love, kindness, compassion, generosity, and caring for humanity and the Earth in a way that creates abundance for all. It is an awake and conscious way that brings peace, abundance, love, joyous life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness to the world’s population. It is successful conception after many years of barrenness, and a birthing woman’s breath as she opens to love while in the throes of stretching beyond what we typically deem possible.
The culture of life and liberation is the light of a newborn baby’s emergence after the energies of pregnancy and labor have come to completion. It is a miracle of creation, come to elevate all of creation. It is the smile on a grandparent’s face when they see their alive and conscious grandchildren. The culture-of-life-and-liberation child is the pre-toddler who doesn’t know the words, “It’s no use,” and who, having seen the possibility of standing, continues to get up and go for it, time and time and time again—but who’s counting? He will get up and walk.
The culture of life and liberation is the happy child who invites us to come out and splash in the rain, squish the mud, savor snowflakes, hide in leaf heaps, see illustrations in the clouds, climb up trees, slide down banisters, and to stop everything to take in deeply the scent of a flower or the sight of a six-legged speck traversing our path.
“We cannot always build the future for our youth,
but we can build our youth for the future.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt