Gate 25: בו — THE CHILD

בו

Pillar 2: THE SEPARATION

[25:1] "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like

little children,

[25:2] you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

[25:3] --- Matthew 18:3

[25:4] "The Child is Father of the Man."

[25:5] --- William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up"

[25:6] "Behold, I make all things new."

[25:7] --- Revelation 21:5

[25:8] [25:1] The Child is the observer in the present

moment---where the Father's form meets the Mother's substance.

[25:9] [25:2] In the Trinity that underlies all

creation---Father, Mother, Child---the Child is you. Not you as abstract

concept or eternal soul, but you right now, in this instant, reading

these words. The Father gives the pattern; the Mother gives the

material; the Child is the living result, the point of consciousness

that experiences pattern made manifest.

[25:10] [25:3] The Kabbalists call this principle Zeir Anpin,

the "Small Face" or "Short-tempered One"---short-tempered because he

exists in time, subject to change, reactive to circumstance. Zeir Anpin

is composed of six Sefirot (Chesed through Yesod), the emotional and

dynamic center of the Tree of Life. If Abba and Ima are eternal, Zeir

Anpin is temporal: born, growing, responding, dying.

[25:11] [25:4] This is the profound meaning of the

incarnation---not a one-time event in ancient Palestine, but the

permanent truth that the Divine enters time through conscious beings.

Every point of awareness is a place where eternity touches time, where

the Father's forms become the Mother's flesh, where God looks out

through finite eyes at a world God is also creating. You are that

intersection.

[25:12] [FIGURE 25.1: A Venn diagram where "Father" and

"Mother" circles overlap. The overlapping region is labeled

"Child"---the zone where form and substance unite in living

awareness.] [25:5] The Child is both Christ and Lucifer---or rather,

the Child contains both potentials. Christos (the Anointed) is the Child

oriented toward the Father, toward unity, toward return to the

source. Lucifer (the Light-Bearer) is the Child oriented toward

experience, toward differentiation, toward the full exploration of

separation. Both are necessary. A soul that never descended into

experience would gain nothing; a soul that never returned would be lost

forever.

[25:13] [25:6] This is not dualism in the Manichaean

sense---Christ good, Lucifer evil. It is polarity, like inhale and

exhale, like systole and diastole. The Child breathes out into creation

(Luciferian motion) and breathes in toward union (Christic motion). Both

breaths belong to the same breath; both movements belong to the same

being. The danger is not in either direction but in becoming stuck---all

descent, no ascent; all exhale, no inhale.

[25:14] [25:7] In psychological terms, the Child is the

ego---the sense of "I," the point of conscious choice. The ego is

often maligned in spiritual discourse ("kill the ego!"), but without

the ego, there is no one to make the journey. The problem is not the ego

but the ego's confusion about its nature: it thinks it is the whole

when it is a part; it thinks it is separate when it is connected; it

thinks it is permanent when it is a process.

[25:15] [25:8] The Child chooses. This is the great gift and

burden of conscious existence: you are not just happening---you are

deciding. Every moment presents options; every moment requires

selection. The Father provides the pattern of what could be; the Mother

provides the substance from which something will be made; the Child

chooses what from among the coulds. This is free will---not unlimited

(you cannot choose to fly by flapping your arms), but real (you can

choose kindness or cruelty, attention or distraction, growth or

stagnation).

[25:16] [25:9] "Unless you become like little children\..."

Children are present. They have not yet built the thick walls of concept

and assumption that later dull perception. They see what is, not what

they expect. The spiritual path is largely a process of recovering this

original openness---not by abandoning adult capacities, but by adding

childlike perception to adult responsibility.

[25:17] [25:10] The Child makes all things new because the Child

is the locus of the present moment, and the present moment is always

fresh. Past and future are constructs; only now is real. The Child lives

in now---or can, if it learns to. This is the kingdom of heaven: not a

place you go after death, but a way of experiencing this moment,

available whenever you become what you always already are.

[25:18] See Also: • Gate 23: בד --- The Gate of the Father (the

Child's source of form) • Gate 24: בה --- The Gate of the Mother (the

Child's source of substance) • Gate 56: גצ --- The Gate of the Ego (the

Child in psychological terms) • Gate 177: כק --- The Gate of Awakening

(the Child's recognition of its nature)