~The State of Authentic Play~

What is it to play...to truly be playful, childlike, innocent? What is innocence for that matter? People seem to love discussing the difference between children and non-children, and it usually resolves to a point about innocence lost. But I have rarely heard anyone arrive at a satisfying definition of innocence.

So, let's start with true play, authentic play, and go from there. In my practice, my journey, I have found that there are certain states or qualities associated with freedom, with awakening...certain states or qualities that lead to a remembering of what is Real. In my exposure and work with youth of all ages, I have observed that they sometimes effortlessly come into these same states and qualities.

As far as I can see, the commonalities between these qualities of awakening and these qualities of authentic play allow for a basic description:

a state of presence, vulnerability, spontaneous expression, and joy; an unassuming state free from memory and expectation, free from fear of the unknown, marked by sincerity, wonder, and discovery.

Most likely, the mind reads this and has some resistance. Quite possibly, the mind believes that people cannot really live this way- it is simply not possible to reclaim this childlike beingness once we have lost it. Maybe reading this makes the heart warm, but the rational, adult part of oneself comments that, 'it's a nice dream, but the real world doesn't work that way'. Maybe it pictures a world run amok should people actually start living from a place of authentic play, with everyone out running naked through the fields and no real work getting done. But through my own experience, very much living in and egaged with the active world, I have found it to be quite otherwise. See for yourself, o fellow cosmic traveler...

Maybe what we find when we sincerely attempt to connect with Authentic Play, is that the mind's resistance stems from its own discomfort. It is the reality that in a place of presence, vulnerability, and the unknown, the mind/ego suddenly finds itself stripped of the illusion that it can control the circumstances and experiences of its existence, and this can be deeply disorienting and painful. Yet this pain is like the unpleasantness of bitter medicine, the sting of sterilizing an infected wound with iodine, or the sharp pain of the surgeon's knife while removing a tumor. In other words, there is pain because of illness; and there is illness because of being out of touch with Reality, with how things really are.

In this way, beginning a practice of Authentic Play can be uncomfortable, disorienting, scary, and difficult. Yet, with sincere application, it quickly ripens into very sweet fruit, and becomes the most cherished aspect of one's life here and now. It becomes a conscious, embodied return to innocence, now deeply enriched and Self-aware.


Each truth-speaker expresses this reality and recognition with particular words and images, yet the truth of it remains the same.  Here Mooji offers us his beautiful, potent words on this state of 'thusness'




 
OneLight