The Spiritual Child. Quotes IV

-Spirituality in adulthood was linked to less suffering in life, less depression and substance abuse, higher rates of recovery from physical illness, and even a longer life span.
-A key factor in thriving has to do with the habits of living, particularly around relationships, that we establish in childhood.
-These daily ways of living are so much a part of our family culture and conversation that we absorb them like a sponge.
-Regardless of race, ethnicity, or apparent material wealth, some people shone with a brightness of warmth and kindness, with radiant eyes and expressions, while others were visibly downcast and burdened. I came to think of this brightness as a sign that, spiritually, the light is on.
-Spirituality is not found in the mother or the youth alone but in the nod: the passage from parent to child or grandparent to grandchild.
-The parent is an ambassador of transcendence, the guide on the ground who introduces a child to the spiritually attuned life.
-Everyone is born with an inherent spirituality, a natural sense of trascendence.
-The power of the nod was illuminated for me by the compassionate grandmother and granddaughter royal couple on the subway that Sunday twenty years ago.
-I am very spiritual. Why? Because my father just really, really loved me. I mean he absolutely adored me. The way that his love felt, I now feel a similar feeling, it's that feeling, from God.
-The way a baby looks at you, and especially your own baby...  they look at you with this sense of you are my everything, and that is amazing.
-Babies bring out the best in us.
-Parents are perceived as generally carrying divine qualities.
-The natural long term developmental trajectory of the brain is toward enligthment. This path is only disturbed by our contemporary culture putting spirituality on the back shelf.
-The deeply soulful presence of a newborn or youngster grabs our attention, shows us  the realm of human possibility, and perhaps jolts us into remembering a bigger reality from our own childhood. They show us our true spiritual nature.