Be childlike, not childish Gita 12 13

Hare Krishna be childlike not childish childishness is the state before maturity childlikeness is the state where maturity has blossomed into purity and spirituality for all of us whenever we see children there is a certain spontaneous attraction to them because of their innocence their sweetness and saintly people often have that similar innocence and sweetness to them but then when we look at children we also know that they are naive they can be cheated they don’t have proper experience of life and they are often frivolous they can spend a lot of emotion and time on trivial things for them their toys may be the center of their life whereas life is meant for many bigger things so now essentially the point here is that there is a difference between being childlike and being childish and the saintly are childlike not childish and we also as we grow in our spirituality and purity we want to aspire to becoming child like so what is childishness? childishness is basically the state before maturity the children appear innocent and sweet because we could say the gross selfish desires like lust, anger, greed they have not manifested so much in their hearts they are there as impressions from previous lives but they have not manifested their hearts right now and not in their lives, their actions so much of course if children are ill behaved and are grumpy and rude then certainly we don’t consider them not at all attractive at all but if children are reasonably well groomed and reasonably well socialized then there is a sweetness but that is because the impurities are not yet manifested and childhood itself has some sweetness to it but it is the state before maturity now maturity means there is physical maturity there is emotional maturity but maturity while it makes us to some extent wiser than what we were as children it also makes us more vulnerable than what we were as children more vulnerable to the impurities within us manifesting and sometimes people who grow up they often become cynical, skeptical we see this in teenage when the innocence of childhood gives way to the disagreeability of the adolescent years and sometimes people stay adolescents throughout their lives they don’t retain the innocence of their childhood but they retain the rebelliousness of their teenage and that is definitely not desirable, they take some petty grudges that they have and hold it throughout their lives so to be childlike means that there is the maturity of adulthood which is definite where there is wisdom, where there is caution but along with that, that maturity has blossomed to purity and spirituality that means there is basically a spiritual vision of life where we, the goodness within our heart the purity within our hearts so there is no, you could say there is no gross lust for example in small children then it comes in adults but as somebody grows purer then they go beyond that when the purity manifests then the impurity which is blocking our soul’s spirituality from manifesting, that also gets removed and then, so maturity blossoms into purity and spirituality so when there are no selfish or ulterior motives, there is a certain sweetness to the person which is charming Krishna talks about the characteristics of his pure devotees those who fully love him and among such characteristics which are described from chapter 12, 13 to 20 Krishna says adveshta sarva-bhutanam maitra-karuna eva ca nirmamo nirahankara sama-dukha-sukha-kshami so adveshta sarva-bhutanam there is no envy, there is no possessiveness maitra-karuna eva ca so that non-comparing non-competitive non-possessive, non-controlling mentality that is there that gives a childlike sweetness to the saintly and that is what enables people to move forward in their life constructively, joyfully and we all can aspire for this childlike state where our maturity where we have the wisdom of maturity but beyond that we have purity and spirituality that brings sweetness and connection with Krishna brings satisfaction