The heart of a child is the mind of a Buddha.
Pay attention to your children. Wish the best for them and love them without worrying about them, for every child is a little Buddha who helps their parents to grow.
— Buddha

In this three-part series centred on the child archetype, whose first part, “The Divine Child Archetype — Introduction,” you can see below, we will examine the child archetype from three perspectives: 1) the fundamental characteristics of its first dimension, the divine child; 2) how to establish an active relationship with the divine child archetype in life; and 3) the characteristics of the child archetype’s second dimension, the innocent child, with a lecture by Ms Farnaz Foroud, translator of more than seventy books on self-knowledge, including works on the influence of archetypes in the transcendence of personality structure.

All of us carry in our hearts a deep understanding of the child archetype and its fundamental qualities. We were all children once, and each of us has a child within. None of us is without at least an elementary understanding of the child archetype and its characteristics.

The child archetype is our point of connection with heaven and transcendence, and at the same time our sole point of connection inward, to feeling. The child carries our deepest desires and highest ideas. The child archetype opens a path towards possibility, hope, a new beginning, change, miracle and power.

The child is full of possibilities that have not yet had the opportunity to be realised. The child is our connection with imagination, fantasy and miracle. The child still exists somewhere between heaven and earth: the light of the sky shines in its eyes before its body has gathered the dust of the earth. The child within us is our connection with that light and with the dream of feet that have not yet been wounded by travelling.

The child is the part of us that wants to grow. The child is a wholeness containing all of nature within itself and rooted in the deepest and most distant reaches of our unconscious mind. The child is an archetype representing renewal, redemption, potential, wonder, excitement, zest for life, the promise of the future, spontaneity, uncomplicated joy, higher pleasure and, most valuably of all, the capacity to be fully present.

The child becomes so absorbed in what it is doing that everything else is forgotten. At its centre it carries our deepest wishes and highest ideas—ideas such as sacredness, innocence, harmony, happiness, pleasure and joy, peace and eternity, all reflected in the image of the child.

In art, literature, mythology and religions, the child appears with divine characteristics. The symbol of the child does not represent outer reality but the inner reality of the psyche; it reflects all our wishes, aspirations and longings and symbolises everything new that is yet to come.

We conclude this short introduction to the first video with a statement attributed to Carl Jung: in every adult there is an eternal child, something continually becoming, never complete, continually seeking care, attention and learning. The child is the part of personality that seeks wholeness and the realisation of the Self.

Aydin Areta
November 2019