I woke up the other morning, and this particular quote from the book of Matthew was on my mind. It didn't take long to decompose it; this is the original thought chain that seeded the public-facing poem located here.

The Passage Decoded

When Christ said, "Unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven," the church turned it into a morality tale about innocence and humility. But look closer at what distinguishes the child who can enter the kingdom; they still suckle. They receive nourishment directly from the source, unmediated, unprocessed, without even the concept that there could be substitutes.

This isn't about moral purity; children can be cruel, selfish, and destructive. It's about perception that hasn't yet been institutionalized, consciousness that hasn't yet learned to see through authorized filters, souls that haven't yet been taught that they need intermediaries between themselves and their source; it is this consciousness that is beyond good and evil.

Before the Splitting

The child who hasn't yet learned to categorize doesn't see "male and female" as opposing teams; they don't divide the world into "good and evil" camps. They see Mama and Papa, the dog and the cat, the toy and the wall: things that exist in relationship but not in opposition.

The Cancer of Integration hasn't yet metastasized. Reality is still whole, still flowing, still unified in its diversity. The child experiences differences without creating divisions, sees variety without constructing hierarchies, and encounters others without immediately categorizing them as us or them.

This is the consciousness that can enter the kingdom, not because it's innocent but because it's unprocessed. It hasn't yet been taught that the kingdom is elsewhere, that authority is external, that the divine requires mediation.

Direct Nourishment

The suckling child knows nothing of formula, bottles, or breast milk substitutes. They know only the immediate connection, the direct flow from source to need. No one needs to explain nutrition to them; no expert is required to intervene, and no system needs to process what flows naturally between mother and child.

This is what we lose: the ability to receive directly. By adulthood, everything must be mediated:

• Wisdom must come through education
• Health must come through healthcare systems
• Truth must come through approved channels
• Even spirituality must come through religious institutions

We've forgotten how to suckle; how to connect directly to the source of nourishment without processing, without interpretation, without systemization.

The Manufactured Complexity

Watch how quickly we complicate the child's world:

• "Boys don't cry, girls don't fight," the splitting begins
• "Good children do this, bad children do that," the categorization starts
• "This is sacred, that is profane," the exile from wholeness
• "You need to learn from those who know better," the external authority implants

Within years, the child who could enter the kingdom has been processed into someone who believes the kingdom is distant, complex, and requiring elaborate approaches through authorized gates.

The same child who once received nourishment directly now consumes processed food. Those who once played without purpose now need structured activities. Who once created art from joy now needs lessons and grades. Who once knew God in everything now needs the church to find the divine.

The Impossibility of Return

"Become like little children," but how? You cannot unknow what you know, uncategorize what you've split, unprocess what's been processed. The instruction seems impossible, even cruel. We've been expelled from Eden and told to return to innocence.

But perhaps the kingdom isn't about regression but recognition. Not becoming a child again but recognizing what remains childlike within; the consciousness that exists before all the processing, the awareness that precedes all the categories, the Self that was never actually split despite all our divisions.

The Atman, the divine Self, the Christ consciousness, is eternally childlike, not childish but childlike in its direct apprehension of reality. It doesn't need to become innocent because it was never guilty. It doesn't need to unlearn because it exists before learning. It doesn't need to be processed because it is the source from which all processing emerged.

The Revolutionary Teaching

This teaching is more radical than the church could allow. If the kingdom is accessible to unprocessed consciousness, if children naturally possess what adults must seek, then every system of religious education is not helping but hindering. Every theology that complicates is moving away from truth, not toward it.

The kingdom of heaven isn't achieved through the accumulation of knowledge, merit, or practice. It's accessed through simplification, which reveals what was always there. Not the simplification of dumbing down but of seeing through unnecessary complexity to the simple truth beneath.

The Adult Child

Those who enter the kingdom aren't those who pretend to be children or who infantilize themselves. They're those who have rediscovered their capacity for direct reception. Those who can hear truth without needing it interpreted, who can receive nourishment without requiring it processed, who can see reality without immediately splitting it into approved categories.

They've learned to suckle again, not literally but spiritually. To receive directly from the source. To bypass the middlemen. To recognize that the kingdom was never distant, never required entrance fees, never needed authorized guides.

It was always here, always available, always accessible to the consciousness that hasn't forgotten how to receive without mediation.

The Ultimate Subversion

This teaching subverts every authority structure:

• If children already have access, what are religious institutions selling?
• If direct reception is possible, why do we need interpreters?
• If the kingdom is here now, what are we waiting for?
• If becoming like children is the way, why do we complicate?

The Cancer of Eros thrives on convincing us we're severed from our source and need reconnection through authorized channels. But the child still suckling knows no such separation. They're connected, nourished, whole; not through achievement but through simple, unconscious acceptance of what flows naturally.

The Cancer of Integration depends on us seeing in divided categories. But the child sees in wholes, in relationships, in flowing realities that haven't yet crystallized into opposing camps.

The Practice That Isn't

Becoming like little children isn't a practice but a cessation. Stop processing. Stop categorizing. Stop seeking through systems what's available directly. Stop complicating what's simple. Stop believing those who say the kingdom is distant, difficult, demanding, and requiring an elaborate approach.

The child doesn't practice entering the kingdom; they haven't yet learned to see the walls adults have constructed around it. Walls that were never there. Gates that were never locked. Guards that exist only in our processed perception.

Unless you become like little children, unless you remember how to receive directly, see wholly, exist without the elaborate processing that turns life into death, connection into separation, presence into absence, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Because the kingdom of heaven isn't a place you go or a city of God, it's what you're already in when you stop believing you're outside it.