Innocence in Relationship

"Where there's laughter, there's God. Where there's seriousness, there's ego.'
POONJAJI



Innocence in relationship is a very rare thing.

It means consciously, moment by moment, resisting the habit of overlaying the world with our own agendas.

Agendas are formed by the mind and take many shapes and sizes, from marrying someone through insecurity or the need to have children, to using a friendship for our own personal gain. Our layers are sometimes so thick and varied that we're often not able to get the to truth of the matter, so adept are we at justifying our actions and covering up the things we don't want to look at.

Accepting responsibility for every single one of our thoughts and feelings offers us a great opportunity to get clean, but even this is a big call. Often it takes another to act as a mirror for us.

Many exchanges between tourists and indigenous people are based on agendas. A friendship may be engineered for financial gain or a photograph. Agendas can be a challenge to avoid, but a starting point is to at least be honest about them.

The children of Ibo have have not been primed to see tourists as a source of revenue. Their innocence disarmed me and gave me the license to open up.

Slowly, in all walks of life, an awareness is being brought into how we relate and the world of tourism is no exception to this. Bit by bit, at what sometimes seems like a snails pace, we are learning from the blundering reactivity of the past.

How often have you made a sarcastic joke to a youngster only to get an open, blank expression back? Children are such valuable mirrors.

How many people have you met who retain the innocence of a child but the awareness of a sage?