Ram Dass said, “Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.” On my last blog post I linked this phrase with the Transactional Analysis concept of operating from your internal Adult, Parent, or Child. Although this way of looking at things originated in the 1970s, it is still very relevant today…
The Parent inside is your belief system. It’s the stuff you learned from others. It’s your conditioning. The Parent can be helpful in making sound decisions. The problem with it is that it can be very critical and judgmental. Remember the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons on TV? They sounded like “Waa Waa Waa.” They said stuff you wanted to tune out. The Parent “entity” inside of you is that thing, and it’s probably less likely to see the divine, or God, in people than the Adult or Child ego states.
The Child inside of you is a set of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are based on needs that you had as a child but weren’t met. As you get older, you continue to try and meet the needs of the child within you. This can create a lot of conflict depending on what those unmet needs were. The best part of the Child inside is that it contains a lot of creativity, joy, and energy. Operating from the joyous child inside, you could probably recognize “the Great Creator” (or however you view God) shining within a person, no matter what they were wearing or doing.
The Adult inside is based on what’s happening right now. When you are able to be present in the moment, and fully listen to another person, you are probably operating from the Adult. This internal state would likely grasp the Great Spirit (or again, whatever your concept of God) inside another human being.
If spirituality interests you, and if seeing God in others is something you aspire to — as I do — then pay attention to whether you’re coming from your Adult, Parent, or Child, and look for the best in others.