A critique on the baby story as a metaphor for awakening

"Babies have a pure form of awareness, an unconditional acceptance and love for everything," the story goes. "Because of conditioning, we forget
our natural state of awareness, and as adults we must seek to find it by remembering."  It becomes a metaphor. Teachers of nondual awareness, looking back to help others  awaken to truth, repeat this story often, and with many variations. As a metaphor it has significant shortcomings. Since metaphors are a core component of spiritual teaching, we should be clear about how this is. In Lakoff's work, metaphors are more than stylistic, they are pervasive in thought and action. and key to various levels of narrative, including one's worldview. His work is a good place for further study, eg the book Thinking Points, a free download on www.cognitivepolicyworks.com. As metaphors are so important in aiding seekers to peel away the layers of delusion, we should pay more attention to their usage. This will be a later discussion.
The baby story is well-intended, but is problematic in at least two ways:
First, it overlooks the need for experience and suffering as integral to awakening. Teachers repeat that people are "awakening from" not "awakening to" the pure form of awareness. For a baby, there is nothing to awaken from. If the baby is actually awakened to the infinite and present moment, it has no idea about this, and cannot experience it as an "awakening." It could be further said that the baby does not have nondual awareness, for how can something be nondual if there was never a duality?
Second, the baby story conflicts with the story of the life of Siddartha Gautama Buddha. In that story, Buddha as a baby knew no suffering, resulting from painstaking efforts by loving parents. This was successful because as the story goes, when he eventually travelled out into the world he encountered suffering for the very first time, in the form of sickness, old age, and death.  It can be said that keeping the baby away from conditioning, or suffering, does not result in a true state of awakeness, because the young adult Buddha was gripped by compassion and the need to understand the suffering of others. As the story goes, he needed to experience prolonged and intense suffering himself before he could awaken. There are additional investigations that can come out of this story, and the use of metaphors to teach or facilitate the process of awakening.
One potential objection to dismantling the baby story:
Some are said to be born as awakened, and never had to "wake up." Anandamayi Ma (Sri Ma), the "bliss permeated mother"  transmitted by radiance. She is quoted on www.anandamayi.org as saying My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came on this earth 'I was the same'. As a little girl 'I was the same. She died in India in 1982. The popular living guru Ammachi (Mata Amritanandamayi Devi), the "huggy saint" www.ammachi.org who transmits by an embrace, has a similar story.
In the story of Buddha, protection from conditioning and suffering didn't maintain the supposed awakened nature of the baby. With Sri Ma and Ammachi, exposure to conditioning and suffering did not make them "forget" their natural state of awakening. In both cases, assuming the life stories of these masters is true, the baby metaphor may be misleading.
Final note: metaphors are powerful tools for teaching, and every effort to bring them as close as possible to truth can empower the awakening of others. There are enough layers of delusion to peel away already. Even with these life stories, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.

 

Personal note: I visited one of the ashrams of Anandamayi Ma in Varanasi, India in 1998, and several of us in the sangha of Shantimayi experienced various sensations of peace or bliss around an area said to be where she sat silently for years. In 2002 i had an embrace by Amma, and experienced an energetic infusion and "clearing" that lasted about 24 hours. Hundreds of people at her San Ramon ashram stood in line until 3 am for the embrace.

Summary of deconstructing the baby metaphor:

1. The baby is born with unveiled awareness, the veil comes later presumably by conditioning.
2. The avatar eg Amma, is born with awareness that does not become veiled by conditioning.
3. Buddha was protected from conditioning (desires and suffering) yet did not keep from being veiled.