Here Bartholomew addressed parents and children directly on the nature of God, beginning with the essential truth that children are not small persons needing to be taught everything - they are vast beings already connected to and filled with loving power. God is not a big person in the sky but an ever-present feeling of warmth, safety, and light that exists inside each person. This tape teaches that emotions come and go, but something remains constant within which they rise and fall. Bartholomew guides parents on how to respond when children ask difficult questions about God, suffering, death, and religion, emphasizing that children need access to their own inner wisdom rather than imposed beliefs. The greatest gift parents can give their children is their own enlightenment - where parents go for safety and knowing, their children will go.

You Are Very, Very Vast: Bartholomew spoke directly to children: "You have been told that you are a very small person in a small body, someone who needs to be taught everything." But the truth is you are far vaster than the tiny body you're experiencing. You are filled with, connected to, and part of a wonderful, absolutely loving power. When you are afraid, angry, confused, when people you care about don't care about you, when things you love leave - turn your thoughts to the wondrous, warm, full place inside your physical body. It will never leave you. You don't have to earn it, be good, be right, or be anything. "You just have to be exactly what you are."

That Which Comes and Goes: You are happy and sad, good and bad, right and wrong, loved and not loved, smart and stupid - all at once. And if you pay attention, all these things come and go. "Anything that comes and goes is not all of you." When you let yourself feel mad without trying to fix it, the mad gets quieter and smaller. When you let yourself feel sad, saying "I am feeling sad," something wonderful emerges - a soft, warm, light, safe something that was always there. You don't have to make it happen or go find it. That is what Bartholomew called God: that within which everything rises and falls.

God Is not a Big Person: When children think God is a human being like Mommy or Daddy only bigger, they become frightened - because human beings sometimes hurt us. "God is not a person made big. God has no body. God has no thoughts like the thoughts you think. God has no feelings like the feelings you feel." Instead of trying to see what God looks like, children need to feel what God feels like. Sit quietly and ask: What does love feel like? What does being absolutely safe feel like? What does warmth feel like? Go inside and feel and see the light within. "If you want to be happy and your life outside is not making you happy, then you have to remember" that happiness lives inside.

Questions Children Ask: Children will ask: Why do bad things happen? Why did my friend die? Is God punishing me? Bartholomew advised parents not to impose meaning on suffering. When a child loses a pet or friend, simply acknowledge: "She's sad, I'm sad too." Don't rush to explain with beliefs about heaven or God's plan. Let children discover their own relationship with the mystery. When they ask which religion is best, the answer is: whichever one allows them access to the inner feeling of safety and vastness. If a religion contracts them into fear and guilt, it is not serving them. The goal is expansion, not contraction.

Personal and Impersonal Aspects of God: The inner wisdom has two aspects that parents should understand. The personal aspect gives guidance - words in the mind, images, a voice saying "do this" or "don't do that." Children will have these experiences and shouldn't be discouraged from them. The impersonal aspect is a vast, warm, ever-present feeling without form or voice - just flooding compassion and wisdom. Many people experience this constantly but don't recognize it, "just as you have ceased to recognize that the source of your life is the air that you breathe." Both aspects are real; don't give up one for the other.

Feeling Good Beyond Good and Bad: When children feel bad, it's usually associated with some form, some loss, some something of the limited ego - things that rise and fall. But the "good feeling" Bartholomew pointed to is not opposed to feeling bad. It is "a sense of absolute perfection in the middle of the mess" - something appropriate, life-giving, even exciting about difficulty. This feeling is ever-present, and within it rise all the ups and downs, goods and bads. Identifying this feeling is the journey. "God is here, ever present. What they're looking for is already here. Full, perfect, alive, accessible, dynamic, compassionate, wise, healing, totally accepting."

The Greatest Gift: "One of the greatest gifts you can give your children is to be enlightened." Your light matters. If you begin to believe in this ever-present awareness, children will believe it. If you live from that space, they will spontaneously access it. Some say it's better to go to PTA meetings than to sit and meditate. Bartholomew said: think about it. "If you really want to serve your children, know that your light, your love, your understanding from deep within - that's what eases the pain of their life." Where do you go when you're terrified? Where do you go when full of sorrow? "Where you go, they will go."