Siebe writes:
“But(love and attention) not met with it, it is almost impossible to relax. One will probably experience great stress, taapa, inner fire, when this deeply imbedded need for love and attention is not met with. I also think mental problems arise when this biological longing is frustrated in one way or the other.
I see exactly what you mean. This I see as a result of either one’s gathi or one of reciprocal kamma with those denying that love and attention, or of the two factors at once (to different degrees,according to the case in question).
As to babies, although “those sensations cannot be IDENTIFIED with the baby’s set of anusaya” (Lal), yet we see that behavioral patterns in babies must be due to gathi (therefore gathi is active even at that stage,not dormant as in the case of their response to sense inputs) – for otherwise, whence the difference: one of my daughters used to sleep”like a baby” (!!) – how else?, for several hours, the other one cried at intervals during the night – the former grew up to be visibly more composed and deliberate in her demeanour.
much Metta