Natural Innocence, like absolute Love, is the very foundation of life. It can’t be destroyed, only clouded over in one’s awareness. There are those who would accuse Innocence of being a limiting state that should be grown out of. In fact, it is of the Essence, and a priceless asset to every living thing. It is the fragrance that makes life worth living. If its light is smothered in us, we lose the vitality, the spark of joy, that fills our life with meaning.
I’ve worked on city streets and seen old children, working in the sex trade, hanging on corners with shriveled skin and hollow eyes, like burnt tree trunks in a once lush forest. There are religious organizations that would have us live in states of guilt and darkness, or of egoistical pride and fiery aggression, and the world seems to be run now by ravenous corporations bent on monetary profit at any sacrifice. Most of the daily bad news that bombards us is the result of, directly or indirectly, the decline of Innocence. But Tagore wrote: “Every child born brings the message that God is not yet discouraged of men.” We’re (still) in luck.
Innocence lives in each of us, and supports us, emanating from our Mooladhara center and our heart. We love to hear a child laugh (if we’re not too stressed); to see a puppy play, or the sun rise on a landscape, and sometimes we miss that certain something that seemed to have died in us when we left childhood. It didn’t die, and it is easily unearthed. There’s a simple experience that can be reached effortlessly by any human being, that allows that essential light to shine powerfully inside of us. It’s not a pay-for formula or a trick of the mind. It’s something built-in and it’s waiting, like a present on your birthday. It’s time to open it.
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Self-Help 