Innocence is all

In the pre-verbal space I feel a sense of being weighed and measured and found wanting. Who is the one judging? I don't know - I don't have logic to explain the feeling but the feeling is one of being unacceptable. Do you believe in innocence? Oh yes (tears spring to my eyes) oh yes I believe in innocence. And what does innocence mean to you? Untouched, unblemished, uncorrupted, pure, not guilty. Do you believe the we are born innocent?

... And I think about this for a moment. I like to believe we are born innocent but what about karma from past lives, what about the ancestral coding in my DNA? When I think about it... no, no I don't believe we are all born innocent. There are some of us that are not. That are pre-programmed to be found wanting.

I have no framework to explain these early feelings. I was not raised in religion nor taught about a punishing God or original sin. But it seems that woven into the fabric of my being is a belief that I and those like me are not innocent. That my very existence brings shame. I stop and think and I say that knowledge is the dividing line - I was innocent as a young being until I knew that I was evil; once I was told... then I knew and then I lived into that version of the story.

But, asks the question, if these things of blame are beyond your control are you not innocent? And thus aren't we all?

And then, yes, I see it. Just as "God is all or God is nothing" so "Innocence is all or innocence is nothing" - there can be no partial innocence because that would create guilt or non-innocence which requires judgment and in the judgement is duality and subjectivity; the henchmen of the ego. All factors leading to a perception of non-innocence are always beyond control.

Innocence is all there is. And when I am; I am innocent.