Innocense
By Ted Strauss

There is one thing I have observed that consistently makes room for consciousness to arrive more deeply into embodiment: the clear recognition and sincere acknowledgment of our innocence by another embodied being.

Saniel is a master of this. His very presence radiates understanding, forgiveness, and support for our human and divine essence and manifestation. In some ways, I could say that this is the very core of his transmission and the transmission of this work:

There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you. You mean no harm. You are doing your best. You are love incarnate. Your pain and separation since birth (and perhaps for lifetimes) was natural. You were misunderstood by others. You were cast out of oneness and acceptance by those were supposed to love you. You have been shocked and confused. We are sorry you have had to endure this. It was not your fault. It is natural. We have all had to endure this. You are innocent. All is forgiven. You can come home.

But what of those who have murdered, raped, and beaten others? Are they innocent too? I say yes. All are innocent. Even the most dangerous criminals have themselves been savagely beaten and cast aside, forced into a hell of separation and desperation to find somebody who might see them, hear them, feel them, and know their innocent heart. Does this sound too simple, too naive? Perhaps. But this is my truth.

I don’t mean to say the we should merely love and accept dangerous characters in our society or our sangha. If, through the wounds of living, someone has become truly dangerous, they should be appropriately restrained from the ability to harm others. Yet, I still say that when we as a society, and we as individuals, judge another being as wrong, bad, and unworthy of love and acceptance, what we are really saying is that we are not ready to face ourselves and the human condition. We are not ready to face our own pain, confusion, and separation. We are not ready to feel the ways that we feel bad, wrong, rejected, shattered. It is easier to condemn others and avoid the complexities of uncovering the truth. We are too busy to find the truth. We are too occupied to break the membranes of separation. We are too afraid to feel the tension in the walls of division between these hearts. We are terrified of being hurt and of dying. And rightfully so.

You are God, trapped in Hell. You are the Divine, imprisoned in a body and a world that is torn asunder with hatred and misunderstanding. You are inescapably forced to confront the fact of Your embodiment, Your crucifixion in the realm of limits, and Your interminable exposure to life and death. You are already being hurt and you are already dying. If you have noticed this, if you have permitted this to such a degree that you have fallen through the looking glass into your own Truth, then I encourage you to locate the innocence in every separated and rejected part of your own being, and in all beings. We are all innocent. May we all find our way home into the wellness of divinely human conscious embodiment.

© 1998 Ted Nathan Strauss

 

Ted Strauss
  Ted’s Bio and Acknowledgement of Saniel
  Ted's Birthday Letter to Saniel
  Ted's Bio
  Gazing
  The Ball of Yarn
  The Realization of Pain
  Two Kinds of Pain
  The Jigsaw Puzzle Analogy
  The Self You Didn’t Want To Realize
  The Titanic Analogy: That Sinking Feeling
  The Lunar Module Analogy: Whose Truth Is True?
  Mutuality
  The Search for Nirvana
  Innocense
  The Black Hole Analogy
  Trust
  The Responsibility of Seeing and the Fear of Being
  Sex and the Spiritual Man
  The Paradox of Multiple Onlyness
  Letter To An Enlightened Being
  Excerpts From a Letter to One Confused in Relation