Baba says, ‘Shiva is always called the Innocent Lord, Shiva, the Innocent Treasurer.’

The Innocent Lord means the One who bestows without counting, without keeping an account of it. Generally, there is an account of receiving as much as one gives; whoever does something, receives a return of that, accordingly. However, God is called the Innocent Lord because at this time, He doesn’t keep an account of giving to me in proportion to how much I give. Instead, He gives me multi-millions in return for one. He doesn’t give me a few more than what I gave or even a lot more than what I gave, He gives me multi-millionfold more! This is why the Innocent Lord is also celebrated as the Innocent Treasurer, the one who gives without counting. I receive so much that I remain full not just for the present but for half the cycle. No one else can give me a guarantee for so many births. No matter how great a bestower someone is, no one can guarantee making my treasure-store completely full for so many births. Only He is the Innocent Lord.

He is able to be the Innocent Lord because He is knowledge-full. No one else can be called the Ocean of Knowledge either; being the Innocent Lord and knowledge-full go hand in hand. Innocence doesn’t mean that the Father doesn’t know what I’m like, He does. He knows everything about me. He knows what kind of thoughts I think, what words I speak and what my attitude and actions are like. He is Innocent not because He doesn’t know but rather because He does know and still chooses to give. He sees my defects but chooses not to see, He sees my mistakes and chooses to merge them into His heart. He is able to be innocent because He exercises the powers of tolerance and accommodation. As a result, He always remain constant, stable, never comes under the influence of sanskars. He therefore always remains full. This is also why He is the Innocent Lord on one hand and the Innocent Treasurer who is always completely full on the other hand. He can always give fully because He is always completely full.

Sometimes I am easy natured and simple but I lack the power to go with it. I then feel like a doormat and take a lot of sorrow. I feel like a sacrificial lamb, always dying while others seem to get away with everything. Thus, this wrong kind of innocence causes me a great loss. ‘The Father is the Lord of Innocence but He is not so innocent that He is unable to confront you’, says Baba, ‘together with being the Lord of Innocence, He is also the Almighty Authority.’ Innocence doesn’t mean denial. If I am in a position of authority and need to put something right, then it is my responsibility to do so. But I don’t do it in a judgmental way, I don’t criticize and condemn. That is not authority. Authority means I do everything with love, with tolerance, with the sole intention of benefitting everyone, of uplifting everyone. That is what the Father does. He never condemns or rejects anyone, He always uplifts.

When I have the powers of tolerance and accommodation, like the Father, then others feel safe and comfortable working and interacting with me. If I lack these powers then people feel pressured to never make a mistake, lest I tell them off or judge them. What’s worse, I might even tell a few others about what happened such that they never trust the person again. If the Father were to judge me based on every mistake I made, if He were to judge and criticize me, I would never be where I am today; in fact, I’d never even make it out the gate! Let me follow Father and exercise tolerance and merge the flaws into my heart rather than magnify them.

This applies not just to others but even to myself. To make it on this journey, I have to be able to show mercy and tolerance toward my own self first. When I make a mistake, the Father doesn’t condemn me, but I often do. I allow Maya to plant seeds of very wasteful and negative thoughts in my mind: ‘I am such a loser…’, ‘I can’t seem to do anything right…’, ‘Baba must be so disappointed in me…’, ‘I am the worst student in the class..’ etc etc. Unless I can learn to accept myself– flaws and all- I will find it hard to accept others. “Show mercy toward yourself‘, teaches Baba. ‘Rather than dwell on what you did wrong, learn from it and do it right the next time.‘ This, He teaches, is true repentance.

But sometimes, I can go the other extreme and get careless and complacent. I make a mistake, then promptly ask Baba for forgiveness and wash my hands off it. ‘There are many‘, Baba says, ‘who think that because they have asked forgiveness and repented after having performed some wrong action, they have now become free; but this is not so.‘ To live any which way I want and then ask for forgiveness is no different from taking an annual dip in the Ganges hoping all my sins are washed away. ‘Don’t adopt such a custom and system’, teaches Baba. This is not innocence. Innocence means to have pure feelings and honesty and cleanliness in both mind and actions– such children, Baba says, attract the Father to themselves. Yes, I will make mistakes till the end but that doesn’t mean that I don’t try to change myself. My attitude should not be, Baba says: ‘Well, it did happen, but I have asked for forgiveness!’ My duty is to not have any trace of sin in my thoughts, attitude or awareness. This, is being a Brahmin, that is, pure. If there is impurity in my thoughts, attitude or awareness, then I won’t be able to connect with my true self or with the Father. I will then be a Brahmin in name only. ‘Therefore‘, says Baba, ‘don’t become innocent in this way. When you don’t have the deep realization of your mistake and don’t go to Baba with honesty, then the weakness gets stronger. Then, even one weakness can finish off many specialties.’

Another example of where I tend to become innocent the wrong way is when I tell Baba: ‘I am okay Baba but the atmosphere was such that I could not help but get angry…’. Baba says, ‘you are world transformers. How can you then be influenced by the atmosphere? No matter what the atmosphere or souls are like, you must remain beyond their influence; you must be able to transform a weak atmosphere and make it powerful.‘ Sometimes, not only do I get influenced by the atmosphere and make mistakes like getting angry but then I speak wastefully about how bad the atmosphere is to others. ‘Where there is wastage, there is no power‘, teaches Baba, ‘so check your attitude and words’, He says. ‘If you have constant remembrance of the Father, then that remembrance is your canopy of protection. You will then not commit any sins.’

‘The Innocent Father loves the innocent children the most‘, says Baba. Innocent means to, like the Father, constantly have an easy nature which requires that I become knowledge-full, that is, an embodiment of knowledge. To become an embodiment requires power and for that, Baba says, constantly stay on the pilgrimage of remembrance. ‘Some children‘, Baba observes, ‘don’t stay in remembrance even for five minutes.’ Let me not be innocent in this way and allow Maya to attack me. The Father has come and opened the lock of my intellect. It is my duty to keep it open through knowledge and remembrance. Then, I develop enough power to become the true innocent child of the innocent Father; a helper in His task of putting that which is wrong, right.