You came here naked, unknowledgeable, perhaps with parents, or just one.  You had no name, no address, but you did belong to a nation. Your job was to grow up in wonderment of all you discovered and of all that was shown to you. 

You arrived innocent. The definitions of innocent are many. Innocent meaning not guilty, harmless in your intentions, pure and uncorrupted, free of any wrong, blameless and vulnerable, inexperienced in everything. These definitions are powerful and potent.

Before you continue reading, please go through each of these definitions.  Can you feel the power in them?  Harmless does not mean not powerful.  It simply means you were full of the power of innocence.  Take each definition and see the power in each one.  You were born a very powerful person if you understand the meanings.

So here you are. Being rocked in a cradle, hand-held till you walked alone, sang to in different tongues, and all the while you watched and you observed.  Did you live what you learned?  That depends on what you learned, doesn’t it? 

In your innocence at birth, did you have any idea what you would do with your life?  Of course, not.  Did you see yourself as being noble, wealthy or poor and ill?  Of course, not.  Yet you had the potential of being any of them.

Most people say the important thing is what you did with your life?”  What you did with your life seems to centralize on you”.  What you left behind engulfs a great deal more.   I believe what you left behind, is even more important.  Once you cease to exist, what you did with your life ceases also.  What you left behind will exist years on end and will affect many.

How did you affect people?  Was it negative or positive?

You go along life’s journey as a gatherer. You gather information, friends, family, enemies, wealth, poverty, virtues, faults, and there is no end to your gathering.  What did you do with all your gatherings?  Did you hoard them, or share them?  Did you give some away at cost or some freely.

Did you share your knowledge with a youngster along the way?  Did you share your listening with any of the elderly?  They have their stories also. 

How often did you take inventory of your life style?  Did you ever take inventory?

Whatever you gave is what you left behind?  Does that give you to question your life?  Does that require a need to take inventory?

Now that we have gotten through that, let us ponder over.

What did you leave behind before you arrived here naked at birth?  What memories are forgotten from that time?  Were there lessons to be learned here?  Did you have a guide, an angel, a special family member who prompted you to come back?  If you believe in Karma, it would be wise to take a serious look around your circumstances at birth and those that followed you throughout this life.

Historic Inventory. Now that is something we never think about. Were you a good parent, neighbor, warrior, leader, teacher, etc. Or did you not take inventory the last time and land up back here again not knowing why?  We can avoid these mistakes, by looking back and observing our lives so far as we have lived them. 

If we were born into wealth this time, we need to wonder why.  If we were born into poverty this time, we need to wonder why.  We can find answers even before we begin asking questions.  I bet you thought that was impossible.  It is done by simple observation.  Observation needs no questions, but supplies answers. 

Was I born blind?  Perhaps a biological accident.  Perhaps not.  Am I being geared toward hearing what I was blind to in my previous life?  Did you leave behind a bad attitude someone else picked up and now is stuck with?  Did you leave behind a source of peace for someone to cling to when things get rough?

What will you leave behind this time?  Will a flower remember your name when you are gone from this beautiful planet?  Perhaps it may, if you shared goodness with it for even an instant.  Just one look and a beautiful thought, it will remember.

Let us examine what we left behind the last time we inhabited this planet through observation.  Let us also examine what we are about to leave behind for humanity.  You are humanity.  You are love.  You are the planet.  You are the beauty of now and hereafter.  You are all of us.  We are all one.  Let us leave behind a part of ourselves to be cherished and something that will nourish someone.

I do not profess to have an understanding of life and death.  I only write what I hear with my inner ear when the writer is ready to dictate to me. 

These are deep thoughts, but no deeper than the work you are willing to do to uncover yourself.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.”  Gandhi   

(The author, with a writing span of over forty years, is a prolific writer of spiritual poems, short stories, essays and novels. Has been a regular contributor to ‘Science of Soul’)