When someone attains saintliness by old age, he again becomes a child. However, the similarity between saintliness and childhood exists only on the surface. A saint's eyes also appear as innocent as those of a child, but in a child everything is still dormant, it is yet to come out.
Hence, a child is only like an unexploded volcano. Its innocence is superficial; underneath, everything is ready. The seeds are still germinating, they are still sprouting. Sex, anger, hostility -- everything will surface in time. At this point everything is under preparation. A child is time-bound -- he will mark time now, and explode later.
A saint has gone beyond this. All those seeds which were supposed to have sprouted within did so, became useless, and fell down. Now nothing remains inside; now the eyes have again become innocent. Again everything has become pure.
Someone asked Jesus who would be entitled to enter his kingdom of heaven. Jesus answered, "Those who are like children." Jesus did not say those who are children; because children cannot enter. He said those who are like children, meaning not those who are children.
So one thing is certain, they will be entitled to enter who are not children but who are like children.
If children were to enter heaven then there would be no problem; every child would enter. No, children would not enter; only those who are like children, who have transcended, would enter. That is why there is a great similarity between an ignorant man and a man of supreme wisdom.
The man of supreme wisdom becomes as simple as an ignorant one; however, inside the simplicity of the ignorant, complexity is still hidden which can appear at any time. The wise man is one who has lost all his complexity. One who is thoughtless can think; he will think because the power of thinking remains latent in him. One who is "thoughtless" has transcended thought, he has entered into meditation, into the state of samadhi.
-Osho, “Early Talks, #6”
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When Jesus was asked what kind of people will enter his kingdom of heaven, he replied, "Those who are like children." Perhaps children do live in a kind of big heaven. We take their heaven away by schooling and tutoring them. But it is necessary that the paradise be taken away, because when it is found again the feeling is rare.
Very few people are able to regain this paradise, however. People generally live in the state of "paradise lost"; the situation of "paradise regained" comes in the lives of very few. We all lose our paradise, of course, but we never find it again. If one can become again like a child before his death, the paradise returns to him. If an old man can see the world with a child's eye, the kind of peace, the kind of joy and bliss that will shower upon him is beyond comprehension.
-Osho, “And Now, And Here, Vol 2, #14, Q1”
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Worship has nothing to do with the church or the temple. It has something to do with the reality that surrounds you.
Once you look with deep wonder, the whole reality becomes the temple. You make it sacred by your very look of surprise. When in your eyes there is mystery, the whole existence becomes a temple; it is a shrine. When your wonder disappears, is lost, the world is dry, dead. So pulsate with this new feeling of being a child again and soon you will find the lost track. That's where paradise is lost.
The moment we lose our childhood, we lose our paradise, so be a child again. Jesus says, 'Only those who are like children will be able to enter into my kingdom of God.' And he is absolutely true.
-Osho, "A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, #27“
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A child is very close to god because he is very close to nature. A child is yet uncivilized, he is yet a primitive. A child is more close to animals than the so-called human beings. A child still lives through innocence and not through knowledge.
That is my whole effort, Parijat. That is what I am trying to do: to destroy -- to destroy all that has become a blockage on you and on your childhood. Yes, that's what I am doing. I would like you to have another childhood. I would like you to enter into your innocence again, to gain that primal innocence, to be reborn.
Nicodemus asked Jesus, 'What should I do, master, to know the truth?'
Jesus looked at him and said, 'You will have to be reborn. As you are you cannot make any contact. You carry too many obstacles, you carry too many blocks. You will have to become a child again.'
Once Jesus was standing in a market place, a crowd had gathered, and somebody asked, 'Master, you continuously talk about the kingdom of god, but you never say to us who will be capable to enter into that kingdom. Who will be the worthy ones?' Jesus looked around. A small child was also there in the crowd. He took him up onto his shoulders and said, 'Whosoever is like this child. Only those who are like children will be able to enter into the kingdom of god.'
There was one childhood which you have lost -- nothing to be worried about; it is natural. It had to be lost. It is just in the natural course of things. That childhood was too unconscious; you cannot carry it forever. It had to collapse and disappear. It was like the first teeth -- they are too soft. They will not be able to help for your whole life. They have to drop and give way for stronger teeth.
The first childhood is just like first teeth. They have disappeared, they are no more there, and you are living without teeth -- without your childhood -- hence the misery. You will have to regain your childhood again, you will have to grow your childhood again. And this childhood will be very strong, tremendously strong. Because now it will be something conscious, it will be something that you have grown to.
The first childhood was simply a gift of heaven, the second childhood will be more yours. It will be more deep-rooted. The first childhood was lost because it was unconscious, and the more you became conscious it disappeared. The second childhood has to be conscious, then there will be no problem. Then it can be with you for eternity.
Again and again you come sometimes to a moment when you can hear the birds more clearly -- again as you used to hear in your childhood; when you can see the flowers more clearly -- they become psychedelic, more colourful. You can see the trees and their green. It is so strong it hurts! It goes penetrating into the heart.
Everything becomes very intense when you are a child. It was intense one day. Remember yourself running on the beach, collecting seashells, or running after butterflies in a garden. Remember again how things were totally different, how life was more colourful, how everything was a miracle and a surprise. How everything was simply amazing, how everything was just unbelievably beautiful. How everything used to catch your attention, how everything used to create a romance in you. And how you were full of energy, radiant, bubbling, joyous. How life was a totally different dimension. How you were delighted in small things, in meaningless things. How you were playful, how everything was a question mark, a mystery.
The same can happen again, should happen again. That's what all religion is about -- to give you a second childhood. In India we call that man who attains to the second childhood, dwij, twice-born. He is born again -- not physically, psychologically. The first birth is out of your parents, the second birth is out of your master. The first birth is only of the body, the second birth is of the soul.
-Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2, #10, Q2“
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Understanding is non-repetitive and non-accumulative. Wisdom is accumulative, repetitive, knowledge is accumulative, repetitive. Knowledge is sheer belief, wisdom has a little experience in it, understanding is totally different. It is your presence, your mirror-like presence. It is a response.
Old people can be wise, young people can be knowledgeable, only children can be understanding. That is the meaning when Jesus says that, Only those who are like children will be able to enter in my kingdom of God.
When you again become childlike, fresh, carrying no past, carrying no ready-made answers within you, carrying NO answers, just a deep emptiness, then something echoes in you. Somebody asks a question -- no answer comes from the memory, no answer comes from the experience, but the answer is a response this very moment.
Understanding is always of the now and the here.
Understanding is the most beautiful thing that can happen to a person. Drop knowledge, and then drop wisdom also. Don't believe in others' experiences and don't believe in your own experiences either, because they are of the past -- you have passed from there, they are no more a part of existence things have flowed on, the river has passed under a thousand-and-one bridges, and it is not the same river, even if you see it flowing. It is not the same river, it is constantly changing.
Except for change, everything is changing. Change is the only permanent factor in existence so how can you rely on the past? If you rely, you will always miss the present.
Old people, wise, are always ready with great advice to give to anybody -- full of advice; nobody listens to them -- that is good, never listen, because you will never live the same experiences as they have lived. The river will never be the same again. If you follow them you will become false, inauthentic, untrue, you will be a lie.
And never listen to your own experience either because you are also getting old every day, and yesterday will always be giving advice. A new situation arises and the yesterday is ready there, and the yesterday says, the old man within you says: This is the advice, do THIS, because we did this yesterday and it was good, and it worked, and you succeeded.
Don't listen to your own inner old man. Be alert! Aware of the total situation. AND DON'T REACT; respond. If everything is new let your answer also be new. Only the new can meet the new, only the new can solve the new, only with the constantly fresh and new do you remain alive and true to life.
-Osho, "Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 3, #2, Q2“
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There is a difference between a game and play. Children play, but you even make a game out of play. Then it becomes business-like, then even in playing you are seeking victory, success, gain, profit.
Life is a play. There is nothing to be achieved out of it, it itself is the goal; there is nowhere to reach, it itself is the Ultimate. Life is not moving to achieve some goal, it is not going anywhere. It is just like children playing, you cannot ask them: For what are you playing? What is the purpose? They will laugh at your foolishness. They will say: We are simply playing. It is so beautiful! Profit is not their concern, and profit should also not be your concern, but play.
Life is a moment to celebrate, to enjoy. Make it fun, a celebration, and then you will enter the temple. The temple is not for the long-faced, it has never been for them. Look at life -- do you see sadness anywhere? Have you ever seen a tree depressed? Have you seen a bird anxiety-ridden? Have you seen an animal neurotic? No, life is not that, not at all. Only man has gone wrong somewhere, and he has gone wrong somewhere because he thinks himself to be very wise, very clever.
Your cleverness is your disease. Don't be too wise. Always remember to stop; don't go to the extreme. A little foolishness and a little wisdom is good, and the right combination makes you a Buddha -- a little foolishness and a little wisdom. Don't be just wise or else you will be a long-face; don't be just a fool or else you will become suicidal. A little foolishness, enough to enjoy life, and a little wisdom to avoid the errors -- that will do.
But one has to know the right combination, and the right combination is always different for each individual. My right combination cannot be your right combination; nobody is a model for anybody else. You have to find your own balance because everybody is so unique. But always remember not to destroy foolishness completely, because in certain moments to be foolish is to be wise.
Everybody should remain open. In certain moments you should be like children, in certain moments you should simply forget the business of life, purposelessly just enjoying the moment, doing foolish things: dancing and singing, playing with and collecting pebbles on the shore, and nobody inside you says: What foolishness are you doing? -- this time can be devoted to making money. At this time you could be in the office or in the shop and your bank balance could be growing. What are you doing -- are you a child?
If the child in you is completely lost, then you can never be religious. Religion is for children. That's why Jesus insists: Only those who are like children will be able to enter into the kingdom of my God. But what does being a child mean? Observe a child -- he is wise. He is a fool also, but when it is needed he can be wise, very wise.
-Osho, "Returning to the Source, #10“
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AND I FEEL MYSELF A STUPID CHILD.
That is the way, the way to the kingdom of God. Lao Tzu says, 'Be like an idiot in this world so that you can understand the illogical ways of Tao.' Jesus says, 'Be like a child -- because only those who are like children will be able to enter into the kingdom of God.' Don't be worried about those things; the non-essential is dropping away. Feel happy and grateful. Once the rubbish has dropped, the real will arise; non-essential gone, the essential will arise. This is the way to reach to one's own source.
But many times you will get scared because you are losing your grip on what you have valued up till now. But I can tell you only one thing: I have traveled the same path and have passed through the same phases. They are phases -- they come and go. And your consciousness will become more and more purified, virgin -- pure, uncorrupted. That uncorrupted consciousness is God.
-Osho, "Ancient Music in the Pines, #9“
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Question 1
It is my understanding that you see innocence as the opposite of knowledge -- but what about ignorance? people without knowledge are so often misused by the ones with the knowledge. please say something about this.
Ignorance is the state which exists before knowledge, innocence is the state which exists after knowledge. Ignorance is pre knowledge, innocence, post knowledge. They appear similar -- they are in a way, and yet totally different.
A child is ignorant. When you call a child innocent you are misunderstanding the whole thing. Ignorance looks like innocence because the child does not know, he looks innocent, but he will know, he will taste the bitter fruit of knowledge, he will have to. He is just like Adam in the garden of Paradise -- he will have to be thrown out. He will pass through that, he will sin, he will become corrupted. His innocence is not powerful, it is impotent. It cannot avoid being in knowledge, knowledge will enter, the serpent will seduce him, the world will corrupt him, he will move into the ways of knowledge, into the ways of the mind. He is ready like a seed to move into knowledge. Innocence is not there, he is ignorant.
But then, a sage like Lao Tzu who has known the world, and come back home, who was corrupted, who was in the ways of sin and knowledge, who tasted the bitter fruit, and now has become mature, has dropped knowledge, has become again childlike, is innocent. Only a sage is innocent.
Jesus says: Only those who are like children will be able to enter into my kingdom of God. Remember he says LIKE children, not children. Children won't be able to enter into the kingdom of God but only those who are LIKE children. What does it mean: who are like children and not children? Those who have passed through the world, who have known all corruption and who have regained their virginity.
Knowledge has two opposites: innocence, the innocence of the sage; and ignorance, the ignorance of the child. And don't misunderstand me when I insist on innocence, I am not insisting on ignorance. I am not saying: Be ignorant. If you are ignorant you are simply postponing knowledge; one day or the other, sooner or later, you will be in the trap of knowledge.
Go through it. Live it, know it. Taste the bitter fruit. Be thrown out of paradise so that you can come back and reclaim it; and then the quality is totally different. When you were thrown, you were just ignorant. When Adam was thrown out of paradise he was simply ignorant. When Jesus entered again he was not the same Adam. An innocent sage, knowing well what the world means, and by knowing well what the world means, understanding it well -- he has transcended.
-Osho, "Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 3, #4, Q1“