Are both childlike innocence and vast emptiness qualities of love?

Beloved Osho, when I see you, sometimes I see a twinkle of childlike innocence, a warmth that I call love. And sometimes I see a vast emptiness, as cool and crystal-clear and impersonal as the night sky. Are both these qualities in you? Are both these qualities in me? It seems impossible but true.

Sarito, you have stumbled on a very significant truth. The childlike innocence and the warmth of love that you see are not contradictory to "a vast emptiness as cool and crystal-clear and impersonal as the night sky." In fact, they are both sides of the same coin. If you become childlike, innocent, there will be a warmth and love in you. But on the other side of the coin, you will be just like the cool, impersonal nothingness, just like a starry night. Both these things happen together. The first happens -- the coolness, the nothingness -- and then the innocence of the child brings the warmth. But it is always difficult for the intellect to figure out when it sees something which appears to be opposite. For example, if you dig up the roots of a rosebush, you cannot conceive that these roots are connected with the roseflowers. The…

Question: OSHO, IS THERE QUALITY IN NOTHINGNESS? He is like a raincloud full of rainwater: it wants to shower somewhere. If it can find a garden, good; if it cannot find a garden, then too it has to shower. It may shower even on the rocks; it does not matter, but it has to shower. When the flower opens up, the fragrance has to be released. Whether anybody comes to know of it or not is immaterial. It is not a need, it is overflowing joy. When there is overflowing love it is compassion. Passion arises out of negative nothingness and compassion arises out of positive nothingness. Buddha says that the real man of wisdom can be judged only by one thing: his compassion, his love. He will be radiating compassion. He wi!l be always ready to help people on the path.

Beloved Osho, what is innocence, what is beauty?

In the moment of innocence, not knowing, the difference between the observer and the observed evaporates. You are no more separate from that which you are seeing, you are no more separate from that which you are hearing. Listening to me, right now, you can function in two ways. One is the way of knowledge: chattering inside yourself, judging, evaluating, constantly thinking whether what I am saying is right or wrong, whether it fits with your theories or not, whether it is logical or illogical, scientific or unscientific, Christian or Hindu, whether you can go with it or not, whether you can swallow it or not, a thousand and one thoughts clamoring inside your mind, the inner talk, the inner traffic -- this is one way of listening. But then you are listening from so far away that I will not be able to reach you. I go on trying…

Beloved Osho, sitting close to you these last few mornings and looking into your eyes, I felt so much like a small child, full of innocence and excitement. Many times I wanted to wave my hand in the air wildly and shout: hello, hello, hello, my most beloved. Beloved master, can you talk about this blissful innocence that I am feeling and how it relates to meditation?

It is good to start with innocence, but remember there are two kinds of innocence: one is of the child and another is of the meditator. The meditator also becomes a child, but that is on such a different level, at such a great height -- as if the child is in the valley and the enlightened man who has again become a child is on the sunlit peak. The distance is tremendous. But there is a certain similarity, a thread running from the child to the heart of the sage. The child cannot understand the sage, but the sage can understand the child. Always remember it as a fundamental rule: the lower cannot understand the higher, but the higher can always understand the lower. And in your life, if anything can be compared with that high peak, it is your childhood. Try to rediscover it. Don't cover it with…

What is innocence? Does being innocent require one to live a simple life?

Jaina saints live naked; their requirements are almost nil. Living a naked life in a cave, in a primitive way, they seem to be very nonpossessive. But that is only the appearance. Deep down they are hankering for heaven, deep down they are greedy. Deep down they are thinking that nobody is more humble, more pious than they are. Deep down they think of you as sinners and themselves as saints. This is a very complex situation. This is a fight with themselves. They have divided themselves into two: the higher and the lower. Even in the body they have a division: the higher part and the lower part. Above the sexual organs the body is higher, below the sexual organs it is lower -- as if the body were divided anywhere! These stupid people should know that the body is one. The blood circulates continuously from the feet to…