According to Osho, you reconnect with your inner child by allowing a conscious ‘second childhood’ to blossom: drop accumulated knowledge and conditioning, move into innocence, and live as a dance of presence. Be close to nature, playfully attentive, wonderstruck, and intensely perceptive. Through meditation and surrender (to a living master or life itself), let obstacles dissolve and be reborn into clear, joyous seeing.
Relax the grown-up mind, play and notice things like a child, and let meditation wash away the blocks so your natural joy returns.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Listening to you today I became a child. I wanted to call out, 'but I am only three,' as I had done once, years ago at a dancing class. What to do?
In fact, while they are denying, they are simply protecting themselves. They are afraid. If this is true, then it will create a restlessness in them, a discontent -- a divine discontent. And they are afraid of that discontent, because that will change their whole life, their whole style. It will destroy their past. For that they don't have courage enough. For that they are not brave enough. For that they will have to lose many conveniences, much comfort, a settled life, security -- no, they don't want to go that far. It is better to say 'god is dead'. It is better to say 'god never existed'. It is better to say that people who talk about god are just poets, dreamers, day-dreamers; people who talk about samadhi, ecstasy, meditation, are just navel-gazers, escapists. It is better to condemn these people. That is very protective. Then you can avoid…
So make it a point to laugh more. Always keep laughter alive so that for any tiny reason, or for no reason, you are always ready to burst into laughter. And don't wait for excuses to laugh. If they are available, good. If they are not available there is no need for them. One can laugh without them. It looks mad if you laugh without any reason but don't be bothered about what others say. It is your life and the more you fill it with laughter, the more sacred it will become. Laugh your way to God ! [An elderly sannyasin says:... I was never really a child when I was one, but these last few days, I often feel like a little child... and I want to tease everybody. I want to do crazy things.] [chuckling] That's really a miracle, really a miracle!
Osho, is it possible for a man's consciousness to become like that of a newborn child?
Certainly. A lake is all quiet. Then waves arise, gusts of wind come—the lake trembles. When the gusts pass, the lake again becomes still, becomes a mirror again. The lake is pure. Leaves fall, it becomes dirty. The leaves will settle to the bottom; the lake will again be fresh and clear. When the child is born, the lake is still clear—there are no ripples, no leaves of thoughts, no waves of desire. Then everything becomes wave-tossed—storms arise, the mind trembles, the mirror is lost. Youth comes; everything turns stormy; nothing remains settled; the wild, tempestuous surges of great desires arrive. Then old age comes; all the rubbish, the stones, the ruins lie about. But what was there at the source is still there. A little understanding—to let the leaves settle; a little understanding—to let the winds of desire stop. The lake will become the same again; the nature of…
Osho, how can children be made inward-looking?
And secondly, never try—by pressure, by insistence—to lead a child toward any “good” direction. That very thing will become the biggest wall against going in a good direction. It may happen that while he is small he obeys you—because he is weak and you are strong; you can frighten him, threaten him, even do violence to him. And never imagine that parents cannot be violent with their children! Parents have committed such immeasurable violence against children. It simply doesn’t look like violence. Whenever we press someone down, we are being violent. The child’s ego is wounded. But being weak, he bears it. Today or tomorrow, when he grows up and power comes to his hands, by then you will be old and weak—and he will take revenge. The mistreatment of elderly parents by their children has its cause in the parents themselves. What they did to the child in his…
Either one goes totally out and nothing remains inside -- and that is liberating; or one keeps to the centre so totally that nothing goes out. That too is liberating. These two extremes are both liberating. Being just in the middle is the problem because it is half/half. You put one step forward, one you pull back. You remain confused, in a limbo. The whole point is to be total. It is not a question of whether you move with the group or alone. The relevant question is whether you do whatsoever you do totally. So first do Encounter -- that is moving with others in the group, coming out of the shell. Give it a total try, mm? Whatsoever you can do, do. Make all possible effort. If that doesn't work, then try Vipassana.