Childlikeness

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHY IS CHILDLIKENESS COMPARED TO MEDITATION? Garimo, when a man is reborn, only then he understands the beauty and the grandeur of childhood. The child is ignorant; hence he is unable to understand the tremendous innocence that surrounds him. Once a child becomes aware of his own innocence, there is no difference between the child and the sage. The sage is not higher and the child is not lower. The only difference is, the child knows not what he is and the sage knows it. I am reminded of Socrates. In his very last moments of life he said to his disciples, "When I was young I used to think I knew much. As I became older, as I knew more, a strange thing started happening: an awareness that knowing more was bringing me to knowing less.

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…

Osho! You say meditation is a rebirth and one becomes gifted like small children. Are little children really so full of talent?

I find sense, consistency, and honesty in Sartre’s stance—though he is an atheist; he believes neither in God nor in any inherent meaning of life, nor in any soul that survives. Yet his courage, his boldness, his strength! One thing is clear to him: “Since I oppose the values of this society, how can I accept honors from it?” If someone conferred on me the title Bharat Ratna, how could I accept it? Impossible. Because I oppose nations. I cannot be the jewel of any nation—at best, a pebble. I cannot be any country’s jewel; that would amount to accepting nationalism. I do not believe the earth should be divided. I do not believe there should be passports. I do not believe there should be any barriers to people going from one country to another. Every constitution proclaims freedom of movement. But what freedom is this? Is there freedom of…

Just a small flower, a grass flower and it opens doors to mysteries - it awakens great wonders in you. Small things of life start turning into something extraordinary and sacred, once you have the mirror of innocence to reflect them. Meditation can be reduced to a single word: innocence, a state of not-knowing. Don't be a Hindu, don't be a Christian, don't be a Mohammedan, don't be a communist, a fascist, a socialist; just be innocent, childlike, someone who knows nothing. In that not-knowing real knowing becomes possible. In that not-knowing wisdom happens. Wisdom is not information, it is transformation. You become new, you are born anew. It is a resurrection. The old dies, and each moment the old goes on dying and each moment the new goes on being born, life becomes such an alive phenomenon that each moment the dead simply is dropped, and the new asserts.