Innocence

Osho, is the innocence of small children just ignorance, or has it got any value too?

The innocence of the children is ignorance, it is not true innocence. The true innocence happens only after the second birth. The true innocence happens only after you have reached your very core through awareness; that is the second birth, that is resurrection -- you are born anew. The first innocence of a child when it is born is only ignorance, but that ignorance is far more valuable than the knowledge that your so-called learned people are burdened with. So these things have to be remembered. Real innocence belongs to the Buddhas. They have lost their first childhood in knowledge and then they become aware of what they have lost. They have lost the precious, the essential for the non-essential, so they drop their knowledge. Dropping their knowledge they become innocent again. This is second innocence, second birth. In India we call such a person dwija, twice-born. He is a…

Beloved Osho, is it necessary that the innocence of childhood and the idealism of adolescence must always be shattered before each individual finds within himself the capacity to search for what he considers the real values of life?

John came to wake me up. As I was getting ready in my bathroom, suddenly I heard sounds as if bombs were being exploded. I could not believe what was happening. Those police people started throwing rocks at the windows, at the glass, at the doors -- they were destroying.... and they had dynamite, and they were threatening, "We will dynamite the house." They could not wait for five minutes for me to put my clothes on, wash my face and come down. They were in such a hurry... five minutes more and Christianity will be destroyed, morality will disappear, no woman will remain a virgin -- just in five minutes; and I am in my bathroom! And then I was sitting unnecessarily in their jail for almost seven hours. They could not wait for five minutes, and I had to sit there unnecessarily for seven hours. These are the…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, CAN INNOCENCE BE AWARE OF ITSELF? Maneesha, innocence cannot be aware of itself. The moment it is aware of itself, it is no longer innocent; corruption has already entered in, the ego has started forming itself. Innocence does not know that it is innocent. Innocence simply knows, "I don't know." But it is not aware that this is called "innocence"; the moment it becomes aware, suddenly it is lost. Hence those who are aware of their innocence are the greatest egoists in the world. The ego has such subtle ways, that it goes on coming from the back door... you may throw it out from the front door, and it will come from the back door again. And each time it will come in such a way that you cannot hear its footsteps.

Beloved master, please could you tell me the difference between innocence and stupidity?

And Karl Marx with a big smile said, "You don't know -- I have found a way. Now there is no need to be worried about earning money. If I smoke one cigarette, so much money is saved in comparison to the older brand; the more I smoke, the more money is saved. So now I am not going to do anything except smoke, because you have always been asking me for money, money, money. Now have as much money as you want!" The wife could not understand how the money could be saved by smoking. But this is an economic theory, it does not correspond to reality. She had to inform his closest friend, Friedrich Engels, "He has gone mad. In his room he is sitting and smoking continuously -- to save money!" Engels came, and he asked, "What is the matter?" Marx said, "Now I can explain to…