Innocence is the the door

To live in the moment is innocence, to live without the past is innocence, to live without conclusions is innocence, to function out of the state of not knowing is innocence. And the moment you function out of such tremendous silence, which is not burdened by any past — out of such tremendous stillness, which knows nothing — the experience that happens is beauty.

Whenever you feel beauty — in the rising sun, in the stars, in the flowers, or in the face of a woman or a man — wherever and whenever you feel beauty, watch. And one thing will always be found: you had functioned without mind, you had functioned without any conclusion, you had simply functioned spontaneously.

The moment gripped you, and the moment gripped you so deeply that you were cut off from the past. And when you are cut off from the past, you are cut off from the future automatically because past and future are two aspects of the same coin… The name of the coin is mind..

Innocence is the door. Through innocence you enter into beauty. The more innocent you become, the more existence becomes beautiful. The more knowledgeable you are, the more and more existence is ugly, because you start functioning from conclusions, you start functioning from knowledge.

The moment you know, you destroy all poetry. The moment you know, and think that you know, you have created a barrier between yourself and that which is. Then everything is distorted. Then you don’t hear with your ears, you translate. Then you don’t see with your eyes, you interpret. Then you don’t experience with your heart, you think that you experience. Then all possibility of meeting with existence in immediacy, in intimacy, is lost…

The dewdrop slipping from a lotus leaf, and the morning sun shining on it and creating a small rainbow around it, and the moment is so overwhelming… the dewdrop slipping off the leaf, just on the verge of meeting with the infinite, disappearing into the lake — and it is as if you start slipping, as if your drop starts slipping into the ocean of God.

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…

Disappear for a moment from your mind — watching, judging, criticizing, believing, disbelieving, for, against…

For a moment, be just an openness, and you will know what innocence is. And in that, you will know what beauty is. Beauty is an experience that happens in innocence.