Innocence

What is Innocence

You cannot be intense in anything you do unless you are innocent of other agenda.

The innocence I speak of may not be what your own dictionary defines as innocence.

What I speak about is the innocence of a child. A child is intense about anything that it does. Adults have lost that power, but it can be regained.

What is innocence?

Constantly, we are asked to be good, to be pure, and to be innocent. The idea of innocence is forced upon us. Constantly we are taught by society, by moralists, that something is right, something is wrong, something is pure, something is impure, something is good, and something is bad, something is innocent and something is corrupted. Constantly we are taught the idea of good and bad. We are forced to practice something that is good or what society thinks is good.

But life is no way related to what society believes in. Life is totally different. What society believes is different from what life is. There is a beautiful saying, ‘When you think, you think in a generalized way. But when you live, you can’t generalize.’ This is like what they say in marketing, ‘Think globally but act locally.’

Situations can’t be generalized. In your life there are so many things where generalization is not possible, where you can’t decide what to do and what not to do based on popular guidelines. All your ideas about morality, about right and wrong, might not have any relevance practically. Somebody asked me, ‘Swamiji, why do our ancient Hindu scriptures not speak of gambling? Only the epics speak about gambling.’

I tell them that at that time there was no gambling, then how do you expect them to speak about gambling? Naturally no Hindu scripture bans gambling or drugs because at that time these problems did not exist. When it comes to morality it depends completely on the situation. Morality is relative, not existential.

Innocence means purity of the inner space, not being affected by thoughts or engraved memories. Let you be very clear, even if you are not expressing your emotions like anger, greed and lust, if they are present in your inner space, you are not as yet a total and innocent person. Socially you may be pure, that’s all. On the other hand if you express your anger, lust and greed but nothing touches your inner space and you live like an innocent child, then be very clear, you are a pure being.

You can see children get a n g r y . Children are greedy also. They build their personality mostly on greed. That is why they are so aware and conscious of ‘mine’ attitude. Try to take away a toy from a child. The child will behave as if his life is taken away. He will scream and shout. This is because his whole personality is built upon ‘mine’ attitude. Children have greed and anger, but you cannot call them impure. This is because whatever you may think as impurity does not affect their inner space. They will sit and play with their toys and after a few hours they will throw them and go away. They don’t carry anything in them. Their inner space is beautiful and pure.

You can’t call them thieves even if they have stolen something because they don’t have an idea that something belongs to someone and that you cannot take it from them. The idea that an object is someone’s property does not exist in them. Innocence is purity. Knowing that an object is someone’s property, even if you don’t steal it but if you covet it some way, you have not become a thief as yet only because of the police, that’s all.

Innocence is directly related to the inner space. It is in no way related to the outerworld. In the Shiva Sutras, Shiva gives us techniques to achieve this innocence. If you follow Shiva’s life as is described in the Hindu mythological stories, you will not be able to see any social or traditional innocence in him. But there will be the pure and ultimate innocence. The place where he lives or the way in which he lives is not directly related to his purity or innocence. Shiva lives in a cemetery where bodies are cremated, surrounded by spirits and ghosts.

The word Shiva in Sanskrit means causeless auspiciousness. This causeless auspiciousness, the energy to create bliss wherever he is, wherever he happens, arises out of his innocent inner space.

In the vedic tradition, there are scriptural writings called Upanishads. The word Upanishad in Sanskrit refers to teachings of a master to his disciples as they sat with him. There are 108 such Upanishads. They are the essence of the enlightenment science handed down by the great masters of the vedic times. One of these, the Chandogya Upanishad* describes a beautiful story:

A boy by name Satyakama goes to a master seeking enlightenment. The master gives him four hundred cows telling him, ‘Take these cows. Go live in the forest and look after them. When these multiply into a thousand cows bring them back to me.’

Satyakama goes to the forest and lives with the cows, waiting for them to multiply. It takes many years for the cows to multiply to one thousand. For all those years he sits not talking to anybody, just being with the cows. Soon, he forgets the human language. In deep silence, not relating with any human being, he slowly loses his outer world identity. By the time one thousand cows happen, he forgets how to count. He simply sits waiting, with a beautiful feeling of ecstasy. Finally a cow comes to him and says, ‘Sir, we have become one thousand now. We can go back to master.’ He replies, ‘Is that so? Alright.’ Satyakama is in ecstasy. He has forgotten the way back. The cows lead the way. On the way back, animals, birds and even the fire that he kindles to cook his food instruct him on the nature of the Brahman*, the ultimate Truth. When Satyakama returns to the master, the master looks at him and smiles. He says, ‘You look so radiant like theknower of the Truth, Satyakama. Who taught you?’

Satyakama tells him how he had understood the Truth through animals and birds and requests the master to teach him the Truth in his own words. The master says, ‘You already know the Truth,’ and blesses him.

The story says that just by being, just by listening to what nature has to say, Satyakama established himself in the Truth. He became enlightened.

Total innocence leads to enlightenment. Satyakama asks the master for enlightenment and the master asks him to multiply cows! Many of you will ask, what do cows have to do with enlightenment?

Fortunately Satyakama was not so intellectual. Fortunately he did not receive formal intellectual education. So he did not ask this question! He was simple, innocent and humble, ready for the transformation to happen. He had no logic to use.

Understand, unless you are without logic, or tired of logic, you cannot be ready for the transformation. Logic cannot help you understand even your own life. Logiccannot help you look even into your own mind. How can it help you change?

People ask me, ‘Swamiji, why are you against logic?’ I am not against logic. I am only telling you that all your suffering is because of logic without intelligence. Your logic creates so much politics inside you from morning till evening.

What is politics? It is nothing but differing opinions on the same subject, is it not? Now watch your mind. It says one thing in the morning and a different thing in the evening on the same subject. This creates the dilemma in your mind. Your mind itself is such dilemma.

People say that in all spiritual organizations there is so much politics. I ask them, ‘What do you mean?’ [/one_half]

There is politics inside the very persons who make this statement! To create politics, you don’t even need two people. One person is more than enough. One single person with logic is enough because in the morning his logic will say something and in the evening it will say something else! Naturally the fight between you and you is politics! Am I right? Then why are you making the statement that even spiritual organizations have politics?

If you place the decisions that you make in the morning and the decisions that you make in the evening together in front of you, you will see a politician sitting inside you!

Logic does not allow you to be simple and innocent. It does not allow the transformation to happen easily. Logic has to be overcome for the transformation to happen. Only when there is no logic there can be innocence. Innocence is the space for transformation to happen. In the case of Satyakama, fortunately he was not bitten by logic.

The disciple goes to the master for enlightenment and the master tells him, ‘Alright, take these cows, go to the forest and stay there till they become one thousand cows. Then come back!’

If today’s seeker was in that disciple’s place he would have said, ‘I think the master is trying to exploit me. He wants a thousand cows, which is why he is telling me to do this work. He is using me to get his work done.’ Innocence is lost to logic! That is why no modern day seeker receives such amazing techniques.

Understand, this is not a mere story. It has got a great truth behind it. With innocence, Satyakama simply followed what the master said. Further, he lost his logic of counting. He was completely lost in ecstasy and joy. The mind stoppedfunctioning. He didn’t care about one thousand or two thousand. Just the innocence and acceptance caused the greatest happening of enlightenment in him! When you completely accept, you don’t need the mind. The mind is necessary only when you live with struggles, only when you are fighting. Just this moment accept yourself in the outer world and the inner world. You will go out enlightened.

For so many years, completely accepting what the master said, Satyakama just was. What else can happen to him but enlightenment? You may think, ‘How can simple acceptance do such a big job?’ The problem is that even spiritual knowledge is approached by us with the space of an intellectual mind. It is from that intellectual space that we ask the ‘how’. Intellect always questions. Innocence straightaway starts practicing what the master says. That is the difference.

Shiva says in the Shiva Sutras, ‘Absorb the ultimate truth, senses shut down, and be liberated.’ Why is he using the words ‘senses shut down’? How do you find out if you are completely lost in something? Your senses will not work! You will not see or hear! That is the way to find out. If your senses still work, you are still not lost. Shiva says, ‘Absorb the ultimate truth, senses shut down, and be liberated. ’ When your senses are working you may think you are hearing, but you may not be actually listening. The sense organ may work, but not the energy that activates the sense organ. Hearing is different from listening. If you are only hearing then the intellect is still at play. If you are listening then you are lost. Then the intellect is no more. The click happens. You sit completely melting. You exclude everything except you and the master. You are utterly innocent and open like Satyakama. Then just one word from the master is enough and you become enlightened!

He means that in that utterly innocent and open state, initiation is enlightenment. Just a word is enough to enlighten. Shiva is giving initiation itself as a technique. He says, ‘Just listen while the master is expressing the truth, and become enlightened!’ How can mere listening lead to enlightenment? Why did it happen to Satyakama when it is not happening to us? First thing, he was innocent and therefore intelligent to receive the master’s instruction. Second, he was courageous enough to live with it. He had complete trust in the master. Innocence always comes with trust.

I am not asking you to get me a thousand cows. No! I am asking you to come with the same mood as Satyakama. Come with the same innocence. You don’t have to do exactly what Satyakama did. But you have to be like Satyakama. If your being is like that, in this moment the transformation can happen. Just in this moment the transmission of light can happen.

Glossary:

• Chandogya Upanishad – One of the oldest and primary Upanishads or vedic scriptures.
• Brahman – Absolute, Cosmic Consciousness, formless god etc, all referring to the universal energy source of which the individual energy of soul is a holographic part.

Grasp with Innocence

Innocence is a delicate fragrance, while knowledge is a strong filter. That is the difference. The fragrance of innocence draws the whole world to you. The filter of knowledge prevents many things from coming to you. When you are caught in knowledge you are in a great hurry all the time, because there is too much knowledge to gather.

When you are with innocence you simply enjoy the moment. If you watch innocent people, they will never appear to be with any great purpose. They will simply revel in the moment with a totality, with simplicity. Innocence grasps the moment while knowledge misses it. Knowledge knows only purpose while innocence knows the beauty of purposelessness. If you set aside your knowledge, you are ready to grasp the moment and the Truth. The present holds the truth in it. The problem is that today education teaches only knowledge and how to be clever. It doesn’t educate on innocence. Where in the universities do they teach innocence?

1. A small story: A young boy walked into a fish market and asked for six trout.

The fishmonger enthusiastically started selecting the trout. He was about to wrap them when the boy said, ‘Please don’t wrap them up yet. Can you just throw each of them to me and I will catch them one by one before you wrap them up?’

The fishmonger said, ‘Of course I will, but what for?’ The boy replied, ‘That way, I can at least say when I get home that I caught six trout.’

There is such a pressure to be clever today. Children lose their innocence to the conditioning that they receive in the name of ‘how to be clever’. Over time, like this small boy, even innocence is used only to make up for cleverness!

2. A father introduced his son proudly to his colleagues at office for the first time. All his colleagues were standing around the boy and the father said, ‘Son, why don’t you tell them how old you are?’ The child promptly said, ‘When I am at home I am seven. But when I am on a bus, I am five.’

This is how children are trained today. They are trained to see utility in everything. Education evaluates you by your own utility. But you are not your utility. You are your being. The being can never be evaluated. Only the mind can be, and mind itself is a myth! Society creates a myth, which is your mind, and holds it as the yardstick to evaluate you. That is the reason why knowledge is so popular today.

3. A small story: Four friends lived in a town. They spent a lot of time together. Three of them were very learned. The fourth was not as learned but he was wise.

One day, they decided to travel to other lands to exhibit their learning to men and earn money.

The fourth friend had nothing to boast of, but expressed his wish to accompany them. The first friend said, ‘You don’t know much. If you accompany us, we will have to unnecessarily share our money with you.’

The second friend said, ‘Yes, that is true. It is better you stay back.’

The third friend was more kind. He said, ‘We grew up together all these years. It is not right to tell him to stay back. He should come along.’

So the four of them started their journey.

They passed through a dense forest. They saw many wild animals and experienced many exciting moments. Suddenly one day, they came across a heap of animal bones.

One of them said, ‘I think this is a wonderful way to put our knowledge to test. Let us bring this animal back to life.’

The two other friends agreed, but the fourth one said, ‘I feel these are the bones of a very big animal, so we should not attempt to do such things.’

The other three laughed at him and called him a coward. They said, ‘If you had knowledge like we do, you will not feel so afraid of these things. Keep quiet and watch us.’

The three proceeded with the experiment.

One of them arranged the bones in a way that it looked like a proper animal. Then he chanted some verses, sprinkled holy water on it and the bones suddenly took the shape of a skeleton. They were amazed by the power of their knowledge.

The second one came forward, chanted a few more verses and sprinkled more water on it. The skeleton suddenly got covered with muscles, flesh, blood and a coat of fur. It was a lion and lacked only life.

The friends were amazed at themselves.

The third friend came forward and said he would infuse life into it. The fourth friend gave another warning but they laughed at him. He then slowly climbed up a tree and sat there watching.

The third friend waved life into the lion’s body and the lion came to life.

With one roar, the lion advanced towards the three of them. They looked up to see where the fourth friend was. He was perched up on the tree watching the whole scene.

The lion made short work of them.

Knowledge is a tool. It doesn’t directly lead to intelligence. It is just a tool. As long as we use it as a powerful tool where needed, it is good. It can do amazing things. The mistake we do is giving our whole lives to the hands of knowledge. On the other hand, innocence leads directly to pure intelligence.

4. Another small story: There was a banyan tree in a small village that was giving cool shade. Under the tree there was a cow and a tired dog. There was also an old man with a long beard leaning his back on its trunk, his legs spread out in front of him. The tree was in the frontier between two kingdoms.

A traveler was passing that way to cross from one kingdom to the other. He saw the old man and commented, ‘Good disguise you are sporting. It doesn’t work. I too sported a similar disguise when I stole a gold chain a few days back. A guard searched me and found the chain. He beat me up as well. Let us see how you are able to get away with your disguise.

’Next came a man on horseback. He was a spy who was about to enter the kingdom. He stopped upon seeing the old man and thought to himself, ‘Who knows with what motive this man is lying here? He could as well be a spy like me.’ He hurried away as he had no time to lose with his job as a spy.

One hour later, another man staggered towards the old man. He was drunk. He laughed at the old man and loudly asked, ‘How much did you gulp down old man? Look at me. I have gulped an entire pot and I am still so steady although at times I feel my head is a little heavy.’ Saying that, he went away.

Soon it was nighttime and the whole place became very calm.

A fourth man passed by that way and came across the old man. He looked at him for one long moment and went near him and bowed down. He spoke, ‘How lucky I am. I have the good fortune of seeing you.’ He then took a large leaf and fanned the old man to drive away the ants and other insects that were crawling up his body.

The old hermit opened his eyes from his trance and saw the man fanning him and smiled.

The young man asked, ‘Oh great soul, I would be most blessed if you accept my invitation to spend the night at my house which is nearby here.’

The hermit said, ‘If that is god’s will, so be it,’ and followed the man to his house. Innocence grasps dimensions that cleverness misses. Innocence may miss the facts but it catches the Truths. Cleverness is too busy with facts. When cleverness combines with innocence, it becomes a rare combination of intelligence and innocence. Setting aside knowledge for the sake of innocence is intelligence. I don’t mean that you have to stop gathering knowledge. Just understand that knowledge cannot substitute innocence.

If you observe villagers who are not educated you will see that they exhibit pure intelligence! That is why you will find that when you are stuck, a villager effortlessly pitches in and helps you out! Innocent intelligence has that capacity.

Compre-hending complex things is not a difficult thing. You have to work your mind a little more, that’s all! You only need to see in a more divisive way, in a more analytical way. For example, a person may not find it very difficult to understand aeronautics, but what about understanding the simple Zen koans*? Zen koans* are simple teachings of Zen Buddhism. They are not concerned with where you are or what you do but with what makes you. They are meant to cause an awakening at the being level. They are concerned only with that, nothing else. They are not caught in giving ideas. They directly give the solution for the being. But they are difficult to grasp because they are too simple and straightforward!

Today all universities work on sharpening the intellectual faculty of the individual. They teach us how to make ourselves more useful to society and how to be productive or effective. There is nothing wrong in being productive and effective, but in the process we forget how to be innocent and receptive. We forget how to open up to the cosmos, to Existence. We forget how to move in synchronicity with the cosmos, how to make productivity happen in tune with the cosmic plan, which is the source of all productivity. This happens because we are caught in ‘doing’ and ‘having’, we forget the ‘being’.

There are three important states: being, doing and having. Right now, we move from doing to having. We continuously ‘do’ things. We learn and we put the learning into useful action. We then ‘have’ what we want: money, relationships, comfort, and what not. Then we want to have better things or have more things and so we continue doing. We are all the time between doing and having. In the process, the being is forgotten. Our real restfulness lies only in the state of being. Because of this, however much we do and have, we still search for restfulness. This feeling is the ‘call of the being’.

If we nurture the being and cause the doing to happen from the quality of the being, then we don’t have to work so much for the having. That will simply happen as a byproduct. This is the secret of Existence. But this is not seen as a direct utility to society by the universities. That is the problem. But this is what gives the real utility of every individual, not only to society but to the whole of the cosmos. We should always be concerned about the Whole.

In the ancient Indian universities like Takshila* and Nalanda*, the preparation of the students was always at the being level. Outer world learning happened as a natural consequence. India has always focused on nurturing the innocence of the being because only that will lead to strength of the being. When there is strength of the being, anything can be achieved.

Paramahamsa Yogananda* beautifully describes the intent of spiritual learning. He says, there are trillions of cells in the body. Every cell is like an intelligent being. Every cell has the DNA* substance in it which has the information and intelligence to grow a whole new body and brain. This dormant intelligence needs to be awakened so that the mind doesn’t move towards suffering and remains in bliss. He goes on to say that spiritual education magnetizes the cells by sending life current around the brain and spine, ensuring evolutionary advancement of the individual. With this divine magnetism, every cell becomes a brain alive and ready to grasp every bit of knowledge. With these awakened brains, the mental capacity of the individual multiplies multifold and all sorts of knowledge will be effortlessly comprehended! Such is the impact of spiritual learning.

5. Alexander, the emperor of Greece, had conquered three fourths of the world and traveled downward to Asia to conquer it. He settled down in the banks of the river Sindhu to conquer India.

On the banks of the same river lived a hermit. As Alexander and his army passed by, the hermit was meditating and did not stand up to salute him.

Alexander felt humiliated and shouted at him, ‘How dare you do not salute me!’ And he took out his sword to chop his head off.

The hermit looked at him and laughed. Alexander was shocked. ‘I am going to kill you and you are laughing!’ He asked.

The hermit said, ‘I am wondering what you are trying to kill! I can never be killed. I am immortal, eternal and imperishable. Weapons cannot cut, fire cannot burn, water cannot wet, wind cannot dry up this soul.’ He quoted from the Bhagavad Gita.

Alexander dropped the sword and saluted the hermit saying, ‘India has such great people who are fearless about death. I offer my salutations to this great country.’ He retreated from the Indian soil a wiser man.

The teachings of olden day universities created the possibility for supreme knowledge and confidence to flower in individuals, at the same time preserving their innocence. Then every student acquired the quality of a sage. A sage has the vast knowledge of the outer world and the utter innocence of the inner world.

Buddha beautifully teaches in the Dhammapada*: Even the gods envy the saints, Whose senses obey them like well-trained horses and who are free from pride. Patient like the earth, they stand like the threshold. They are pure like a lake without mud, and free from the cycle of birth and death. The sage is qualified to do anything in the outer world.

In the ancient gurukul * system of education, learning happened in a completely different plane. Creative intelligence stemmed from deep consciousness. Straightaway, the being was addressed and the doing and having had a different essence altogether.

6. A small story: A young boy was considered to be very dull and his father one day took him to the Sanskrit school where all the boys of the village learnt their lessons.

He met the teacher and said, ‘My son is not a bright student. Will you allow him to sit in the back row of the class so that he is in the atmosphere presided over by goddess Saraswati*? I know you are kind and compassionate. Please guide him. He will be lucky if he learns anything.’

The teacher readily agreed.

The young boy joined the school. He would be present every day before any of the other boys came in, dust, sweep and mop the room, and set up the teacher’s wooden table and chair and sit down in a corner to listen to the class most attentively.

No one expected him to gain anything out of the classes.

One day he humbly asked the teacher, ‘Sir, what about the guidance you were supposed to give me? When will I receive it?’

The teacher said, ‘Right now! Here it is: Aham Brahmasmi (I am That). Recite this audibly or silently, but continuously.’

With determination and inspiration the young boy learnt the phrase without even bothering to ask the meaning of it. Neither did the teacher bother to tell him the meaning. He did not feel the necessity to do so.

‘Aham Brahmasmi,’ the boy went on repeating at home.

His father asked him, ‘Do you know the meaning of those words?’

The boy’s eyes bulged out. ‘Meaning?’ he asked. It never struck him that the words might have a meaning.

The father told him, ‘The words mean, I am That.’

The boy went to his uncle’s house the next day and continued reciting, ‘Aham Brahmasmi, which means Father is Brahman*.

The uncle heard this and said, ‘It doesn’t mean that! It means: I am Brahman*.’

The boy was surprised but kept quiet. On the way back home he was reciting, ‘Aham Brahmasmi, which means uncle is Brahman.’

The village priest passed by him and heard him reciting. He stopped him and said, ‘Son, it does not mean that uncle is Brahman, it means I am Brahman.’

The boy was amazed. ‘How can just two words mean so many things, father, uncle and the village priest are all Brahman!’

His head was reeling and he sat down on a nearby slab of stone. He started reciting with the spirit of asking the words themselves what they really meant.

The sun went down and darkness came. The stars and moon started shining. The boy went on reciting Aham Brahmasmi to find out its real meaning.

At dawn, the ultimate knowledge dawned on him that he too was Brahman! Not just his father, uncle and village chief, but he too, and everybody else was Brahman.

He became a realized soul.

Understand, the moment the boy understood he was ignorant, an alchemy process was triggered in his system. When you don’t know that you don’t know, it is ignorance. When you know that you don’t know, it is innocence . Then the knowing can start happening. But in the knowing, the feeling of knowledge is to be checked. Knowing is different from knowledge. Knowing is innocence. It is an understanding that has become your own experience. Knowledge that is not yet experienced is not your own. It is borrowed. It is just a collection of words in the head. A person may go on and on reading something here and there, and entertain himself. If his intention is just reading books it can be good entertainment, but not enlightenment. Entertainment is different from enlightenment. Just because he has been entertained by some good books, it doesn’t mean that he is enlightened. Understand, the books which help you sharpen your logic give you the feeling that you know. There starts the problem.

Work so that everything becomes a deep experience in you. You will then be a simple person. Simplicity is weightless. It will never weigh you down and hinder further learning. It will just aid in the flowering of innocence, that’s all.

What innocence grasps one may not even be able to express, because it is an understanding beyond words. But it can be seen in the eyes. The eyes are the windows of the soul. That is why when you see the eyes of sages you will see an oceanic look in them. They will radiate something that cannot be framed. To try to describe it would be like trying to scratch the foot from the outer side of the shoe.

One cannot blame modernization for loss of innocence. Lord Krishna says, ‘I am Time.’ When Krishna says that, you need to understand that modernization is also the divine play of Existence. Man should understand modernization in the right light and not take it as a replacement to the ancient foundation of growing.

Glossary:

• Koans – Riddles given as techniques in Zen to aid Self Realization.
• Takshila – A center of learning mentioned in the Hindu epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata, now a world UNheritage site in North eastern Pakistan.
• Nalanda – A great Buddhist center of learning in modern day Bihar, India comprising a university and library.
• Paramahamsa Yogananda – An enlightened master from India well known for his book ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’.
• DNA – Deoxyribonucleic acid, the building block of all living beings containing the genetic code.
• Dhammapada – Teachings of Buddha in scriptural form.
• Gurukul – Vedic educational institution.
• Saraswati – Hindu goddess of learning.
• Brahman – Absolute, Cosmic Consciousness, formless god etc all referring to the universal energy source of which the individual energy of soul is a holographic part.

Be Vulnerable

vulnerable to everything that Existence wants to teach you! If you are closed, you create a wall around you. The wall neither allows fresh breeze to touch your being nor does it allow you to step out and touch the cool breeze. Vulnerability is breaking the wall and inviting the cool breeze to touch your very being every time it blows.

Vulnerability is allowing everything to touch your being. The entire cosmos comes to you when you are vulnerable. Vulnerability is not weakness. The wall when broken will not cause you danger. The wall itself was built out of a deep fear of exposing your reality. Your reality is your vulnerability and you are so afraid of opening it to the cosmos. You know deep down that if you let go and open up, you will simply be swept away in innocence. So you close yourself up. But it is suffocating to be in there because it is the same air that is circulating. You experience the same patterns that the mind knows. Then of what use is the wall? When the wall is broken, you will realize that nothing leaves you. Instead, you only gain one thing, freshness of life.

Two astrologers met on the road on a beautiful autumn day. One of them commented, ‘Beautiful autumn. It is something we have never seen earlier.’

The other replied, ‘True. I am reminded of the autumn of 2070.’

When you are vulnerable, you experience everything at the being level. Otherwise, it becomes an experience through the head. The being is poetry, the head is prose. And poetry is life.

One night a wife found her husband standing over their baby’s crib.

As he stood looking down upon the baby in the cradle, she saw his face assuming a mixture of emotions of disbelief, awe, skepticism, doubt, amazement and what not.

She slowly went up to him, put her arm around him and said, ‘A penny for your thoughts.’

The husband replied, ‘It’s amazing. I can’t imagine how anyone can make a crib like that for just 45 dollars!’

With the head you cannot be vulnerable! When you are not vulnerable, you are sitting behind the great wall of your house. Life has not yet started. Life happens with vulnerability.

With vulnerability you move towards the truth in a different path, in a joyful path because every moment you are receiving directly from Existence. Existence is able to give you because you are vulnerable and ready to receive it! Existence has its own ethics. Enlightened masters have their own ethics. When there is vulnerability, they can simply shower on you. When there is a wall, it becomes difficult. Their ethics does not permit them to penetrate. So they wait for the wall to break.

When you become vulnerable, you are saying a ‘yes’ to Existence. Existence is the greatest mystery and the eternal teacher. When you say yes to it, your energy starts moving in a new direction. It moves from the head to the heart and you start receiving the teachings for your very being. Whatever you said ‘no’ to earlier will start becoming a ‘yes’. Then you will see that the world is very different from what you thought.

Once you start saying yes, you start expressing love, which is the language of the heart. Love can never be known through logic. It can be known by saying ‘yes’ to the other, by welcoming the other, not for any utility but for the sake of love. It can be known through a deep trust on the other. When you are vulnerable, you have great trust on the other.

People ask me how to ‘be’ in my presence. Just be completely vulnerable and innocent. With openness, you can receive the truth directly in your being. The master is a pure expression of Existence. By allowing him, you are allowing Existence to enter into you. When Existence enters it leaves an impression of the truth in your being. With every darshan or touch from the master, the impression becomes deeper. This impression is greater than any teaching he can impart to you.

Buddha’s disciple once asked him, ‘Master, you have not as yet answered our questions about whether the world is eternal or not, whether it is finite or infinite, whether the soul and body are the same or different.’

Buddha looked at him and asked, ‘Did I make any promise that I would be answering these questions?’

The disciple said no.

Then Buddha asked him, ‘Suppose there is a man with an arrow in his chest, and when you are about to remove it for him, he says to wait saying unless he knows the caste of the man who shot the arrow, his height, weight, his family background, where he comes from, and what wood he made the bow out of, he will not allow you to remove the arrow, what would you think of him?’

The disciple said with a shameful face, ‘He would be a fool, master. His questions have nothing to do with the arrow and he would die before the answers were revealed.’

Buddha said, ‘You are right. In the same way, I do not teach about whether the world is eternal or not, whether it is finite or infinite, whether the soul and body are the same or different. I teach straightaway to remove the arrow because the arrow is the root of your suffering, which is ignorance.’

Understand, a master can’t teach you spirituality, but you can learn by being open and trusting towards him. Spirituality has nothing to do with words. It is an experience. You need to imbibe it by watching the master’s body language, by smelling the enlightenment that radiates from him. You can catch it if you are aware. If you are impatient with questions, the very questions prevent you from catching the truth. If you are patient and you catch the smell of enlightenment, the questions will dissolve. Then even before questions arise, the answers will happen in you. That is the great experience of being around a master. That is why masters take a body and come down from time to time, with the hope that a handful of disciples will catch the smell of enlightenment and awaken.

When you are vulnerable, you are open in your entire response system. You give space for the intelligence of the cosmos to act through you.

A small story:

On the banks of a river there lived a sage in a small plot of land owned by a farmer. The village chief did not like the sage and wanted to buy the piece of land. The farmer would not let go of it.

The village chief was ready to pay any amount of money.

The farmer told him, ‘If I sold the land to you, you will drive the sage away once it becomes yours.’

The village chief angrily said, ‘Why do you call him a saint? Just because he is wearing an orange robe? He must be as ordinary as you and I.’

The farmer said, ‘No Sir, I have seen many signs of a sage in him. For example, I have never seen him getting angry.’

The village chief said, ‘How can you conclude like that? He has probably not had a chance to exhibit his anger, that’s all. Tomorrow come by his hut and I will show you how angry he can get.’

The next day morning the farmer went near the sage’s hut and watched.

A boy apparently sent by the village chief approached the sage. The sage was writing something on a palm leaf with his head bent.

The boy went behind him and spat on him.

The sage looked back, saw that it was the boy who did it, got up and took a dip in the river and came back and sat.

The boy spat again on him. The sage went and had a dip again and came and sat.

The farmer could not bear to see what was happening. The village chief was standing behind a tree and watching as well. He was surprised at the sage’s calmness.

Every time the sage returned from the dip, the boy spat on him. Every time the sage smiled at him, got up and went and dipped.

The boy had spat on the sage a h u n d r e d and seven times. By now, the boy’s face was losing its color. He could not bear it anymore. He fell at the sage’s feet and cried, ‘Please forgive me. I have sinned. I harassed you in this manner only because I was paid to do so. I am afraid that you might curse me now!’

The sage calmly asked him, ‘So you will not spit on me again?’

The boy replied, ‘I would rather die than spit again.’ The sage lifted him up and said, ‘Let me tell you a secret. I should actually thank you for this because many years ago I had taken a vow that I would dip hundred and eight times in this sacred river. Today that has been fulfilled. I have to dip one more time to complete the vow. This time I will pray for you.’

The sage dipped one more time and when he came out, the village chief was at his feet begging for forgiveness. He said, ‘I am the real sinner. I paid the boy to do this. I wanted to prove that you would get angry.’

The sage laughed and said, ‘Had the boy told me his real mission, I would have got angry quickly and made him receive his reward!’ The village chief became a disciple of the sage.

The sage’s response was neither for nor against. He simply remained open. Automatically the forces of the cosmos came together and fulfilled an old vow through the incident. I am not saying that you should allow someone to spit on you! Understand the importance of being open in your response. When you are open, you create tremendous space for the best to happen to you at that moment. Soon, you can reprogram your entire response system and thereby the very course of your life.

A small Zen story: Zen teachers train their young pupils to express themselves and leave it at that. One child from a particular Zen temple would meet the child from another Zen temple every morning on his way to buy vegetables.

One day, the first one asked the other, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘I am going wherever my feet go,’ responded the other. This reply puzzled the first one who went to his teacher for help.

The teacher told him, ‘Tomorrow morning, when you meet that fellow, ask him the same question. He will give you the same answer. Then you ask him, ‘Suppose you have no feet, then where are you going?’ That will fix him.’

The child met the other the next day morning. He asked, ‘Where are you going?’

The other one replied, ‘I am going wherever the wind blows.’

The first one was baffled and went to his teacher again.

The teacher said, ‘Tomorrow, you ask him where he will go if there is no wind.’

The next day the child met the other one on the road and asked, ‘Where are you going?’

The second one replied, ‘I am going to the market to buy vegetables.’ To just express with vulnerability is to be free like a bird, not worried about any past or future, to just be. That is what Zen masters taught their disciples.

References

http://articles.nithyananda.org/2012/11/what-is-innocence/ http://articles.nithyananda.org/2012/11/grasp-with-innocence/