Unitarian Universalism: A Way Of Life

Spirirtual reading discussion group - Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself - Chapter Two - Ignorance or innocence?

Chapter two

Ignorance or innocence?

For growing up, just watch a tree. As the tree grows up its roots are growing down, deeper. There is a balance—the higher the tree goes the deeper the roots will go. You cannot have a tree one hundred and fifty feet high with small roots; they could not support such a huge tree. Maturity means the same as innocence, only with one difference: it is innocence reclaimed, it is innocence recaptured.

In life, growing up means growing deep within yourself—that’s where your roots are.

To me, the first principle of life is meditation. Everything else comes second. And childhood is the best time. As you grow older it means you are coming closer to death, and it becomes more and more difficult to go into meditation.

Meditation means going into your immortality, going into your eternity, going into your godliness. And the child is the most qualified person because he is still unburdened by knowledge, unburdened by religion, unburdened by education, unburdened by all kinds of rubbish. He is innocent.

But unfortunately his innocence is condemned as ignorance. Ignorance and innocence have a similarity, but they are not the same. Ignorance is also a state of not knowing, just as innocence is—but there is a great difference too, which has been overlooked by the whole of humanity up to now. Innocence is not knowledgeable, but it is not desirous of being knowledgeable either. It is utterly content, fulfilled.

A small child has no ambitions, he has no desires. He is so absorbed in the moment—a bird on the wing catches his eye so totally; a butterfly, its beautiful colors, and he is enchanted; the rainbow in the sky … and he cannot conceive that there can be anything more significant, richer than this rainbow. And the night full of stars, stars beyond stars …

Innocence is rich, it is full, it is pure. Ignorance is poor, it is a beggar—it wants this, it wants that, it wants to be knowledgeable, it wants to be respectable, it wants to be wealthy, it wants to be powerful. Ignorance moves on the path of desire. Innocence is a state of desirelessness. But because both are without knowledge, we have remained confused about their natures. We have taken it for granted that they are the same.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.

Comment:

Osho makes the distinction between ignorance and innocence. Osho says that ignorance is not knowing but wanting to acquire knowledge. Ignorance is grasping, seeking, wanting to acquire the external. Innocence is being content with what is within and resting in wonderment, peace, curiosity, and awe.

Osho says that “Maturity means the same as innocence, only with one difference: it is innocence reclaimed, it is innocence recaptured.”

Unitarian Universalists recapture their innocence when they covenant together to affirm and promote the fourth principle which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This free and responsible search takes one within not without and requires a surrender of one’s will to the will of the Tao, their Higher Power however they understand It.

This is a second article in a series on Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself by Osho.

Spiritual Reading Online Book Discusion

Unitarian Univeralism: A Way of Life is introducing a new feature on its blog: an online spiritual reading book discussion group. This feature will provide a series of articles on the book being studied. Readers are invited to comment on the topics under discussion whether they have read the book or not.

If readers have nominations for future books for study, please leave them in the comments or email your nominations to [email protected]. 

The first book being discussed is "Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself" by Osho.

 

Editor's note: For a brief video commentary click here.

Our original face when born is one of love

"When the child is born he is simple love. He has to be so, because he has not known anything else. In the mother's womb he has not come across any enemy. He has lived in deep love for nine months, surrounded by love, nourished by love. He knows nobody who is inimical to him. He knows only the mother and the mother's love. when he is born his whole experience is of love, so how can you expect him to know anything about hatred? This love he brings with himself; this is his original face. Then there will be trouble, then there will be many other experiences. He will start distrusting people. A newborn child is simply born with trust."

 

 

 

Osho, Compassion: The Ultimate Flowering Of Love , p. 35

Teachings of Osho - From whence does wealth come?

Teachings of Osho is a regular feature of Unitarian Universalism: A Way Of Life which appears on Tuesdays.

Osho has said, "Only those who have no needs are wealthy. Desires make you poor and a mind besieged by desires becomes a beggar. It is continually asking for something or other. You are wealthy only if you have no demands left."

A young man considered entering into religious life which required vows of celibacy, obedience, and poverty. He had no problem with celibacy or obedience, but the vow of voluntary poverty made him pause.

It is not the material wealth per se that is the problem but the desire for it. The desire for material things often indicates an inner insecurity. This inner insecurity is pronounced for those, who may even be affluent, but for whom no matter what they have, it is never enough.

These desires for material things in excess may be a symptom of an inner poverty which could be alleviated if recognized, acknowledged, and foresworn.

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which brings about, ulimately, the awareness that this truth and meaning is not found in material things in the outer world but the awareness of the Unconditional Love which comes from within.