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Challenge Means

Be a lotus flower. Be in the water, and do not let the water touch you.

Can you think of two things as different as mud and a lotus flower? But the lotus flower comes from the mud and rises above the waters …the lotus flower is such a transformation, but without the mud there will be no lotus flowers.

Innocence is like a lotus flower: it remains in the water, but untouched by it….

If you come with a mind, you will go with a bigger mind.

If you come with a no-mind, you will go with a bigger no-mind.

It depends on you: how you come to me, what you bring to me, what you are ready to offer to me — a mind? then there is no communication. You will gather a few bits from here and there, and you will collect them in your old ways. It will be addition to your knowledge; it will not be a revelation, it will not give you anything new. It will not be a breakthrough.

But if you can listen to me just listening, not thinking, not interpreting, not classifying — just listening as if you don’t know anything; listening in deep silence with no knowledge interfering in between — you will not be conditioned at all.

Innocence can never be conditioned.

Only cunningness can be conditioned. Innocence is such freedom!

It listens, but it remains above.

Innocence is like a lotus flower: it remains in the water, but untouched by it.

Then you can move around the world, you can go and listen to many people, you can read a thousand and one books, you can study all that down the centuries the human mind has invented, discovered, systematized, and you will remain unconditioned, you will remain free.

Something within you will remain above, distant.

A child is innocent but very shallow. He has no depth. All his emotions are shallow. This moment he loves, next moment he hates. This moment he is angry, next moment he is forgiving, completely has forgotten. He lives very shallow life, uprooted — he has no depth. Depth comes through experience.

A Buddha has a depth, infinite depth. On the surface just like the child, but in the depth of his being not at all like a child. All the experience of many lives has seasoned him. Nothing can distract him, nothing can destroy his innocence — nothing, absolutely nothing. Now his innocence is so deep-rooted that storms may come — in fact, they are welcome-and the tree will not be uprooted. It will enjoy the coming of the storm. It will enjoy the very effort of the storm to uproot it, and when the storm has passed, it will be stronger for that, not weaker.

This is the difference: a childhood innocence is a gift of nature; the innocence that you attained through your own effort is not a gift of nature, you have earned it. And always remember that whatsoever you have earned is yours. No theft is possible in existence, no robbery, no stealing. And you cannot borrow it from anybody else.