Life is a dream.

Has the universe lifted the veil of mystery from Albert? That's quite low, I must say.

lol

What is innocence, what is beauty?

To live in the moment is innocence, to live without the past is innocence, to live without conclusions is innocence, to act from a state of not-knowing is innocence. And in that moment, when your actions arise from an extraordinary silence, unburdened by the past, from that amazing stillness that knows nothing, the experience that arises in that moment is beauty.

Whenever you feel beauty – in the rising sun, in the stars, in the face of a woman or a man – wherever and whenever you feel beauty, observe. And one thing can always be discovered: you were acting in the absence of mind, you were acting without conclusions, you were simply acting, acting spontaneously. The moment has overwhelmed you and has overwhelmed you so completely that you have been cut off from the past.

And when you are cut off from the past, you automatically become cut off from the future, because the past and the future are two sides of the same coin; they are not separate, they are also inseparable. You can toss a coin: sometimes heads comes up, sometimes tails, but these sides are inseparable. But the other side is always there, it is hidden behind.

The past and the future are two aspects of one coin, and its name is mind. When the whole coin is thrown away, that throwing away is innocence. Then you don't know who you are, you don't know what is, there is no knowledge. But there is you, there is existence, and the meeting of these two existences – your small existence meeting the infinite existence of being – that meeting, that merging, is the experience of beauty. Innocence is the door. Through it, you enter into beauty. The more innocent you become, the more beautiful existence becomes. The more knowledgeable you become, the more ugly and uglier existence becomes, because you begin to act from conclusions, you begin to act from knowledge.

In that moment, when you know, you destroy all poetry. In that moment, when you know and think that you know, you create a barrier between yourself and what is. Then everything is distorted. Then you don't hear with your ears, you interpret. Then you don't see with your eyes, you interpret. Then you don't experience with your heart, you think you are experiencing. Then all possibility of meeting existence in the moment, in intimacy, is lost. You fall apart.

This is what original sin is. And the biblical story of Adam and Eve, who tasted the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, is about this. As soon as they eat it, they have to leave paradise – not because someone drove them out, not because God ordered them to leave paradise, they fell themselves. Having gained knowledge, they lost innocence. Having gained knowledge, they became separated from existence. Having gained knowledge, they turned into ego. Knowledge created a barrier, an iron curtain...

You ask me, "What is innocence?" Tear the knowledge out of yourself! The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge must come out in vomit. This is the essence of meditation. Throw it out of your system: it is poison, pure poison. Live without knowledge, knowing that "I do not know." Act from a state of not-knowing, and you will know what beauty is.

Socrates knew what beauty was because he acted from a state of not-knowing. There is a knowledge that does not know, and there is an ignorance that knows. Become as ignorant as Socrates, and then a completely different quality will enter your being: you will become a child again, this is a second birth. Your eyes will again be filled with wonder, everything around you will amaze you.

A bird soaring in the sky – and you are delighted! Pure joy at contemplating a soaring bird – and you already feel that it is you who are soaring in the sky. A drop of dew falling from a lotus leaf, the sun illuminating it, creating a small rainbow around it – and this moment overwhelms you.

A drop of dew rolling off a leaf, at the boundary of meeting with infinity, disappearing into the lake – and you feel as if it is you who are flowing, as if your drop is beginning to slide into the ocean of divinity. In the moment of innocence, of not-knowing, the distinction between the observer and the observed evaporates. You are no longer separate from what you see, you are no longer separate from what you hear...
(Osho)