+ Become A Child Again +

The child never dies in anyone. It is not that the child dies when you grow, the child remains. Everything that you have been is still within you, and will remain within you until your very last breath.
But society is always afraid of nonserious people. Nonserious people will not be ambitious for money, or political power; they would rather enjoy existence. But enjoying existence cannot bring you prestige, cannot make you powerful, cannot fulfill your ego; and the whole world of man revolves around the idea of the ego. Playfulness is against your ego—you can try it and see. Just play with children, and you will find your ego is disappearing, you will find that you have become a child again. It is not only true about you, it is true about everyone.
Because the child within you has been repressed, you will repress your children. Nobody allows their children to dance and to sing and to shout and to jump. For trivial reasons—perhaps something may get broken, perhaps they may get their clothes wet in the rain if they run out—for these small things a great spiritual quality, playfulness, is completely destroyed.
The obedient child is praised by his parents, by his teachers, by everybody; and the playful child is condemned. His playfulness may be absolutely harmless, but he is condemned because there is potentially a danger of rebellion. If the child goes on growing with full freedom to be playful, he will turn out to be a rebel. He will not be easily enslaved; he will not be easily put into armies to destroy people, or to be destroyed himself.
The rebellious child will turn out to be a rebellious youth. Then you cannot force marriage on him; then you cannot force him into a particular job; then the child cannot be forced to fulfill the unfulfilled desires and longings of the parents. The rebellious youth will go his own way. He will live his life according to his own innermost desires—not according to somebody else’s ideals.
The rebel is basically natural. The obedient child is almost dead; hence the parents are very happy, because he is always under control.
Man is strangely sick: he wants to control people—in controlling people your ego is fulfilled, you are somebody special—and he himself also wants to be controlled, because by being controlled you are no longer responsible. For all these reasons, playfulness is stifled, crushed from the very beginning, and then people become afraid of their own playfulness, afraid of "losing control."

The innocence of the children is ignorance,
it is not true innocence. The true innocence happens only after the second birth. The true innocence happens only after you have reached your very core through awareness; that is the second birth, that is resurrection-you are born anew...
Real innocence belongs to the Buddhas. They have lost their first childhood in knowledge and then they become aware of what they have lost. They have lost the precious, the essential for the non-essential, so they drop their knowledge. Dropping their knowledge they become innocent again. This is second innocence, second birth. In India they call such a person dwija, twice-born. He is a real brahmin because he has known the Brahma, the absolute. The absolute can be known only in innocence.
So the first, the most important thing is the innocence of the sage. It is like the innocence of the children but only like. The innocence of the children is bound to be corrupted, but the innocence of the sage cannot be corrupted anymore-he has passed through that stage. His innocence has maturity, his innocence has integrity; his innocence is earned-he deserves it. -
To Repeat -
Man's evolution is from innocence to innocence.
The first innocence is ignorant, the second innocence is
luminous. The first innocence is a kind of sleep, the second innocence is an awakening. The first innocence is a gift of God, the second innocence is man's own effort, his earning, his work upon himself. The first can be lost, the second cannot be lost. The first has to go-in the very nature of it, it cannot be eternal; but the second, once it comes, remains forever-it is eternal.
Remember, whatsoever you attain consciously, only that can you possess, only that. Whatsoever is given to you, and you receive it unconsciously, will be taken away. Only that really happens to you for which you work hard. Only that belongs to you which you create in your being. You become master of it.
The first innocence in Christian terms is called Adam. And the second innocence is called Christ.