From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 16. LET’S NOT FACE IT – YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY ALONE
we are three, have mercy on us. There is no problem about it. Your prayer – if we forget or if we
commit some mistake....”
So he repeated it twice. They said, ”One time more.” He repeated it thrice, and they said, ”We will
try.” He was very happy that he had put those fools on the right path... this is prayer? – and they
have become saints? And he went back very happy that he had done a good deed. These are the
do-gooders.
Just in the middle of the lake he saw all those three old men running, coming, on the lake! He could
not believe his eyes. They said, ”Wait! We have forgotten the prayer! Just one more time, and we
will never bother you again.” And they were standing on the water!
The high priest touched their feet and said, ”Forgive me. You repeat your prayer, that’s perfectly
right. And you need not come to ask me; if I have something to ask I will come. I know now whose
prayer is right.”
Those three persons indicate one simple truth: if you have faith that does not prove that there is a
God. But your faith can give you a certain integrity, a certain strength. But the faith has to be very
innocent. They were not hiding any fear behind it. They had not gone to any church to learn the
prayer, they had not asked anybody, ”What is God? Where is God?” – nothing. They were simply
innocent people, and out of innocence was their faith.
That faith does not prove that God is; that faith simply proves that innocence is a power.
It is only a story, but innocence is a power. Yes, you can walk on water, but out of innocence; and
out of innocence if there is faith.... But that very rarely happens, because every parent and every
society destroys your innocence before you are even aware that you had it. They go on forcing some
belief on you, and that belief you accept because of fear. In darkness the mother says, ”Don’t be
afraid; God is there looking after you. He is everywhere present.”
I have heard about a Catholic nun who used to take a shower with her clothes on inside the
bathroom. Other nuns became a little worried: ”Has she gone Oregonian or something?”
But the poor nun said, ”It is because I have heard God is everywhere, so He must be in the bathroom
too. And to be naked before God does not look right.” This woman may look foolish but she has a
certain innocence. And out of this innocence, if faith arises, then it doesn’t matter in what the faith
is.
Innocence gives power, but innocence is destroyed, and this is what I am trying to bring back to you,
so that you become innocent again. And to become innocent again you will have to pass through
these stages.
You will have to drop this idea of God which helps you to remain unafraid.
You will have to pass through fear and accept it as a human reality.
There is no need to escape from it. What is needed is to go deep into it, and the deeper you go into
your fear, the less you will find it is.
From Ignorance to Innocence 226 Osho