Innocence

Whether you are ten or sixty, it does not matter... there is no age for innocence

Your body grows old - and so does your mind when it is burdened with all the experiences, miseries and weariness of life; and such a mind can never discover what is truth. The mind can discover only when it is young, fresh, innocent; but innocence is not a matter of age. It is not only the child who is innocent - he may or may not be - but the mind that is capable of experiencing without accumulating the residue of experience. The mind must experience, that is inevitable. It must respond to everything - to the river, to the poor villagers carrying their burdens along the road, to the tortures and miseries of life - otherwise it is already dead; but it must not be capable of responding without being held by the experience. It is tradition, the documentation of experience, the ashes of memory that make the mind old. The mind that dies everyday to the memories of yesterday, to all the joys and sorrows of the past - such a mind is fresh, innocent, it has no age; and without that innocence, whether you are ten or sixty, you will not find God.