"To live according to the past is to live an irresponsible life. It is the life of reaction. You don't see what the situation is, you simply go on repeating your old solutions. And problems are new every day, every moment. Life goes on changing and mind remains static. That is the whole problem: that the mind remains a static mechanism and life is a constant flux. Hence there can be no communion between life and mind.

"If you remain identified with the mind you will remain almost dead. You will not have any share of the joy that overwhelms existence. You will not be a participant in the celebration that is continuously going on: the birds singing, the trees dancing, the rivers flowing. You also have to be a part of this whole.

"You want to be separate, you want to prove yourself higher than others, superior than others, then you become cunning. It is only through cunningness that you can prove your superiority. It is a dream, it is phony, because in existence there is nobody who is superior and nobody who is inferior. The blade of grass and the great star are absolutely equal.

"Existence is fundamentally communist. There is no hierarchy. But man wants to be higher than others, wants to conquer nature, hence has to fight continuously. All complexity arises out of this fight.

"The innocent person is one who has renounced fighting. Who is no more interested in being higher, who is no more interested in performing, in proving that he is something special. Who has become like a roseflower or like a dewdrop on the lotus leaf. Who has become part of this infinity. Who has melted, merged, become one with the ocean, is just a wave, has no idea of the I. The disappearance of the I is innocence.

"Hence innocence cannot require that you should live a simple life, innocence cannot require anything of you. All requirements are cunning. All requirements are basically to fight, to be somebody.

"The so-called simple saint is not simple because he is fighting: fighting with his instincts, fighting with his body. He is continuously at war, never at peace. How can he be simple? He is more complex than the ordinary people are."