As I was walking with my father in our way to a store, we were waiting to cross the street and a beeping sound was heard. It was the sound that some trucks have built in to alarm people who could be behind them.

My father curiously asked: “What is that noise?” That was something “new” for him. He didn’t hear that before.
I told him with the “knowledge” of my mind: “That is the noise of a truck backing up letting you know that it is dangerous to be behind it.”

My father recognized just the word “truck” out of my “brainy” explanation and began to look at the truck with wonder.

I looked at his eyes, and what I saw was “innocence,” an honest sense of wonder as if that was the first time he had seen a truck.

I interrupted his “day dreaming” (from my perspective) to quickly cross the street, for it was clear.

I was thinking, “What is the big deal about a truck backing up with some built in noise?” However, what I still remember is the look on his eyes. I have not seen that look in any grown up for many, many years now. It is as if the sense of wonder and “newness” is gone.

Our minds are trained to think that “to know” is to have a verbal explanation. That training compels us to live in “theory” mode.

There is a truck like many others I have seen. There is a noise coming from it, which I could qualify as “disturbing,” so then, I can make my own interpretation on that experience., which I could pass onto another person. It is no longer a truck with a sound, but a “disturbing noise.” That last statement which comes out of my “own biased experience,” then becomes the “crux” of another debate as to what is a noise? And what is a sound? And if trucks like that one should be allowed to be on the street…Then, We could invite “experts” in the matter who could illustrate their points with their latest “research” and how what they call “normal” becomes the rule of the “masses,” that is what the majority expresses.

The point here is that we have stopped looking for the first time, that is without building a case of further ideas, further explanations, further interpretations which are drying up our sense of awe, our sense of wonder and innocence.

Similarly, that is the case in Spirituality and the experience of the Divine.

Our minds will not allow us to open up to the “unknown,” because we already have some “knowledge,” we already have read everything about it, and expect for things to happen according to those books written by experts. We will show the statistics, the latest research which proves how “nonsensical” a Spiritual experience is or worse yet, “your” spiritual experience. 🙂

Thus, the “law” of innocence, of looking at things with a “fresh” view, is to throw away everything that we think we know. The mind will not allow us to enjoy any experience in its fullest as long as we have explanations and theories. In short, the experience of living will be gone for our “mental” state resides in words and words… are not living.

Words such as: “I love so much”… 🙂 Good, now show that without words. Make your living, which is being, be that so there is no need to say it.
Anyone could say anything. It is easy. How many fall into that trap? If words were money, we could more careful about “spending” them.

The sense of appreciation of life is a marvelous feeling. That appreciation brings something in common with “others” to what otherwise would be about looking just for differences, for those things which we are not alike.

When appreciation is gone, there is no communion with life and everything that exists. In fact, listening to someone could be done only when there is appreciation for that presence as it is.

That is the innocence that a child has. When that mind becomes “clogged up” with theories, reasoning and explanations; that innocence is lost. The “same old thing” arrives and with that a sense of boredom appears along the search for something “new” and “exciting” in life.

Thinking has its place. In reality, it is a small place in the realm of things; however, our society is worshiping thinking to the extreme. That is creating a society where living is no longer “feeling,” we no longer feel life and acknowledge its newness, that is we are not open to wonder, but just to explain things based on previous experiences which have been made as explanations.

That is how when a dog bites us, we create a “drama,” a “ All dogs are bad,” closing our range of experiences with the perceived safety of a “bad” experience or when we say “I don’t believe in love,” automatically, we have closed the door for further “newness,” ignoring that as “we are” so our experiences. We never see the self but always others.

Innocence requires that openness for newness, by throwing all our preconceptions on the waste basket of delusions.