The mind can function in two
ways. It can function like a camera: once exposed, finished - the film
immediately becomes knowledgeable and it loses its learning capacity.
Exposed once and it already knows - now it is useless; now it is not capable
of learning more. If you expose it again and again it will become more
confused. That's why people who know too much are always afraid of
learning... because they will become confused. They are already exposed
films. Then there is another type of learning - learning like a mirror.
Expose the mirror for a thousand and one times, it makes no difference - if
you come in front of the mirror, you are reflected: if you go, the
reflection goes. The mirror never accumulates.
The film in the camera immediately accumulates - it catches hold, clings,
but the mirror simply mirrors: you come in front, you are in it; you go, you
are gone.
This is the way to remain mature. Every child is born mature and almost all
people die immature. This will look very paradoxical but this is so. Remain
innocent and you will remain mature.
The second thing is that the immature mind is always interested in trivia.
The immature mind is always interested in things: money, houses, cars,
power, prestige...all trivia, all rot. The mature mind is interested in
existence, in being, in life itself. So when I say to you that you have an
immature mind I mean you are still interested in things, not in persons;
still interested in the outside, not in the inside; still interested in
objects, not in subjectivity; still interested in the finite, not interested
in the infinite.
Just watch your mind - where it moves, what its fantasies are. If you find a
valuable diamond on the road and just there by its side a rose has flowered,
in what will you be interested? In the rose or in the diamond? You will not
be able to see the rose if you are interested in the diamond; you will
simply miss the rose, it is valueless. Your eyes will be too clouded by the
diamond, your whole mind will become focused on the diamond, and you will
miss another diamond which was more alive - the rose.
...
And, the
last and most basic thing: when I say that you have an immature mind,
basically I mean that you have a mind. Mind as such is immature; only
no-mind is mature.
Maturity has nothing to do with mind because mind means all that you know;
mind means your experiences, mind means your past, your rehearsals, your
preparations. All these things are implied in the word 'mind.' Mind is not
something in particular, it is the whole accumulation, all the junk, the
whole heap, of your dead past.
When I say, 'Be mature,' I mean become a no-mind. If you act spontaneously,
you will act out of no-mind. If you remain capable of learning, you will
remain capable of being a no-mind again and again and again - the mind will
never be accumulated. If you are capable of remaining alert-and spontaneous,
able to be surprised by life and by yourself, you will become by and by more
and more interested in the interior-most life, in the core of life. When you
see a person, you will not see just the body, your gaze will become
penetrating, your gaze will become like an x-ray. It will catch hold of the
person - of the consciousness there, of the inner light there in the other
person. The body is just an abode - you will meet the person, you will shake
hands, but not only hands, you will shake the person, you will meet the
person. And in your own life, by and by, you will become aware that the body
is just the outermost garment: you have to take care of it, it is not to be
neglected, it is valuable, but it is not the end. You are the master, not
the servant. And by and by, the more you penetrate withinwards, you will see
that the mind also is an innermost garment - more valuable than the body but
not more valuable than you. You remain the supreme value.
Once you know your supreme value, you have become mature; and once you know
your supreme value, you know the supreme value of all: all beings are
Buddhas - nobody is less than that; the whole of life is Divine; you are
always walking on holy ground.
It is said that when Moses went to the hill to meet his God, the bush was
afire and from behind the bush he heard, 'Stop! Take your shoes off. This is
holy ground.' I have always liked it, loved it. But all ground is holy
ground and all bushes are afire with God. If you have not seen this yet you
have missed much. Look again. All bushes are afire with God and from every
bush comes the commandment, 'Stop and take your shoes off. It is holy ground
you are walking on. All ground, the whole earth, the whole existence is
sacred. Once you have that feeling entering you, I will call you mature -
not before that. A mature mind is a religious mind.
