Acharya Prashant tells a story to illustrate the nature of true innocence. A woodcutter and his wife, who had been practicing Buddhist meditation for a long time, find a bag of gold in the jungle. The woodcutter, considering it a worldly attachment, kicks it away. His wife, however, picks it up. When the husband scolds her, saying she hasn't learned that gold is mere dirt, she replies that her meditation was indeed successful because she truly sees it as dirt, just like the dirt under her feet. She explains that she picked it up innocently, like a child picking up a shiny object, without any special meaning. In contrast, the husband's act of avoiding and kicking the gold showed that it still held significant meaning for him, proving that it was the wife who had truly attained enlightenment. Acharya Prashant explains that innocence has great power because it is free from stories. An innocent person is one who has a direct, clear vision to see life and does not project stories in the name of seeing. Our usual way of seeing is the opposite; we see something faintly, and then our inner stories, feelings, and intentions are projected onto it. This process is called superimposition. He compares the mind to a photographic film. An innocent mind is like a blank film that receives an impression of reality as it is. However, most people's minds are like a film that already has a story printed on it. When we think we are listening to someone, we are actually listening to our own pre-existing inner stories, which act like loud background music. We live within these stories, which are often based on myths and cultural conditioning, and these stories are what kill us. He further clarifies the distinction between innocence and ignorance. Ignorance is not a lack of knowledge but an abundance of stories and beliefs. An ignorant person is one who doesn't know but believes they know. Innocence, on the other hand, is emptiness. He uses the analogy of two glasses: a child's innocence is like an empty, upright glass, ready to be filled by the world. The innocence of a wise person is like an inverted glass; even in a downpour of experiences, nothing enters or sticks. This is the state of being free from the burden of stories. The spiritual person lives fearlessly because they are not afraid of what society considers forbidden, and thus, society is terrified of them.
