To grow old is not to grow up; to become old is not to become mature. Maturity has nothing to do with old age, nothing to do with age at all. Maturity has something to do with becoming more and more conscious, becoming more and more silent and aware, becoming more and more watchful of what you are doing and why, where you are going and why. If you can function right now, here in this moment, through your consciousness, through your being aware, putting aside all that you have known — this is what I call functioning through no-knowledge, this is functioning through innocence. And this is maturity. Maturity happens when you start living without hope. Hope is childish. You become mature when you don’t project hope into the future. In fact, you are mature when you don’t have any future; you just live in the moment — because that is the only reality there is.
The qualities of a mature person are very strange. First, he is not a person. He is no longer a self. He has a presence, but he is not a person. Second, he is more like a child...simple and innocent. That’s why I said the qualities of a mature person are very strange, because maturity gives a sense as if he has experienced, as if he is aged, old. Physically he may be old, but spiritually he is an innocent child. His maturity is not just experience gained through life. Then he will not be a child, and then he will not be a presence; he will be an experienced person – knowledgeable but not mature. Whenever you understand that you have missed life, the first principle is to be brought back is innocence. Be born again, become innocent – and it is in your hands. Clean your mind of all this is not known by you, of all that is borrowed, all that has come from tradition, convention. All that has been given to you by others: parents, teachers, institutions– just get rid of it. Once again be simple, once again be a child. And this miracle is possible by meditation. Mediation is simply a strange surgical method that cuts you away from all that is not yours and saves only that which is your authentic being. It burns everything else and leaves you standing naked, alone under the sun, in the wind. It is as if you are the first man who has descended onto earth – who knows nothing, who has to discover everything, who has to be a seeker, who has to go on a pilgrimage. The second principle is the pilgrimage. Life must be a seeking – not a desire but a search; not an ambition to become this to become that, a president of a country or a prime minister of a country, but a search to find out “Who am I?” It is very strange that people who don’t know who they are, are trying to become somebody. They don’t even know who they are right now! They are unacquainted with their being – but they have a goal of becoming.
Maturity has nothing to do with your life experiences. It has something to do with your inward journey, experiences of the inner. The more he goes deeper into himself, the more mature he is. When he has reached the very center of his being, he is perfectly mature. But at that moment the person disappears, only presence remains. The self disappears, only silence remains. Knowledge disappears, only innocence remains.
To me, maturity is another name for realization: you have come to the fulfillment of your potential, it has become actual. The seed has come on a long journey, and has blossomed. Maturity has a fragrance. It gives a tremendous beauty to the individual. It gives intelligence, the sharpest possible intelligence. It makes him nothing but love. His action is love, his inaction is love; his life is love, his death is love. He is just a flower of love.
A mature person should disconnect himself from anything that is connected with fear. That’s how maturity comes. Just watch all your acts, all your beliefs, and find out whether they are based in reality, in experience, or based in fear. And anything based in fear has to be dropped immediately, without a second thought. It is your amour. You should drop it. You should learn how to be free from all father figures. You should learn how to be yourself. You should learn how to be aware and responsible. Then only you start growing. Maturity is always maturity towards freedom. Immaturity is always a sort of dependence and a fear of freedom. Maturity means gaining your lost innocence again, reclaiming your paradise, becoming a child again. Maturity is a rebirth, a spiritual birth. You are born anew, you are a child again. With fresh eyes you start looking at existence. With love in the heart you approach life. With silence and innocence you penetrate your own innermost core. Going beyond thoughts and feelings and becoming a pure isness is maturity. Maturity is the ultimate flowering of meditation. ❤️
Has anyone ever given you hopes and dreams, then throws you out like garbage? 
A Look at Life from a Lower Balcony. 
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