Q: Can you define innocence for me?

John: Unpolarized happiness. Not strongly happy but deeply, quietly, subtly happy, in a way that isn’t because of a positive or the escape of any negative, so there’s no polarization to it. It’s happy without any reason at all and as soon as that subtle, quiet happiness moves in life, it just likes doing and it likes giving and it likes talking and it likes thinking and feeling. And everything is this blossoming of playing in this unrolling, in this unpolarized, sweet, quiet, subtle happiness. That’s innocence.

As soon as you’re happy for a reason that you’re in: you’re happy because you’re with so-and-so in relationship and not so-and-so, or you’re happy because you won the lottery or you’re happy because you’re not sick today … happy for any reason at all and you’re really getting lost because as soon as you’re happy for a reason, you will do to secure that happiness and you will do to keep away anything that can threaten it. So you’re no longer doing just because you’re happy. You’re doing to keep your happiness, save it, acquire more.

Q: Going after conditional happiness.

John: Conditional happiness is a terrible wind-up!