Neo-Sannyason Neo-SannyasinInitiation into FreedomOsho on Neo-Sannyas

 Sannyas is initiation into Freedom 

- To be initiated into sannyas means to be initiated into truth. -

 It is your Decision 

To be my disciple is your decision. It has nothing to do with me. To accept me as your master is your decision, it has nothing to do with me. I am not seeking converts; I am not a Christian missionary. I am not striving so that people should be converted to my way of thinking, my way of life. No, not at all. Otherwise in these thirty-five years I would have converted millions of people, with no trouble. They were ready to be converted; I was not ready to convert.

It is your decision. Always remember,

whatsoever happens here is your decision.

If you are a sannyasin, it is your decision.

If you drop sannyas, it is your decision.

If you take it again, it is your decision.

I leave everything to you.

So it is a unique relationship: it is absolutely onesided; from my side there is no relationship. It has to be absolutely clear: from my side there is no relationship. From your side... and that is continually changing. When you first come, you come as a student. It is a different kind of relationship from your side. Then you just want to learn something. Being near me, slowly you understand that learning is not enough. Some experience is needed. You become a disciple, you become a sannyasin.

That is your decision. You simply indicate that you want to come closer to me. What else is sannyas? Just your declaration that you would love and like to be closer to me. From your side, the student is disappearing and the disciple is appearing. And then the last stage comes, when you feel even experiencing is not enough: being.

-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #18"

 To be a sannyasin is to take a decision to grow 

To be a sannyasin is to take a decision to grow, to take a decision to go into dangers, to take a decision to live in indecision. This seems paradoxical. It is not. One has to begin somewhere, and even to live indecisively one has to have a decision somewhere. Even to go into insecurity is going somewhere, and one has to decide it. I help your decision and create a situation in which you can make a decision. This neo-sannyas can go to the very core of the world. It can reach to everyone because nothing special is needed — only understanding.

Another thing I would like to explain is that this sannyas is not bound to any religion. On this earth every type of sannyas has been part and parcel of a particular religion, a particular sect. That too is is a part of a security measure. You renounce, yet you belong. You say, “I have left the society,” yet you belong to the sect. You go on being a Hindu, a Moslem or a Sikh. You go on being something. Really, sannyas means to be religious and not to be bound to any religion. Again, it is a great jump into the unknown. Religions are known, but religion is the unknown. A sect has systems, religion has no system. A sect has scriptures; religion has only existence, no scriptures. This sannyas is existential, religious, nonsectarian.

That does not mean that this sannyas will deny a Mohammedan Mohammedanism, that this sannyas will deny a Christian Christianity — no! It means, really, quite the reverse. It means it will give the Christians the real Christianity. It will give the Hindu the real Hinduism, because the deeper you go into the Hindu religion, ultimately the Hinduism will drop and you will find religiousness only. The deeper you go into Christianity, the less it will be like Christianity and the more like religion. At once, you reach to the center of the religion.

So when I say by becoming a sannyasin you belong to no religion as such, I do not mean that you are denying Christianity or Hinduism or Jainism. You are only denying the dead part that has become burdensome in religion. You are only denying the dead tradition, and you are uncovering and discovering again the living current, the living current behind all the dead — dead traditions, dead scriptures, dead gurudoms, dead churches.

You are again finding the living current. It is always there but it is always to be rediscovered; each one has to discover it again. It cannot be transferred, it cannot be transmitted. No one can give it to you. Whatever has been given will be dead. You will have to dig it deep within yourself, otherwise you never find it. So I am not giving you a religion, I am giving you only the push to find the living current. It will be your own finding, and it can never be anyone else’s. So I am not transmitting anything to you. [....]

The living current cannot be communicated. It is always there, but you have to go to it. It is nearby, just by the corner. It is in you, you are the living current. But you have never been in. Your attention has always been out, you have been out-oriented. You have become fixed. Your focus has become deadly fixed, so you cannot conceive of what it means to be in. Even when you try to be in, you just close your eyes and go on being out.

To be in means to be in a state of mind where there is no out and where there is no in. To be in means there is no boundary between you and the all. When there is nothing out, only then you come to the inner current. And once you have a glimpse, you are transformed. You know something which is incomprehensible, you know something which intellect cannot comprehend, you know something which intellect cannot communicate.

-Osho, “I am The Gate, #2”

 On Initiation Into Sannyas 

Sannyas is simply an initiation into new spaces within you, a change from the head to the heart, from logic to love, from your ordinary conditioning, to an unconditioned mind, to a freedom which you are not even aware that you are capable of.

Sannyas is something like a bird which has remained in a cage -- the cage is golden, very artistic, very valuable, but to the bird it is nothing other than an imprisonment. But the bird has lived long in the cage, although it is taking away its freedom, its whole sky, its flights across the sun, its joy; it has almost destroyed the bird's capacity to be on the wing. Perhaps the bird has already forgotten that it has wings. But the cage has security, safety from the unknown. The bird need not to be worried for the coming days -- it need not worry about its food.

Even if you open the door of the cage, the bird will hesitate to get out of it. So much is involved -- the security, the safety. And who knows about this vast sky, and where he will land? And he has forgotten completely that he has wings. You know something only if you use it. If a bird has never used its wings, how can it remember them? [....]

The doors are open, the sky is inviting, the other birds are flying, it is only a question of a little courage. That's why I say that only the first step is difficult. If the bird can gather courage and take a jump into the air, the wings that he has no awareness of suddenly open.

He's on the wing. The whole sky is his.

Now the faraway stars can be his pilgrimage.

Sannyas is initiation into freedom, making you aware about your wings, making you also aware that the whole sky, with all its stars is yours. You need not worry about security and safety; existence is taking care of so many birds, so many trees, so many stars -- it can take care of you too.

Sannyas is trust in existence. And the moment you trust, there is no fear, there is no worry, and there is no difficulty. Life becomes the most enjoyable, relaxed phenomenon.

-Osho, "The Razor's Edge, #21"

Remember, to be initiated into sannyas means to be initiated into truth. I don’t ask my sannyasins to renounce the world; I certainly ask you to renounce all lies, falsehoods, hypocrisies — that’s enough. If you renounce all lies your whole past is renounced. You will be reborn; in that renunciation is a rebirth. And when life is fresh and clean of all the junk of the past you can again have the same wondering eyes of a child, the same innocence. And it is innocence that can have a communion with the ultimate — not knowledge but innocence.

-Osho, “I Am Not As Thunk As You Drink I Am, #22”

I would like my sannyasins to live life in its totality, but with an absolute condition, categorical condition: and that condition is awareness, meditation. Go first deep into meditation, so you can cleanse your unconscious of all poisonous seeds, so there is nothing to be corrupted and there is nothing inside you which power can bring forth. And then do whatsoever you feel like doing.

-Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6, #4"

My people can be sannyasins and yet absolutely rebellious, because they are not dependent on anyone. Their meditation is their own personal affair.

-Osho, “The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart, #6”

A sannyasin will simply mean that he is initiated into the meditation techniques here, and he makes a commitment to himself that he will follow the path. But it is going to be individual, alone. He will be responsible himself. It is not going to be a collectivity, a congregation.

-Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 3, #8”

It is only the blind who miss, it is only the deaf who miss, but the greater part of humanity consists of blind and deaf people. Initiation into sannyas means that now you will search for the eyes and the ears. They are there, we just have not used them. Because they have not been functioning for a long long time, they are not working. If you start using them a little bit, slowly slowly blood circulates in them, slowly slowly life is revived, slowly slowly you start seeing, hearing, feeling — and these are the beginnings. The ultimate is when all these have happened to the maximum: you come to know being.

-Osho, "Don’t Let Yourself Be Upset by the Sutra, rather Upset the Sutra Itself"

Sannyas is an initiation into bliss. My religion is that of celebration. My worship is to be in a festive mood, to be constantly cheerful, to always be in that mood of rejoicing in the existence.

The old sannyas used to be an initiation into something serious, heavy, because it was renouncing the world. My sannyas is totally opposite, diametrically opposite. This is neo-sannyas, a totally new vision of sannyas not of renunciation but of rejoicing, and not of the spirit of seriousness but of the spirit of festivity, of light-heartedness, of taking life as fun, play.

-Osho, "Turn On, Tune In and Drop the Lot"

Sannyas is the science of real birth. The first birth is physical; it only makes your body but not you. Your body arises in the mother’s womb but you have still to be born. The temple is empty, the master is not there yet, or in other words the master is asleep. And only when the master awakens is one really born; that is the second birth. That is the meaning of all methods of initiation. Initiation means that you are entering into a school which will function like a womb to create your soul.

Sannyas is a great commitment — a commitment to yourself to be reborn.

-Osho, "Zorba the Buddha"

Freedom is the taste of sannyas, the fragrance of sannyas. My sannyasins are not trying to cultivate any character, they are trying a totally different phenomenon: they are raising their consciousness. And then I leave everybody free to live according to his own light.

-Osho, "Come, Come, Yet Again Come"

Sannyas is empathy — to be totally with me, utterly with me, to drop all defences, to come so close that my nothingness starts overflowing in you, to come so close that there are no more boundaries, that we start overlapping. For that experience, sannyas is needed And a Buddha can be known only that way, there is no other way.

-Osho, "The Diamond Sutra"

I am a totally different kind of man. My approach is utterly different. I say become a sannyasin without any conditions and sannyas will transform you slowly, slowly, and will bring into existence all those qualities that other religions were asking before sannyas. Before sannyas, those qualities are not possible.

If I say to this man, `First you stop drinking alcohol completely, only then can I give you sannyas,’ he will not be able to . He has tried his whole life — and the more you fail again and again, the more you know that it is completely useless to try. You know you are going to fail. I don’t make any conditions.

I have given sannyas to your husband. Don’t be worried, because my sannyas is not renouncing the wife or the children or the house or the business of the world. I am bringing a totally new conception of sannyas into the world.

-Osho, "From the False to the Truth"

But my sannyas is totally different: it has nothing to do with age.It has something to do with youth rather than old age. The younger you are, the more possibility there is of entering into my sannyas. Even those who are old physically but young spiritually will feel attracted.towards it — ONLY those will feel attracted towards it.

I am not teaching you escape from life. I am not teaching you the other world. I am teaching you how to live this life with great gratitude, with immense joy, with ecstasy. I am not anti-life. I am all for life, because to me life is God. There is no other God.

-Osho, "The Guest"

And my sannyas does not involve any obligation either — the moment you are a sannyasin, you are totally at freedom. It means now you have taken a decision, and this is the last decision. Now you have not to take any decision anymore. You have taken the last decision now — to live in indecision, to live in freedom.

-Osho, "I Am The Gate"

My sannyas is life-affirmative. Nothing like this has ever flowered on the earth. It is a totally new phenomenon. All the old ideas about sannyas were based on escapism, on renunciation. My sannyas has nothing to do with escape, it is AGAINST escape, because to me God and life are synonymous. It has never been said that God and life are synonymous. God has always been put AGAINST life: you have to drop life to attain God. And I say to you, you have to live as totally as possible, as intensely as possible, as passionately as possible if you want to know God at all, because there is no other God than life.

-Osho, "Tao: The Golden Gate"

Awareness - and that is the secret key, the most essential part of religious experiment, of religious investigation, enquiry, exploration. One has to become more aware than one ordinarily is. To be a sannyasin means to enter into the phenomenon of the sacred. For that more awareness is needed, much more, because it is not something mechanical, something routine. It is now every day. It is moving from the unknown towards the unknowable. It is dropping the known every day, dying to the known and entering into the unknown. It is an eternal pilgrimage, because every moment is so full of mystery that one has to be very alert, otherwise one will miss. Very few people know the beauty of the stars… Very few people know the beauty of the mountains.

-Osho, "Is the Grass Really Greener...?, #3"

Understanding is not something that you can try, it is not an effort. It is not something that you can concentrate upon, contemplate upon. Understanding is not of the mind: understanding is of the heart. You will have to fall in love.

That’s what sannyas is all about. Falling in love with a Master, for NO reason at all — just for the sheer joy of falling in love with someone who has disappeared, who is no more, who has become a great nothing, who has become a silence... of course, that silence is full of songs, and that silence is music, celestial music. That silence is not negatively empty. It is empty of noise but full of melodies. It is empty of thoughts but full of awareness. It is empty of darkness and death but full of light and life.

Unless one falls in love, the process of understanding cannot be triggered. You CAN be here, you can listen to me -- only words will reach you. Those words will become part of your memory; they will make you more knowledgeable. But to be knowledgeable is utterly futile; it doesn't help. To know about God is not to know God, because the word 'God' is not God. To know about love is not to know love, because the word 'love' is not love.

-Osho, "The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, #5"

Sannyas is a beginning, not an end — first thing. [....]

Sannyas is a process of unconditioning, remember it. It is not a process of conditioning: it is a process of unconditioning. What am I doing here? I am not giving you knowledge — I am taking your knowledge away. It is a kind of mind-wash. I am simply cleaning your mind, effacing things, taking your ideas, helping you to drop those stupid fixations. I am not giving you anything as a substitute for them! You would like that very much. [....]

I am not giving you any discipline. I give you only awareness — because to me awareness is the fundamental thing. If you are aware, you will find your discipline yourself. [....]

A man of character simply means one whose past is so fixed that you can rely on it that he will not be able to change it in the future either. I don’t give you any discipline, any character. My basic approach is that one has to be utterly characterless! To be characterless means to be without the past. [....]

Sannyas is not idea. It is a device. It is a method, not an idea. Just by becoming a sannyasin, you stop being a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist. Just by becoming a sannyasin, you stop being an American, an Indian, a Japanese, a German — these are ugly boundaries. [....]

A sannyasin is a world citizen. Sannyas is the beginning of a new concept of consciousness, that we are all one. This may be the only place on the earth where nobody bothers who is a Jain, who is a Hindu, who is a Mohammedan….The world has lived like that, with a thousand and one divisions — of religion, of sect, of politics. To be a sannyasin means you are dropping all divisions. You are declaring humanity is one, and this whole planet belongs to us. This is our home. [....]

To be a sannyasin means you will be allowing freedom to the children, you will not impose anything on them, you will not impose your ideas; you will NOT like them to become imitators. Sannyas is just symbolic of a great freedom! [....]

Sannyas is given easily and sannyas can be dropped as easily. There is no commitment as such.

-Osho, "Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind, #4, Q4“

 Sannyas is a pilgrimage 

Sannyas is a pilgrimage, A pilgrimage from the dark night of the soul Toward the dawn of the spirit. It is not a ritual, it is an inner revolution. It is not a formality, it is a love affair. Unless it is something from your very heart, It will not work.

It is not a question of believing, It is not a question of intellectual conviction. It is a question of falling in love With something which one can feel But which one cannot understand By intellect itself.

It is a quantum leap.

-Osho, "No Man is an Island, #15“

 Sannyas means a radical change in your life style. 

Sannyas means a radical change in your life style. Turning your energies inwards. A one-hundred-eighty degree turn is needed. And bliss is there, just you have to turn in. You have to become again rooted in your being. You have become uprooted, That’s why you are miserable.

 Once you gain roots again Into the soil of your being, There will be great greenery and great flowering. And life will become a joy. [....]

Sannyasins are not interested in going anywhere They are interested in going only inwards Because that is where their real home is. To go in and become victorious.

 -Osho, “No Man Is an Island, #7”

 Sannyas is a quantum leap 

Sannyas is a quantum leap, a jump into the unknown, a great courage to become discontinuous with your own past. It is a rebirth. It is a change so great… as if the old dies, and dies utterly and totally and the new comes into being from nowhere, from nothingness, out of nothing.

If the new comes from the old it remains the old. If the new is continuous with the old then it is only a modification of the old — maybe a little bit colored and decorated and changed, with a new dress, with a new mask, but it is not a revolution, it is not a conversion.

And sannyas to be true has to be a revolution so total that the old identity is simply dropped — just as the snake slips out of the old skin and never looks back. It is a psychological slipping out of the past. It is a subtle process and only very intelligent people are capable of doing it.

Sannyas can never become a mass movement; it is bound to remain for the chosen few beause the masses cannot gather courage and the masses have sold their intelligence long before. They have settled with small comforts, petty securities. They have lost the spirit of adventure. They cling to their belongings, to their possessions, to their small positions, respectabilities.

They have completely forgotten that there is a sky beyond, that there are stars and stars beyond, that there are calls and challenges which have to be faced and encountered, accepted and lived. They have completely forgotten that life has more meaning than money and power and prestige, that life has a totally different dimension too — that of poetry and dance and celebration.

Sannyas makes you aware of the festive dimension of life. It is an effort to dance with the trees and sing with the stars. It is a great longing to be as wild as the ocean, to be as high as the Himalayan peaks.

Once this longing takes possession of a person it almost drives him mad. But that madness is far more valuable than the so-called sanity. The so-called sanity is nothing but normal madness. Always remember never to become part of the mob; protect yourself.

There are great temptations to become part of the mob. Those are the temptations really, temptations from the devil. There is no other devil but the mass mind; that is the devil. It tempts because it can provide many comforts and securities and respect and honor and everything. But all those are nothing but toys: death will come and take them away. Before death comes one has to know something of the deathless. That’s what sannyas is all about: a search for the deathless, a search for the timeless, a search for eternity.

Move into a new dimension of great longing and passion. It has to be very passionate, intense, so that you are totally possessed by the desire, so that every fiber of your being starts pulsating with the desire, so that every atom, every cell, of your body and mind is stirred by the longing. Then the goal is not far away. It depends on our intensity. If the intensity is total the happening is possible instantaneously. It can happen right NOW.

-Osho,  “Just Around the Corner, #20”

 There is no obligation, there is no commitment. 

Question 1:

Osho,

Why do you give sannyas to almost anybody who comes to see you?

What is your concept of sannyas? what obligation does it involve?

To me, sannyas is not something very serious. Life itself is not very serious, and one who is serious is always dead.

Life is just an overflowing energy without any purpose, and to me sannyas is to lead life purposelessly. Live life as a play and not as work. The so-called serious mind, which is diseased, will in fact convert play into work. The sannyasins are to do the very opposite -- to convert work into play. If you can take this whole life just as a dream, a dream act, then you are a sannyasin. One who considers life as a dream, a dream-drama, has renounced.

Renunciation is not leaving the world, but changing the attitude. An attitude of changing the world is something serious. That is why I can initiate anyone into sannyas. To me, initiation itself is a play. I will not ask for any qualification, whether you are qualified or not, because qualifications are asked where something serious is done. So everyone, by just being in existence, is qualified enough to be at play. He can play, and even if he is unqualified it makes no difference, because the whole thing is just a play. That is why I will not ask for any qualifications.

And my sannyas does not involve any obligation either -- the moment you are a sannyasin, you are totally at freedom. It means now you have taken a decision, and this is the last decision. Now you have not to take any decision anymore. You have taken the last decision now -- to live in indecision, to live in freedom.

One who lives decidedly can never be free. He is always bound by the past, because the decision was taken in the past. You can never take any decision for the future, because the future is unknown and whatever decision is taken is bound up with the past. The moment you are initiated into sannyas, you are initiated into an uncharted, unplanned future. Now you are not tethered by the past. You will be free to live. That means to act, to play, and to be whatever happens to you. This is insecurity.

To renounce a name, to renounce a property, is not really insecurity, it is very superficial insecurity. And the mind remains the same, the mind that was thinking about the property as security. Even property is no security at all, you will die with all your property. Even a home is not security at all, you will die in it. So the false notion that property, home, friends and family are securities is still prevailing in the mind which thinks, "I have renounced; now I am insecure."

Only that mind, only that person lives in insecurity who lives untethered to the past.

Insecurity means untethered to the past; and it has so many meanings, because all that you know comes from the past. Even your mind is of the past.

So one who renounces knowledge is really renouncing something. You yourself come from the past, you are nothing but accumulated experiences. So one who renounces himself is renouncing something. All your desires and all your hopes and all your expectations -- they all confirm the past. One who renounces his past renounces his desires, his hopes, his expectations.

Now you will be just like an emptiness, a nothingness, a nobody. Sannyas means throwing all claims of being somebody. Now you are going into no-identity, nobodiness.

So this is the last decision of your mind, with which the past is closed. The identity is broken, the continuity is not there. You are new; you are reborn.

Everyone who is alive is qualified to live in insecurity. If one is really to live, one has to live in insecurity. Every arrangement of security is renounced living. The more you are secure, the less you are living. The more you are dead, the more secure, and vice versa also. For example, a dead man cannot die again, he is death-proof. A dead man cannot be ill, so he is disease-proof. A dead man is so secure that those who go on living may seem foolish to him -- they live in insecurity.

If you are alive at all, then you are insecure. The more insecure, the more alive. So a sannyasin to me is a person who decides to live to the utmost, to the optimum, to the maximum; it is just like a flame burning from both poles.

There is no obligation, there is no commitment. You are not bound to any discipline at all. If you want to call insecurity a discipline, that is another matter. Of course, it is an inner discipline. You are not going to be anarchic, no! When have I ever said that the person will be anarchic? Anarchy is always bound up with order, with a system. If you renounce order, you can never be disorderly. It is not denying order, it is just renouncing, and renouncing means now to be in order! It is just an act, a play for others' sake. You will not be serious about it, it is just a role of the game. You walk to the left or to the right for others' sake, for traffic's sake, but there is no seriousness about it; nothing is serious in it.

So the sannyasin is not going to be disorderly. As far as he himself is concerned, as far as his inner consciousness is concerned, now there will be no order. That does not mean there will be disorder, because the disorder is always a part of the order. When there is order, there is a possibility of disorder. When there is no order, then there is no disorder, because there is spontaneity. Moment to moment you live, moment to moment you act.

Each moment is complete in itself. You do not decide for it. You have no decision how to act. The moment comes to you, and you act. There is no pre-determination, there is no pre-plan.

The moment comes to you. You happen to the moment, and whatever comes out, let it come. More and more you will feel a new discipline arising in you -- a moment-to- moment discipline. It is a very different dimension, so it will be better to understand it clearly. When you decide beforehand what to do, it is because you do not think you are conscious enough to act in the moment, spontaneously. You are not self-confident; that is why you decide beforehand.

And still you are deciding. You cannot act in the moment, so how can you decide beforehand? Now you are less experienced. You will be more experienced when the moment comes. If I cannot believe in the "me" of tomorrow, how can I believe in the "me" of today? And when I have to decide it beforehand, it carries no meaning. It will only be destructive.

I decide today, and I act tomorrow. All has changed. Everything is new, and the decision is old. And if I do not act according to the moment, there is guilt. So all those who teach deciding beforehand, create guilt. I do not act, then I feel guilty. And if I act, then I cannot act adequately, and frustration is bound to follow.

So I say you have not to commit yourself to any decision, and you will be free. Let each act, each moment, come to you, and let your total being decide... in that moment. Let the decision come as the act happens. Never let it precede the act, then the act can never be total.

One should know that when you decide beforehand you decide intellectually. Your total being can never be in it, because the moment has not come. If I love someone, and I decide that when I meet him or her I will act this way, I will say this thing, I will do this and will not do that, this can only be intellectual, mental. This can never be total, because the moment has not arrived. The total being has not been challenged, so how can the total being act?

And when I have decided beforehand and the moment comes, the total being will not be able to act because the decision will be there. So I will only imitate, follow, copy, the preceding. I will be the false man. I will not be real because I will not be total. I will have a blueprint to act; I will act according to it. Again this will be a mental act, not with your total being. So either you succeed or you fail, yet in both cases you have failed because the total being could not be in it. You will not feel love.

So let the moment come, let the moment challenge you, and let your total being act. Then the act is total. Then your total being comes to act. Then you are totally in it! And the best that is possible will come out of this totalness and never out of the decisions. So sannyas means living moment to moment with no commitments of the past.

If I give you a mala and if I give you a robe, this is only for your remembrance, that now you have not to decide. It is only to make you remember that you are not the old. When this awareness becomes so deep that you do not need to remember it, then throw the robe, then throw the mala. If it comes to you to throw it, do not make it a decision, do not make it a commitment to me. If it comes to you, then throw them, but not unless the awareness has become so deep that even in sleep you know that you are a sannyasin.

When even in your dream this ocher robe has come, then throw it. When even in your dream this ocher robe is there, then throw it. Then it is meaningless. If even unconsciously you remember, if you cannot forget even in any situation, then there is no need. So this is just a device to help you toward total being, to help you toward total action.

And I will go on conferring sannyas on each and everybody who happens to be with me even for a single moment because, as I have said, I do not know about tomorrow at all.

So I cannot wait. If you come this moment, whatever is to be done is to be done. This moment I cannot wait. I do not know about tomorrow, about what is going to happen, and I cannot plan. So the moment you are with me, whatever is being done is to be done this very moment. It cannot be postponed, because there is no future for me.

And this sannyas is not the old sannyas. It is totally a new concept, or totally an ancient one which has been forgotten completely -- you can call it either. It is the newest and the oldest, simultaneously, because whenever there has been sannyas, really, it has been such. But always there are imitators, and you cannot deny them -- they are. There are imitators, and there will always be. And they make everything a discipline, because only a discipline can be imitated.

Sannyas is something that cannot be imitated. Freedom cannot be imitated, thus sannyas can never be imitated. But those who are imitators, what can they do? They will make a system out of this -- imitators always create systems. Anything other than sannyas they do not destroy so much, because life as it is lived is imitation. Imitation goes on, the whole world is imitating. Your whole upbringing is through imitation -- in language, in morality, in society, in culture, everything is through imitation. Everything is imbibed through imitation.

So imitations are successful everywhere except in sannyas. They destroy much here.

They cannot destroy anywhere else because everywhere imitation is the rule. You cannot be free with language, you must imitate it. You cannot be free with social structure, you must imitate it. Imitators succeed everywhere. Only in sannyas the dimension of total freedom is something with which imitators grow very destructive, because its very dimension is quite opposite. Imitation will destroy it. So Jesus is imitated, you have the IMITATION OF CHRIST. Whenever sannyas is imitated there is no sannyas left. So when I say there is no commitment, I mean there will be no imitation.

You are totally free, I will throw you into an openness. That is what is meant by initiation. It is not narrowing you down, it is giving you an open sky. It is just pushing you to fly in an open sky. Of course there are no routes and no road maps, there cannot be. And there cannot be any road in the sky. So you have to fly alone, you have to depend on yourself alone. Your existence will be the sole company -- the only company.

Life is just like a sky. It is not like earth roads, you cannot follow; following is impossible. You have to be alone. Initiation means that now I push you into aloneness. So now you are alone totally, not depending on anyone, not even me. It requires courage. To imitate is easy, to follow is so easy, to depend on someone is easy. But to be totally alone with no map, with no discipline, with no system, is the greatest courage. And a sannyasin means one who is courageous. This courage is not something which can be imitated, it has to be developed through living.

You will err, you will go astray. That is all implied in it. But by erring you will learn, and by going astray you will come to the right. And there is no other way. You have to pass through arduousness. This walking alone, this flying alone... one has to pass through all this austerity. And this sannyas is different in another sense also, because the old sannyas, the so-called sannyas which is prominent, is less a spiritual renunciation and more a social renunciation. Even the social structure of it is more physiological, less spiritual.

This sannyas is basically spiritual. So you can receive it anywhere, wherever you are. It demands involvement -- inner, deeper, spiritual. And as I see it, the more you are involved physiologically, the less there is a possibility to go deep, because once involved with the physiological you will never be out of it. You will never be out of it because there are intrinsic impossibilities: if someone is trying to be above desires he is struggling for something which is impossible, because desires are natural. Your body cannot exist without them. So you will go on clinging to the body, and still desires will be there -- less, of course, but they will be there. And the weaker the body, the less the desires will be strongly felt. So you can go on weakening, but unless you die the body will have desires.

There are not only desires, there are needs. Needs are to be fulfilled, and the better fulfilled, the less they trouble you, the less they demand, the less time is needed for them.

So once you are struggling with physiological needs, you will waste your whole life. This whole process, this whole old sannyas, is negative, fighting against something. Of course, it is ego-strengthening. Whenever there is fight, ego is strengthened. If you can kill a desire, you may become more egoistic. If you can deny your body a particular need, you become more egoistic. Fight, in any manner, is always ego-satisfying and ego-fulfilling.

To me, sannyas is something positive, not negative. It is not to deny your bodily needs. It is not to deny your superficial needs it is to develop, to grow in your inwardness. It is not fighting against something, it is giving all your energies toward growing something. Your being must grow and must become mature. The more your being grows, the less you will be your ego. And once your being has grown, you know what is need and what is desire.

Otherwise you can never know; you can never make a distinction between what is a need and what is a desire.

Desire is always mad, need is always sensible. If you deny your needs, you are suicidal.

If you go on increasing your desires, again you are suicidal. If you go on denying your needs, you are committing suicide. If you go on increasing your desires, then again you are committing suicide, in a different way.

If desires become too much, if desires are so overwhelmingly great, you will become mad. The tension will be unbearable. If you deny your needs, again you create tensions that will become unbearable. So there are two types of suicidal minds: one which goes on denying its needs, and one which goes on transforming its needs into desires. And this distinction can never be made outwardly. No one else can decide for you what is the desire and what is the need. Your own awareness will be the measure, because to one, something maybe a need and to another it may be a desire. So no ready-made answer can be given.

Only this much can be said: that without which you cannot exist is the minimum definition of need. But one's own awareness will decide, ultimately, and that too cannot be decided forever because today something may be a need, tomorrow it may be a desire.

This moment it is a need, and that moment it may be a desire. But once there is positive awareness in you, you are aware of your mind and its cunning and shattering ways; once you are aware of your ego, its methods of strengthening itself, its methods of feeding itself, you will know the distinction.

So I am not negative. Sannyas, neo-sannyas, is absolutely positive. It is to grow something in you. I am to give you a positive attitude toward your being, not a negative attitude. You are not to deny anything. Of course, many things may be denied -- not by you, but automatically. As you go more inward, you will shrink outwardly. The less one is a being inwardly, the more he has to substitute himself outwardly. He will go on spreading.

But do not struggle with your spreading, outward self. Struggle with the seed which is you, which can grow to such heights that this outward nonsense will automatically fall down. Once you know the inner riches, then there is nothing which is comparable from the outside world. Once you know the inner bliss, then enjoyment is foolish, then all that goes on in the name of entertainment is foolish, stupid. It just falls down once you know the inner ecstasy. Then all that is known as happiness, joy, is nothing but deception. But not before -- unless you have known the inner happiness you cannot say that, and if you say that then you will be in a greater deception.

So a positive attitude toward sannyas means a dimension altogether different. You can be where you are, you can go on doing whatever you are doing -- no outward change is immediately asked for. Of course there will be changes, but they will come. When they come, let them come, but do not try, do not make any effort. Do not force them to come.

And I see more possibility for positive sannyas, for positive renunciation, in the world that is coming.

That negative concept of denying oneself was possible previously for so many reasons.

One was the way society was structured. All the agricultural societies could allow some persons to be completely without work. But the more the society is industrialized, the lesswill be the possibility of joint families. The more individuality, the less will be the possibility of joint families. Loose economic structure could allow more joint families, but the more planned the economy, the less will be the possibility of joint families. Those who were sadhus and monks seem to be exploiters. Now they cannot be respected, now they cannot exist. And as I see it, everyone must do whatever he can do; one must contribute to the society in which one exists. One should not remain an exploiter. One should not be, and the religious person cannot be, an exploiter. And if a religious person can exploit, then we cannot expect others not to exploit.

To me, a sannyasin will not be an exploiter. He will earn a living. He will be a producer, not only a consumer. So a productive concept also goes with the positive. The old concept of the non-productive monks was well adjusted with the negative attitude. The positive attitude will have more implications. For example, the old concept of sannyas denied many things. It denied a family, it denied sex, denied love. It denied everything that contributes to society's happiness -- that can contribute to your own happiness. It denied -- I will not deny.

That does not mean that I allow. When I say I will not deny, it only means a moment can come when a person becomes absolutely transcendental -- for example, to sex. That is another thing, that is not a requirement but a consequence. It is not needed before sannyas, it will come after sannyas. And I will not make it a guilt if it does not come. The old concept is very cruel, it was sadistic and masochistic both. Sex was denied because sex seems to give a glimpse of happiness.

So many religions allowed sex without happiness. You can just use it for reproduction, but you should not have any happiness out of it. Only then it is not a sin. So sex is not really a sin. "But you should not be happy. To be happy is a sin." To me everything that is given to human beings is not to be denied; it is not to be suppressed. Let the inner flowering come first -- then you will see that so many energy channels have changed their course. And the difference will be great.

If you deny sex, then you have to deny love also. Those sannyasins who deny, will become loveless. They talk about love but they become loveless. They talk about "universal love." It is always easier to talk about universal love than to love a single individual -- that is more arduous, to love the whole universe is so easy; nothing is involved. And one who thinks in terms of denial will talk of universal love and will go on denying and uprooting individual feelings.

Religion that denies sex will have to deny love, because with love there is every possibility that sex may follow. But as I see it, if sex is not denied but transformed with your positive growth, then there is no need to deny love. You can be loving. And unless you are loving, the energy that may come to you that is not going through the sex channel cannot be used. It will become destructive. So to me a growing love is the only possibility of transcending sex.

Love must grow. It must go up to the universe, but it must not begin from there, it is never from the far. And one who thinks that one should begin from the far is deceiving himself. Every journey has to begin from the near. The first step that is to be taken cannot be taken from the far. One should be a loving individual. And the more one's love grows deep, the less he becomes sexual and the more love will spread.

So I will not deny anything, because ultimately bliss is to be sought. Everyone is seeking bliss. Happiness is not to be denied, but when there is an explosion of bliss you will know that whatever you have been thinking as happiness was fake. But you cannot throw it at this moment. Let the bliss come first. That is what is meant by positive growth. Let something come in you, something greater, only then the lesser will be thrown. And your ego will not be strengthened by it because when you throw it, you throw something useless, worthless.

All those who claim renunciation say they left this and that. They show by this that nothing great has been achieved. Whatever they have renounced yet remains meaningful.

It is there in their memory, it is still a part of the mind, they are still the owners. Of course they have renounced, but how can one renounce something which one does not own? So if you go on thinking about renunciation, you are still owning. In a negative way you are the owner.

But once you know a greater phenomenon -- a greater bliss, a greater happiness -- then you are not renouncing things. They just drop away, just like dry leaves from the tree. No one knows and no one hears, the dry leaves just drop. The tree remains oblivious to it and there is no wound left behind. So, to me, everything has a moment to happen, a moment of ripeness -- ripeness is all. One must ripen; otherwise one will be wandering unnecessarily and harassing himself unnecessarily and destroying himself unnecessarily.

One should ripen, then the opportunity comes by itself.

So renunciation is through positive growth. That is what I mean by my sannyas -- renunciation through positive growth. There is no negativity at all, no denial, no suppression.

I accept the human being as he is. Of course, now much is potential, but as he is, he is not to be condemned. There is nothing to be condemned. He is the seed, and if you condemn the seed, how can you acclaim the tree? I accept the human being as he is -- totally, with no denial at all. Only I do not say that this is all he can be, that this is the end. I only say that this is the beginning. The human being is only a seed which can grow into a great tree, which can grow into divinity. Each human being can be a god. But now, as he is, he is only a seed. The seed is to be protected, the seed is to be loved, and the seed is to be given every opportunity to grow.

Sannyas means that you have come to realize that you are a seed, a potentiality. This is not the end. This is only the beginning, and now you must decide to go into that growth.

That growth comes through freedom, that growth comes through insecurity. You see a seed -- very secure. A tree is not so secure. The seed is closed, closed completely. The moment the seed dies and the tree begins to grow, the potentiality begins to be activated.

There are dangers -- insecurity will be there, there will be every possibility of destruction, a very delicate thing fighting against the whole universe. But now you are only a seed, there is no danger.

To be a sannyasin means now you take the decision to grow. And this is the last decision.

Now you will have to struggle, now you will have insecurity, you will have dangers, and you will have to fight and face them moment to moment. This moment-to-moment fight and struggle, this fighting into the unknown, this fight for the unknown, this living in the unknown, is the real renunciation.

To decide to grow is a great renunciation -- a renunciation of the security that is given to the seed, a renunciation of the wholeness that is given to the seed. But this security is at a very great cost. The seed is dead, it is only potentially living. It can live, or it can remain dead. Unless it grows, becomes a tree, it is dead. And as far as I know, human beings, unless they decide to grow, unless they take a jump into the unknown, are like seeds -- dead, closed.

To be a sannyasin is to take a decision to grow, to take a decision to go into dangers, to take a decision to live in indecision. This seems paradoxical. It is not. One has to begin somewhere, and even to live indecisively one has to have a decision somewhere. Even to go into insecurity is going somewhere, and one has to decide it. I help your decision and create a situation in which you can make a decision. This neo-sannyas can go to the very core of the world. It can reach to everyone because nothing special is needed -- only understanding.

Another thing I would like to explain is that this sannyas is not bound to any religion. On this earth every type of sannyas has been part and parcel of a particular religion, a particular sect. That too is is a part of a security measure. You renounce, yet you belong.

You say, "I have left the society," yet you belong to the sect. You go on being a Hindu, a Moslem or a Sikh. You go on being something.

Really, sannyas means to be religious and not to be bound to any religion. Again, it is a great jump into the unknown. Religions are known, but religion is the unknown. A sect has systems, religion has no system. A sect has scriptures; religion has only existence, no scriptures. This sannyas is existential, religious, nonsectarian.

That does not mean that this sannyas will deny a Mohammedan Mohammedanism, that this sannyas will deny a Christian Christianity -- no! It means, really, quite the reverse. It means it will give the Christians the real Christianity. It will give the Hindu the real Hinduism, because the deeper you go into the Hindu religion, ultimately the Hinduism will drop and you will find religiousness only. The deeper you go into Christianity, the less it will be like Christianity and the more like religion. At once, you reach to the center of the religion.

So when I say by becoming a sannyasin you belong to no religion as such, I do not mean that you are denying Christianity or Hinduism or Jainism. You are only denying the dead part that has become burdensome in religion. You are only denying the dead tradition, and you are uncovering and discovering again the living current, the living current behind all the dead -- dead traditions, dead scriptures, dead gurudoms, dead churches.

You are again finding the living current. It is always there but it is always to be rediscovered; each one has to discover it again. It cannot be transferred, it cannot be transmitted. No one can give it to you. Whatever has been given will be dead. You will have to dig it deep within yourself, otherwise you never find it. So I am not giving you a religion, I am giving you only the push to find the living current. It will be your own finding, and it can never be anyone else's. So I am not transmitting anything to you.

-Osho, "I Am the Gate, #2, Q1"