Sannyas is the ultimate intimacy

 

 

 

Question 2

Beloved Osho,

What of those who take Sannyas in poona, only to drop it back in their home environment?

 

 

Anand Lionel, they are assholes. And they are assholes not because they drop sannyas but because they take it. Their idea is that by taking sannyas here they will gain something, and then back home they can drop it. But if this idea is there from the very beginning, that "I am going to drop it when I am back home," sannyas will not be a blessing to you. It cannot be a blessing to such a cunning mind. You will become a sannyasin and yet you will not become a sannyasin.

 

I know there are people, at least ten percent of the people.... I know immediately when they come to take sannyas -- their eyes say it, their vibe says it, their whole being stinks of cunningness. But I respect people, I cannot say no. And then I think what is the harm? Let them play the game of being a sannyasin. And who knows? Sometimes a few people are caught too. In the beginning when they take sannyas they are just taking it to see what it is all about. But unawares they may be caught in it, they may be trapped.

 

Being here for three or four months as a sannyasin, they may find it almost impossible to drop it back home. But even if they drop it, that is their business. They are just being stupid. They are trying to have intimacy with me, because that intimacy can transform you, can give you a new birth. But the intimacy is possible only if there is not a wall of cunningness between you and me. And the wall is there.

 

I give them sannyas, seeing the wall, the Great China Wall, between me and them. I know they are not truly getting into it; they are just being clever. They are not clever, just being clever, because a really clever person will not deceive himself. And there are things you can be immensely benefited by, but only when you don't play games.

 

For example, love can be a transforming force in your life. But if you are just playing a role, acting, it is not going to enrich you. In fact, on the contrary, it may impoverish you more. If you love a woman or a man, without really loving, just pretending, then you are learning something, that love is futile. Your whole life may become poisoned. Each time you love, that cunningness will be there; it will circulate in your blood, in your being. And you will know from the very beginning that it is all a game. You will never become intimate with any person -- and intimacy is a revelation.

 

Sannyas is the ultimate intimacy. You cannot be cunning. And if you are, you are deceiving only yourself. But why, Anand Lionel, has this question arisen in you? You have taken sannyas only a few days ago. This must be lurking somewhere in your unconscious. This is your question, this may be your idea; maybe you are not very conscious about it.

 

You may be thinking that you are asking the question for others, but others can ask questions for themselves; you need not worry about them. Who are you to be worried about them? Don't you have worries of your own? But this question must be there, somewhere deep in your unconscious; this must be your strategy. And still, I repeat, you may not be conscious of it, but the unconscious has erupted in this question.

But this is not exceptional. The world is full of assholes -- so if a few assholes manage to come here, it is not a surprise. It is natural. I keep a ten percent margin for them; ten percent of people are bound to be deceptive. In fact it is a miracle that it is only ten percent.

 

People have forgotten the language of commitment, involvement. People don't know the beauties of commitment, they don't know the joys of dedication. They don't know what it means to be utterly dedicated to something. To be utterly dedicated to something means giving birth to a soul in you. It integrates you, it gives you a backbone. Otherwise people who don't have any experience of commitment -- in love, in trust -- they live a life without a spine; they are spineless, they are just a hotchpotch, lousy. They are not really men; they have not yet arrived at that dignity of being a man.

 

To be a man means to be committed, to be involved, to be ready to go to the very extreme of some experience. If it appeals to you, if it convinces you, if it converts you, then one has to be ready to go wherever it leads you -- to the unknown, to the uncharted. Yes, there are many fears, and there are many problems to be faced and many challenges to be accepted, but this is how one grows, this is how one matures.

 

Millions of people in the world remain immature, childish, for the simple reason that they don't know how to commit themselves. They just remain rootless. And whenever a tree is rootless you can infer what is going to happen to the tree. Slowly slowly, all juice will disappear from the tree, because it is no longer connected to any source of juice. The sap will not flow in it, it will lose its greenness, it will not be young and alive any more. It will lose luster, grandeur, brilliance; it will lose all luminosity, it will not bloom. Springs will come and go, but it will just remain there, dead, dry.

 

That's what has happened to millions of people. They have lost their soil. Through sannyas I am trying to give you a soil that can nourish you, so that the sap can start flowing again in your system, so that again some juice flows in you, so that you become juicy again, so that again you are young, youthful, fresh. Man has lost one quality, the quality of zestfulness. And without zest, what is life? Just waiting for death? It can't be anything else. Only with zest do you live; otherwise you vegetate.

 

Sannyas is not renunciation, it is a way to live life in its totality and intensity. It is the art of living life in all its dimensions, it is the way to live life in all its richness. It is not the old idea of sannyas. I am not creating monks and nuns -- no, not at all. I am creating alive people, vibrant, pulsating, zestful people, young and fresh, ready to go on any adventure in search of truth, in search of love, in search of God.

 

How can you drop sannyas? That's why I say they are assholes, not because they drop sannyas. They are assholes because they take it. They don't understand what they are doing. They are not aware of where they are moving. They are not conscious; they are just sleepwalkers, robots, zombies. When they see that so many people have become sannyasins, their mob psychology, their crowd mind, their sheep mind, immediately gives them the idea, "So I also have to become a sannyasin."

 

Why? Unless it is a decision that arises in your very innermost core, why be bothered with it? Unless you start having a love relationship with me, why be bothered with it? Unless I have touched a chord in your heart, unless some music has happened in you through me, why be bothered about it?

 

But they are not taking sannyas from me; they are taking sannyas from you, from other sannyasins. Seeing so many people in orange, and seeing so many people happy and joyous, they become jealous. They become competitive, they start feeling they are missing something. A dream arises in them: "I should also know what this sannyas is." Certainly they know that they will not be able to follow it the whole way, but they say, they argue, within themselves, "At least while you are here, why not be a sannyasin and have a taste of it? And then when you go back home just forget all about it, so nobody will know about it and you can be part of your old routine again."

 

This is how the mob mind functions. And sannyas is not for the mob mind, it is not for the sheepish mind. It is for lions. And I am really surprised, Anand Lionel.... It seems I have given you the wrong name. A lion, asking such a question? The question arises out of a very cowardly mind. The question arises out of a very cunning mind. And still, I repeat, you may not be aware of it -- but that is more dangerous. If you are aware, something can be done.

 

That's why I am answering it, to make you aware of it. This is one of the transforming processes of life: if you become aware of something, you can get rid of it very easily. If you are not aware of it, there is no question of getting rid of it. So sometimes I even have to be hard with you, sometimes I have to be really cruel with you -- because to wrench truths from the unconscious is not an easy affair. It is surgical, it hurts. And the surgery that I do, I do without any anaesthesia, because the unconscious has to be made conscious. So while I am talking to you and bringing some unconscious truth towards your consciousness, you cannot be put to sleep. If you are asleep, the unconscious will never become conscious.

 

So this psychological surgery has to be without any anaesthesia. The pain has to be accepted. And those who understand, they will welcome it. Not only will they welcome it, they will feel thankful, grateful, that I have brought something that was lurking deep down in the darkness into the conscious part of their mind. Now it can be dropped.

This is a miracle of consciousness. Anything that becomes conscious can be dropped very easily. This is the whole secret of psychoanalysis and all the other psychotherapies that have evolved out of psychoanalysis: to bring things from the unconscious to the conscious. That's the whole function of the psychoanalyst. Once they are conscious, you yourself are capable of dropping them -- because who wants to carry ugly things when one knows they are there? But ugly things can be carried for lives together if you are not aware.

 

And remember, the conscious itself wants to get rid of many things, but you don't allow it to have its say with you. Hence it has to find indirect ways. For example, in a dream it may communicate something to you, but by the morning you tend to forget it.

There are very few people who remember their dreams. Why? It is such a colorful experience, and the whole night you have been dreaming. Out of eight hours, for at least six hours you have been dreaming. And I am talking about normal people, who don't exist. What to say about the abnormal? They can manage to dream sixteen hours in eight hours! They can dream many dreams together, one dream overlapping another dream, dream into dream into dream. They can have such dreams... for example you can dream that you are going to a movie, and in the movie you see yourself on the screen as a person who is going to sleep, falls asleep and starts dreaming that he is going to a movie! This can go on and on and on, dreams within dreams within dreams.

 

I am not talking about abnormal people; even normal people, very normal people, dream six hours per night. In fact that is the greatest activity that you do. You don't do anything else for six hours every day. Six hours continuously dreaming! And in the morning all is forgotten; or only for a few seconds early on, for four or five seconds you remember a few things, a few fragments. And then soon, by the time you have taken your tea in bed, they have disappeared. The unconscious tries hard, for six hours every night, to relate to you what you are doing with your life. But you don't listen. It tries in other ways too.

 

For example, this question is an effort of the unconscious to relate to you something that is there as a seed. The unconscious always wants to communicate with the conscious. Why? Because the unconscious is so burdened, so heavy, it wants to unburden itself. And how can it unburden? There is only one way: to relate to the conscious. Hence Freud developed the technique of free association. He had to invent the couch, because if the patient is sitting it is difficult to connect with the unconscious. Our habitual way of connecting with the unconscious is by lying down on the bed; that has become a permanent habit, you have to be horizontal. The Freudian couch is significant; it helps your unconscious to relate to the conscious.

 

And Freud used to disappear behind the couch, behind a curtain -- because if somebody is present, the unconscious may remain shy, embarrassed, and the conscious may distort, may censor. So he used to hide behind a screen. The patient would be lying down on the couch relaxing, and Freud would say, "Just start saying whatsoever comes to your mind. Don't edit it, don't correct it, don't try to make it look beautiful, sophisticated, logical, significant. Just let it be as it is, raw. Simply let it come out as it is."

 

The first few sessions are not significant. But slowly slowly the patient relaxes, starts free associating, and the unconscious unburdens itself. Psychoanalysis does nothing else, it simply helps you to unburden the unconscious. It makes things conscious which have remained unconscious for long. And just in that very process things start changing. One or two years of psychoanalysis, and the person has changed enormously; he is totally a different person, more at ease, more at home. What has happened? Because the psychoanalyst has not done anything; no medicine has been given, no psychiatric treatment has been given.

 

In fact the real psychoanalyst does not even comment, because commentary may become a disturbance. He simply listens; he is just ears and ears and nothing else. He is a passive silent listener, so you can unburden yourself totally, without any interference.

The unconscious has its own language. It talks in metaphors, it talks in pictures. Its language is not conceptual, its language is pictorial. But its language is totally different from the language that you know. Now, this is a way of the unconscious. Lionel is asking as if it is somebody else's question -- it is not.

 

I have heard: A friend came to see a black couple. The father was very proud of his only child, a baby girl of eighteen months. He was bragging about the baby so much that the friend became interested and wanted to see the baby. So the baby was called and the father started talking about her intelligence, genius, and this and that. And then the baby said, "Mother...." The father beamed and said to the friend, "See, she has already spoken half a word!"

 

Get it?... ... NOW you got it -- it takes a little time! Now, the baby is simply saying "Mother" but the father has his own ideas, he is interpreting in his own way. Drop interpretations. At least with me, be utterly nude. Why can't you ask the question: "Osho, if I go back and drop sannyas, then...?" It would have been so beautiful, so sincere. But you have changed it.

 

You say: "What of those who take sannyas in Poona, only to drop it back in their home environment?"

 

They have never taken sannyas. Once you take sannyas, it cannot be dropped. It is not something that can be dropped. It is a milieu, an experience that goes so deep into you that it becomes your very heart. It permeates you.

 

Sannyas is not just the orange clothes and the mala; that is just symbolic. Sannyas is something totally different, far more deep-going. It is not in the clothes. Once you have taken sannyas it is impossible to drop it -- but the real crux is whether you have taken it. If you can drop it, that will simply show that you had never taken it in the first place. And if you have not taken it, you will not be benefited by it. Then naturally the mind will say, "What is the point? For three months you have been a sannyasin, and nothing has happened. Why not drop it?"

 

And nothing has happened because from the very beginning you were not in it. You were not a participant; you were being tricky, you were being diplomatic. Please don't be diplomatic here. This is an intimate relationship; please don't bring any cleverness between me and you. With me, be simple, innocent, and then miracles are possible. You are entitled to miracles. But unless you allow them they cannot happen. They can happen only with your cooperation.

 

- Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #6, Q2"