The law of inner victory is very strange. In the outer world if you want to be victorious you have to be violent, aggressive, you have to be ready to fight. In the inner world just the opposite is the case: if you want to be victorious you have to forget fighting, you have to drop the very idea of fight. You are not to be violent, you have to be loving, non-violent, compassionate. In a single word, if one is capable of surrendering then only does one become victorious in the inward journey. Victory comes through surrender, through a deep let-go.

 

That’s what sannyas is all about: a deep let-go, dropping all struggle, fight, aggression, ambition. And when you drop all these things suddenly you become aware that the ego has evaporated, because the ego needs all these things as supports, as nourishment. The outer victory is nothing but an ego trip. The inner victory is the victory of egolessness.

 

Man appears to be a mortal — he is not. Death is the most false phenomenon in existence, because nobody has ever died. Nobody can die in the very nature of things. Nothing ever dies, death is not possible at all. Life is eternal, beginningless, endless. But this can be known only through the grace of God. You cannot know it through your own efforts, your efforts will be small. You cannot know it by your own mind, your mind’s reach is small. But if God is gracious it can happen.

 

So what is needed on your part is to be worthy of receiving God’s grace. And that’s what my whole teaching is, to be receptive, to be grateful, to be open, to be vulnerable, so that when God knocks on your door the doors are not closed, so that when he comes your eyes are not closed, so that when he comes in your heart he finds you waiting, expectant.

 

Man’s efforts are small. They are good as far as the world is concerned, man can do many things in the world. But as far as the beyond is concerned, man’s efforts are absolutely irrelevant. We can only allow God to take possession of us, we can allow him to do whatsoever he wants to do. We can be in a let-go. That surrender is sannyas, that trust is sannyas, that infinite love is sannyas. One can surrender only and love only if there is infinite love.

 

I don’t say to believe in God. I say experience. Any belief not rooted in your own experience is false. It is dangerous. It hinders your true experience; it prevents your search. It does not allow you to be open to the truth, because you are already carrying many conclusions.

 

So let this birth of sannyas in you be a discontinuation with the past. Unlearn all that you have learned up to now. Forget your past, disconnect yourself, don’t look back. Look in the moment, in the present, and be in a totally relaxed state, available. That availability makes you worthy. God comes only to those who are available to him.

 

To be available is to be prayerful. To be open and receptive is to be really religious.

 

Praise is one of the most difficult things to do because it goes against the ego.

The ego wants to condemn, the ego is always negative, it always looks at the darker side of things. It counts the thorns in a rose bush, it ignores the roses -- and if you ignore them then they don't exist for you.

Praise is difficult because of this, the ego finds it almost impossible to praise. It can't look at the positive side of things.

Life has both, the negative and the positive. They can exist only in a togetherness, they are interdependent. Now, it is up to you what to choose. If you choose the negative you become irreligious. Then your life is a condemnation, a condemnation of everything, and that creates misery. You are surrounded by a condemned existence. And nobody else is responsible for it, it is your own doing. You could have chosen the positive, you could have counted the roses, you could have ignored the thorns. Then naturally praise arises. If you can see the beauty, the joy of existence, the sheer poetry of existence, the music of it all, it is impossible not to praise. But the first barrier has to be dropped.

So my message for you is: if you choose to be with me you will have to risk finding yourself, you must risk finding yourself. And the only way to find oneself is to risk the ego. It is painful, it hurts. You have lived with the ego for so long, you have become almost one with it. But being a sannyasin means that you are choosing the path of egolessness. You will have to drop all that is implied in the ego: all kinds of jealousies, possessiveness, hatred, anger, all that is negative and dark, all that creates hell in you. The ego is the source of all hell. Once ego disappears you are in paradise again.

And by being a sannyasin you are choosing me. So remember it, if you choose to be with me you must risk finding yourself.

But only in the beginning does it look as if you are risking something, because the ego is a false entity. The master asks only that the false should be surrendered so that the real can take possession of you. The moment you drop the false you become the real. The real is repressed by the false. The false is sitting on the chest of the real, almost killing it. The real is suffocated inside you, it needs to be released. The false has become the prison, the prison has to be broken, demolished. Howsoever painful the process is it is tremendously paying, ultimately.

A sannyasin should not look for the close, nearby result. He should have a longer vision, we should see things in the ultimate sense. Then life starts going through a radical transformation.

If you have a very short vision non-essential things seem to very essential. If you have longer vision, a deeper insight, then the case is just the opposite: the essential becomes important, the intrinsic becomes important. The non-essential and the accidental become almost so unimportant that they disappear, they wither away by themselves.

 

- Osho, “If You Choose to be With Me, #1”