My sannyas is the most complicated phenomenon - OSHO

Sannyas needs courage more than anything else, because it is a declaration of your individuality, a declaration of freedom, a declaration that you will not be any longer part of the mob madness, the mob psychology. It is a declaration that you are becoming universal, you will not belongs to any country to any race, to any religion you will be religious but you will not be Muslim, Hindu, or Christian. You will love Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad because you will be religious, but you will not belong to any dogma or creed and you will not belongs to any state, any nation, because all those boundaries are false, all these divisions are ugly. The earth is one, and sannyas is a declaration of the oneness of humanity.

It certainly needs courage. It also needs courage because it is getting rid of tradition, of the past, of history. It is trying to live in the present according to your own light, not being dominated by the dead, not being dominated by history. To be free of history is such a tremendous joy, but it is also a risk, because then you are left alone, then you don’t have any guidelines, any maps to follow. But that’s the beauty of it too. When you don’t have any guidelines your own consciousness rises to take the challenge. When you don’t have the map you start exploring on your own. Then life becomes an adventure.

Sannyas is to live innocently, to live non-cleverly, to live non-calculatingly, to live without mathematics, without logic. Sannyas means saying goodbye to Aristotle... To live like a madman, and to live intensely and passionately. And the first step is to drop out of the past. People drop out of society- that is not much help. Because even if you drop out of society, you carry your past, which has been made, cultivated, conditioned by that society. You can go against society but you are part of society, so I don’t say drop out of society- I say drop out of your past. That is the real dropping out of society.

And about the change of your name is just indicative that you disown your past-that now you are no longer continuous with the past. Of course you cannot erase it, it is there. But increasingly you will see that it belonged to somebody else, that it is as if you had dreamt about it or you had seen a movie or read a novel you are totally separate from it.

Sannyas is new for you, always choose the new, always choose the unknown, and that has made all the difference, life grows only by choosing challenges. Life grows only by going into the storms. Life grows only by risking, gambling, sannyas needs courage. The old sannyas was not so dangerous. People think my sannyas is easier than the old, ancient idea of sannyas. But they are utterly wrong. the old sannyas  is very simple because it  expected, not only expected but demanded—that you renounce the world, it was simple, you went into a monastery, you live there, undisturbed,  undistracted by the world. Meditation becomes your whole life with no distractions. It was a monotonous life. The word ‘monastery’ and ‘monotony’ come from the same root. So does the word ‘monk’. Life was settled, monotonous, repetitive, the same, and the world was left far behind. It was easy.

My sannyas is far more complex. You have to live in the market-place and yet live as if you were living in a monastery. You have to accept all the distractions of life and yet remain undistracted. You have to be in the world and not be of it. I have thrown a great challenge to you. The old concept of sannyas was not challenging enough. It was very appealing to the cowards, to the escapists-those who were weary of life those who were tired of life, those who were incapable of life, they have escaped from life.

It is life that gives you sharpness; otherwise your sword will never be sharp. It is the struggle in life that provokes all the springs of your talents to come to the surface. You have to be intelligent to survive.

My sannyas is the most complicated phenomenon that has ever happened on the earth because I don’t say to you leave the world, I say live in it, indulge in it, love it enjoy it, go as deeply as possible so your intelligence is sharpened, your life provoked, your dormant sources of energies become dynamic, flowing. And yet keep yourself centered in your being-a watcher on the hills.

Remain an actor and let the life be just a drama where you are fulfilling a certain role. But don’t get identified with the role. Remember continuously that this is a role – that you are a carpenter or a doctor or an engineer or a teacher, husband, wife, mother, father, son – that these are all roles and the earth is a great stage and a great drama is on. God is the author of it and the director of it and you are just actors, participating. When the curtain falls your roles will disappear. You will again be just a pure being. You will not be the role that you had played. The world has to be transformed into an opportunity to remember yourself, for self-remembering. 

Hence sannyas is arduous. And I know that everybody hesitates before they take the jump, but if the desire has arisen, if the longing is there, don’t kill it, because that will be suicidal. Experiment with it, explore this new dimension. You have lived one way-what is the point of going on repeating it again and again? Live this new style too. Who knows? – You may come across god on this way. Who knows? - Fulfillment may await you on this path.

OSHO.   

Tale 55 ~ 100 Tales For 10,000 Buddhas

Meditation camp will soon be happening in Manali. Today morning, He asks me if I like the orange colour dress of Laxmi. I say, “Yes Osho, it looks good on her.” He says, “It will look good in the meditation camp, the participants wearing the same colour. You get one dress made like Laxmi’s.” He gives the same message to Karuna also. We both agree to it.

Since that message, He has asked us three time if our orange dresses are ready. And our answer is the same, “Not yet.” There is still quite a time until the meditation camp. To my surprise today, I go to see Him and find this big pile of orange cloth sitting in one of the corners of His room. He asks me to cut the piece of cloth for my dress. I feel ashamed for not making my dress in time and giving Him all this trouble. Maybe I was not serious about it, but He looks serious. With the help of a friend, I cut four meters

of cloth for me with shaky hands. Some unknown fear grips me and I am unable to look at Him. He calls me and I sit near His feet, with the bundle of cloth in my lap, looking at the floor.

He blesses me by keeping His hand on my head and says, “Get this dress made exactly in the same pattern as Laxmi’s. It will look good on you.” I look at His mischievously smiling face and get more confused, not understanding what He is up to.

Osho – A sannyasin is a person who lives more and more in alertness

Osho – Each sannyasin will be a totally unique person. I am not interested in the society. I am not interested in the collectivity. My interest is absolutely in individuals — in you! And meditation can succeed where mind has failed, because meditation is a radical revolution in your being — not the revolution that changes the government, not the revolution that changes the economy, but the revolution that changes your consciousness, that transforms you from the noosphere to the christosphere, that changes you from a sleepy person into an awakened soul. And when you are awakened, all that you do is good.
That’s my definition of ‘good’ and ‘virtue’: the action of an awakened person is virtue, and the action of an unawakened person is sin. There is no other definition of sin and virtue. It depends on the person — his consciousness, his quality that he brings to the act. So sometimes it can happen that the same act may be virtuous and the same act may be sinful. The acts may apparently be the same, but the people behind the acts can be different.
For example, Jesus entered into the temple of Jerusalem with a whip in his hand to throw out the moneychangers. He upset their moneychanging boards. Alone, singlehandedly, he threw all the moneychangers out of the temple. It looks very violent — Jesus with a whip, throwing people out of the temple. But he was not violent. Lenin doing the same thing will be violent, and the act will be sinful. Jesus doing the same act is virtuous. He is acting out of love; he cares. He cares about these moneychangers too! It is out of his care, concern, love, awareness, that he is acting. He is acting drastically because only that will give them a shock and will create a situation in which some change is possible. The act can be the same, but if a person is awake the quality of the act changes.
A sannyasin is a person who lives more and more in alertness. And the more there are people who exist through awareness, the better the world that will be created. Civilization has not yet happened.
It is said that somebody asked the Prince of Wales, “What do you think about civilization?” And the Prince of Wales is reported to have said, “It is a good idea. Somebody is needed to try it. It has not happened yet.”
Sannyas is just a beginning, a seed of a totally different kind of world where people are free to be themselves, where people are not constrained, crippled, paralyzed, where people are not repressed, made to feel guilty, where joy is accepted, where cheerfulness is the rule, where seriousness has disappeared, where a nonserious sincerity, a playfulness has entered. These can be the indications, the fingers pointing to the moon.
First: an openness to experience. People are ordinarily closed; they are not open to experience. Before they experience anything they already have prejudices about it. They don’t want to experiment, they don’t want to explore. This is sheer stupidity!
A man comes and wants to meditate, and if I tell him to go and dance, he says, “What will be the outcome of dancing? How can meditation come out of dancing?” I ask him, “Haveyou ever danced?” He says, “No, never.” Now this is a closed mind. An open mind will say, “Okay. I will go into it and see. Maybe through dancing it can happen.” He will have an open mind to go into it, with no prejudice. This man who says, “How can meditation happen out of dance?” — even if he is persuaded to go into meditation, he will carry this idea in his head: “How can meditation happen out of dance?” And it is not going to happen to him. And when it does not happen, his old prejudice will be strengthened more. And it has not happened because of the prejudice.
This is the vicious circle of the closed mind. He comes full of ideas, he comes readymade. He is not available to new facts, and the world is continuously bombarded with new facts. The world goes on changing and the closed mind remains stuck in the past. And the world goes on changing, and every moment something new descends into the world. God goes on painting the world anew again and again and again, and you go on carrying your old, dead ideologies in your heads.
So the first quality of a sannyasin is an openness to experience. He will not decide before he has experienced. He will never decide before he has experienced. He will not have any belief systems. He will not say, “This is so because Buddha says it.” He will not say, “This is so because it is written in the Vedas.” He will say, “I am ready to go into it and see whether it is so or not.”
Buddha’s departing message to his disciples was this: “Remember”… and this he was repeating for his whole life, again and again; the last message also was this — “Remember, don’t believe in anything because I have said it. Never believe anything unless you have experienced it.”
A sannyasin will not carry many beliefs; in fact, none. He will carry only his own experiences. And the beauty of experience is that the experience is always open, because further exploration is possible. And belief is always closed; it comes to a full point. Belief is always finished. Experience is never finished, it remains unfinished. While you are living how can your experience be finished? Your experience is growing, it is changing, it is moving. It is continuously moving from the known into the unknown and from the unknown into the unknowable.
And remember, experience has a beauty because it is unfinished. Some of the greatest songs are those which are unfinished. Some of the greatest books are those which are unfinished. Some of the greatest music is that which unfinished. The unfinished has a beauty.
Source – Osho Book “The Heart Sutra”

Osho – the second birth becomes possible only through meditation

Osho – Man is a potentiality, a possibility. We can miss it millions miss it, and the reason why we miss is very simple: we think that we have already attained life. We make birth synonymous with life — that is our fundamental misunderstanding. Birth is only an opportunity to be alive, it is not synonymous with life. One can live a very unalive life. One can go on dragging; one can go on moving through life in deep sleep, one can be a somnabulist.
In fact that’s how man is: a machine. Man is not yet alive, has not yet been touched by God, has not allowed God to touch him, has not been available to God. Hence we carry great seeds which can become trees and can blossom, and a great fragrance can be released into existence. We can beautify existence, we can be a grace and a blessing to existence, but that rarely happens — only once in a while is there a Jesus, a Buddha, a Zarathustra. But millions and millions of people are born and die without living at all.
To be a sannyasin means being aware of this basic misunderstanding. Once you are aware you start seeking and searching for a second birth; and the second birth becomes possible only through meditation; hence in old, ancient scriptures, meditation is called the real mother.
Jesus says to his disciples: Unless you are born again you will not enter into my kingdom of God. In the East, the person who has attained to God is called dwija, twice-born. The second birth releases the fragrance.
And by meditation, concentration is not what is meant. Concentration is of the mind. It has its own utility: it is needed in scientific work, in accumulating knowledge. It is useful — I am not against concentration — but it has its own limitations. It cannot take you beyond the mind; it is a mind effort.
Meditation is not contemplation either. Contemplation is a little higher than concentration. If concentration is at the very center of the mind, contemplation is at the very circumference of the mind. It is more subtle. One has to be more artful, more intelligent, to be contemplative. Concentration is a little crude. It is needed by the beginner, in the schools, colleges, universities. But when one has become capable of concentrating one starts moving towards contemplation. Contemplation means an effortless awareness; concentration is great effort, it is almost forced, violent. Contemplation is nonviolent, more fluid, less enforced, more relaxed.
But meditation is still higher. It goes beyond the mind. Meditation is a state of no-mind; it is neither at the center of the mind nor at the circumference. It is simply not of the mind — it is watching the mind from the outside.
That is exactly the meaning of the English word “ecstasy” — to stand out. To stand out of the mind is ecstasy, and that’s what meditation is. Just be a watcher from the outside, no more a participant, no more identified with the mind — just as one watches the traffic on the road, sitting silently by the side under a tree: who passes is not the concern. One simply watches whatsoever is happening, with no like, no dislike, no justification, no condemnation, with no prejudice at all.
When one can watch the mind without condemning it, without appreciating it, without saying “This is good” and “This is bad,” and “This I don’t want” and “That I want,” without uttering a single statement about the mind, when one can watch it in deep silence, that is meditation. A miracle happens with meditation, and it happens only with meditation: when you are simply standing out, not participating, no longer active in any way, utterly inactive and silent, the mind disappears. Slowly slowly it goes farther and farther away, slowly slowly you hear only noises coming from a distance; and suddenly a moment comes: there is no mind. It has faded out, it has withered away.
And when the mind is not there and you are left alone without the mind, the fragrance is released. You have come home, you have become fulfilled. The onethousand-petaled lotus of your being has opened. You have offered your fragrance to existence. That is prayer. That’s the only gift we can give to God, and that is the only gift which can be accepted by God.
Source – Osho Book “Source – Osho Book “Even Bein’ Gawd Ain’t A Bed of Roses”

Osho – Sannyas means a radical change in your life style

Osho – 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.
Each moment then is so lovely, is so ecstatic
That even Alexander the Great
Will find himself poorer in comparison.
He had really found him poorer in comparison
When he came to India and met few mystics.
He wept! — because he could see the point
That he has wasted his life
And these people have nothing, still
They are so blissful, so peaceful
As if they own the whole world.
And I own the whole world and I am so miserable.
So what is the point of owning the whole world?
In fact there is no point — but it was to late.
He had gone back with a deep decision in his mind
That one he is back home
He will start pondering over the matter
Of inner journey, of inner conquest because
He has heard many stories here…
Buddha was still in the air –
Just three hundred years had passed:
Buddha was still very much alive.
When Alexander came, Buddha’s vibe
Was still very much all over the country.
Wherever he went he found many enlightened people
Buddha had left a great chain
Of enlightened people.
And wherever he went he heard the name of Buddha
And the bliss that he had attained
And the truth and the ultimate.
He went with the decision
But he could not reach home — he died in the middle
He never reached back home, it was too late.
Otherwise this man had power, had the energy.
If he could conquer the whole world
He could have conquered himself too,
But nobody had told him.
He was being taught by
A stupid philosopher, Plato.
He was just a philosopher, he was not a mystic.
Although he had lived with Socrates
And he had reported Socrates very authentically
He was a good tape recorder, but that’s all,
A good computer, but that’s all.
He himself was not a mystic.
He himself was in search of some mystic.
When Alexander was coming to India
He had asked him that, ‘At least
Bring one sannyasin from India for me as a gift.’
But no sannyasin was ready to go.
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.
Source – Osho Book “No Man Is an Island”

Osho – To be a sannyasin means a deliberate, conscious search for truth

Osho – Even priests are not interested in god. The very word “god” does not create anything in your heart, it does not ring any bells; it is something arbitrary, artificial. But bliss is natural — even trees are searching for it in their own way.
In African jungles the trees grow so high — why? The same trees don’t grow so high in India or anywhere else. In African jungles they have to grow high because they want to have sunlight and the jungles are so thick that if they don’t grow high they will not have any meeting with the stars and the moon and the sun. And that is their bliss, their joys to dance in the wind with the clouds.
Scientists are puzzled about a strange fact, that somehow trees sense, where, in what direction to send the roots. For example, if at its right side, five hundred yards away, there is a pipeline of which the tree cannot in any way be aware, it’s roots will start moving towards the pipeline; its roots won’t move in any other direction. It has some subtle sense, as if it knows instinctively where the water is.
Animals are searching for bliss in their own way, man is searching in his own way. The theists, the atheists, the believers, the non-believers — all are seeking bliss. Hence I say bliss is the ultimate truth. If you love the word “god” you can call it god, if you love the word “nirvana” you can call it nirvana, but “satyam”, the ultimate truth, is the most beautiful word.
The ultimate truth is the centre of existence, it is bliss, and everybody is moving towards it. Those who are intelligent move consciously so that they can avoid unnecessary things, unnecessary by-paths, cul-de-sacs, so they are not worried about non-essentials; they move directly. Those who are not so intelligent, not so conscious, go zigzag; they take a long time, millions of lives even.
To be a sannyasin means a deliberate, conscious search for truth, for bliss, for god. It is a commitment, an involvement, a conscious decision that ‘from this moment my life will be devoted to that which can fulfil it, which can make me contented.’
Source – Osho Book “The Miracle”

Osho – Truth is beyond all scriptures because it is beyond mind itself

Osho – Truth is beyond all scriptures because it is beyond mind itself. Scriptures are products of the mind. All philosophies, all ideologies, all theorisations, are nothing but fabrications, fictions of the mind. They can be beautiful fictions, sweet, nice — but fictions are fictions all the same. A dream can be a nightmare or a dream can be a very beautiful, sweet dream, but a dream is a dream, it is not reality.
Yes, there are beautiful scriptures in the world written by the most beautiful people, but truth cannot be written. It cannot even be expressed, it cannot be communicated, it cannot be transferred from one person to another. Yes, there is a certain communion it is not communication. That communion happens between a master and a disciple in total silence, from heart to heart, not from mind to mind. The master says nothing, the disciple heard nothing, yet everything is said and everything is heard. Nothing is said, nothing is heard yet everything is understood.
This is the most mysterious phenomenon in existence, the master-disciple relationship, mysterious because it is not intellectually comprehensible. It cannot be proved in a logical way. It is not logical at all. Hence those who become sannyasins out of a logical conviction, who through listening to me, are convinced that what I am saying is true, are only on the periphery. The true disciple has nothing to do with what I am saying, the true disciple has something to do with what I am. The true sannyasin falls in love. It is not a question of conviction. It is something far more, something far more mysterious, something transcendental; hence a real disciple cannot explain to anybody else what has happened. Everybody will think that he has gone mad, that he has been hypnotised, that he is no more in his senses.
And the people who think like that are not at fault at all; the whole fault is the disciple’s — he cannot explain. But what can the disciple do about it? The whole fault lies with reality itself. There are things which are not explainable. There are things which elude all rationalisation. And in fact, life begins only when you has come in contact with something which is incomprehensible, inexplicable, indefinable, unprovable and yet, somewhere deep down your heart says it is so. It puts aside all the arguments of the mind. It says to the mind, ‘Keep quiet. You need not bother. Now I have stumbled into something which is beyond you.’ And nothing can be done about it to make it comprehensible. It is a communion.
Sannyas is a true discipleship. It is not belief, it is not conviction, it is not accepting a certain philosophy of life. It is falling totally in love — and a love too of a very new quality. It has nothing to do with your so-called ordinary love. Just one thing is in common, that the ordinary love also has something incomprehensible in it, but only something a very small particle of the incomprehensible in it — and that is totally incomprehensible. Hence those who have loved can understand it a little bit.
But very few people have ever loved. Yes, they have known lust and they have called it love, but it is not love. They have known sex and they have called it love, but it is not love. people are very clever at giving beautiful name to ugly things. They have to give beautiful names, otherwise things look so absurd, so ridiculous. Man tries to create at least a beautiful facade; and behind the facade everything ugly can be continued.
The ordinary love contains so much jealousy, so much possessiveness, so much enmity, hatred. Just a little bit of it belongs to the beyond. But those who have known even that little bit say be able to understand it — otherwise the phenomenon of disciplehood is bound to be ridiculed by those who have never tasted the nectar of it.
The disciple has to be courageous, courageous enough to be called a madman, courageous enough to be called blind, courageous enough to be thought hypnotised. And he has to take these things in a very loving way. He has to understand and he has to be compassionate, kind, sympathetic, because what can others do? They are functioning according to their minds, and this is something not of the mind.
No scripture can be of any help, only a living master can resurrect you, Only a Jesus can call forth Lazarus from the dead. The Bible cannot do it — you can try it. You can put the Bible on a dead man’s chest and try — the Bible is there and the dead man is there, but Lazarus is not going to be resurrected. The Bible itself is dead, so are all the scriptures. A Jesus is needed, that magic touch of a living master is needed.
The parable is beautiful. That’s the state of every disciple, when he comes to a master he is dead, he is almost in his grave. The master calls forth, ‘Come out, Lazarus, come out of your grave,’ and the disciple has to listen, has to learn how to listen and has to go into the beyond with the master. It is a journey into the uncharted, into the unknown, but without it life is not life. Without it we live in pain, we don’t live at all. Only with something of the transcendental penetrating you do you become alive, you are reborn. Jesus says, ‘Unless you are born again, you shall not enter into my kingdom of god.’ This is the rebirth he is talking about — sannyas is a rebirth.
A sannyasin has to learn how to make life a festivity, how to make life a blissful festival. A sannyasin has not to be sad or serious. He has to know how to live, how to love, how to laugh. He has to become more passionate, more alive. He has to go deeper into life, as deep as possible, he has to be as total as possible. The old idea of sannyas, of monkhood, was of renunciation: renounce life, escape from life, don’t live at all, because life is against god. That is absolutely stupid! If life is against god what is god doing? Why does he go on creating life? Why did he create life in the first place?
All the religions of the world, the so-called religions, have been teaching a great contradiction. On one hand they say god created life. On the other hand they say, Renounce life, it is against god, unless you renounce you will not reach god, if you renounce you become beloved of god. The contradiction is so clear, even a child can see the contradiction. It is so ridiculous if god creates life he cannot be against it.
I am not against life, I am all for it. And my sannyasins have to learn not to escape, but to live intensely, to burn their life’s torch from both ends simultaneously. Even a single moment of total festivity is enough; you will have tasted eternity and you will have known what god is. Life is the manifest form of god and celebration is his only prayer.
Source: Osho Book “The Imprisoned Splendor”