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picsofsannyas · 6 years

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BELOVED OSHO, WHAT ARE THE QUALITIES OF A SANNYASIN?

It is very difficult to define a Sannyassin, and more so if you are going to define mySannyassins.

Sannyas is basically a rebellion about all structures, hence the difficulty to define. Sannyasis a way of living life unstructuredly. Sannyas is to have a character which is characterless. By'characterless' I mean you don't depend anymore on the past. Character means the past, theway you have lived in the past, the way you have become habituated to living -- all your habitsand conditionings and beliefs and your experiences -- that's what your character is. ASannyassin is one who no longer lives in the past or through the past; who lives in the moment,hence, is unpredictable.

A man of character is predictable; a Sannyassin is unpredictable because a Sannyassin isfreedom. A Sannyassin is not only free, he is freedom. It is living rebellion. But still, I will try:a few hints can be given, not exact definitions, a few indications, fingers pointing to the moon.Don't get caught with the fingers. The fingers don't define the moon, they only indicate. Thefingers have nothing to do with the moon. They may be long, they may be short, they may beartistic, they may be ugly, they may be white, they may be black, they may be healthy, theymay be ill -- that doesn't matter. They simply indicate. Forget the finger and look at the moon.What I am going to give is not a definition; that is not possible in this case. And, in fact,definition is never possible about anything that is alive. Definition is possible only aboutsomething which is dead, which grows no more, which blooms no more, which has no morepossibility, potentiality, which is exhausted and spent. Then definition is possible. You candefine a dead man, you cannot define an alive man.

Life basically means that the new is still possible.

So these are not definitions. The old Sannyassin has a definition, very clear-cut; that's whyhe is dead. I call my Sannyas 'neo-Sannyas' for this particular reason: my Sannyas is anopening, a journey, a dance, a love affair with the unknown, a romance with existence itself,in search of an orgasmic relationship with the whole. And everything else has failed in theworld. Everything that was defined, that was clear-cut, that was logical, has failed. Religionshave failed, politics have failed, ideologies have failed -- and they were very clear-cut. Theywere blueprints for the future of man. They have all failed. All programs have failed.Sannyas is not a program anymore. It is exploration, not a program. When you become aSannyassin I initiate you into freedom, and into nothing else. It is great responsibility to be free,then you have nothing to lean upon. Except your own inner being, your own consciousness, you have nothing as a prop, as a support. I take all your props and supports away; I leave you alone, I leave you utterly alone. In that aloneness... the flower of Sannyas.That aloneness blooms on its own accord into the flower of Sannyas.

Sannyas is characterlessness. It has no morality; it is not immoral, it is amoral. Or, it has ahigher morality that never comes from the outside but comes from within. It does not allowany imposition from the outside, because all impositions from the outside convert you intoserfs, into slaves. And my effort is to give you dignity, glory. My effort here is to give you splendour.

All other efforts have failed. It was inevitable, because the failure was built-in. They wereall structure-oriented, and every kind of structure becomes heavy on the heart of man, sooneror later. Every structure becomes a prison, and one day or other you have to rebel against it.Have you not observed it down through history? -- each revolution in its own turn becomesrepressive. In Russia it happened, in China it happened. After every revolution, therevolutionary becomes antirevolutionary. Once he comes into power he has his own structureto impose upon the society. And once he starts imposing his structure, slavery changes into anew kind of slavery, but never into freedom. All revolutions have failed.

This is not revolution, this is rebellion. Revolution is social, collective; rebellion isindividual. We are not interested in giving any structure to the society. Enough of thestructures! Let all structures go. We want individuals in the world -- moving freely, movingconsciously, of course. And their responsibility comes through their own consciousness. Theybehave rightly not because they are trying to follow certain commandments; they behaverightly, they behave accurately, because they care.

Do you know, this word accurate comes from care. The word accurate in its root means tocare about. When you care about something you are accurate. If you care about somebody, youare accurate in your relationship.

A Sannyassin is one who cares about himself, and naturally cares about everybody else --because you cannot be happy alone. You can only be happy in a happy world, in a happyclimate. If everybody is crying and weeping and is in misery, it is very, very difficult for youto be happy. So one who cares about happiness -- about his own happiness -- becomes carefulabout everybody else's happiness, because happiness happens only in a happy climate. But thiscare is not because of any dogma. It is there because you love, and the first love, naturally, isthe love for yourself. Then other loves follow. Other efforts have failed because they were mind-oriented. They were based in thethinking process, they were conclusions of the mind. Sannyas is not a conclusion of the mind.Sannyas is not thought-oriented; it has no roots in thinking. Sannyas is insightfulness; it ismeditation, not mind. It is rooted in joy, not in thought. It is rooted in celebration, not inthinking. It is rooted in that awareness where thoughts are not found. It is not a choice: it isnot a choice between two thoughts, it is the dropping of all thoughts. It is living out ofnothingness.

is what we were talking about the other day -- svaha, alleluia! It is joy in being.Now how can you define joy in being? It cannot be defined, because each one's joy inbeing is going to be different. My joy in being is going to be different from your joy in being.The joy will be the same, the taste of it will be the same, but the flowering is going to bedifferent. A lotus flowers, a rose flowers, a marigold flowers -- they all flower, and theprocess of flowering is the same. But the marigold flowers in his own way, and the rose in his,and the lotus in his. Their colours are different, their expressions are different, although thespirit is the same. And when they bloom, and when they can whisper to the winds, and whenthey can share their fragrance with the sky, they are all joyous.

Each Sannyassin will be a totally unique person. I am not interested in the society. I am notinterested in the collectivity. My interest is absolutely in individuals -- in you!

And meditation can succeed where mind has failed, because meditation is a radicalrevolution in your being -- not the revolution that changes the government, not the revolutionthat changes the economy, but the revolution that changes your consciousness, that transformsyou from the noosphere to the christosphere, that changes you from a sleepy person into anawakened 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, andthe action of an unawakened person is sin. There is no other definition of sin and virtue. Itdepends on the person -- his consciousness, his quality that he brings to the act. So sometimesit can happen that the same act may be virtuous and the same act may be sinful. The acts mayapparently 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 throwout the moneychangers. He upset their money changing boards. Alone, single-handedly, hethrew 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 beviolent, and the act will be sinful. Jesus doing the same act is virtuous. He is acting out oflove; 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 shockand 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 Sannyassin is a person who lives more and more in alertness. And the more there arepeople who exist through awareness, the better the world that will be created. Civilization hasnot yet happened.

It is said that somebody asked the Prince of Wales, "What do you think aboutcivilization?" And the Prince of Wales is reported to have said, "It is a good idea. Somebodyis 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 arefree to be themselves, where people are not constrained, crippled, paralyzed, where people arenot repressed, made to feel guilty, where joy is accepted, where cheerfulness is the rule, whereseriousness has disappeared, where a non-serious sincerity, a playfulness has entered. Thesecan be the indications, the fingers pointing to the moon: an openness to experience. People areordinarily closed; they are not open to experience. Before they experience anything they alreadyhave prejudices about it. They don't want to experiment, they don't want to explore. This is sheerstupidity!A man comes and wants to meditate, and if I tell him to go and dance, he says, "What willbe the outcome of dancing? How can meditation come out of dancing?" I ask him, "Have youever 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 openmind to go into it, with no prejudice. This man who says, "How can meditation happen out ofdance?" -- 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 whenit does not happen, his old prejudice will be strengthened more. And it has not happenedbecause 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. Theworld goes on changing and the closed mind remains stuck in the past. And the world goes onchanging, and every moment something new descends into the world. God goes on paintingthe world anew again and again and again, and you go on carrying your old, dead ideologies inyour heads.

So the first quality of a Sannyassin is an openness to experience. He will not decide beforehe has experienced. He will never decide before he has experienced. He will not have anybelief systems. He will not say, "This is so because Buddha says it." He will not say, "This isso because it is written in the Vedas." He will say, "I am ready to go into it and see whether itis so or not." Buddha's departing message to his disciples was this: "Remember"... and this he wasrepeating 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 haveexperienced it."

A Sannyassin will not carry many beliefs; in fact, none. He will carry only his ownexperiences. And the beauty of experience is that the experience is always open, becausefurther exploration is possible. And belief is always closed; it comes to a full point. Belief isalways finished. Experience is never finished, it remains unfinished. While you are living howcan your experience be finished? Your experience is growing, it is changing, it is moving. It iscontinuously moving from the known into the unknown and from the unknown into theunknowable. And remember, experience has a beauty because it is unfinished. Some of thegreatest songs are those which are unfinished. Some of the greatest books are those which areunfinished. Some of the greatest music is that which unfinished. The unfinished has a beauty.

I have heard a Zen parable:

A king went to a Zen master to learn gardening. The master taught him for three years, andthe king had a beautiful, big garden -- thousands of gardeners were employed there -- andwhatsoever the master would say, the king would go and experiment in his garden. After threeyears the garden was absolutely ready, and the king invited the master to come and see thegarden. The king was very nervous too, because the master was strict: "Will he appreciate?" --this was going to be a kind of examination -- "Will he say, 'Yes, you have understood me'?"every care was taken. The garden was so beautifully complete; nothing was missing.Only then did the king bring the master to see. But the master was sad from the verybeginning. He looked around, he moved in the garden from this side to that, he became moreand more serious. The king became very frightened. He had never seen him so serious: "Whydoes he look so sad? Is there something so wrong?"

And again and again the master was nodding his head, and saying inside "No."And the king asked, "What is the matter, sir? What is wrong? Why don't you tell me? Youare becoming so serious and sad, and you nod your head in negation. Why? What is wrong? Idon't see anything wrong? This is what you have been telling me, and I have practiced it inthis garden."

The master said, "It is so finished that it is dead. It is so complete -- that's why I amnodding my head and I am saying no. It has to remain unfinished. Where are the dead leaves?Where are the dry leaves? I don't see a single dry leaf!" All the dry leaves were removed -- onthe paths there were no dry leaves; in the trees there were no dry leaves, no old leaves whichhad become yellow. "Where are those leaves?"

And the king said, "I have told my gardeners to remove everything. Make it as absolute aspossible."

And the master said, "That's why it looks so dull, so manmade. God's things are neverfinished." And the master rushed out, outside the garden. All the dry leaves were heaped: hebrought a few dry leaves in a bucket, threw them to the winds, and the wind took them andstarted playing with the dry leaves, and they started moving on the paths. He was delighted,and he said, "Look, how alive it looks!" And sound had entered with the dry leaves -- themusic of the dry leaves, the wind playing with the dry leaves. Now the garden had a whisper;otherwise it was dull and dead like a cemetery. That silence was not alive.

I love this story. The master said, "It is so complete, that's why it is wrong." Just the other night Savita was here. She was telling me that she is writing a novel, and sheis very puzzled about what to do. It has come to a point where it can be finished, but thepossibility is that it can be lengthened; it is not yet complete. I told her, "You finish it. Finishit while it is unfinished -- then it has something mysterious around it -- that unfinishedness...And I told her, "If your main character still wants to do something, let him become aSannyassin. And then things are beyond your capacity. Then what can you do? Then it comes toa finish, and yet things go on growing."

No story can be beautiful if it is utterly finished. It will be utterly dead. Experience alwaysremains open -- that means unfinished. Belief is always complete and finished. The firstquality is an openness to experience.

Mind is all your beliefs collected together. Openness means no-mind; openness means youput your mind aside and you are ready to look into life again and again in a new way, not withthe old eyes. The mind gives you the old eyes, it gives you again ideas: "Look through this."But then the thing becomes colored; then you don't look at it, then you project an idea upon it.Then the truth becomes a screen on which you go on projecting. Look through no-mind, lookthrough nothingness -- shunyata. When you look through no-mind your perception is efficient,because then you see that which is. And truth liberates. Everything else creates a bondage,only truth liberates.

Those moments of no-mind, truth starts filtering into you like light. The more you enjoythis light, this truth, the more you become capable and courageous to drop your mind. Sooneror later a day comes when you look and you don't have any mind. You are not looking foranything, you are simply looking. Your look is pure. In that moment you become avalokita,one who looks with pure eyes. That is one of the names of Buddha -- Avalokita: he looks withno ideas, he simply looks. Once it happened that a man spat on Buddha's face. He wiped his face and asked the man,"Have you anything more to say?"

His disciples were very much shocked and angry. His chief disciple, Ananda, said to him,"This is too much! We cannot do anything because you are here; otherwise we would havekilled this man. This man has spat on you, and you are asking, 'Have you anything more tosay?'"

Buddha said, "Yes, because this is a way of saying something -- spitting. Maybe the man isso angry that words are not adequate; that's why he has spat." When words are not adequate,what do you do? You smile, you cry, tears come, you hug, you slap -- you do something. Ifthere is too much anger what will you do? You cannot find a sufficiently strong, violent word.What will you do? -- you spit. Now this is Buddha's vision -- without mind. He looks into the man: "What is the matter?Why is he spitting on me?" He's not involved in it at all. He does not bring his pastexperiences or ideas that spitting is bad, that this is insulting and humiliating. No ideainterferes. He simply looks into the reality of this man who is spitting on him. He's utterlyconcerned: "Why? This man must be in trouble, a linguistic trouble. He wants to saysomething but he does not have the right words to do it. Hence, awkwardly, he is spitting."Buddha said, "That's why I'm asking if you have anything more to say?" The man himselfwas shocked because this was not his expectation. He had come to humiliate Buddha, butBuddha is not humiliated. Buddha's compassion is showering on the man. He could not sleepthat night. Again and again he thought about it. It was so difficult for him to absorb it: "Whatkind of man is this? What manner of man is this? I spit, and he simply asks -- and withtremendous love -- 'Have you anything more to say?'"

In the early morning he went back, fell at Buddha's feet and said, "Sir, excuse me, forgiveme. I could not sleep the whole night."

And Buddha laughed, and he said, "You fool! Why? I slept perfectly well. Why shouldyou get so disturbed about such a small thing? It has not hurt me. You see my face is as it wasbefore. Why did you get so worried?"

And the man said, "I have come to become your disciple. Initiate me. I want to be withyou. I have seen something unique, superhuman. But first, forgive me." And Buddha said, "This is nonsense. How can I forgive you? -- because I have not eventaken any note of it. I was not angry, so how can I forgive you?" Twenty-four hours hadpassed, and they were sitting on the bank of the Ganges. And Buddha said, "Look at howmuch water has passed down the Ganges in twenty-four hours: that much life has passed inyou, that much life has passed in me. It is no longer the same Ganges. I am not the same man.In fact, you had never spat on me, it was somebody else; twenty-four hours have passed. Andyou are not the same man who had spat... so who can forgive whom? Let the gone be gone."is the vision of no-mind. It can work miracles. The Sannyassin lives in openness toeverything.

The second quality is existential living. He does not live out of ideas: that one should belike this, one should be like that, one should behave in this way, one should not behave in thisway. He does not live out of ideas, he is responsive to existence. He responds with his totalheart, whatsoever is the case. His being is here-now. Spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness --these are his qualities.

He does not live a readymade life. He does not carry maps -- how to live, how not to live.He allows life; wherever it leads he goes with it. A Sannyassin is not a swimmer, and he doesnot try to go upstream. He goes with the whole, he flows with the stream. He flows so totallywith the stream that by and by he is no longer separate from the stream, he becomes thestream. That's what Buddha calls srotapanna -- one who has entered the stream. That is thebeginning of Buddha's Sannyas too -- one who has entered the stream, one who has come torelax in existence. He does not carry valuations, he's not judgmental.

Existential living means each moment has to decide on its own. Life is atomic! You don'tdecide beforehand, you don't rehearse, you don't prepare how to live. Each moment comes,brings a situation; you are there to respond to it -- you respond. Ordinarily people live a verystrange kind of life. If you are going to give an interview, you prepare, you think what is goingto be asked and how you are going to answer it, how you are going to sit and how you aregoing to stand. Everything becomes phony because it is rehearsed. And then what happens?When you go with such a rehearsal, you are never totally there. Something is being asked andyou are searching in your memory, because you are carrying a prepared answer -- whether thatwill suit with it or not, whether this will do or not. You go on missing the point. You are nottotally there; you cannot be totally there, you are involved in the memory. And then the nextthing happens: when you are coming out then you start thinking you should have answeredthis way. This is called 'the staircase wit': when you are coming down the staircase, and youstart thinking, "I should have answered this, I should have said this." You become very wiseagain. Before you are wise, after you are wise; in the middle you are otherwise! And in themiddle is life. Existence is there.

The third quality of a Sannyassin is a trust in one's own organism. People trust others, theSannyassin trusts his own organism. Body, mind, soul, all are included. If he feels like lovinghe flows in love. If he does not feel like loving he says "Sorry" -- but he never pretends.A non-Sannyassin goes on pretending. His life is a life lived through masks. He comeshome, he hugs the wife, and he does not want to hug the woman. And he says, "I love you,"and those words sound so phony because they are not coming from the heart. They are comingfrom Dale Carnegie. He has been reading 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' and thatkind of nonsense. And he is full of that nonsense, and he carries it and he practices it. Hiswhole life becomes a false, pseudo life, a parody. And he is never satisfied, naturally; hecannot be, because satisfaction comes only out of authentic living. If you are not feelingloving you have to say so; there is no need to pretend. If you are feeling angry you have to sayso. You have to be true to your organism, you have to trust your organism. And you will besurprised: the more you trust, the more the organism's wisdom becomes very, very clear toyou. Body has its own wisdom -- it carries the wisdom of the centuries in its cells. Yourbody is feeling hungry and you are on a fast, because your religion says that this day you haveto fast -- and your body is feeling hungry. You don't trust your organism, you trust a deadscripture, because in some book somebody has written that this day you have to go on a fast,so you go on a fast. Listen to your body. Yes, there are days when the body says, "Go on afast!" -- then go. But there is no need to listen to the scriptures. The man who wrote thatscripture has not written it with you in his mind, not at all. He could not have conceived ofyou. You were not present to him, he was not writing about you. It is as if you fall ill and yougo to a dead doctor's house and look into his prescriptions, and find a prescription and startfollowing the prescription. That prescription was made for somebody else, for some otherdisease, in some other situation.

Remember to trust your own organism. When you feel that the body is saying don't eat,stop immediately. When the body is saying eat, then don't bother whether the scriptures say tofast or not. If your body says eat three times a day, perfectly good. If it says eat one time a day,perfectly good. Start learning how to listen to your body, because it is your body. You are init; you have to respect it, and you have to trust it. It is your temple; it is sacrilegious to imposethings on your body. For no other motive should anything be imposed! And this will not onlyteach you trust in your body, this will teach you, by and by, a trust in existence too -- becauseyour body is part of existence. Then your trust will grow, and you will trust the trees and thestars and the moon and the sun and the oceans: you will trust people. But the beginning of thetrust has to be trust in your own organism. Trust your heart.

Now somebody has asked a question: he has decided to live with his wife because hethinks that to live with one's wife and never leave her, never separate, and never make love toanother woman, is a great spiritual quality. Maybe for some, maybe not so for others. It depends.

Now the questioner says, "I have decided this, and problems are there. I feel attracted toother women: I feel guilty. And I don't feel attracted towards my wife -- then too I feel guilty. Idon't want to make love to my wife because the desire does not arise. But I have to make loveto my wife to satisfy her. If I make love to her, then I feel guilty about myself, that I am beinguntrue to myself. And it looks like a dragging affair."

When you don't want to make love, then love is the ugliest thing in the world. Only themost beautiful can be the most ugly. Love is one of the most beautiful experiences, but onlywhen you are flowing in it, when it is spontaneous, when it is passionate, when you are full ofit, overpowered by it, possessed by it, drunk with it, absorbed in it -- only then. Then it takesyou to the highest peak of joy. But if you are not possessed in it, and you are not even feelingany love for your wife or your husband, and you are making it... then the English expression isright: making love. Then you are making it, it is not happening. It is ugly, it is prostitution. Towhom you are doing it is not the point; it is prostitution. It is criminal. And this is not going tomake you in any way spiritual. You will only become sexually repressed, that's all. If youmake love you will feel guilty, if you don't make love you will feel guilty.

Now this man has an idea of how a husband and wife should be. Now the wife must besuffering also. Both are hooked, both are bored with each other, both want to get rid of eachother but cannot get rid of each other because they don't trust their organism. If yourorganisms are saying, "Be together, grow together, flow together"; if your organism is feelinghappy and thrilled and excited and there is ecstasy, go with the woman one life, two lives, lives, asmany lives as you want be together, and you will be coming closer and closer to God. And yourintimacy will have a quality of spirituality.

But not this kind of intimacy. A forced intimacy will make you more and more unspiritual,and your mind will start, naturally, seeking some ways: your mind will become more andmore obsessed with sex. And when too much obsession is there, how can you grow inspirituality?

Listen to the organism, and be courageous enough to do that which your organism says.And I'm not saying to separate from your wife. But if that has to come, that has to come. Andit will be good for you both. At least that much you owe to your wife. If you care at all aboutthe wife, and you don't love her anymore, then you have to say so. In deep sadness... theparting will be sad, but what can be done? You are helpless. You will not part in anger, youwill not part with a grudge and complaint. You will part with immense helplessness in yourheart. You wanted to be with her, but your organism is saying no. What can you do? You canforce your organism, and the organism can go there, and go on continuing in the relationship,but there will be no joy. And without joy how can you be in relationship? Then the marriage isfalse; legal, but otherwise false. A Sannyassin is one who trusts in his own organism, and that trust helps him to relax intohis being, and helps him to relax into the totality of existence. It brings a general acceptance ofoneself and others. It gives a kind of rootedness, cantering. And then there is great strengthand power, because you are cantered in your own body, in your own being. You have roots inthe soil. Otherwise you see people uprooted, like trees that have been pulled up from the soil.They are simply dying, they are not living. That's why there is not much joy in life. You don'tsee the quality of laughter; the celebration is missing. And even if people celebrate that too isfalse.

For example, it is the birthday of Krishna and people celebrate. How can you celebrateKrishna's birthday? You have not even celebrated your own birthday. And somebody who wasborn five thousand years ago -- how are you concerned with that, and how can you celebrateit? It is all phony. How can you celebrate Jesus Christ's birthday? It is impossible. You havenot celebrated the God that has come to you, that is inside you. How can you celebrate someother God who was born in a stable two thousand years ago?

In your very body, in your very being, this very moment, God is there -- and you have notcelebrated it. You cannot celebrate. Celebration has to happen first in your own home, at closequarters. Then it becomes a great tidal wave and spreads all over existence.The fourth is a sense of freedom.The Sannyassin is not only free, he is freedom. He always lives in a free way. Freedom doesnot mean licentiousness. Licentiousness is not freedom, licentiousness is just a reactionagainst slavery; so you move to the other extreme. Freedom is not the other extreme, it is notreaction. Freedom is an insight: "I have to be free, if I have to be at all. There is no other wayto be. If I am too possessed by the church, by Hinduism, by Christianity by Mohammedanism,then I cannot be. Then they will go on creating boundaries around me. They go on forcing meinto myself like a crippled being. I have to be free. I have to take this risk of being free. I haveto take this danger."Freedom is not very convenient, is not very comfortable. It is risky. A Sannyassin takes thatrisk. It does not mean that he goes on fighting with each and everybody. It does not mean thatwhen the law says keep to the right or keep to the left, he goes against it, no. He does notabout trivia. If the law says keep to the left, he keeps to the left -- because it is not aslavery. But about important, essential things... If the father says, "Get married to this womanbecause she is rich and much money will be coming," he will say, "No. How can I marry awoman when I am not in love with her? This will be disrespectful to the woman." If the fathersays, "Go to the church every Sunday because you are born in a Christian home," he will say,"I will go to the church if I feel, I will not go because you say." Birth is accidental; it does notmatter much. The church is very essential... "If I feel like it, I will go." I'm not saying don't go to church, but go only when your feeling has arisen for it. Thenthere will be a communion. Otherwise, no need to go. About essential things the Sannyassin will always keep his freedom intact. And because herespects freedom, he will respect others' freedom too. He will never interfere with anybody'sfreedom, whosoever that other is. If your wife has fallen in love with somebody you feel hurt,you will cry tears of sadness, but that is your problem. You will not interfere with her. Youwill not say, "Stop it, because I am suffering!" You will say, "This is your freedom. If I suffer,that is my problem. I have to tackle it, I have to face it. If I feel jealous, I have to get rid of myjealousy. But you go on your own. Although it hurts me, although I would have liked that youhad not gone with anybody, that is my problem. I cannot trespass your freedom."Love respects so much that it gives freedom. And if love is not giving freedom it is notlove, it is something else.

A Sannyassin is immensely respectful about his own freedom, very careful about his ownfreedom, and so is he about other's freedom too. This sense of freedom gives him anindividuality; he is not just a part of the mass mind. He has a certain uniqueness -- his way oflife, his style, his climate, his individuality. He exists in his own way, he loves his own song.He has a sense of identity: he knows who he is, he goes on deepening his feeling for who heis, and he never compromises.

Independence, rebellion -- remember, not revolution but rebellion -- that is the quality of aSannyassin. And there is a great difference. Revolution is not very revolutionary. Revolutionalso goes on functioning in the same structure. For example, in India, for centuries the untouchables, the lowest caste, have not beenallowed in temples. The Brahmins have never allowed them to enter into the temple: "Thetemple will become dirty if they come in." For centuries in India the untouchables have notgone into the temple. This is ugly. Then came Mahatma Gandhi -- he tried hard, he struggledhard. He wanted the untouchables to be allowed into the temples; his whole life was a strugglefor it. It is revolutionary but not rebellious. Why revolutionary? Then what is rebellion?Somebody asked J. Krishnamurti about Gandhi's struggle for the untouchables to bepermitted into the temples. And do you know what J. Krishnamurti said? He said, "But God isnot in the temples." This is rebellion. Gandhi's approach is revolutionary, but he also believes that God is in the temples as muchas the Brahmins do. The structure is the same. He believes it is very, very important for peopleto go into temples; if they don't go into the temples they will miss God. That is the idea of theBrahmin, that is the idea of the society that has repressed the untouchables from entering,prohibited them from entering. The idea is the same: that God lives in the temples, and thosewho are going to get into the temples will come close to God, of course. And those who arenot allowed, they will miss. Gandhi is revolutionary, but revolution believes in the samestructure. It is a reaction. Krishnamurti is rebellious. He says, "But God is not in the temples, so why bother?

Neither are Brahmins getting it there, nor will the untouchables get it. Why bother? It isstupid." All revolutions are reactionary, reactions to a certain pattern. Whenever you react it isnot much of a revolution because you believe in the same pattern. Of course you go against it,but you believe. The deep down substratum is the same.

Gandhi is thinking that Brahmins are enjoying very much; they are getting God too much.And the untouchables? -- they are deprived. But he has not looked at the Brahmins: down thecenturies they have been worshipping in the temples and they have got nothing. Now this isfoolish! Those who are inside the temple have got nothing, so why bother? And why bringpeople in who are not inside? It makes no sense.

A Sannyassin is rebellious. By rebellion I mean his vision is utterly different. He does notfunction in the same logic, in the same structure, in the same pattern. He is not against thepattern -- because if you are against a certain pattern you will have to create another pattern tofight with it. And patterns are all alike. A Sannyassin is one who has simply slipped out. He'snot against the pattern, he has understood the stupidity of all patterns. He has looked into thefoolishness of all patterns and he has slipped out. He is rebellious.

The fifth is creativity. The old Sannyas was very uncreative. It was thought that somebodybecomes a Sannyassin and goes to a Himalayan cave and sits there, and that was perfectlyalright. Nothing more was needed. You can go and see the Jaina monks: they are sitting intheir temples, doing nothing -- absolutely uncreative, dull and stupid looking, with no flame ofintelligence at all. And people are worshipping and touching their feet. Ask, "Why are youtouching the feet?" and they say, "This man has renounced the world" -- as if renouncing theworld is in itself a value. "What has he done?" and they will say, "He has fasted. He fasts formonths together" -- as if not eating is a value in itself.But ask what he has painted, what beauty he has created in the world, what poem he hascomposed, what song he has brought into existence, what music, what dance, what invention-- what is his creation? -- and they will say, "What are you talking about? He is a Sannyassin!"He simply sits in the temple and allows people to touch his feet, that's all. And there are somany people sitting like this in India.My conception of a Sannyassin is that his energy will be creative, that he will bring a littlemore beauty into the world, that he will bring a little more joy into the world, that he will findnew ways to get into dance, singing, music, that he will bring some beautiful poems. He willcreate something, he will not be uncreative. The days of uncreative Sannyas are over. The newSannyassin can exist only if he is creative.

He should contribute something. Remaining uncreative is almost a sin, because you existand you don't contribute. You eat, you occupy space, and you don't contribute anything. MySannyassins have to be creators. And when you are in deep creativity you are close to God.That's what prayer really is, that's what meditation is. God is the creator, and if you are notcreators you will be far away from God. God knows only one language, the language ofcreativity. That's why when you compose music, when you are utterly lost in it, something ofthe divine starts filtering out of your being. That is the joy of creativity, that's the ecstasy --svaha!

The sixth is a sense of humour, laughter, playfulness, non-serious sincerity. The old Sannyaswas unlaughing, dead, dull. The new Sannyassin has to bring more and more laughter to hisbeing. He has to be a laughing Sannyassin, because your laughter is your relaxation, and yourcan create situations for others also to relax. The temple should be full of joy andlaughter and dance. It should not be like a Christian church. The church looks socemetery-like. And with the cross there it seems to be almost a worship of death... a littlemorbid. You cannot laugh in a church. A belly-laughter would not be allowed; people willthink you are crazy or something. When people enter into a church they become serious,stiff... long faces.

To me, laughter is a religious quality, very essential. It has to be part of the inner world ofa Sannyassin: a sense of humour.

The seventh is meditativeness, aloneness, mystical peak experiences that happen when youare alone, when you are absolutely alone inside yourself. Sannyas makes you alone; not lonely, but alone; not solitary, but it gives you a solitude.You can be happy alone, you are no longer dependent on others. You can sit alone in yourroom and you can be utterly happy. There is no need to go to a club, there is no need to alwayshave friends around you, there is no need to go to a movie. You can close your eyes and youcan fall into inner blissfulness: that's what meditativeness is all about.

And the eighth is love, relatedness, relationship. Remember, you can relate only when youhave learned how to be alone, never before it. Only two individuals can relate. Only twofreedoms can come close and embrace each other. Only two nothingnesses can penetrate intoeach other and melt into each other. If you are not capable of being alone, your relationship isfalse. It is just a trick to avoid your loneliness, nothing else.

And that's what millions of people are doing. Their love is nothing but their incapacity tobe alone. So they move with somebody, they hold hands, they pretend that they love, but deepdown the only problem is that they cannot be alone. So they need somebody to hang around,they need somebody to hold onto, they need somebody to lean upon. And the other is alsousing them in the same way, because the other can also not be alone, is incapable. He or shealso finds you instrumental as a help to escape from himself.

So two persons that you say are in love are more or less in hate with themselves. Andbecause of that hate, they are escaping. The other helps them to escape, so they becomedependent on the other, they become addicted to the other. You cannot live without your wife,you cannot live without your husband because you are addicted. But a Sannyassin is one...That's why I say the seventh quality is aloneness, and the eighth quality is love-relationship.And these are the two possibilities: you can be happy alone and you can be happy togethertoo. These are two kinds of ecstasies possible for humanity. You can move into Samadhi whenalone and you can move into Samadhi when together with somebody, in deep love. And thereare two kinds of people: the extroverts will find it easier to have their peak through the other,and the introverts will find it easier to have their greatest peak while alone. But the other is notantagonistic; they can both move together. One will be bigger, and that will be the decisivefactor in whether you are an introvert or an extrovert. The path of Buddha is the path of theintrovert; it talks only about meditation. The path of Christ is extrovert; it talks about love.My Sannyassin has to be a synthesis of both. An emphasis will be there: somebody will beemphatically more in tune with himself than with others, and somebody will be just theopposite -- more in tune with somebody else. But there is no need to get hooked into one kindof experience. Both experiences can remain available. And the ninth is transcendence, Tao, no ego, no-mind, nobodiness, nothingness, in tune with the whole.

That is the whole message of Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Heart Sutra: gate gate paragate --gone, gone, gone beyond -- parasamgate bodhi svaha -- gone altogether beyond. What ecstasy!Alleluia! Transcendence is the last and the highest quality of a Sannyassin. But these are only indications, these are not definitions. Take them in a very liquid way.Don't start taking what I have said in a rigid way... very liquid, in a vague kind of vision, in a twilight vision -- not like when there is a full sun in the sky. Then things are very defined. In a twilight, when the sun has gone down and the night has not yet descended, it is both, just in the middle, the interval. Take whatsoever I have said to you in that kind of way. Remain liquid, flowing. Never create any rigidity around you. Never become definable.

Osho.

Chapter 10 -

Sannyas: Entering the Stream

The Heart Sutra

#Osho #meditation #spirituality

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