Osho, is it time I should become a sannyasin ?

It is already late! You have already waited too long. I have known you for years, you have known me for years. For what are you waiting ? The meeting should happen now. Still you are asking: “Is it time that I should become a sannyasin ?”

Are you dead? If you have any life in you, then this is the time. Now is the time. Remember Kabir(A mystic) was saying: Now wake up – wake up in the now, wake up here! Don’t postpone.

Is it not time to be getting home now ? You have waited already too long, too many lives. Sannyas is nothing but a passionate jump into the enquiry for the truth, a passionate search from where we come and to where we are going and who we are. That’s what sannyas is all about.

But you seem to be almost in a kind of sleep, that’s how everybody else is. The worldly dreams still seem to be important to you, hence the question. The world still seems to intoxicate you; money, power, prestige, are still haunting you. And you cannot be a sannyasin unless you are utterly frustrated with the world. And remember, I am not teaching escapism from the world; I teach transcendence, not escape. Be in the world, but don’t be of it.

A sannyasin is a person who lives in the world but lives meditatively, and meditation creates a distance. Then you can go on doing all kind of things but you don’t become intoxicated, you don’t become identified with them. To live in awareness, without any intoxication with money, power, prestige, is the way of a sannyasin.

You have fallen many many times. Are you not yet frustrated ? Are you not yet finished with the world? Are you still carrying some hope deep down in your heart? Are you still expecting that the world is going to deliver something to you ? It has never happened – to no one has it happened. And it is not going to happen to you.

The world only promises, it never delivers the goods. That’s its illusoriness; that’s why in the east we call it maya. Maya does not mean that it is not there – it is very much there, but it only promises. It never gives anything.

I have heard a story:

A man worshipped for many many years – he must have tortured God as much as possible. Morning, afternoon, evening, he was praying and praying and crying and weeping. And, finally, God has to appear, and he said,”What do you want? Be finished! Just take it and forgive me and forget all about me.”

And the man said,”I want something, a power, so that whatsoever I need is immediately fulfilled.”

So God gave him a box, a golden box and told him,”Whenever you are in need you can ask. Whatsoever you ask, the box will immediately give it to you.”

The man forgot all about God, he even to forgot to thank him. God waited a little, but the man was no more interested in him. He was looking at the box and he started asking,”Give me ten thousand rupees!” Suddenly ten thousand rupees appeared, and he was very happy.

And it continued: whatsoever he wanted used to come out of the box. Then one day, one sadhu – a wandering monk, also had a box – bigger than the man’s – exactly the same shape. The man became interested. He said, ”What is this?” The sadhu said,”This is a magic box. You ask anything, it gives you double.”

“Double?” The man asked, “If I ask ten thousand rupees,”. He said, “It gives twenty thousand!”.

He fell at the feet of the monk and said,”You are a monk, you have renounced the world – can’t you exchange? I have a small box. It gives only whatsoever you ask.” So they changed the boxes. It was late at night, so the amn thought, “In the morning , I will try out this new box”.

And in the morning he tried; he asked for ten thousand rupees…. And the box said,”Why not twenty thousand?”
And the man said,”Okay, twenty thousand.” And the box said,”Why not forty thousand?”
And the man said, “Okay , forty thousand.”
And the box said , “Why not eighty thousand?”

Then he became afraid, because nothing was coming out. He rushed to see the monk, but he had left; he had disappeared in the night.

In the East, we have called the world maya, illusory – it is like that box of the monk. You ask anything and it says, “Okay, you can have double.” But it never delivers any goods; it only promises. The world is almost like a politician – they promise but they never fulfill.

Are you not yet finished? Have you not seen it happening many times? Each time you are living an illusion, hoping, dreaming; sooner or later disillusion comes in, frustration comes in. But rather than seeing the reality of the world, you immediately jump on another illusion, you immediately start dreaming again.

Sannyas is seeing the reality of the world, that it never fulfills, that it cannot fulfill, that it is beyond its capacity to fulfill….. One turns in. One has been a beggar begging from this door to that door; when one turns in, begging disappears – one becomes an emperor. Then all is yours.

And you need not even ask for it – it is simply yours. This whole existence is yours, its whole beauty, its whole splendor, its starry nights, its sunsets and sunrises, its flowers and birds – all is yours. Not in the sense that you possess it, but in the sense that you can enjoy it.

A sannyasin learns how to enjoy, and the worldly man learns only how to possess. Remember these two things, they are basic. The worldly man only thinks of how to possess more – he never enjoys because he is concerned with possessing more and more and more. The sannyasin enjoys. Whatsoever he has he enjoys – and he enjoys the whole existence which need not be possessed.

Do you think first you have to possess the starry night, then you will enjoy it? Do you think first you have to possess all the birds, then you will enjoy their songs? This existence need not be possessed. And you can still enjoy. It is yours if you want to enjoy; it is not yours if you want to possess. To possess it is aggressive; it is aggression on existence. To enjoy it is prayerful.