Neo-sannyas: The answer to human crisis

Question 1:

To me, sannyas is not something very serious. Life itself is not very serious, and one who is serious is always dead.

Life is just an overflowing energy without any purpose, and to me sannyas is to lead life purposelessly. Live life as a play and not as work. The so-called serious mind, which is diseased, will in fact convert play into work. The sannyasins are to do the very opposite -- to convert work into play. If you can take this whole life just as a dream, a dream act, then you are a sannyasin. One who considers life as a dream, a dream-drama, has renounced.

Renunciation is not leaving the world, but changing the attitude. An attitude of changing the world is something serious. That is why I can initiate anyone into sannyas. To me, initiation itself is a play. I will not ask for any qualification, whether you are qualified or not, because qualifications are asked where something serious is done. So everyone, by just being in existence, is qualified enough to be at play. He can play, and even if he is unqualified it makes no difference, because the whole thing is just a play. That is why I will not ask for any qualifications.

And my sannyas does not involve any obligation either -- the moment you are a sannyasin, you are totally at freedom. It means now you have taken a decision, and this is the last decision. Now you have not to take any decision anymore. You have taken the last decision now -- to live in indecision, to live in freedom.

One who lives decidedly can never be free. He is always bound by the past, because the decision was taken in the past. You can never take any decision for the future, because the future is unknown and whatever decision is taken is bound up with the past. The moment you are initiated into sannyas, you are initiated into an uncharted, unplanned future. Now you are not tethered by the past. You will be free to live. That means to act, to play, and to be whatever happens to you. This is insecurity.

To renounce a name, to renounce a property, is not really insecurity, it is very superficial insecurity. And the mind remains the same, the mind that was thinking about the property as security. Even property is no security at all, you will die with all your property. Even a home is not security at all, you will die in it. So the false notion that property, home, friends and family are securities is still prevailing in the mind which thinks, "I have renounced; now I am insecure."

Only that mind, only that person lives in insecurity who lives untethered to the past.

Insecurity means untethered to the past; and it has so many meanings, because all that you know comes from the past. Even your mind is of the past.

So one who renounces knowledge is really renouncing something. You yourself come from the past, you are nothing but accumulated experiences. So one who renounces himself is renouncing something. All your desires and all your hopes and all your expectations -- they all confirm the past. One who renounces his past renounces his desires, his hopes, his expectations.

Now you will be just like an emptiness, a nothingness, a nobody. Sannyas means throwing all claims of being somebody. Now you are going into no-identity, nobodiness.

So this is the last decision of your mind, with which the past is closed. The identity is broken, the continuity is not there. You are new; you are reborn.

Everyone who is alive is qualified to live in insecurity. If one is really to live, one has to live in insecurity. Every arrangement of security is renounced living. The more you are secure, the less you are living. The more you are dead, the more secure, and vice versa also. For example, a dead man cannot die again, he is death-proof. A dead man cannot be ill, so he is disease-proof. A dead man is so secure that those who go on living may seem foolish to him -- they live in insecurity.

If you are alive at all, then you are insecure. The more insecure, the more alive. So a sannyasin to me is a person who decides to live to the utmost, to the optimum, to the maximum; it is just like a flame burning from both poles.

There is no obligation, there is no commitment. You are not bound to any discipline at all. If you want to call insecurity a discipline, that is another matter. Of course, it is an inner discipline. You are not going to be anarchic, no! When have I ever said that the person will be anarchic? Anarchy is always bound up with order, with a system. If you renounce order, you can never be disorderly. It is not denying order, it is just renouncing, and renouncing means now to be in order! It is just an act, a play for others' sake. You will not be serious about it, it is just a role of the game. You walk to the left or to the right for others' sake, for traffic's sake, but there is no seriousness about it; nothing is serious in it.

So the sannyasin is not going to be disorderly. As far as he himself is concerned, as far as his inner consciousness is concerned, now there will be no order. That does not mean there will be disorder, because the disorder is always a part of the order. When there is order, there is a possibility of disorder. When there is no order, then there is no disorder, because there is spontaneity. Moment to moment you live, moment to moment you act.

Each moment is complete in itself. You do not decide for it. You have no decision how to act. The moment comes to you, and you act. There is no pre-determination, there is no pre-plan.

The moment comes to you. You happen to the moment, and whatever comes out, let it come. More and more you will feel a new discipline arising in you -- a moment-to- moment discipline. It is a very different dimension, so it will be better to understand it clearly. When you decide beforehand what to do, it is because you do not think you are conscious enough to act in the moment, spontaneously. You are not self-confident; that is why you decide beforehand.

And still you are deciding. You cannot act in the moment, so how can you decide beforehand? Now you are less experienced. You will be more experienced when the moment comes. If I cannot believe in the "me" of tomorrow, how can I believe in the "me" of today? And when I have to decide it beforehand, it carries no meaning. It will only be destructive.

I decide today, and I act tomorrow. All has changed. Everything is new, and the decision is old. And if I do not act according to the moment, there is guilt. So all those who teach deciding beforehand, create guilt. I do not act, then I feel guilty. And if I act, then I cannot act adequately, and frustration is bound to follow.

So I say you have not to commit yourself to any decision, and you will be free. Let each act, each moment, come to you, and let your total being decide... in that moment. Let the decision come as the act happens. Never let it precede the act, then the act can never be total.

One should know that when you decide beforehand you decide intellectually. Your total being can never be in it, because the moment has not come. If I love someone, and I decide that when I meet him or her I will act this way, I will say this thing, I will do this and will not do that, this can only be intellectual, mental. This can never be total, because the moment has not arrived. The total being has not been challenged, so how can the total being act?

And when I have decided beforehand and the moment comes, the total being will not be able to act because the decision will be there. So I will only imitate, follow, copy, the preceding. I will be the false man. I will not be real because I will not be total. I will have a blueprint to act; I will act according to it. Again this will be a mental act, not with your total being. So either you succeed or you fail, yet in both cases you have failed because the total being could not be in it. You will not feel love.

So let the moment come, let the moment challenge you, and let your total being act. Then the act is total. Then your total being comes to act. Then you are totally in it! And the best that is possible will come out of this totalness and never out of the decisions. So sannyas means living moment to moment with no commitments of the past.

If I give you a mala and if I give you a robe, this is only for your remembrance, that now you have not to decide. It is only to make you remember that you are not the old. When this awareness becomes so deep that you do not need to remember it, then throw the robe, then throw the mala. If it comes to you to throw it, do not make it a decision, do not make it a commitment to me. If it comes to you, then throw them, but not unless the awareness has become so deep that even in sleep you know that you are a sannyasin.

When even in your dream this ocher robe has come, then throw it. When even in your dream this ocher robe is there, then throw it. Then it is meaningless. If even unconsciously you remember, if you cannot forget even in any situation, then there is no need. So this is just a device to help you toward total being, to help you toward total action.

And I will go on conferring sannyas on each and everybody who happens to be with me even for a single moment because, as I have said, I do not know about tomorrow at all.

So I cannot wait. If you come this moment, whatever is to be done is to be done. This moment I cannot wait. I do not know about tomorrow, about what is going to happen, and I cannot plan. So the moment you are with me, whatever is being done is to be done this very moment. It cannot be postponed, because there is no future for me.

And this sannyas is not the old sannyas. It is totally a new concept, or totally an ancient one which has been forgotten completely -- you can call it either. It is the newest and the oldest, simultaneously, because whenever there has been sannyas, really, it has been such. But always there are imitators, and you cannot deny them -- they are. There are imitators, and there will always be. And they make everything a discipline, because only a discipline can be imitated.

Sannyas is something that cannot be imitated. Freedom cannot be imitated, thus sannyas can never be imitated. But those who are imitators, what can they do? They will make a system out of this -- imitators always create systems. Anything other than sannyas they do not destroy so much, because life as it is lived is imitation. Imitation goes on, the whole world is imitating. Your whole upbringing is through imitation -- in language, in morality, in society, in culture, everything is through imitation. Everything is imbibed through imitation.

So imitations are successful everywhere except in sannyas. They destroy much here.

They cannot destroy anywhere else because everywhere imitation is the rule. You cannot be free with language, you must imitate it. You cannot be free with social structure, you must imitate it. Imitators succeed everywhere. Only in sannyas the dimension of total freedom is something with which imitators grow very destructive, because its very dimension is quite opposite. Imitation will destroy it. So Jesus is imitated, you have the IMITATION OF CHRIST. Whenever sannyas is imitated there is no sannyas left. So when I say there is no commitment, I mean there will be no imitation.

You are totally free, I will throw you into an openness. That is what is meant by initiation. It is not narrowing you down, it is giving you an open sky. It is just pushing you to fly in an open sky. Of course there are no routes and no road maps, there cannot be. And there cannot be any road in the sky. So you have to fly alone, you have to depend on yourself alone. Your existence will be the sole company -- the only company.

Life is just like a sky. It is not like earth roads, you cannot follow; following is impossible. You have to be alone. Initiation means that now I push you into aloneness. So now you are alone totally, not depending on anyone, not even me. It requires courage. To imitate is easy, to follow is so easy, to depend on someone is easy. But to be totally alone with no map, with no discipline, with no system, is the greatest courage. And a sannyasin means one who is courageous. This courage is not something which can be imitated, it has to be developed through living.

You will err, you will go astray. That is all implied in it. But by erring you will learn, and by going astray you will come to the right. And there is no other way. You have to pass through arduousness. This walking alone, this flying alone... one has to pass through all this austerity. And this sannyas is different in another sense also, because the old sannyas, the so-called sannyas which is prominent, is less a spiritual renunciation and more a social renunciation. Even the social structure of it is more physiological, less spiritual.

This sannyas is basically spiritual. So you can receive it anywhere, wherever you are. It demands involvement -- inner, deeper, spiritual. And as I see it, the more you are involved physiologically, the less there is a possibility to go deep, because once involved with the physiological you will never be out of it. You will never be out of it because there are intrinsic impossibilities: if someone is trying to be above desires he is struggling for something which is impossible, because desires are natural. Your body cannot exist without them. So you will go on clinging to the body, and still desires will be there -- less, of course, but they will be there. And the weaker the body, the less the desires will be strongly felt. So you can go on weakening, but unless you die the body will have desires.

There are not only desires, there are needs. Needs are to be fulfilled, and the better fulfilled, the less they trouble you, the less they demand, the less time is needed for them.

So once you are struggling with physiological needs, you will waste your whole life. This whole process, this whole old sannyas, is negative, fighting against something. Of course, it is ego-strengthening. Whenever there is fight, ego is strengthened. If you can kill a desire, you may become more egoistic. If you can deny your body a particular need, you become more egoistic. Fight, in any manner, is always ego-satisfying and ego-fulfilling.

To me, sannyas is something positive, not negative. It is not to deny your bodily needs. It is not to deny your superficial needs it is to develop, to grow in your inwardness. It is not fighting against something, it is giving all your energies toward growing something. Your being must grow and must become mature. The more your being grows, the less you will be your ego. And once your being has grown, you know what is need and what is desire.

Otherwise you can never know; you can never make a distinction between what is a need and what is a desire.

Desire is always mad, need is always sensible. If you deny your needs, you are suicidal.

If you go on increasing your desires, again you are suicidal. If you go on denying your needs, you are committing suicide. If you go on increasing your desires, then again you are committing suicide, in a different way.

If desires become too much, if desires are so overwhelmingly great, you will become mad. The tension will be unbearable. If you deny your needs, again you create tensions that will become unbearable. So there are two types of suicidal minds: one which goes on denying its needs, and one which goes on transforming its needs into desires. And this distinction can never be made outwardly. No one else can decide for you what is the desire and what is the need. Your own awareness will be the measure, because to one, something maybe a need and to another it may be a desire. So no ready-made answer can be given.

Only this much can be said: that without which you cannot exist is the minimum definition of need. But one's own awareness will decide, ultimately, and that too cannot be decided forever because today something may be a need, tomorrow it may be a desire.

This moment it is a need, and that moment it may be a desire. But once there is positive awareness in you, you are aware of your mind and its cunning and shattering ways; once you are aware of your ego, its methods of strengthening itself, its methods of feeding itself, you will know the distinction.

So I am not negative. Sannyas, neo-sannyas, is absolutely positive. It is to grow something in you. I am to give you a positive attitude toward your being, not a negative attitude. You are not to deny anything. Of course, many things may be denied -- not by you, but automatically. As you go more inward, you will shrink outwardly. The less one is a being inwardly, the more he has to substitute himself outwardly. He will go on spreading.

But do not struggle with your spreading, outward self. Struggle with the seed which is you, which can grow to such heights that this outward nonsense will automatically fall down. Once you know the inner riches, then there is nothing which is comparable from the outside world. Once you know the inner bliss, then enjoyment is foolish, then all that goes on in the name of entertainment is foolish, stupid. It just falls down once you know the inner ecstasy. Then all that is known as happiness, joy, is nothing but deception. But not before -- unless you have known the inner happiness you cannot say that, and if you say that then you will be in a greater deception.

So a positive attitude toward sannyas means a dimension altogether different. You can be where you are, you can go on doing whatever you are doing -- no outward change is immediately asked for. Of course there will be changes, but they will come. When they come, let them come, but do not try, do not make any effort. Do not force them to come.

And I see more possibility for positive sannyas, for positive renunciation, in the world that is coming.

That negative concept of denying oneself was possible previously for so many reasons.

One was the way society was structured. All the agricultural societies could allow some persons to be completely without work. But the more the society is industrialized, the less will be the possibility of joint families. The more individuality, the less will be the possibility of joint families. Loose economic structure could allow more joint families, but the more planned the economy, the less will be the possibility of joint families. Those who were sadhus and monks seem to be exploiters. Now they cannot be respected, now they cannot exist. And as I see it, everyone must do whatever he can do; one must contribute to the society in which one exists. One should not remain an exploiter. One should not be, and the religious person cannot be, an exploiter. And if a religious person can exploit, then we cannot expect others not to exploit.

To me, a sannyasin will not be an exploiter. He will earn a living. He will be a producer, not only a consumer. So a productive concept also goes with the positive. The old concept of the non-productive monks was well adjusted with the negative attitude. The positive attitude will have more implications. For example, the old concept of sannyas denied many things. It denied a family, it denied sex, denied love. It denied everything that contributes to society's happiness -- that can contribute to your own happiness. It denied -- I will not deny.

That does not mean that I allow. When I say I will not deny, it only means a moment can come when a person becomes absolutely transcendental -- for example, to sex. That is another thing, that is not a requirement but a consequence. It is not needed before sannyas, it will come after sannyas. And I will not make it a guilt if it does not come. The old concept is very cruel, it was sadistic and masochistic both. Sex was denied because sex seems to give a glimpse of happiness.

So many religions allowed sex without happiness. You can just use it for reproduction, but you should not have any happiness out of it. Only then it is not a sin. So sex is not really a sin. "But you should not be happy. To be happy is a sin." To me everything that is given to human beings is not to be denied; it is not to be suppressed. Let the inner flowering come first -- then you will see that so many energy channels have changed their course. And the difference will be great.

If you deny sex, then you have to deny love also. Those sannyasins who deny, will become loveless. They talk about love but they become loveless. They talk about "universal love." It is always easier to talk about universal love than to love a single individual -- that is more arduous, to love the whole universe is so easy; nothing is involved. And one who thinks in terms of denial will talk of universal love and will go on denying and uprooting individual feelings.

Religion that denies sex will have to deny love, because with love there is every possibility that sex may follow. But as I see it, if sex is not denied but transformed with your positive growth, then there is no need to deny love. You can be loving. And unless you are loving, the energy that may come to you that is not going through the sex channel cannot be used. It will become destructive. So to me a growing love is the only possibility of transcending sex.

Love must grow. It must go up to the universe, but it must not begin from there, it is never from the far. And one who thinks that one should begin from the far is deceiving himself. Every journey has to begin from the near. The first step that is to be taken cannot be taken from the far. One should be a loving individual. And the more one's love grows deep, the less he becomes sexual and the more love will spread.

So I will not deny anything, because ultimately bliss is to be sought. Everyone is seeking bliss. Happiness is not to be denied, but when there is an explosion of bliss you will know that whatever you have been thinking as happiness was fake. But you cannot throw it at this moment. Let the bliss come first. That is what is meant by positive growth. Let something come in you, something greater, only then the lesser will be thrown. And your ego will not be strengthened by it because when you throw it, you throw something useless, worthless.

All those who claim renunciation say they left this and that. They show by this that nothing great has been achieved. Whatever they have renounced yet remains meaningful.

It is there in their memory, it is still a part of the mind, they are still the owners. Of course they have renounced, but how can one renounce something which one does not own? So if you go on thinking about renunciation, you are still owning. In a negative way you are the owner.

But once you know a greater phenomenon -- a greater bliss, a greater happiness -- then you are not renouncing things. They just drop away, just like dry leaves from the tree. No one knows and no one hears, the dry leaves just drop. The tree remains oblivious to it and there is no wound left behind. So, to me, everything has a moment to happen, a moment of ripeness -- ripeness is all. One must ripen; otherwise one will be wandering unnecessarily and harassing himself unnecessarily and destroying himself unnecessarily.

One should ripen, then the opportunity comes by itself.

So renunciation is through positive growth. That is what I mean by my sannyas -- renunciation through positive growth. There is no negativity at all, no denial, no suppression.

I accept the human being as he is. Of course, now much is potential, but as he is, he is not to be condemned. There is nothing to be condemned. He is the seed, and if you condemn the seed, how can you acclaim the tree? I accept the human being as he is -- totally, with no denial at all. Only I do not say that this is all he can be, that this is the end. I only say that this is the beginning. The human being is only a seed which can grow into a great tree, which can grow into divinity. Each human being can be a god. But now, as he is, he is only a seed. The seed is to be protected, the seed is to be loved, and the seed is to be given every opportunity to grow.

Sannyas means that you have come to realize that you are a seed, a potentiality. This is not the end. This is only the beginning, and now you must decide to go into that growth.

That growth comes through freedom, that growth comes through insecurity. You see a seed -- very secure. A tree is not so secure. The seed is closed, closed completely. The moment the seed dies and the tree begins to grow, the potentiality begins to be activated.

There are dangers -- insecurity will be there, there will be every possibility of destruction, a very delicate thing fighting against the whole universe. But now you are only a seed, there is no danger.

To be a sannyasin means now you take the decision to grow. And this is the last decision.

Now you will have to struggle, now you will have insecurity, you will have dangers, and you will have to fight and face them moment to moment. This moment-to-moment fight and struggle, this fighting into the unknown, this fight for the unknown, this living in the unknown, is the real renunciation.

To decide to grow is a great renunciation -- a renunciation of the security that is given to the seed, a renunciation of the wholeness that is given to the seed. But this security is at a very great cost. The seed is dead, it is only potentially living. It can live, or it can remain dead. Unless it grows, becomes a tree, it is dead. And as far as I know, human beings, unless they decide to grow, unless they take a jump into the unknown, are like seeds -- dead, closed.

To be a sannyasin is to take a decision to grow, to take a decision to go into dangers, to take a decision to live in indecision. This seems paradoxical. It is not. One has to begin somewhere, and even to live indecisively one has to have a decision somewhere. Even to go into insecurity is going somewhere, and one has to decide it. I help your decision and create a situation in which you can make a decision. This neo-sannyas can go to the very core of the world. It can reach to everyone because nothing special is needed -- only understanding.

Another thing I would like to explain is that this sannyas is not bound to any religion. On this earth every type of sannyas has been part and parcel of a particular religion, a particular sect. That too is is a part of a security measure. You renounce, yet you belong.

You say, "I have left the society," yet you belong to the sect. You go on being a Hindu, a Moslem or a Sikh. You go on being something.

Really, sannyas means to be religious and not to be bound to any religion. Again, it is a great jump into the unknown. Religions are known, but religion is the unknown. A sect has systems, religion has no system. A sect has scriptures; religion has only existence, no scriptures. This sannyas is existential, religious, nonsectarian.

That does not mean that this sannyas will deny a Mohammedan Mohammedanism, that this sannyas will deny a Christian Christianity -- no! It means, really, quite the reverse. It means it will give the Christians the real Christianity. It will give the Hindu the real Hinduism, because the deeper you go into the Hindu religion, ultimately the Hinduism will drop and you will find religiousness only. The deeper you go into Christianity, the less it will be like Christianity and the more like religion. At once, you reach to the center of the religion.

So when I say by becoming a sannyasin you belong to no religion as such, I do not mean that you are denying Christianity or Hinduism or Jainism. You are only denying the dead part that has become burdensome in religion. You are only denying the dead tradition, and you are uncovering and discovering again the living current, the living current behind all the dead -- dead traditions, dead scriptures, dead gurudoms, dead churches.

You are again finding the living current. It is always there but it is always to be rediscovered; each one has to discover it again. It cannot be transferred, it cannot be transmitted. No one can give it to you. Whatever has been given will be dead. You will have to dig it deep within yourself, otherwise you never find it. So I am not giving you a religion, I am giving you only the push to find the living current. It will be your own finding, and it can never be anyone else's. So I am not transmitting anything to you.

There is a parable....

Buddha comes one day with a flower in his hand. He is to give a sermon, but he remains silent. Those who have come to listen to him begin to wonder what he is doing. Time is passing. It has never happened like this -- what is he doing? They wonder whether he is going to speak or not. Then someone asks, "What are you doing? Have you forgotten that we have come to listen to you?"

Buddha says, "I have communicated something. I have communicated something which cannot be communicated through words. Have you heard it or not?"

No one has heard it. But one disciple -- a very unknown disciple, known here for the first time, a bhikkhu named Mahakashyapa -- laughs heartily. Buddha says, "Mahakashyapa, come to me. I give you this flower, and I declare that all that could be given through words I have given to you all. That which is really meaningful, which cannot be given through words, I give to Mahakashyapa."

So Zen tradition has been asking again and again, "But what was transmitted to Mahakashyap?" -- a transmission without words. What has Buddha said? What has Mahakashyapa heard? And whenever there is someone who knows, he laughs again, and the story remains a mystery. When someone understands, he laughs again. Wherever there are persons who are scholars, who know much and who know nothing, they will discuss what has been told, they will decide about what has been heard. But someone who knows will laugh.

Bankei, a great Zen teacher, said, "Buddha said nothing. Mahakashyapa heard nothing."

So someone asks, "Buddha said nothing?"

"Yes," Bankei said. "Yes, nothing was said; nothing was heard. It was said, and it was heard. I am a witness."

So someone said, "You were not there."

So Bankei said, "I need not have been there. When nothing was communicated, no one is needed to be a witness. I was not there, and yet I am a witness." Someone laughed, and Bankei said, "He was also a witness."

The living current cannot be communicated. It is always there, but you have to go to it. It is nearby, just by the corner. It is in you, you are the living current. But you have never been in. Your attention has always been out, you have been out-oriented. You have become fixed. Your focus has become deadly fixed, so you cannot conceive of what it means to be in. Even when you try to be in, you just close your eyes and go on being out.

To be in means to be in a state of mind where there is no out and where there is no in. To be in means there is no boundary between you and the all. When there is nothing out, only then you come to the inner current. And once you have a glimpse, you are transformed. You know something which is incomprehensible, you know something which intellect cannot comprehend, you know something which intellect cannot communicate.

But yet one has to communicate -- even with a flower, even with a laugh. It makes no difference, they are gestures. Does it make any difference if I use my lips or if I use my hands with a flower? Just the gesture is new, so it disturbs you. Otherwise, it is as much a gesture as any lip moving. I make a sound, it is a gesture. I remain silent, it is a gesture.

But the gesture is new, unknown to you, so you think something is different. Nothing is different. The living current cannot be communicated, yet has to be communicated -- somehow has to be indicated, somehow has to be shown.

So the moment someone becomes ready to take sannyas, it is a decision for him toward a great search, and it is a gesture to me that he is ready to take a jump. And when someone is ready to change, to lose an old identity, to be reborn into a new being... When someone is ready, he need not be qualified; it makes no difference. This readiness is the qualification. When someone is ready, I am ready to push. It is not necessary that he should reach, but is it not a wonder that he should begin?

That is not the point -- that he should reach is not the point at all. But one begins. This beginning is something which is great. Reaching is not so great. Beginning is great because whenever someone reaches, he is capable. And whenever someone begins, he is not capable. You understand me? Whenever someone begins, he is incapable. So the beginning is the miracle.

A Buddha is not a miracle. He is capable, so he reaches. It is so mathematical, there is no miracle. But when someone comes to me with all his desires, with all his longings, with all his limitations and thinks to begin, it is a miracle. And when I have to choose between Buddha and him, I will choose him. He is a miracle, so incapable and so courageous.

So I am not concerned at all with what end you achieve. I am only concerned with the beginning. You begin, and I know once there is the beginning, the end is half in hand.

The beginning is the thing. Once there is a beginning, you will go on growing.

It is not a question of a day or two days, it is not a question of time. It may happen at the next moment, it may not happen for many births, but once you have begun you will not be the same again. This very decision to take sannyas is such a miracle of change. For births continuing you may not achieve, but you will not be the same again. This will come again and recur again.

This remembrance of taking the decision of freedom will be there always amidst all your slaveries, amidst all your bondages. This decision to be free, this longing to be free, this longing to transcend, will be there waiting for the opportunity. So how can I deny anyone a beginning? And whom do I have to ask whether he is qualified or not? If God himself allows you existence, life, and never asks you, "Are you qualified?" who am I to ask?

I am not giving you life, I am not giving you existence, I am just giving you a conversion.

When God is ready to give you life, you must be qualified with all your limitations and weaknesses. He allows you to exist. You must be precious, even in the divine's eyes you must be precious. So who am I to deny you the beginning? But gurus sometimes become even wiser than God himself. They decide who is qualified and who is not. Even God comes to them -- then they will decide who is qualified and who is not. And whenever anyone comes, God is coming. So do not laugh: whenever anyone comes, God is coming, because no one else can come.

So who am I to deny someone when he comes to me? He may not know it, he may not be aware of it, but I am aware of it -- that God is in search of himself. So I cannot deny him, I can just rejoice in his beginning. That is why no distinction is made, no qualification is required. And this sannyas is needed at the moment for the whole humanity. The whole humanity needs it. We have become so unaware of the living current, we have become so unaware of the divinity within and without, that each one should be made aware.

Otherwise, the situation has fallen so low that it may not be possible to come back for a century. It has been going on and on.

Darwin thought that we were animals; now they think that we are automata. Animals have souls at least! They had; now we have not. And soon we will not be such efficient automata either, because better computers will be there, better mechanisms will be there; not only will you be only a machine, but a very ordinary one.

This is the belief -- this is not knowledge -- this is the belief which has been forced on the human mind for three centuries. Now it has become prominent. It is as much a belief as any belief. It makes no difference that science is in support of it, it is a belief. And once humanity begins to believe it, it will be difficult to revive human souls.

So the days that are coming, the last part of this century, will be very definitive. The last part of this century will decide the fate for centuries to come. This is going to be definitive -- definitive in the sense that the belief that human beings are only machines, natural mechanical devices, will become prevalent. When this belief is prevalent, it will be very difficult to come to that lost hidden current again. It will go on becoming more difficult; even today it has become so difficult. There are so few people in this world who really know the living current -- they can be counted on the fingers.

All those who talk are only talking. Very few people really know, and each day the number is falling down. Those who know are not being replaced again. Each day there are fewer and fewer people who know the living current, who know the reality behind, who know consciousness, who know the divine.

This century, this last part of the century, will be decisive. So those who are in any way ready to begin, I will initiate them. If ten thousand are initiated and even one reaches the goal, the trouble is worth taking. And all those who come to know something of this inner world, I would ask them to go and knock at every door, and tell them to stand on the roofs, and proclaim that something blissful, that something immortal, that something divine, is.

Be a witness, go and be a witness to it; otherwise the mechanical belief will become prevalent. It is easier to check it now, it will not be easy to replace it afterwards. And the mind is in a way plastic, more plastic today -- ready to be molded in any mold. Because all the old beliefs have been taken away, the mind is vacant and thirsty to belong anywhere -- even to a mechanical belief. Any nonsense which can give you a feeling of belonging, which can give you a feeling of knowing that you know what reality is, will be caught. And the human mind will become tethered to it.

So not a single moment is to be wasted. Those who know even a bit, those who have even a glimpse, should talk about it to others. And this last part of this century is not so small as it seems. It is a big one, and in a way, bigger even than centuries. Because the speed of change is so great, these thirty years are just like thirty centuries. What could not be done in thirty centuries can be done in thirty years, in three decades. The rapidity of change is such that the time which looks small is not small.

There are three beliefs which are going to kill, which are going to destroy the last bridge between humanity and the divine undercurrent. One is the belief that mind is just a machine. The second is communism -- that man and man's relationship to society is just an economic phenomenon. Then there is no heart, then man is not decisive -- the economic is decisive. Then man is just in the hands of economic forces, blind forces.

Then consciousness is not decisive, but social structure is decisive. Marx says that it is not consciousness which determines society, but society which determines consciousness.

Then consciousness is nothing. If it is not decisive, it is not.

And thirdly, there is the concept of irrationality. The three are: the Darwinian concept which has turned into the belief of the human machine, the Marxist concept which has turned consciousness into an epiphenomenon of economic forces, and the Freudian concept of irrationality -- that man is in the hands of natural forces, instinct. He has to do whatsoever he does, and there is no consciousness but only an illusory notion that we are conscious.

In these three concepts the religions are not prevalent. Neither is Mohammedanism a prevalent religion, nor Christianity nor Hinduism nor Buddhism. Neither is Buddha a prophet now, nor Mahavira nor Mohammed nor Christ. Today's prophets are Freud, Darwin and Marx. All these three are against freedom, and all these three are against immortality.

So I will go on pushing everyone into the inner world, hoping of course, hoping against hope, that someone may come to the living current, the satchitananda, and may be able to express it through his total being -- to live it. If even a few people can be found to live it now, the whole course of the humanity that is to come will be changed. But this can only happen not through teaching, but through living. That is why I insist on sannyas, it is a beginning to living.

I insist on it also in another sense. You may say, "If no outward change is needed, then why change the robe? Why change the name?" I want sannyas to become infectious. For you, it helps you to remember. For others, it begins from a point where they can think about it. They can be for or against it, they cannot be indifferent to it. Your colored robe, the moment someone sees it, he will either be for it or against it; no one can be indifferent. He will think about it; if not, he will laugh about it. He will either think that someone has renounced or he will think someone has gone mad, but he will begin to think. And if these robes go on striking, if a person has to come in contact with these robes daily, so many times, they are going to become infectious. He cannot continue neglecting it. He will have to decide something about it.

I want religion to become a current dialogue. It is not a current dialogue at all. No one talks about it. Everyone talks about politics; no one talks about religion. If someone talks about it, others only tolerate it out of etiquette. They preach, hear or listen only as a social duty, as a Sunday affair. No one takes any care what is happening to his innermost soul.

So religion has to be made a current topic, a current dialogue. Every means should be used, and it should be a living symbol.

Wherever you go, you create waves of thinking, waves of emotion. Even by your passing, just your passing, you create a wave, an atmosphere, a situation. That is why I insist on change. There are other reasons also. The ocher color helps in so many ways, because each color has its own wavelength, each color has its own absorption capacity. You cannot be the same in differently colored robes. You will be different.

When you are in a white robe, you cannot be the same as when you are in a black robe.

With the black you will feel sadness, crippling all around you, in you. You will become sad unknowingly. In this world, in this existence, nothing is meaningless, everything carries a meaning. Everything carries a particular atmosphere with it.

The ocher color is chosen for so many reasons. One reason is that it makes you feel just like the sunrise in the morning; it is the color of the sun rising. The whole atmosphere becomes alive, worth seeing. Everything becomes alive. The rays that come are ocher colored. They create a living atmosphere -- something alive and vibrating. So this color was chosen in order that you might vibrate with divinity. You must be alive with divinity.

No sadness shall have any shelter in you, no sorrow should be allowed to have any shelter.

You must be in a dancing mood twenty-four hours -- it is the dancing color. And it conserves the same atmosphere around your body, just like in the morning. The whole day, it conserves. If you can feel it, cooperate with it, you will know a great difference.

And when one is wearing ocher, it is one thing; when thousands wear it, the result is altogether different. The quantity changes the quality.

Buddha will come to a city with ten thousand ocher-colored bhikkhus. The whole city is surrounded with a new atmosphere, it is a great attack! The whole day the village is as fresh as in the morning, everywhere is the ocher color. Each moment, everyone is remembering. The ocher has a psychological association.

You know that the policeman, when he is off duty and not wearing his uniform, is an ordinary person. You will see the change even in his face -- he is so ordinary. When he is in uniform, he is someone else -- quite a different person. He is not the same man, his whole behavior will be different. He will stand in a different way, he will walk in a different way.

The ocher color has become associated with sannyas. It was used for so long, for thousands and thousands of years. It has become a part of the collective mind. And you should know sannyas is originally an oriental concept; it dawned first on the oriental mind. For at least ten thousand years the Orient has used the ocher color. In your so many lives, the ocher color has been worn as a robe of the sannyasin, It is part of your collective mind, of your collective unconscious. It is a great association.

So once you use it, then the whole ancient collective mind is revived again. Your memories come up again and surround you. They change your personality, they change you. They change the inner structure of your mind. So it is possible to use another color, but it is difficult to create the same association with it now, and the time is short and the moment is crucial.

So many have asked me, why ocher? Why not a new color? A new color can be used, but it will not be useful. If I had ten thousand years ahead of me, then I would change the color, but the time is short and decisive and crucial and a great crisis is to be faced. So I will use your many births.

And if you think that when someone comes to me I will just give him sannyas, it is not so. I may say that I gave sannyas, to anyone who came to me, but it is not just so. It looks so, but it is not just so. The moment anyone comes to me, I know much about him that he has not known about himself even.

Yesterday, someone came to me in the morning, and I told her to take sannyas. She was bewildered. She said to give her time to think and decide, at least two days. I said to her, "Who knows about two days? So much you require... take it today, this moment." But she was not decisive, so I gave her two days. The next morning she came and took it. She has not taken two days, only one day. I ask her, "Why? You have been given two days, why have you come so soon?" She said, "At three o' clock at night, suddenly I was awake, and something went deep within me telling me, `Go take sannyas.'" It is not a decision that she has made, but a decision that has been made by her very deep- rooted mind. But the moment she came in the room I knew her, I knew that mind which she came to know twenty hours later.

So when I say take sannyas, there are so many reasons with every person to whom I tell it. Either he has been a sannyasin in the last life, or somewhere in the long journey he has been a sannyasin.

I had given her another name yesterday, but today I had to change it because I gave her that name in her indecision. Now I am giving her a different name that will be a help to her. When she came this morning, she herself was decided. That other name was not needed at all. And I have given her the name Ma Yoga Vivek, because now the decision has come through her vivek -- her awareness, her consciousness.

Ma Yoga Tao is here, for example. She has been thrice a sannyasin. I have given her the name Tao because in a past life she was Chinese and a Taoist monk. She might not know it, but I have given her the name Tao. Someday she remembers, and then she will know why I have given her a Chinese name. Now it is irrelevant, but the moment she will remember that she had been a Taoist monk, she will know why the name was given to her.

Everything is meaningful. It may not be so obvious, and it may not be possible to explain it to you. So many things will remain unexplained for a much longer time, but the more you become receptive, the more I will be able to explain. The deeper your capacities to be sympathetic, the deeper the truth that can be revealed. The more rational the discussion, the less the truth that can be revealed, because only less significant truths can be given any proof with reason. Deeper truth cannot be given any proof with reason.

So unless I feel that you are so sympathetic that reason will not come in. I cannot tell you.

I have to remain silent on so many points -- not because I am withholding anything from you, but because it will not be helpful to you, and on the contrary it may prove harmful.