BELOVED OSHO,
I AM A SINNER. CAN I ALSO BECOME YOUR SANNYASIN?
I AM A SINNER. CAN I ALSO BECOME YOUR SANNYASIN?
Yes, absolutely yes! In fact, only a sinner can
become a sannyasin. Those who think themselves saints, holier-than-thou, they
are the closed people, they are the dead people. They have become incapable of
living, incapable of celebrating.
Sannyas is celebration of life, and sin is natural: natural
in the sense that you are unconscious -- what else can you do? In
unconsciousness, sin is bound to happen. Sin simply means that you don't know
what you are doing, you are unaware, so whatsoever you do goes wrong. But to
recognize that "I am a sinner" is the beginning of a great
pilgrimage. To recognize that "I am a sinner" is the beginning of
real virtue. To see that "I am ignorant" is the first glimpse of
wisdom.
The real problem arises with people who are full of
knowledge. All that knowledge is borrowed; hence, rubbish. The people who think
they are virtuous because they have created a certain character around
themselves are the people lost to God. Your so-called saints are the farthest
away, because God is life, and your saints have renounced life. In renouncing life
they have renounced God too.
God is the hidden core of THIS life. This life is just the
outermost part, the circumference; God is the center of it all. To renounce the
circumference, to escape from it, is to renounce the center automatically. You
will not find God anywhere. The farther away you go from life, the farther away
you will be from God. One has to dive into life, and of course when you are
unconscious you will miss the target many times.
The original Hebrew word for sin is very beautiful. By translating
it as "sin," Christians have missed the very message of Jesus. The
original Hebrew word for sin is so totally different from your idea of sin that
it will be a surprise to you. The root word means forgetfulness; it has nothing
to do with what you are doing. The whole thing is whether you are doing it with
conscious being or out of unconsciousness. Are you doing it with a
self-remembering or have you completely forgotten yourself?
Any action coming out of unconsciousness is sin. The action
may look virtuous, but it cannot be. You may create a beautiful facade, a
character, a certain virtuousness; you may speak the truth, you may avoid lies;
you may try to be moral, and so on and so forth.
But if all this is coming from unconsciousness, it is all
sin.
It is because of this that Jesus has a tremendously
significant saying. He says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, take it
out and throw it away. It is much better for you to lose a part of your body
than to have your whole body thrown into hell."
Now, if you don't understand the real meaning of sin, you are
bound to misinterpret the whole statement and Jesus will look too harsh, too
hard, too violent. Saying, "If your right eye causes you to sin, take it
out and throw it away," does not look like a statement of Jesus. A man of
profound love and compassion -- he cannot say it, he cannot be so violent. But
this is how Christians have interpreted him.
What he means is: whatsoever causes you to forget yourself,
even if it is your right eye....
That is just to emphasize the fact. It is simply a way of
talking, an emphasis: "If your right eye causes you to forget yourself,
then take it out and throw it away." He is not saying anything which has
to be taken literally; it is a metaphor. He is saying that it is better to be
blind than to be forgetful of yourself, because the blind man who remembers
himself is not blind, he has the real eye. And the man who has eyes, if he has
forgotten himself, what is the use of having eyes? He cannot see himself --
what ELSE can he see?
Govind, your question is beautiful. You say, "I am a
sinner...." Everybody is! To be born in this world means to be a sinner.
But remember my emphasis: it means to forget oneself.
That's the whole purpose of the world: to give you an
opportunity to forget yourself.
Why? -- so that you can remember. But you will ask -- and
your question will look logical -- "If we already remembered before, then
why this unnecessary torture that we have to forget ourselves and THEN remember
again? What is the point of this whole exercise? It seems to be an exercise of
utter futility!" It is not; there is great significance in it.
The fish in the ocean is born in the ocean, lives in the ocean,
but knows nothing about the ocean -- unless you take the fish out of the ocean.
Then, suddenly, a recognition arises in the fish. Only when you lose something
do you remember. Only in that contrast does remembering happen. Then let the
fish go back to the ocean. It is the same fish, it is the same ocean, the same
situation -- yet everything is different. Now the fish knows that the ocean is
her life, her very being. Before, she was in the ocean but unaware; now, she is
in the ocean but aware. And that's the great difference, the difference that
makes the difference.
We have lived in God, we all come from the original source of
existence, but we have to be thrown out into the world so that we can start
searching for God again, searching for the ocean -- thirsty, hungry, starving,
longing. And the day we find it again there is great rejoicing. And it is not
anything new.
The day Buddha became enlightened he laughed and he said to
himself, "This is very strange! What I have gained is not an achievement
at all, it is only a recognition. I had it always, but I was unaware of
it."
The only difference between a sinner and a sage is that the
sinner is full of forgetfulness, and the sage is full of remembering. And
between these two is that hocus-pocus being called the saint. He does not know
anything, he does not remember anything. He has heard other sages or may have
read the scriptures, and he repeats those scriptures like a parrot -- not only
repeats but practices also. He tries to behave like a sage. But any effort to
behave like a sage shows only one thing: that you are not a sage yet.
The sage lives simply, spontaneously; there is no question of
effort at all. He lives life just as you breathe. He is very ordinary; there is
nothing special about a sage. But the saint is very special, because the saint
is trying to DO something. And of course he is making a great effort, because
it is not his own understanding. So he is continuously torturing himself to
behave rightly, violently forcing himself to behave rightly. Naturally, he
expects much respect from you. He can go on doing all this masochism, this
self- torture, if you give him respect. Just think: if the so-called respect
given to the saints disappears, out of one hundred of your saints, ninety-nine
point nine percent will immediately disappear. They are living only for the
ego.
It is good, Govind, that you realize that you are a sinner.
This is the beginning of something tremendously significant. You can be a sage;
all that you have to avoid is being a saint! That is the trouble: the saint is
the false coin which looks exactly like the real coin; in fact, it looks more
real than the real one. It has to, because it has to deceive people. Avoid
being a saint.
That's what my sannyas is: living your ordinary life with
only one addition, that of awareness -- and the sinner will become a sage. The
sinner becomes a sage through awareness; the sinner becomes a saint through
cultivating a character.
I don't teach you character, I teach you consciousness.
Hence, I am not at all interested that you are a sinner and that you have been
doing all kinds of sins -- that is irrelevant. It is accepted that in your
unconsciousness what else can you do?
I accept you with total love, respect.
Many times I have been told, particularly by the so-called
saints, "You go on giving sannyas to everybody -- this is not right.
Sannyas should be given only to people of character!"
It is as if you go to a physician and he says, "My
condition for giving you medicine is that I give it to you only when you are
healthy. Come to me when you are healthy. I never give medicines to people who
are ill, I never waste my medicines on ill people!
First become healthy and then come to me." You can
understand the absurdity of that.
If I say to somebody, "First go and become WORTHY of
sannyas, then come to me," that means that if he can become worthy of
sannyas by his own effort, then why cannot he become a sannyasin by himself?
What is the need for him to come to ME? He needs help, and anybody who ASKS for
help should be given help, and it should be given unconditionally.
There is a beautiful statement of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi,
one of the greatest Sufi masters ever. Govind, take it to your heart.
COME, COME, WHOEVER YOU ARE; WANDERER, WORSHIPPER, LOVER OF
LEARNING...
IT DOES NOT MATTER.
OURS IS NOT A CARAVAN OF DESPAIR.
COME, EVEN IF YOU HAVE BROKEN YOUR VOW A THOUSAND TIMES.
COME, COME, YET AGAIN COME.
COME, COME, WHOEVER YOU ARE...sinner, unconscious, living a
life which is not glorious, divine, meaningful; living a life which has no
poetry, no joy, a life of hell....
Whosoever you are, Mevlana says, "Come, I am ready to
receive you. Be my guest!"
The master is a host; he refuses nobody. True masters never
refuse anybody. They cannot. If THEY start refusing people, then there is no
hope. If you go under a tree, a shady tree -- tired of your journey and the
burning sun on your head -- and the tree refuses you, it does not give you
refuge, it does not shelter you...? It does not happen at all. The tree is
always ready to give you shelter, its shadow, its fruits, its flowers, its
fragrance.
A great Tibetan story is....
Once there lived a master who never initiated anybody. His
fame slowly became very well known all over the country, even beyond the
boundaries of the country. And people would come and fall at his feet and ask
to be initiated. But his conditions were such that nobody was able to fulfill
them, so nobody was ever thought worthy -- nobody deserved initiation.
He had only a servant, not even a disciple. One day when he
was ill and on his deathbed, he called his servant and told him, "Go to
the marketplace, and whosoever wants to be initiated, bring them all. I am
going to initiate!"
The servant was shocked. He said, "Are you talking in a
delirium or something? Your whole life you insisted on certain qualities --
unless those were fulfilled you would not initiate -- and nobody has ever been
able to fulfill your conditions. Now you are telling me to go to the
marketplace and tell people that anybody who wants to be initiated should come?
What about the conditions? What about the prerequisites? What about the
essential readiness? What about the groundwork?"
The master said, "Don't waste my time anymore, because
this is my last day on the earth.
Simply go! Do what I am saying, don't argue. You are my
servant -- simply follow the order. Go and find anybody who wants to
come!"
The servant went, puzzled. He could not believe his own ears,
could not believe his own eyes. But because the master had ordered, and he was
just a servant, he had to follow. He went into the marketplace very
unwillingly. He shouted in the marketplace. Nobody believed him; they thought
he had gone mad. He said, "I am not saying it, he himself has told me! I
also think that he has gone mad, now you are thinking that I have gone mad. I
am simply a servant. He must have gone mad! He is dying, he has lost all his
senses. But give it a try -- you are not going to lose anything."
A few people, just out of curiosity, a few people who had
nothing to do.... It was a holiday, so they said, "Okay, we are coming.
Let us see what happens!" Somebody had quarreled with his wife and had
nowhere to go, so he said, "I am coming." A gambler and a drunkard
who were just on the road, simply followed seeing this whole bunch of people,
not knowing where they were going.
So this strange crowd reached the master's place, and he
started initiating them one by one. The first man he initiated was the
drunkard. Of course he was so drunk that he could not even think that the
master was mad -- he did not even realize that he was being initiated! He was
not aware at all what was happening. When the master said, "Do you want to
be initiated?" he simply nodded his head.
The servant could not believe it. He said, "What are you
doing? This man is completely drunk, he is an alcoholic, and you are giving him
initiation! And there is a thief in the crowd, and one man has come because he
is unemployed and he thought at least this way he would find some employment --
at least he could become a saint and people would feed him. And there are a few
people who have come because it is a holiday. A few others have come just out
of curiosity: `Let us see what is happening.' The man next to the drunkard has
come here only because his wife has thrown him out and closed the doors. He was
standing outside, and he said, `Okay, so I am coming also!' These are not
seekers and searchers -- they are not religious at all! What are you doing?
Your whole life you were waiting for worthy people, people who are
deserving!"
The master said, "Listen, the truth is -- now I can tell
you -- I was not a master at all! Just this morning I have realized myself, but
I could not tell anybody that I was not a master.
So rather than telling the truth, I always tried to make some
impossible demands which could not be fulfilled. In that way I saved my ego.
But today I have come to know who I am, and now I know that everybody is
capable of knowing because everybody is basically the same. Even this drunkard
is no more unconscious than anybody else.
Everybody is unconscious, and unconscious people need
initiation; they need the help of those who have become conscious. The
conscious person can function as a catalytic agent."
Mevlana is right: COME, COME, WHOEVER YOU ARE; WANDERER,
WORSHIPPER, LOVER OF LEARNING...IT DOES NOT MATTER. The master is ready; it
does not matter who comes to him. Whoever knocks on his door is a welcome
guest.
OURS IS NOT A CARAVAN OF DESPAIR. Remember this beautiful
statement: "Ours is not a caravan of despair." I can also say this.
Ours is not a caravan of despair, it is a celebration -- it is the celebration
of life.
People become religious out of misery, and the person who
becomes religious out of misery becomes religious for the wrong reasons. And if
the very beginning is wrong, the end cannot be right.
Become religious out of joy, out of the experience of beauty
that surrounds you, out of the immense gift of life that God has given to you.
Become religious out of gratitude, thankfulness. Your temples, your churches,
your mosques and GURUDWARAS are full of miserable people. They have turned your
temples also into hells. They are there because they are in agony. They don't
know God, they have no interest in God; they are not concerned with truth;
there is no inquiry. They are just there to be consoled, comforted. Hence they
seek anybody who can give them cheap beliefs to patch up their lives, to hide
their wounds, to cover up their misery. They are there in search of some false
satisfaction.
Ours is not a caravan of despair. It is a temple of joy, of
song, of dance, of music, of creativity, of love and life.
You are welcome, Govind -- join the caravan.
COME, EVEN IF YOU HAVE BROKEN YOUR VOW A THOUSAND TIMES.
It does not matter. You may have broken all the rules -- the
rules of conduct, the rules of morality. In fact, anybody who has any guts is
bound to break those rules. Only people who are without guts, who have no spine
to their being can follow the priests and the politicians, the demagogues, the
people who have vested interests in the establishment.
But if you have any intelligence then you will be a rebel.
And the rebel will be called a sinner, and the obedient fool will be called a
saint.
This starts happening from the very childhood. The obedient
child is praised by the parents, obviously -- for the simple reason that he is
not a pain in their necks. He is so dull, so dead that whatsoever they say he
does. He is an imitator, he is a carbon copy, and the parents' egos feel very
nourished by the child. He follows them, he believes in them, he adores them.
But the intelligent child will not be respected by the
parents. They will always feel some trouble with the intelligent child, because
he will ask questions which they can't answer because they don't know
themselves. He will ask such things as will be embarrassing to them. He will
create situations in which they will see their impotence. They will not be able
to control him -- and everybody is interested in controlling everybody else;
nobody wants to give freedom. They will not be able to enslave the child; he
will resist all efforts to enslave him, he will give them a good fight. In
fact, he is the child to be loved, to be respected, because he has some life,
he has some soul. But he will be condemned.
Intelligence is condemned, imitativeness is respected.
Original faces are distorted and masks are painted, beautifully decorated. The
true, the authentic, is denied, and the false, the unauthentic, is raised as
high as possible. And the same thing goes on happening in the schools,
colleges, universities. The whole of society is a repetition of the same thing
on a larger scale.
Only very stupid people become your presidents, your prime
ministers. You will not tolerate intelligent people, you will not give power to
intelligent people, because you will be afraid of them. You will always want
some stupid people to dominate you, because there will always be a certain
affinity between you and the stupid. There will be a certain understanding, a
communication.
Jesus is bound to be crucified, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta
is going to win the Nobel Prize. Socrates is going to be poisoned and killed,
but not the so-called professors of philosophy in the universities; they are
very respectable people. Socrates was not respectable. If he had been
respectable, then Athens would not have behaved in such an ugly way. He was
condemned like a criminal, but the professors of philosophy who are teaching
Socrates are very respected people; they all have respectability. They write
great treatises on Socrates, and nobody poisons them.
One of my professors wrote his thesis on the philosophy of
Socrates, and he got a D.Litt.
in it. He was very happy, and all his students gave him a
party. I was also present. I asked him one thing: "Socrates was given
poison and you are given a D.Litt. There must be something wrong with your
treatise! It cannot be Socratic, that much is certain. I have not looked into
your treatise, and I am not going to look into it at all -- I am not going to
waste my time! One thing is certain: something is absolutely un-Socratic about
it; otherwise, why should the society, the university, give you recognition?"
He could not answer me, but he became an enemy. He started
avoiding me, and I started haunting him! Wherever we would meet alone --
sometimes walking on the road to the university, or going for a morning walk,
or in the night -- I would always look out for him and say, "Hello,
Socrates!" He would become so angry!
One day he told me, "Why are you after me? What wrong
have I done to you?"
I said, "You have not done anything wrong to me, I am
simply trying to make the point clear to you that writing a treatise on
Socrates is one thing, and to BE a Socrates is totally another. If you were a
Socrates you would have been crucified, you would have been stoned to death.
The same university would have condemned you; you would have been expelled from
this university."
And finally, HE was not expelled from the university, I was
expelled. And when I was expelled, I went to him and told him, "Look! I am
not even a professor, I have not written a treatise on Socrates, and they have
expelled me!"
And the reasons they gave me were: "You ask embarrassing
questions of the professors.
You disturb their classes. You don't allow them to finish
their syllabus and you go on persisting with one question for months at a
time."
And I said, "How can I drop the question unless it is
answered? If it is not answered, then what are months? -- even a whole life has
to be devoted to it!"
And they said, "You may be right, but people have come
here to get their degrees. They are not interested in truth, nor are the
professors interested in truth. Go and find some other place."
And then no other university was ready to accept me, because
I had become notorious!
One university accepted me on the condition that I would
never ask any question. Now, what kind of universities are these? So when the
vice-chancellor said to me, "You have to put it in writing for me that you
will not ask the professors any questions," I said, "I can do that,
but then you have to understand one thing: that I will not attend the classes.
But you have to give me permission to appear in the examination, because I will
not be fulfilling the percentage of attendance required -- seventy-five
percent. It is impossible."
He said, "Why? Why can't you attend the classes?"
I said, "If I attend the classes, then I will not be
able to resist the temptation to ask questions! Then I will ask questions.
Either allow me to ask questions or give me the attendance mark; otherwise,
what will be the point of my being there?"
He said, "Okay, we will give you the attendance
mark."
So I never attended the classes -- it was against the rules,
but they gave me a ninety percent attendance mark. I never went to any class,
because one thing was certain, that once I saw a professor then I didn't care
what I had given in writing -- I HAD to ask the questions!
My father used to tell me wherever he would take me with him,
"Keep silent, don't ask any question; otherwise, please don't come with
me."
I would promise him that I would not ask the question, and I
would ask the question. And he would come home very heated -- "You
promised...!"
I said, "What can I do? I completely forget! When I see
stupid people talking about great things, I cannot resist -- I simply forget.
It is not that I want to hurt you or anything, but what can I do? That man was
talking about the soul being immortal, and he knows nothing. I simply asked
him, `If I kill you, will you be angry or not? If the soul is immortal, allow
me to kill you! At least allow me to slap you -- what to say about killing!
The soul is immortal!' And he was saying, `I am not the
body.' `So perfectly okay -- I slap the body, and you are not the body!' And he
became angry, and you are also becoming angry. I was not asking anything wrong,
I was simply asking a question that HE had raised!"
People go on talking nonsense, but this whole society exists
for the lowest, for the mediocre.
I agree with Mevlana -- MEVLANA means the master. Jalaluddin
Rumi was called Mevlana by his disciples out of great love. Mevlana says:
COME, EVEN IF YOU HAVE BROKEN YOUR VOW A THOUSAND TIMES.
Intelligent people are bound to break all their vows many
times, because life goes on changing, situations go on changing. And the vow is
taken under pressure -- maybe the fear of hell, the greed for heaven,
respectability in society.... It is not coming from your innermost core. When
something comes from your own inner being, it is never broken.
But then it is never a vow, it is a simple phenomenon like
breathing.
COME, COME, YET AGAIN COME!
Govind, if you want to be a sannyasin, you are welcome.
Everybody is welcome, without any conditions. You do not have to fulfill any
requirements. Just the longing to be in deep contact with me is enough, more
than enough. Just the desire to be close to me, to be intimate with me is enough.
That's what sannyas is all about.
And drop this idea of being a sinner, because that must be
creating some guilt in you.
That guilt is one of the oldest tricks of the priests for
dominating people. They create guilt in you. They give you such stupid ideas
that you cannot fulfill them. Then guilt arises, and once the guilt has arisen,
you are trapped.
Guilt is the trade secret of all the so-called, established
religions. Create guilt in people, make them feel bad about themselves. Don't
let them be respectful of their own lives; let them feel condemned. Let them
feel, deep down, that they are ugly, that they are not of any worth, that they
are dust, and then of course they will be ready to be guided by any fool. They
will be more than ready to become dependent, in the hope that "somebody
will lead us to the ultimate light." These are the people who have been
exploiting you for centuries.
The time has come when a great rebellion is needed against all
established religions.
Religiousness is needed in the world but no more religions --
no more Hindus, no more Christians, no more Mohammedans -- just pure religious
people, people who have great respect for themselves.
And remember, only a person who has respect for himself can
respect others, because life is the same. If you are too hard upon yourself you
will be more hard on others, obviously.
You will magnify their sins; you have to, just to give
yourself consolation that you are not the only sinner, there are greater
sinners than you. That will be your only consolation in life: that you need not
worry, you are just a small sinner, there are great sinners.
That's why people go on creating rumors about everybody else.
And people believe rumors very easily. If somebody says something ugly,
derogatory about a person, you immediately believe it. But if somebody praises
him, you don't believe it, you ask for proofs. You never ask for proofs about
derogatory remarks and rumors. You are very willing to believe them for the
simple reason that you WANT to believe that "everybody is far worse than I
am." That's the only way to feel good, a little bit good, about yourself.
The priests have given you only two alternatives. Either you
follow the impossible rules that they impose; then you feel paralyzed,
crippled, imprisoned. Or, if you want to live a life of freedom and you want to
be natural, guilt arises. In both ways you are being exploited.
I am here to free you from all exploitation.
Freedom is the taste of sannyas, the fragrance of sannyas. My
sannyasins are not trying to cultivate any character, they are trying a totally
different phenomenon: they are raising their consciousness. And then I leave
everybody free to live according to his own light.
