Sannyas is Like a Funnel

Sannyas like so many words in India has layers and layers of meanings.

Sannyas is like a funnel. At the top of the funnel and on the periphery are being part of a larger group, the personal love affair with a Master etc. and at the bottom of the funnel, the spout, is initiation into ones own being. Here at the spout all of the outer edge of the funnel is pouring down into the spout.

We have been blessed in this life to have been initiated by our Master into sannyas and so should not squander this opportunity. Sannyas is a door. It is not a conveyor belt. It is not that we just step on the conveyor belt like at an airport and we are deposited at our gate. No it requires us to be vigilant as to what is continuously taking us out through that door. It is not a door that we need to pass through. It is a door which we already are passing through all the time. We pass through the door in search of happiness. But through sannyas we become aware of the door itself and by doing so we discover that it is indeed a door opening into freedom but to our surprise we discover that we have been passing through the wrong side. We have been going out of the door instead of remaining in.

From its very beginning till the very end sannyas is an initiation. It is an initiation into the whole, an initiation into our very own being which for most of us was beyond our experience. Sannyas gave us a taste of life outside of the confines of the ego-mind. Sannyas gave us a glimpse of our dissolution from which we would be reborn living consciously as part of the whole.

Some of us were first attracted by the teachings that were conveyed through one of the hundreds of Osho books or perhaps we heard a discourse. Some of us were attracted by the crazy community that we encountered when we were drawn into the net. And certainly all of us were attracted by the center of that cyclone, Osho, who we saw as a beautiful, amazing and mysterious presence.

But slowly, slowly those attractions began to reveal to us what truly lies at the center of sannyas. We find that each of those attractions began to point to our very own dissolution. The dissolution of separate waves into the ocean of existence.

Sannyas is a movement from the periphery to the center. On the periphery we find community, being a part of something greater than ourselves. On the periphery we are attracted to celebration which we see as dance, song and play. We are attracted to a presence that we see as some kind of mysterious being outside of ourselves which too is on the periphery.

And as we move into these aspects of sannyas we discover that there is less and less of what we began with. We find that more and more of the baggage of conditioning that we came with slowly, slowly starts dropping away. And in this sannyas from time to time we find moments when we find ourselves standing in awareness without any confines of ego-mind. We experience glimpses of life without the shackles of self-identification.

Because Osho has made sannyas so accessible we were able to enter into a land in which we may never have journeyed otherwise. Because of the community that he surrounded himself with, because of the mind-blowing being of truth from which he serenaded us, and because of his simple beauty and grandeur we were able to embark on the greatest journey of all. We were able to begin the return journey to our very own being.

Sannyas is an invitation to make the return journey. It is initiation into our very own being.

-purushottama

More from the collected and uncollected posts of Prem Purushottama.