The following excerpts are from various Osho talks where he is speaking on sannyas and the malas. These are only a few of the selections that you can find at Neo-Sannyas – OSHO. If you read these chronologically, it is very clear what Osho is communicating regarding sannyas and the malas for today’s world.
“From now onwards, anybody who wants initiation into sannyas will not be given a mala and will not be told to change to red cloths . . .”
-From Bondage to Freedom, Talk #12
“I have not stopped the sannyas movement; I have stopped it becoming a religion. A movement is a flux; that’s the meaning of movement – it is moving, it is growing.
“But a religion is dead – it has stopped moving, it has stopped growing. It is dead. The only place for it is in the crematorium . . .
“Every priest or priestess wants a dead religion, because it is predictable. Everything is just a catechism. There is no opinion, no evolution, no growth. Just look at Christianity: two thousand years have passed – have they gone even an inch farther than Jesus Christ? Twenty-five centuries have passed since Buddha – have Buddhists gone a single step ahead? This is destroying growth, destroying evolution.
“Now I want my people to remain open, alive, growing, always fresh and new. It remains a new kind of phenomenon, religiousness: no label attached to it, because every label is a full stop. And I don’t like full stops, I don’t like even semi-colons: Life is always ongoing . . .
“I have withdrawn the mala. It has significance in India, because in India the red cloths and mala have been used for thousands of years by all the religions as symbolic of a sannyasin. I wanted to destroy that traditional idea of sannyas, because the sannyasin has to be celibate, the sannyasin has not to touch a woman, not to talk to a woman. The sannyasin cannot stay in a household; he has to stay in a temple. He has to eat only once a day, he has to fast continuously again and again. He has to torture himself. This is sick.
“I wanted to destroy this image, that’s why I had chosen the red color. And I had almost three hundred thousand sannyasins in India. My sannyasins created tremendous trouble amongst the traditional sannyasins, because there was no way to know who is who. My sannyasins would be walking on the road and people would touch their feet, not knowing that these are not celibates; they have their girlfriends. They eat two times a day, they eat everything that is the best – whether it is Italian or Chinese or Japanese, it does not matter. These people belong to the twenty-first century, and old sannyasins were very angry because I have destroyed their image.
“With our coming to the West, now red cloths and the mala are no longer needed, because in the West they have never been symbolic of religion. They have done their work in India. They have made their point, that a sannyasin can be with a wife, with children; that he need not be a parasite on the society, he can work, he can create, he can earn; that he need not be worshipped . . .
“And, more specifically, you are now completely devoid of all outer symbols. All that is left is the essential core of religiousness, the inward journey, which only you can do. I cannot do it for you; nobody can do it for you.
“So now there is left only the essential quality, the most fundamental quality of religiousness: that is meditation.…
“So now that you no longer have any outer symbols, it is good, if you want to be a sannyasin, for you to remember only one thing: how to go into the discipline of witnessing; otherwise, there is a possibility that wearing red cloths and the mala you are completely satisfied that you are a sannyasin. You are not. Cloths don’t make anybody change, neither does the mala make anybody go through a transformation. But you can deceive yourself.
“Now I am taking all that away from you, and leaving only one simple thing. You cannot deceive: either you do it or you don’t do it. Without doing it, you are not a sannyasin. So the movement has come to its purest state, the most essential stage; it has not been dropped.”
–From Bondage to Freedom, Talk #17
“You say you are not a sannyasin. That is wrong – you are. There are sannyasins who are not sannyasins; there are non-sannyasins who are sannyasins. Sannyas is not something outward, it is something inner. If you could enjoy these three weeks, you are already initiated. These three weeks are going to change your whole life.
“So drop that idea that you are a non-sannyasin. Anybody who is so open, so available, so unprejudiced that, just being a visitor here, he fell in tune with the commune, its sincerity, its love – the initiation has happened. The outer initiation may follow in its own time, there is no hurry. And even if it doesn’t follow, it doesn’t matter. What matters has happened!”
-From Bondage to Freedom, Talk #26
“The question is not of being my sannyasin, the question is of being a sannyasin.
“To be my sannyasin certainly needs a certain commitment, a certain surrender. And I do not want you to be surrendered to me, or to be committed to me. I want you to be surrendered to nature, committed to existence. You need not be my sannyasin; you have just to be a sannyasin – and that’s the only way of being my sannyasin.”
–Beyond Psychology, Talk #15
“Now sannyas will be a totally different movement: it will be for more authentic seekers.
“It will not be just for anybody who wants to change the society because he is fed up with the society. He wants an alternative society so he joins a sannyas commune as an alternative society – but he has no desire and no longing for truth.
“Just because in this society people are wearing red cloths – and he does not want to look awkward, odd, strange – he starts using red cloths, becomes a sannyasin.
“But his reality is that he is escaping only from the big world, where he was utterly bored and had no other place to go. The commune became a shelter for all kinds of people.
“Now sannyas will be a school, a mystery school. Only those who want to grow and change will be joining it. And there are millions of people who want some more consciousness in their being, who feel that they are sleepy and unconscious.
“So don’t be worried if a few other, old sannyasins disappear; new ones, fresh blood, will be coming in.”
–The Path of the Mystic, Talk #37
Have you stopped initiating people into sannyas and creating disciples? Am I to be deprived of becoming your disciple?
“A disciple is not made; one has to become one. When you love someone, do you first ask the person? Do you first take the permission of the person? Love just happens. Love neither obeys any order nor takes any permission, nor does it believe in any modes or methods.
“What is discipleship?
“It is the highest, the deepest name of love. If you want to love me, how can I stop you? If you shed tears in love for me, how can I stop you? And if you dive into what I call meditation, how can I stop you? Whosoever wants to be a disciple, no one can stop him. And that is why I have dropped all the formalities that were there for making someone a disciple, because now I want only those who are coming toward me of their own accord – not via some other route. Now, the whole responsibility is yours.
“For instance, we teach students in the first grade: a is for apple, g is for Ganesh. In fact, previously g used to be for Ganesh, now it is for gadha, the donkey. It is a secular state. Here it is not appropriate that the word Ganesh appears in a textbook. But neither does Ganesh have anything to do with g or gadha. It is just a way to teach a small child. The child finds gadha or Ganesh more interesting. He doesn’t find any interest in the letter g. But slowly, slowly gadha will be forgotten, Ganesh will be forgotten, only g will remain, and only g will be used.
“If you keep having to read a for apple, g for Ganesh, by the time you enter the university, there will be no opportunity to study. Even to read one complete sentence will be impossible. And after reading it, it will become difficult to understand what the meaning is, because who knows how many donkeys and Ganeshas and mangoes will be in the sentence?
“There are pictures in small children’s textbooks: colored pictures, big pictures, and a few letters. And with every move to a higher class the pictures go on becoming smaller and the letters become more and more. Slowly, the pictures disappear altogether and only the letters remain. In university classes, there are no pictures, only letters, the akshar.
“Our word akshar is also very lovely. It means that which will never be destroyed. So, Ganesha can be destroyed, gadhas can be destroyed, but the akshar will always remain. It never ceases.
“So when I started, I had to initiate people into sannyas, to make people disciples. But how long can one play the joke of gadhas and Ganeshas; apples and pineapples? Now, sannyas has matured. Now, formalities no longer have an important place.
“Now, if you are in love, become a disciple. It is not something even to be talked about. Now, no need even to let anyone know: if it is your feeling, be a sannyasin. Now, the whole responsibility is yours. This is the sign of being mature. How long can I walk along with you, holding your hand? Before my hands are removed, I have to let go of your hands by myself, so that you can stand on your own feet – relying on your own hands, your own responsibility – and walk.
“No, there is no need for you to stop from becoming a disciple. Nor can anyone prevent you from becoming a sannyasin. But now it is your decision alone, according to the thirst and the call of your own interiority.
“I am with you, my blessings are with you, but now I will not explain to you about becoming a sannyasin or ask you to meditate. Now, I will only explain this much: what meditation is. If only this much can trigger a thirst in you, then meditate. Now, I will not tell you to love. Now, I will only describe love and everything else to you. If no song arises in your heart – even upon 
hearing the unique and mysterious description of love – then nothing will come out of commanding it from you either. And if a song arises, then it is not a matter of giving and taking: you can be a disciple, you can meditate, you can become a sannyasin, you can attain to enlightenment, you can achieve the ultimate treasure of this life that we have called moksha, the ultimate liberation.
“But now you have to do all this. Gone are the days of someone giving you a push from behind. Now, you are completely free. Your own wish, your own joy, your own ecstasy are the deciding factors.
–The Diamond Sword, Talk #8
I am familiar with the master-disciple relationship after years of being around you.
Could you please comment on the disciple-disciple relationship?
“There is no such thing.
“Disciples in the past have created organizations. That was their relationship, that ‘we are Christians,’ that ‘we are Mohammedans,’ that ‘we belong to one religion, to one faith and because we belong to one faith, we are brothers and sisters. We will live for the faith and we will die for the faith.’
“All organizations have arisen out of the relationships between disciples.
“In fact, two disciples are not connected with each other at all.
“Each disciple is connected with the master in his individual capacity.
“A master can be connected with millions of disciples, but the connection is personal, not organizational.
“Disciples don’t have any relationship. Yes, they have a certain friendliness, a certain lovingness.
“I am avoiding the word relationship because that is binding.
“I am not calling it ‘friendship’ even, but ‘friendliness’ – because they are all fellow travelers walking on the same path, in love with the same master, but they are related to each other through the master.
“They are not related to each other directly.
“That has been the most unfortunate thing in the past: that disciples became organized, related amongst themselves, and they were all ignorant.
“And ignorant people can only create more nuisance in the world than anything else. All the religions have done exactly that.
“My people are related to me individually. And because they are on the same path, certainly they become acquainted with each other. A friendliness arises, a loving atmosphere, but I don’t want to call it any kind of relationship.
“We have suffered too much because of disciples getting directly related to each other, creating religions, sects, cults, and then fighting. They cannot do anything else.
“At least with me, remember it: you are not related to each other in any way at all.
“Just a liquid friendliness, not a solid friendship, is enough – and far more beautiful, and without any possibility of harming humanity in the future.”
–Beyond Enlightenment, Talk #2
“Certainly, initiation means you have taken a step into a dangerous life. You have accepted me as your friend in the darkness and you have given your hand with great trust. But I have never used any blank check and I have never used or even interfered in anybody’s life. It is just on your part – I am absolutely out of it. It is your initiation and it is your initiative to offer your life to be transformed. But the whole action and its responsibility are yours.”
–The New Dawn, Talk #30
“And it does not mean that you have to go to the mountains, you can be alone in the marketplace. It is simply a question of being aware, alert, watchful, remembering that you are only your watchfulness. Then you are alone wherever you are. You may be in the crowd, you may be in the mountains; it makes no difference, you are just the same watchfulness. In the crowd you watch the crowd; in the mountains you watch the mountains. With open eyes you watch existence; with closed eyes you watch yourself.
“You are only one thing: the watcher.
“And this watcher is the greatest realization. This is your buddha nature; this is your nature of enlightenment, of your awakening. This should be your only discipline. Only this makes you a disciple: this discipline of knowing your aloneness. Otherwise, what makes you a disciple? You have been deceived on every point in life. You have been told that to believe in a master makes you a disciple. That is absolutely wrong; otherwise, everybody in the world is a disciple.
“Somebody believes in Jesus, somebody believes in Buddha, somebody believes in Krishna, somebody believes in Mahavira; everybody believes in somebody but nobody is a disciple, because to be a disciple does not mean to believe in a master. To be a disciple means to learn the discipline of being your self, of being your true self.”
–The Invitation, Talk #23
“It does not matter that you have become a sannyasin; it won’t change anything unless your sannyas triggers a meditativeness in you . . .
“Without meditation there is no sannyas.
“It is only your pure consciousness rising upwards – slowly, slowly moving beyond the gravitation of lower things – that will make you a sannyasin.”
–The Great Pilgrimage, Talk #11
“I want you to drop all games – worldly games, spiritual games, games that the whole of humanity has played up to now. These games keep you retarded. These games hinder you from growing into consciousness, into your own ultimate flowering. I want to cut away all this rubbish that prevents you.
“I want to leave you alone, absolutely alone, so that you cannot take anybody’s help, so you cannot cling to any prophet, so that you cannot think that Gautam Buddha is going to save you. Left alone – utterly alone – you are bound to find your innermost center.
“There is no way, nowhere to go, no advisor, no teacher, no master. It seems hard, it seems harsh, but I am doing it because I love you, and the people who have not done it have not loved you at all. They loved themselves and they loved to have a big crowd around themselves – the bigger the crowd, the more they feel nourished in their egos.
“That’s why I called even enlightenment the last game. The sooner you drop it, the better. Why not just simply be? Why unnecessarily hurry here and there? You are what existence wants you to be. Just relax.”
-Om Mani Padme Hum, Talk #9
“A sannyasin need not be officially one. Any seeker, anyone in search of truth is a sannyasin. And a sannyasin need not be mine. A sannyasin is not a follower, but at the most a fellow traveler. If you are seeking and searching for the truth, the meaning and significance of life, it is enough.”
–Hari Om Tat Sat, Talk #17
“The day you take the initiation into sannyas is not necessarily the beginning of sannyas. It is simply your indication that, ‘I am willing to wait for sannyas to happen to me.’ Initiation is only your saying yes to existence, and opening all your doors and windows for the fresh breeze and the sun to enter and cleanse you and make you part of the whole.
“Someday sannyas will begin. It can begin in the moment of initiation, if your intensity, integrity, your trust and your love are total, but it is rarely so. It is always sixty percent, forty percent; seventy percent, thirty percent . . .There are people who may have ninety-nine percent trust, but that one percent doubt is enough to prevent . . . years, even lives. Unless you are one hundred percent open, unless the very word no has dropped from your vocabulary, the great revolution of sannyas will not happen to you . . .
“Sannyas needs a total yes and then it can happen this very moment. But your small doubt – it may be just very small – is just like a small piece of sand in your eyes, and you cannot open your eyes. Just a small piece of sand can deprive you of seeing this whole beautiful world. Doubt is just like a small piece of sand in your inner eye. It can prevent you from seeing the splendor and the glory of life, your own potential and your own flowers which have been waiting for lives to grow and blossom, but you have not given the chance.”
-Om Shantih Shantih Shantih, Talk #26
What are the prerequisites for being a disciple?
“None at all.
“An open heart, a loving heart, a deep trust in oneself and nothing else is needed. You don’t have to surrender to some master, you don’t have to worship some God, and you don’t have to do some prayer to some hypothetical deity. You don’t have to go to man-made temples and churches to find that which is hidden within you.
“A disciple is the seed of a master. The disciple is also a lotus flower; it is just that you are looking somewhere else and not within yourself.”
–Live Zen, Talk #7
“I don’t want anybody to be a monk; I want you to be in the world. Meditation need not to be done twenty-four hours; meditation is just a small glimpse – and then carry out your work. Slowly, slowly that glimpse will start radiating in your actions, in your silences, in your songs, in your dances.
“There is no need to waste twenty-four hours and become a parasite. And when you become a parasite on the society, you cannot rebel against the society. You cannot say a single thing against any superstition.
“My people can be sannyasins and yet absolutely rebellious, because they are not dependent on anyone. Their meditation is their own personal affair.”
–The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart, Talk #6
“I teach you to be sannyasins – and not my sannyasins. It is your sannyas, it is your investigation into truth.”
-Christianity: the Deadliest Poison and
Zen, the Antidote to All Poisons, Talk #6
“Sannyas does not need to be an outward thing, just the longing for it is enough.”
-Christianity: the Deadliest Poison and
Zen, the Antidote to All Poisons, Talk #7
“And you go on saying great things: ‘. . . but why should I change my name?’ Why not? It will help you to forget that you are a German; that’s why. The changing of the name simply means you are dropping the whole old personality that was indicated by the old name, that you are beginning afresh with a new name. It is symbolic. You were not born with a name. The name was given by your father, by your mother, by your people. Now you have dropped all conditionings, why not drop the name those conditionings gave to you?
“You can choose your name yourself; anything will do. It is not necessary for a name to mean something, it is only symbolic so that you can be recognized in the crowd and called. You can make up your name yourself, but change you must! Your insistence on not changing shows your inner idea: ‘On the surface, play the game that I have dropped all conditionings.’ And you are not even ready to drop a bogus name.
“I have no interest in changing your name. It is just out of compassion that I am saying, ‘Start a new life with a new symbol, so that you can be discontinuous with your past.’
“And then, ‘. . . why should I change my name, be a sannyasin…’ Do you understand the meaning of sannyasin? It simply means a seeker of truth.
“You don’t want to be a seeker of truth?
“Then what the hell are you doing here?
“And further, ‘ . . . why should I change my name, be a sannyasin and accept a master who says that there is no need for any authority?’
“Two things: first, the master accepts the disciple, not the other way around. So you need not be worried about that. The disciple has to wait for that blissful moment when he can be accepted. Who has given you this idea that it is in your hands to accept a master or not?”
“. . . The seeker of truth has to show his credentials, his ability to wait, his capacity to be patient, because the journey is long and the path is very narrow. A master accepts a disciple only when he can see the sincerity of the heart, the risk, the danger of going into aloneness . . . when the master is convinced that the person is capable of all these, he is accepted as a disciple.
“You don’t have to be worried: it is not so easy to be accepted by a master. And if you don’t want to be a sannyasin . . . perhaps you thought that sannyasins are also a kind of religion; perhaps this is also a new movement, enrolling people. It is not. If you are searching truth, whether you know it or not you are a sannyasin. If you are ready to drop all your conditioning, you are a sannyasin. If you meditate and raise your consciousness to its highest potential, you are a sannyasin. It does not matter whether you know the meaning of the word ‘sannyasin’ or not.
“The ancient meaning of the word was, one who leaves the world in search of truth. My own meaning is, one who lives in the world and yet goes on searching for truth. Because where can you go? Everywhere is the world.
“I cannot understand where those people were going, leaving the world. To the Himalayas? It is also part of the world, part of our geography. Where are those people going to find a place outside the world?
“There is nothing outside the world. Everything is inside the world, and there is no way to get out of it. The only way is to go into yourself, and you are out of it. If the world is not inside you – no desire, no longing, no will to power – if all this nonsense has disappeared from your inner world and it is utterly pure emptiness, you are out of the world. That is the only place which is not in the world.
“But as far as your body is concerned it will be in the world. I have always wondered where those people used to go. Wherever they go, they will find some kind of world.”
“. . . The old sannyasin, the old concept of a sannyasin, is basically wrong. I don’t teach you to leave the world, I teach you to live in the world but don’t let the world live in you. Be a lotus leaf in the water – but the water cannot touch it. That’s the only possibility, if we want the whole world to taste something of meditation; otherwise… the old sannyas cannot survive. And it 
is meaningless, because it makes you dependent on people. You were independent, you had your own time; you worked for a few hours and then you had your own time. But these poor people who have left the world, their whole time is wasted in asking for small things, being rejected, being insulted, being told, ‘Go away, go somewhere else.’ These people were in search of dignity, and what they have found is utter indignity.”
-Om Mani Padme Hum, Talk #29
Well, what will it mean to be a sannyasin in the future, from this day forward?
“From this date forward a sannyasin will simply mean that he is initiated into the meditation techniques here, and he makes a commitment to himself that he will follow the path.
“But it is going to be individual, alone. He will be responsible himself. It is not going to be a collectivity, a congregation.”
-The Last Testament, Vol. 3, Talk #9
“Sannyas simply means they have accepted a way of meditation and a life of joy and rejoicing. It is accepting to create your life into a blissfulness. So sannyas is a totally different thing. Sannyasins will continue. I have dropped all outer symbols of sannyasins. If they want to keep them, it is up to them. From my side I have dropped. They don’t need any mala. They don’t need red cloths. All that I would like… My advice to them, that if you are a sannyasin, that meditation is the only essential thing that you should carry.”
–The Last Testament, Vol. 3, Talk #13
“I have taken from the sannyasins everything that makes them distinct. I have told them, ‘Now it is not necessary to wear red cloths. All colors are ours. There is no need to wear a mala of my photo because I am not your savior or prophet or a messenger.’
“I don’t have any God to offer you. I can only offer you the science of knowing thyself. So you just have to understand that I am only a friend, not more than that. I am one amongst you, so no need of any adoration and no need of thinking yourself as part of a collectivity. You are all individuals.”
Osho, The Last Testament, Vol. 3, Talk #14
“I have been working hard to abandon everything that is outer, so that only the inner remains for you to explore.
“Otherwise the man’s mind is a very immature mind. It starts clinging with outer symbols. That has happened to all the religions of the world.
“I want my people to understand it clearly. Neither your cloths, nor your outer disciplines nor anything that has been given to you by tradition and you have accepted it just on belief, is going to help.
“The only thing that can create a revolution in you is going beyond the mind into the world of consciousness. Except that, nothing is religious.
“But to begin with and with a world which is too much obsessed with outer things, I had to start sannyas also with outer things. Change your cloths into orange, wear a mala, meditate, but the emphasis was only on meditation.
“But I found that people can change their clothes very easily but they cannot change their minds. They can wear the mala, but they cannot move into their consciousness. And because they are in orange cloths, wearing a mala, having a new name, they start believing that they have become a sannyasin.
“Sannyas is not so cheap. Hence it is time and you are mature enough that beginning phase is over.
“I don’t want my people to be lost into non- essentials. In the beginning it was necessary. Now years of listening to me, understanding me, you are in a position to be freed from all outer bondage. And you can for the first time be really a sannyasin only if you are moving inwards.”
–The Last Testament, Vol. 6, Talk #12
(Will be published in the library very soon)
“Sannyas movement is not mine. It is not yours.
“It was here when I was not here. It will be here when I will not be here.
“Sannyas movement simply means the movement of the seekers of truth.
“They have always been here.
“There have always been a line of seekers of truth. I call it sannyas. It is eternal. It is sanatan. It has nothing to do with me. Millions of people have contributed to it. I have also contributed my own share.
“It will go on becoming richer and richer.
“When I am gone there will be more and more people coming and making it richer.
“I will be gone. That does not mean that the sannyas movement will be gone. It does not belong to anybody.…
“I cannot give you the truth, but I can show you the moon . . . please don’t get attached to my finger which is indicating the moon. This finger will disappear. The moon will remain and the search will continue. As long as there is a single human being on the earth the flowers of sannyas will go on blossoming . . .
“First, I am the only man in the whole history who gives you individuality. The so-called gurus were doing just the opposite: they were taking away your individuality. Their whole effort was that you should surrender to them. That your function was just to touch their feet and receive their blessings. My effort is totally different. You cannot receive any blessing by touching anybody’s feet. On the contrary, you are making that man more egoistic and sick.
“Ego is the cancer of his soul. Don’t make anybody sick. Be compassionate. Never touch anybody’s feet . . .
“My effort is to take away all traditions, orthodoxies, superstitions, beliefs, from your mind so that you can attain a state of no-mind . . . the ultimate state of silence, where not even a thought moves. Not even a ripple in the lake of your consciousness.
“And the whole thing has to be done by you. I am not saying that ‘Just follow me. I am the savior. I will save you.’ All that is crap. Nobody can save you, except yourself. And the spiritual independence is the only independence worth calling independence.”
–The Last Testament, Vol. 6, Talk #14
(Will be published in the library very soon)
The Final Message to the Academy of Initiation on Malas, 1989.
Osho sends a message to the Academy of Initiation that there is no need to wear malas anymore. Sannyas is about going inwards and nothing to do with the outer.
Some people are upset, so it is taken in to Osho again and his response, passed on again to the Academy is: “If you must wear your mala, then at home in meditation only.”
Copyright © OSHO International Foundation
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