Chapter #17 Just Around The Corner #17
Discourse Overview
Bliss is the inner kingdom that makes one a true king, and it cannot be given from outside but must be discovered and lived from within. Osho recalls Diogenes laughing at Alexander to show that external power without inner bliss is spiritual poverty. He paints sannyas as red — the color of blood, life, youth and dawn — insisting the sannyasin remain alive, juicy and capable of joy. Instead of becoming a pale monk who withdraws, the sannyasin engages the world fully, functions from not-knowing and stays forever in love with existence. On the kingdom: the true realm is inner — bliss alone confers sovereignty regardless of outward status. On renunciation versus engagement: sannyas is participation in life, not escape; ascetic pallor is a slow suicide. On youth and learning: remaining young means refusing to accumulate rigid knowledge and preserving innocence and a readiness to learn. On initiation: sannyas is the end of night and the beginning of dawn, a rebirth into vibrant life rather than a denial of the world.
More languages:
Checking…
Osho's Commentary
"Look into my eyes" Diogenes said to Alexander. Alexander looked into his eyes and said "If God gives me another opportunity to be born I will ask him to make me Diogenes and not Alexander."
Bliss makes one a king. And bliss is some thing that never comes from without, so the king dom is not without; the kingdom is within. And the other meaning is also significant and relevant for a sannyasin, because red is the color of sannyas -- blissful redness. The red represents many things. One: it represents life because it is the color of blood. It represents aliveness.
A sannyasin has not to be a monk. A monk is one who shrinks, escapes from the world, commits a slow suicide. The sannyasin has to live in the world as totally as possible, as dancingly as possible. He has not to escape; he has not to become a pale monk. He has not to become a dead leaf; he has to remain alive and juicy.
Red is also the color of youth. A sannyasin has to remain young to the very last moment. Even when death comes a sannyasin remains young; youth is his very flavor. It is not a question of age or time. He may be sixty, he may be seventy, he may be one hundred, it doesn't matter, but he remains young. Youth is his inner space, and by being young I mean that he remains capable of learning.
He never becomes old because he never accumulates experiences. He never becomes old because he never becomes knowledgeable. He remains young because he functions from the state of not-knowing, he functions out of innocence. And he is young because he is always in love: in love with existence itself, in love with all its manifestations.
Red is also the color of the morning, the dawn, the beginning of the day. Think of your initiation as the end of the night and the beginning of the dawn.