Can sannyasins adopt aspects of Osho's teachings as a new form of conditioning?

Beloved Osho, is it possible that while sannyasins might be cleaned of society's conditioning, they can adopt certain facets of your teaching as another kind of conditioning -- such as the need to be total, to doubt unless we know something from our own experience, not to be jealous, and so on? Could you explain how your way of working with us is not simply the exchanging of one set of values -- and thus conditionings -- for another?

In the first place, what I am teaching are not new values, not a new set of values in place of old values. For example, there are people who believe in God -- that is one set. There are people who do not believe in God -- that is another set. I am saying to people that there is no question of believing. Changing from one belief to another belief is changing the conditioning, but you remain conditioned. I am saying you have to remain without any belief system, and you yourself enquire into reality -- and whatever you find is your own truth. There is no need to believe in it because once you know it, the question of belief does not arise. You believe only in things which you do not know. When you know them, you know: belief is irrelevant. So I am not giving you another…

You have said not to condition children with our ideas. What about sannyasin children? Why not let them choose consciously whether and when to take sannyas? For example, for children living in the west -- outside of the ashram anyway -- cannot the fact of their being sannyasins condition them in their relationship to other children or to their environment?

DEVA MAJID, CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION? -- Have you taken sannyas consciously? Who has taken sannyas consciously? If you are conscious, then what is the need, in fact, of taking sannyas? In that way, everybody is the same as children, grown-up, makes no difference. Children are truer. It often happens: a sannyasin mother or father brings a child to take sannyas and he falls asleep -- and that is the true picture of a sannyasin! But he is authentic and you keep your eyes open, that's the only difference. You are fast asleep with open eyes and the child is true: he is asleep so he has closed his eyes -- that's all. Why keep your eyes open when you are asleep? What is the point of it? The only difference I see between you and the children is that you are asleep with open eyes, unnecessarily straining…

Osho, what is the definition of God?

Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…

Osho, what is your fundamental teaching to your sannyasins?

Truth is a transmission beyond words. Words move from one mind to the other mind. What I am saying to you is from one mind to another mind. What is not said is far more important. Listen to my silences the pauses in between. Listen to the gaps. When you are in tune with me, in deep harmony with me, when there is no fight going on between you and me -- no resistance, no conflict no argument... And there is no need of any argument because I am not trying to convince you of anything, I am not trying to persuade you to become followers, to become imitators. My effort is totally different: it is that of communion, not of communication. When two hearts are beating together in rhythm, in a kind of synchronicity, when they are dancing together hand in hand, in a deep loving embrace, then something…

First, a few things about sannyas.... It is an initiation into the formless. It is not an initiation into some rigid form, it is not giving you a certain discipline -- on the contrary it is an initiation into freedom, into a formless creative chaos. The old concept of sannyas all over the world was to give you a rigid discipline, to give you a character, to give you a certain form, a pattern, a life style. My sannyas is not like that at all; it is a radical charge. I don't give you any character, because to me the man of character is a dead man. I would like to take all character from you so you are left in a creative chaos... so each moment one has to respond to life, not out of a certain pattern.