How to follow the path of Sannyas?

The difference is that The unknown will become known And the unknowable will never become the known. That unknowable is god. But first learn to Move from the known to the unknown. That is learning to swim in shallow water. And when you have learned swimming Then go into the ocean with no fear With absolute fearlessness And then your life will know what ecstasy is. With the unknown You will know excitement With the unknowable You will come to know ecstasy. One of the most essential qualities For a sannyasin is to be anonymous, a nobody To forget all desire for name and fame To live ordinarily, naturally authentically, spontaneously Not to bother about what others say Not to be worried about other's opinions; Their opinions carry no value at all. They are all asleep, fast asleep.

Sannyas is a quantum leap, a jump into the unknown, a great courage to become discontinuous with your own past. It is a rebirth. It is a change so great... as if the old dies, and dies utterly and totally and the new comes into being from nowhere, from nothingness, out of nothing. If the new comes from the old it remains the old. If the new is continuous with the old then it is only a modification of the old -- maybe a little bit colored and decorated and changed, with a new dress, with a new mask, but it is not a revolution, it is not a conversion. And sannyas to be true has to be a revolution so total that the old identity is simply dropped -- just as the snake slips out of the old skin and never looks back.

That's what sannyas is: becoming a child again again reclaiming the innocence of childhood which the society has destroyed. It will be difficult, because to live with people who live in lies, without lies living with them is difficult. People who are all pseudo and phony, to live with them as true is to invite danger -- but it is worth. This life is bound to go, so even if one has to sacrifice one's life for truth one should not be worried about it. Truth is far more valuable than life itself because life ends in death but truth never ends. Truth is eternal, timeless, deathless. Manoj Bharti. One thing to be remembered: that from this moment meditation becomes your goal; everything else is secondary. So arrange your life in such a way that everything revolves around meditation.

To me, sannyas is not something very serious. Life itself is not very serious, and one who is serious is always dead. Life is just an overflowing energy without any purpose, so to me, sannyas is to lead life purposelessly. Live life as a play and not as a work. If you can take this whole life just as a play, you are a sannyasin; then you have renounced. Renunciation is not leaving the world, but changing the attitude. That is why I can initiate anyone into sannyas. To me, initiation itself is a play. And I will not ask for any qualifications -- whether you are qualified or not -- because qualifications are asked when something serious is done.

And the story is beautiful -- I don't think it is factual, it cannot be, but it is significant: Krishna becomes a window and Arjuna can see the vast universe, stars appearing and disappearing, the whole eternity. It is so vast that he becomes frightened. Its very vastness is frightening, is scary. He trembles, perspires and starts shouting, 'Close this window! I am absolutely convinced of what you are saying but don't show me this vastness -- this is too much. I cannot look at it any more.' And Krishna closes the window, he becomes again the same friend; he had disappeared and Arjuna had had a glimpse of the eternal process of existence. The parable is beautiful because that's exactly what happens between a disciple and a master -- but not literally; it is a beautiful metaphor, metaphorically it really happens. It is difficult to surrender to the whole.