If I take sannyas, will I be able to withstand the challenges that arise around me?

Osho, I do want to take sannyas, but I am very frightened of the world. If I take sannyas, will I be able to withstand the whirlwinds that will rise around me or not? Please reassure me.

Sannyas means: stepping into insecurity. Sannyas means: placing your feet in the unknown. Sannyas means: leaving the known, falling in love with the unknowable. How can I reassure you? The whirlwind will arise. My reassurance would be a lie. I can only say this much: the whirlwind is certain to arise—it should arise. If it does not, how will sannyas ripen? If there is no sun, no heat, how will the fruit ripen? If no wind blows, no storm arises, the trees will lose their spine. Only by bearing the gusts of storm and gale does a tree grow sturdy. The whirlwind will arise. I can assure you of at least this much: be absolutely certain, don’t worry in the least—the whirlwind will arise. And it will be far greater than you imagine. Nor will it be that it comes today and is gone tomorrow. As long as you live,…

I desire to become a sannyasin, but at the very idea a great fear grips my heart. It is so new. And, moreover, I had not come here to become a disciple, I had just come to see a friend who is a sannyasin.

But you are caught, you are trapped! Now it will be very difficult to escape. It is always difficult to choose the new, but only those live who choose the new. To choose the old is to choose death, not life. To choose the familiar is to remain in the prison of the familiar, to choose the known is to avoid really the unknown that is knocking on the door. To choose the known is to reject God, because God is always unknown -- not only unknown, but unknowable. God is always fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops. God is always utterly new, unfamiliar, unmapped, unscheduled, uncalculated. God comes only as the unknown. And if you become afraid, if you shrink back, then you have to live in your so-called dark hole. What is your past that you cling to? What is there to cling to, except that it is…

Osho, the path of sannyas is unfamiliar and I am afraid. What should I do?

But this is everyone’s belief—that love arises from fear. So the husband frightens the wife as much as he can, thinking otherwise there will be no love. And the wife frightens the husband as much as she can, thinking the same. Parents frighten the children; and the children, for their part, do not hold back—they frighten the parents too; they have their own ways, their recipes. All devotees of Baba Tulsidas! Everyone is frightening everyone. Teachers are frightening students; students are frightening teachers. Fear pervades everywhere. Our notion of God is as if he were a policeman. We imagine he watches you twenty-four hours a day; he won’t even leave you alone in the bathroom—sitting there, peeping through the keyhole. I have heard: a Christian nun used to bathe with her clothes on. At last her companions became concerned. They said, “What sort of madness is this? Why don’t you…

Osho, should I take sannyas or not? I am afraid of the world. Will I be able to endure people’s opposition or not?

Opposition is certain. And you will endure it. You are soul-possessed. If you cannot endure opposition, it will be proof that you are a corpse, not alive. The soul within is capable of bearing all. And the soul needs some storms to make it intense, to make it one-pointed. For the polishing of the soul, some tempests are needed. The flower bloomed among thorns; on the couch it withered. It glittered like the dawn among the thorns, that blossom, at its touch the fragrance-bearing breeze was set a-rippling, in camphor-pale petals it cradled springtime’s fullest dream— the flower bloomed among thorns; on the couch it withered. The fierce sun’s heat, the storm’s unbearable gusts could not stain that youthful, struggle-loving one, but the day it was torn from the bush, it could not live— the flower bloomed among thorns; on the couch it withered. He who stands steadfast in storm…

And the second meaning is handsome, beautiful. A harmonious person is bond to be cheerful and bound to be beautiful. That is inevitable, because there is nothing more beautiful than cheerfulness, there is nothing more graceful than harmony. Sannyas is nothing but an effort to bring harmony to your being. The society has divided it into many parts, it has cut you into fragments. But cutting you into fragments it destroys your integrity, it makes you impotent so that it can rule over you. That is the basic political strategy. It has been followed by society for centuries: cut every individual into segments. When he is not whole he cannot stand on his own, he cannot be rebellious, he cannot have any individuality. He is reduced to a slave. He becomes dependent, always fearful. He forgets all about freedom, he forgets all about truth, he forgets all about himself.