According to Osho, Ahmak Ahmadabadi ultimately became his sannyasin: after almost going to Kashi for a sorrow-born renunciation, a burst of laughter cracked his seriousness, and he returned to Osho. Osho rejects grim, hollow religiosity; his sannyas is celebrative—laughing, dancing, ecstatic—chosen from joy, not misery. He even says Ahmak sits there, under a changed name.
Yes—he came back and became Osho’s sannyasin, because true sannyas is joyful, not gloomy.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what is sannyas?
Sannyas is hope -- hope against all hope. People have lost all hope; they are living hopelessly. They are living simply because they are cowards and cannot commit suicide. The existentialist philosophers are right when they say that the most important philosophical problem is suicide: to live or not to live, to be or not to be. If this is life that ordinary people are living, then it does not seem to be worth living at all. What is the point of getting up every morning and going through the same empty gestures you have gone through thousands of times? The same breakfast, the same nagging wife, the same ugly husband; the same suspicions, the same possessiveness, the same jealousy, the same anger, the same ambition; rushing to the office, the same boss -- everything is the same, a constant repetition. And again coming back home and sitting in front…
Anand Nishanto. Anand means bliss; nishanto means the end of the night. Sannyas is the end of the night and the beginning of a new dawn. To live in the ego is to live in darkness. Sannyas means surrendering your ego, saying "I am no more," becoming a nobody, dropping all nonsense about being somebody. Sannyas is a declaration that, "I am nothing, I am anonymous..." Just as rivers are, mountains are, stars are, animals are, birds are, with no name, with no fame. To be a sannyasin means again becoming part of this infinite nature. Once you drop the ego, you become part of the whole. The ego keeps you separate, it keeps a boundary between you and the whole, a wall.
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.
September 28, 1970 was a memorable day. At Manali in the Himalayas, Osho initiated His first group of sannyasins. This event was followed by this special evening discourse, on the significance of Neo Sannyas. To me, sannyas does not mean renunciation; it means a journey to joy bliss. To me, sannyas is not any kind of negation; it is a positive attainment. But up to now, the world over, sannyas has been seen in a very negative sense, in the sense of giving up, of renouncing. I, for one, see sannyas as something positive and affirmative, something to be achieved, to be treasured. It is true that when someone carrying base stones as his treasure comes upon a set of precious stones, he immediately drops the baser ones from his hands. He drops the baser stones only to make room for the newfound precious stones. It is not renunciation.
Osho, sannyas was born in this land; it was granted the dignity of Gaurishankar (Everest). But today its honor has become merely superficial. Inside, the individual and society alike are afraid of it. Why have sannyas and the sannyasin lost their meaning? Please explain.
In my sannyas there is no prohibition—no “leave this, run from that.” Awakening is enough. Cowards run. Those who awaken remain where they are and are free there. My sannyas does not want to give you knowledge; it wants to give you meditation. Meditation means emptiness; it means: I do not know. Life is such an ultimate mystery that nothing definitive can be known about it. And I want to give sannyas a new posture—creativity. I will call him a sannyasin who sings a new song; who strikes a new music from the veena; who dances a new dance; who makes this world a little more beautiful, brings a little more blessedness to the earth. Then sannyas can regain its dignity. And I would have the sannyasin not imitate. Listen, understand, contemplate—but live from your own individuality. Therefore I give my sannyasins no codes of conduct—only processes to awaken the…