Is sannyas the beginning of devotion?

Osho, is sannyas the beginning of devotion? Please tell us.

Sannyas is only a beginning. Not of bhakti, not of jnana, not of karma. Sannyas is only a beginning. Then three paths open. Someone will go by knowledge, someone by devotion, someone by action. Sannyas is only the preparation to go. Sannyas is the declaration that I am ready to go. After that, the paths will diverge. Here with me there are sannyasins—thousands of sannyasins. Among them too there are three kinds of people. Some can only go through action, they are action-oriented. I set them to work. For them I say: action is prayer, action is worship; I tell them, drown in the act. Take this act as God’s act and sink into it. Then even a small act becomes worship. For example, I told someone: do the cleaning in the ashram. Now you will be surprised that for someone, cleaning becomes meditation. There is a sannyasin in the…

According to me Sannyas is a direct relationship between an individual and God. There cannot be any intermediary. Sannyas is a direct surrender by an individual. When God is present on all sides, there is no need for anyone to be an intermediary between them. If a person wants to surrender to God he can do so. An unfit person begins to be fit by surrendering himself to God. Moreover, the beginning of fitness qualifications takes place by the determination, surrender, and prayers of the unfit. A Sannyasi is not a realized person, to be a sannyasi is simply to make a firm determination to start on a journey to become a realized person. A Sannyasi is simply the first point of that holy journey, it is not the end. It is only the blessed beginning, it is the milestone on that road, it is not the destination.

Deva means god, bhumika means introduction -- introduction to god. And life is an introduction to god. It is not against god, as the old religions have been teaching again and again. It is not antagonistic to god -- it can't be. It is god's extension, it is his manifestation, it is his song. How can it be against him? It has not to be renounced; it has to be lived in great gratitude: It is an introduction, a process of learning, a game of hide-and-seek with god. The whole of life is an opportunity to know. The so-called worldly person misses it because he thinks that this is all... as if you think the introduction to the book is all and you finish with the introduction, you never enter into the book. That will be foolish.

So it is difficult to surrender the ego, to be just a servant, to be a slave of god, of love, of existence; it is hard to swallow it, but once you have understood the inner law it is possible to do it and to do it joyfully. Man ordinarily always remains in struggle, always fighting with something or other. And deep down every fight is a fight against god, because only god exists and nobody else. Once this is understood, that only god exists, then one can drop all fighting; there is no point in struggling. In fact one starts praying to be defeated by god. To be defeated by god is the greatest victory in life, to be overcome by him is the most precious moment. That's what sannyas is all about: it is asking for your own defeat.

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…