Is sannyas the only gateway to Truth, or can one attain godliness without it?

Osho, is it impossible to attain godliness without sannyas, or is sannyas only the gateway to Truth? Please explain.

Harsh Kumar! What on earth can I explain? And even if I do, will you understand? Your very question is sheer non-understanding. Do you think godliness and Truth are two different things? Just reconsider your question. You ask: “Is it impossible to attain godliness without sannyas, or is sannyas only the gateway to Truth?” Call it the gateway to Truth or to godliness—same thing. Truth and godliness are one. In your eyes it seems godliness is something far beyond, very lofty—and sannyas is merely the door to Truth! What remains after Truth? Godliness is contained in Truth. And you ask as if, if it’s “only a door,” then perhaps we can manage without sannyas. But how will you enter without a door? You ask: “Or is it only a door?” Then do you intend to walk through the wall? By your name you don’t seem like a Sardar—Harsh Kumar! But…

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed. It is for reference purposes only.] Sannyas is to be true to your original face. Then all your fragments start melting into each other and they create a centre, they create integrity, they create individuality. And that's what religion is all about. Religion has nothing to do with god or heaven and hell and all kinds of theories and philosophies. The basic concern of religion is truth. And one has to live it, only then can one know it. Truth is god. Truth does not mean a conclusion arrived at by thinking. It means experience arrived at through living. Truth is not a hypothesis; hence philosophy has no truth in it. Philosophy goes round and round, it moves in circles, but it never reaches the target.

Sannyas means demolishing the whole structure, clearing the ground completely so that a new temple can be built. Sannyas is very destructive in the beginning and very creative in the end. The destructive part is very essential. It has to destroy your ego, it has to destroy your mind, it has to destroy your ideologies, belief systems -- Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, communism. It has to destroy all that you have been up to now. It has to shatter the whole identity, it has to create an identity crisis. Only then can you move into the new -- when you are completely free from the old. To be free from the old is the beginning of the new. And then one can create. One can really be creative and a multi-dimensional creativity can explode. Then life is a joy, then life is a splendor. Then life is a celebration.

Truth is experienced at the innermost core, but bliss starts overflowing you. That's the only proof that truth has been experienced. If the saint is sad he is not a saint. There must be rejoicing, there must be laughter, there must be singing and dancing and celebration. His whole life is a celebration; moment to moment it is a continuum of celebration. These so-called saints with long faces are just stupid people deceiving others, and not only others -- they are so stupid that they manage to deceive themselves too. They start believing that they have arrived, but nothing has happened to them. Their desert is so clear, there seems to be no oasis in their being. My whole effort here is to make you a garden, to make you cheerful in every possible way. But that can happen only when you have experienced something of truth on your own.

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.