Is the habit of taking several baths and changing clothes recommended for a sannyasin today?

Can you talk about the brahmin habit of taking several baths every day and changing clothes? Is this recommended for a sannyasin today?

Brahmins have gone neurotic. They suffer from compulsion, obsession, neurosis. To be clean is good, but to clean continuously is mad. And the mind can move to extremes. You can either be dirty, then you don't take a bath.... I used to know an Italian sannyasin. She happened to stay with me in a camp. I was surprised, she never took any bath. Then I inquired and she said, "Once a year," she takes. And she asked, surprised, "Is that not enough? -- once a year?' And then there are brahmins who are not doing anything else -- just taking baths. I know a person, he is a close relative; he has some obsession. He has remained a bachelor all his life -- a very good man in all the ways except one, and that too is innocent, doesn't harm anybody, but has harmed him completely. He is a poor…

Osho, what would be the daily routine of your sannyasin?

How much to eat, what to eat, what to wear, how to wear it, how to sleep—these can be discussed in very general terms, but a routine cannot be made. You have to set your own routine—individual to individual. Each person must decide for himself. At least keep that much freedom. The worldly may not be able to; a sannyasin can. In fact, a sannyasin must—strictly—that whatever is comfortable, peaceful, blissful for him, he will live that way. Only keep one thing in mind: that it should not cause hurt, pain, or trouble to anyone—anyone at all. Live like that; such a guideline is enough. I would have to go into detail with you, because generalities can be said—what to eat or not—but nothing can be made rigid. Now, we see a man smoking. The whole world is against him, yet he keeps smoking. Doctors explain he will get sick.…

Osho, I do not know by what grace of merit, by what thread of love from births upon births we have been bound to you, that your compassion and the blessed opportunity of your presence has been bestowed, that receiving sannyas from your sacred hands I am fulfilled. Our whole country is indebted to you. From every corner of the world people are coming here ceaselessly, every day—drowning in the ocean of love, drinking to the brim the streams of nectar that pour down. May the grapevine remain, from which the wine is made. May this clay remain, from which the wine-cup is formed. May these drinkers

I was a guest in a Christian friend’s home. I opened his Bible and found a dried rose. I said, “How apt!” He asked, “Why do you say apt?” I said, “Because as this rose is, so are the words of the Bible—dried roses. On Jesus’ lips those words were alive! Only on Jesus’ lips could they be alive; they are such words that can be alive only on the lips of one like Jesus, on no one else’s. On his lips they were like a rose upon a living bush—roots drinking the earth’s sap, leaves drinking sunlight, breezes passing and the bush breathing—and the rose blossoming. On Jesus’ lips, the words were like that—sun’s light within them, the earth’s sap within them, the breath of the winds within them. God throbbing inside them. You have done well to keep a dried rose in the Bible; it is the symbol…

Questioner: what would be the daily routine, the discipline of your sannyasin?

Even the duration of one's sleep has to be determined individually. For someone, five hours sleep can be sufficient, while another person might need seven hours sleep each day. And there are a few people who do with just three hours sleep and it goes well with them. But this person who completes his sleep in three hours can prove to be dangerous for others. He will think himself a pious person and call all those who sleep long hours idlers and good-for-nothings. He will sermonize that three o'clock is the best time to get out of bed, and say that those who don't conform to this rule will go to hell. Beware of such people There can be no hard and fast rule for things like this. We cannot have set laws about what to wear, about what to eat and how much to eat, about when to sleep…

A friend has asked: You keep telling people again and again to take sannyas. But when the mind is not at peace, what will sannyas do?

Sannyas means only this much: that the uninterrupted stream of our life should be broken somewhere—somewhere a break, a gap, a fracture. Otherwise, out of habit, a person goes on living as he lived until yesterday. Somewhere a break is needed. Otherwise we go on bound to the old groove, and that same groove holds us until death. There is no other meaning to sannyas; psychologically it means only this: we are changing the image of the self that has existed in a person’s mind up to now. It makes a difference. Astonishingly, it makes a difference. There is a friend who took sannyas. He used to say to me, “What will changing clothes do?” I said, “Change them and see. And if it doesn’t do anything, change back.” Fifteen days later he came and said, “This is amazing! My feet stop for a moment in front of the liquor…