According to Osho, initiation into spiritual life is not a ritual but entering intimate contact with one who is awake. Human beings live in a continuous dream, projecting meanings onto reality; only the presence of the awakened can jolt you from this sleep. Through this living connection, your projections (maya) dissolve, revealing an objective world and true wakefulness beyond the mind’s self-deceiving dreams.
It means staying close to someone truly awake so their wakefulness helps you stop dreaming and see things as they are.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, what does it mean to be initiated into the spiritual life? What is the deeper occult and esoteric significance of initiation? What sort of initiation are you giving to the non-sannyasins and to the sannyasins? Please tell us about them in detail.
If you are in a hurry, then I will give initiation in your running state of affairs, because otherwise there will be no initiation. So I cannot ask you to wait as a precondition. I must initiate you first and then prolong your waiting in so many ways. Through so many devices I will persuade you to wait, because without waiting there is no maturity. So when you will be ready there will be a second initiation, which would have been the first in the old days. It cannot now be the first. Sometimes people are bewildered. Sometimes someone comes to me; he has not even heard me, he has not even known me, and I initiate him into sannyas. This is absurd, not understandable at all. But I know. And whatsoever I am doing, I am doing very considerately. This is just the beginning, this initiation, because only through…
Question: OSHO, WHAT IS INITIATION ACCORDING TO YOU? If this mind is there then you can't go beyond the stage of the student. To be a disciple you have to be ready -- knowingly, with your eyes open -- to step into the unknown, dropping all fear, because the Master is the most unknown and unknowable thing in existence. It is not his body, it is not his mind. It is his vibe, his presence -- not his person. And to enter into his presence you have to drop all your defense measures. That is initiation. It may take any formal structure. That is not essential; that is just to make it visible. You are given a red robe, a mala; they are not essential. They are just to make your initiation visible to others, because if it is visible to others they will remind you.
Osho, initiation holds a very important place in spiritual practice. Its special methods apply in special situations. Buddha and Mahavira also gave initiation. So please tell: what is the subtle meaning of initiation? How many kinds of initiation are possible? What is its significance and utility? And why is it necessary?
A monk came to me. He was initiated by someone; he said, “I am the initiate of such-and-such guru, and I have come to you to learn meditation.” I asked, “Then why did you take initiation? And if meditation has not come in initiation, what did you get in initiation? You got robes! You got a name! And if you still have to search for meditation, how did initiation happen?” Because the truth is that only after meditation can initiation be; after initiation, seeking meditation has no meaning. It is like a man saying, “I am healthy,” and roaming the doors of doctors saying he needs medicine. Initiation is the recognition that comes after meditation; it is the sanction that you have been accepted, acknowledged, that word of you has reached the Divine, that you have gained entry into that dimension—initiation is just this recognition. True initiation must be revived…