What effect do worldly ambitions have on the life of sannyas?

What effect do worldly ambitions—and the successes and failures they produce—have on the life of sannyas?

Sannyas means becoming unaffected by success and failure. Sannyas means that whether there is sorrow or joy, victory or defeat, one attains equanimity. That very state of evenness is sannyas. You ask what effect the world’s successes, failures, ambitions, and the entanglements born of them have upon sannyas? You have not understood the meaning of sannyas at all—its very definition is that there remains no personal ambition. This does not mean the sannyasin will do nothing. He will do whatever the Lord has him do. But he will not act out of his own craving; he will act by His will. If He wants to make him win, let Him make him win; if He wants to make him lose, let Him make him lose. The victory is His and the defeat is His. The success is His and the failure is His. The sannyasin removes himself from the middle;…

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.] Sannyas is the beginning of becoming part of existence. Ego keeps one outside of it. Ego keeps one a stranger, an outsider, a foreigner. The moment we drop the ego then nothing is foreign; then we are rooted in existence. There is no separation anywhere. We breathe god in and out every moment. It is god that beats in our hearts, it is god that circulates in our blood -- the same god that flows in the rivers, rises in the sun, shines in the moon. It is all one. But the contemporary man feels very much of a stranger. Never before has it happened on such a vast scale.

What is your opinion about renouncing worldly life? Is sannyas, becoming a seeker, only possible if one renounces the world?

There is no conflict between the world and sannyas. It is not the world but ignorance that one must renounce. Giving up the world is not sannyas. The awakening of knowledge, of self-knowledge, is sannyas. This awakening leads to a renunciation, not of the world, but of attachment to it. The world stays where it is and as it is but we are transformed. Our outlook is transformed. This transformation is very fundamental. In this awakened state we do not have to give up anything. What is useless and superfluous automatically drops like the ripened fruit from a tree. Just as darkness disappears at the coming of light, at the dawn of knowledge impurities pass away and what remains thereafter is sannyas. Sannyas has nothing to do with the world. It has to do with the self. It is the purification of the self. It is just like the purification…

To me, the sannyasin is one who lives life like an actor. If someone wants to blossom in sannyas living in the thick of the world, he should cease to be a doer and become an actor, become a witness. He should live in the thick of life, play his role, and at the same time be a witness to it, but in no way should he be deeply involved in his role, be attached to it, He should cross the river in a way that his feet remain untouched by the water. It is, however, difficult to cross a river without letting the water touch your feet, but it is quite possible to live in the world without getting involved in it, without being tied to it. In this connection it is necessary to under stand what play acting is.

Becoming a sannyasin means a commitment That you will try now for the real birth And you will deliberately drop many kinds of Stupid ideas which dominate the mind. Mind is full of stupidities And much has to be done. Man is almost like a raw diamond. A jeweller can understand the hidden beauty Of the raw diamond Ordinarily you will not be able To see any beauty in it, It will look like just an ordinary stone Maybe a little cclourful, maybe a little shining But nothing very special. Before the Kohinoor. The greatest diamond in the world, Was found in Golconda, in India, The person who found it in his field Had it for three years And had no idea what it was. He just thought it was a beautiful stone. His children played with it for three years.