What happens to those who take sannyas in Poona but abandon it in their home environment?

What of those who take sannyas in poona, only to drop it back in their home environment?

Anand Lionel, they are assholes. And they are assholes not because they drop sannyas but because they take it. Their idea is that by taking sannyas here they will gain something, and then back home they can drop it. But if this idea is there from the very beginning, that "I am going to drop it when I am back home," sannyas will not be a blessing to you. It cannot be a blessing to such a cunning mind. You will become a sannyasin and yet you will not become a sannyasin. I know there are people, at least ten percent of the people.... I know immediately when they come to take sannyas -- their eyes say it, their vibe says it, their whole being stinks of cunningness. But I respect people, I cannot say no. And then I think what is the harm? Let them play the game of…

When people take sannyas they do it for so many reasons that they may not be even aware of. A few people take sannyas because they think that they will become very important -- they are sannyasins. If a person takes sannyas to feel that he is somebody, sooner or later he will be frustrated -- he will see he has become a nobody rather than becoming a somebody. Then he is ready to drop the sannyas. But then too the mind plays cunning games; then too he is not true and honest. You cannot say the true thing about why you want to drop it. Maybe you don't even know it -- maybe it is very unconscious and very subtle and you cannot catch hold of it. Now you are finding rationalisations. You say'I have been uncomfortable'.

When you deceive people, in the beginning you know that you are deceiving them, but when they start being deceived it becomes a feedback: you start believing in your own untruth. Because so many people are believing there must be something in it, otherwise how can so many intelligent people believe it? You can deceive one, you cannot deceive all. So slowly slowly deceiving others rebounds, and one is deceived oneself. That's what is happening in the name of love: people are deceiving others and are being deceived by their own deceptions. People have completely forgotten that love is not something to be learned, not something to be cultivated, not something to be imposed on you; it is a natural consequence of a pure heart. What do I mean by pure heart?

Osho, what kind of mischief have you done? In Sunday’s question-and-answer you said, in response to my question, “be dyed through and through.” A day before that I was initiated into sannyas. I pray: now please let the color take!

And if you keep making small changes within the old, they never quite happen, because the power of the old is great. A hundred old elements, and you add one new—the ninety-nine old will make even that one new old. Their force is greater. Therefore it is right to close the old chapter! That is why I give a new name, so that from the moment of sannyas you begin to think that this is your birth. Buddha told his bhikshus: after sannyas, count your age from the day of sannyas. That was exactly right. One day there was great fun. An old sannyasin came to bow at Buddha’s feet—he must have been seventy. Buddha often asked, “Bhikshu, how old are you?” King Prasenjit had come to see Buddha and was sitting by his side. When Buddha asked that bhikshu, “How old are you?” he said, “Four years.” Prasenjit was…

Beloved master, when I hear people say that they have dropped sannyas, I wonder if this is possible. I feel that once you have started on this path of sannyas, there is no return.

You are right. Once you are a sannyasin, you are a sannyasin forever. You can drop the clothes, you can drop the mala, but sannyas is something that has entered into your being. You cannot drop it, unless you drop your heart. And I don't think anybody is going to drop his heart. Sannyas is initiation of the heart: the individual heart moving towards the universal heart. There is no way to drop it. So before you enter, think twice! Okay?