What happens when I take sannyas but still lack inner certainty?

Beloved Osho, after fifteen years of trying all kinds of different spiritual techniques and two years doing groups and your meditations, I've now decided to take sannyas. Even so, I don't feel that absolute inner certainty which I have been waiting for. Osho, could you please say something about the difference between being a sympathizer and a sannyasin?

A sympathizer is on the way to becoming a sannyasin. There is no difference. The sannyasin has reached, the sympathizer is coming. But your question is very interesting, that you had been waiting for so many years for an absolute certainty to take sannyas. Have you waited in the same way for other things? Getting married? Falling in love?... waiting for fifteen years, falling and falling and falling and falling.... Just watch your life -- if you start waiting that long... fifteen years is a long time. You are hungry. Will you eat only when you are absolutely certain that this food is not going to give you food poisoning? Absolute certainty!... You are sitting here -- are you certain that this roof is not going to fall? Have you waited for fifteen years to see that the roof is okay? Now it is time to get in. Life is…

Osho, I am eager to take sannyas, yet I have been hesitating for a year. I also have this doubt in my mind: what will happen by taking sannyas?

You are still living. Breath still moves. The heart still beats. The blood still runs. However many days may have been wasted, much is still left. The as-yet-unarrived is still there; the future remains. Live this future in a new way, Krishnaraj! Will you keep beating the same old track? Just as you think, “What will happen by taking sannyas?” now think this: what will happen by not taking sannyas? Until now you have not been a sannyasin. What has happened so far? One thing is certain: at least sannyas will be a new experiment. Whether anything happens or not, a new path will be cut. Who knows—what didn’t happen on the old path may happen on the new! Walk with at least that much curiosity. Who knows! The old path is familiar; will you keep circling on it? And not think even once that after so many rounds nothing…

Osho, I am growing old, yet I still cannot gather the courage to take sannyas. What should I do now?

They say Ibrahim was struck—by the man’s voice, his power, his blow—and he said to him, “You stay; I will go. If it is an inn, then stay at your ease—but I am leaving.” Ibrahim left the palace! And whenever anyone later asked him, “What did you do?” he would say, “I understood the point. It is true. How many have halted in this palace, come and gone—it will be the same with me. If I must go, why the claim! I dropped it.” And Ibrahim said, “From the day I left that inn, I found my home. I came to know my true dwelling.” Sannyas is courage, yes—but not as difficult as you imagine. Once understood, it is very simple. I say only this to you: this world is an inn. And I do not even say you must leave it and go. Ashtavakra would not say that either.…

Osho, how do I take sannyas? I keep thinking and then I stop. What is this hesitation?

One night a thief broke into Mulla Nasruddin’s house. While the thief gathered things, Mulla quickly spread his blanket on the floor. When the thief, ready to tie up the loot, looked for a sheet to wrap it in, he found a blanket laid out. He was a bit scared—when he had entered, there had been no blanket on the floor. He’d seen a man sleeping under it; now that man lay on the bed without the blanket, and the blanket was on the floor! But it wasn’t the time to ponder. He tied his bundle and set off. Mulla got up and followed. Hearing footsteps, the thief turned and saw the same man who had been on the bed—first under the blanket, then without it. The thief got nervous and said, “Why are you following me?” Mulla said, “Why not follow? I was the only one left back there!…

Osho, I will be taking sannyas in a few days. I would like so much that you say something to me. I am afraid -- there are doubts -- and I feel happiness arise.

Evi Huber, It is natural to feel afraid when you are entering into something unknown. Every adventure brings its own fears. If one wants to live without fears one can live only in the grave. That's how many people live: they only appear to be alive. They are breathing, they are doing their jobs, but it is not life. Life can mean only one thing and that is constant adventure -- always moving from the known into the unknown -- and finally, ultimately, a quantum leap from the unknown into the unknowable. Sannyas has two steps: First is from the known into the unknown, and the second is from the unknown into the unknowable. It is natural to feel afraid and there is no contradiction that you are also feeling happiness arise; that too is as natural as fear. the person who lives without any adventure lives without fear but…