What happens when one takes sannyas without true intention?

Sannyas is a quantum leap, a jump into the unknown, a great courage to become discontinuous with your own past. It is a rebirth. It is a change so great... as if the old dies, and dies utterly and totally and the new comes into being from nowhere, from nothingness, out of nothing. If the new comes from the old it remains the old. If the new is continuous with the old then it is only a modification of the old -- maybe a little bit colored and decorated and changed, with a new dress, with a new mask, but it is not a revolution, it is not a conversion. And sannyas to be true has to be a revolution so total that the old identity is simply dropped -- just as the snake slips out of the old skin and never looks back.

Osho! My mind says, "Don't take sannyas," but something within is saying—this chance will not come again. The one who asked this hasn’t even written their name. How will you take sannyas? You’re afraid even to say your name! Lest your wife find out, lest the family find out that you asked this question, that something inside you is saying, “Take sannyas!” Lest some hassle or quarrel erupt!

I would not want you to take sannyas in a state of unconsciousness. A sannyas taken in unconsciousness will not be sannyas at all. Unconsciousness is precisely the world. Then what would be the difference between sannyas and the world? Only this: unconsciousness versus wakefulness, stupidity versus awareness. The world is full of fools—each more accomplished than the last. There, all kinds of foolishness pass; in sannyas they will not. Three brothers went to court in connection with a case. When asked something before the judge, the first stood for a long time without answering. The judge asked, “What’s the matter? Why don’t you speak? What are you thinking?” Hesitantly he said, “Sir, if your head were cut off, what would we grab to lift you up, because you’re bald! This question has seized my mind. I can’t find a solution.” The judge scolded him soundly and drove him out:…

I want to become a sannyasin but what will happen then?

Nothing sir, nothing in particular. Exactly nothing: that's the commodity I deal in. Literally, it is much ado about nothing. But the nothing is not just nothing; it is the source of all. Sannyas means you are tired of being yourself and you are ready to drop that burden. You are tired of being and you would like to rest in nonbeing. Sannyas is a state of nonbeing. You drop yourself and you enter the realm of nothingness... and suddenly everything is beautiful -- because things were ugly because of you. They were not ugly in the first place, not ugly themselves, it was your interpretation; you were corrupting them. Now the corrupting agent is no more there, eyes are clear and one can see through and through; one's vision is transparent. YOU disappear in sannyas. And the moment you disappear, immediately, instantly, God appears. When you are not, God…

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 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…