What is sannyas?

Beloved Osho, what is sannyas?

Moses, sannyas is a crazy way of living life. The ordinary way is very sane, mathematical, calculated, cautious. The way of sannyas is non-calculative, beyond mathematics, beyond cunningness, cleverness. It is not cautious at all; it is knowingly moving into danger. Friedrich Nietzsche says, "Live dangerously." He had it written on his table in golden letters: "Live dangerously" -- but he never lived dangerously! In fact, a person who is not living dangerously needs to be reminded of the fact again and again every day. On his table, when he comes to work -- "Live dangerously." If you are living it, there is no need to be reminded. Friedrich Nietzsche lived in a very cowardly way. He had great ideas -- just as all philosophers have -- but they were mere ideas. The life and the ideas of philosophers are polar opposites: they say one thing; they do exactly the…

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.

To me, sannyas is not something very serious. Life itself is not very serious, and one who is serious is always dead. Life is just an overflowing energy without any purpose, so to me, sannyas is to lead life purposelessly. Live life as a play and not as a work. If you can take this whole life just as a play, you are a sannyasin; then you have renounced. Renunciation is not leaving the world, but changing the attitude. That is why I can initiate anyone into sannyas. To me, initiation itself is a play. And I will not ask for any qualifications -- whether you are qualified or not -- because qualifications are asked when something serious is done.

Anand Nishanto. Anand means bliss; nishanto means the end of the night. Sannyas is the end of the night and the beginning of a new dawn. To live in the ego is to live in darkness. Sannyas means surrendering your ego, saying "I am no more," becoming a nobody, dropping all nonsense about being somebody. Sannyas is a declaration that, "I am nothing, I am anonymous..." Just as rivers are, mountains are, stars are, animals are, birds are, with no name, with no fame. To be a sannyasin means again becoming part of this infinite nature. Once you drop the ego, you become part of the whole. The ego keeps you separate, it keeps a boundary between you and the whole, a wall.

September 28, 1970 was a memorable day. At Manali in the Himalayas, Osho initiated His first group of sannyasins. This event was followed by this special evening discourse, on the significance of Neo Sannyas. To me, sannyas does not mean renunciation; it means a journey to joy bliss. To me, sannyas is not any kind of negation; it is a positive attainment. But up to now, the world over, sannyas has been seen in a very negative sense, in the sense of giving up, of renouncing. I, for one, see sannyas as something positive and affirmative, something to be achieved, to be treasured. It is true that when someone carrying base stones as his treasure comes upon a set of precious stones, he immediately drops the baser ones from his hands. He drops the baser stones only to make room for the newfound precious stones. It is not renunciation.