What is the rationale behind giving sannyas to children and infants?

You say never to impose yourself on anyone else. Yet you give sannyas to children who can't possibly make up their minds to take it. You have even given initiation to sleeping babies! What are you doing?

THE FIRST THING: I have never yet given sannyas to anybody who was awake -- all are sleeping babies! Some are younger, some are older; that is immaterial. What does it matter -- a baby of seven months, or an old man of seventy years? Sleep is the same. Yes, I was also puzzled in the beginning when some mother would come with a sleeping baby. Then I pondered over it: why should I say no? because that would be unjust to the sleeping baby when I go on giving sannyas to so many sleeping people. So I decided to give sannyas to babies. Another thing: they may be asleep, but they are more innocent. And innocence can receive sannyas in a deeper way than cunningness, cleverness. You are also asleep; the only difference is that you are more cunning. The children are more innocent. You are asleep but you…

Why do you give sannyas to babies and children?

I have no creed, no dogma, no catechism. I am simply a presence. In this presence you can share something, you can partake of me. Everybody is welcome -- a child of three months and an old man of ninety years. Everybody is welcome. Who-soever wants to go on the journey of the unknown is welcome. And all that we teach here -- if you can call it teaching -- is love and meditation. Both are unconditioning, both are de-hypnotising. We don't teach a philosophy about love, we simply create the milieu where love can grow. And we don't give a ritualistic, formalistic form of meditation -- just the quality of meditativeness. Once you start drinking a little of meditativeness, a little of love. you start growing wings. Sannyas is not the end of the journey, it is just the beginning. It is the first step. When you become a…

Beloved Osho, why do you give sannyas to almost anybody who comes to see you? What is your concept of sannyas? What obligation does it involve?

But once you know a greater phenomenon -- a greater bliss, a greater happiness -- then you are not renouncing things. They just drop away, just like dry leaves from the tree. No one knows and no one hears, the dry leaves just drop. The tree remains oblivious to it and there is no wound left behind. So, to me, everything has a moment to happen, a moment of ripeness -- ripeness is all. One must ripen; otherwise one will be wandering unnecessarily and harassing himself unnecessarily and destroying himself unnecessarily. One should ripen, then the opportunity comes by itself. So renunciation is through positive growth. That is what I mean by my sannyas -- renunciation through positive growth. There is no negativity at all, no denial, no suppression. I accept the human being as he is. Of course, now much is potential, but as he is, he is not…

[To a sannyasin, whose son had just been initiated into sannyas, Osho said that one should respect one's child, and that now her son was a sannyasin, she should regard him as a brother... A child is born to you, but he does not belong to you. Always remember that he has come through you. He has chosen you as a passage, but he has his own destiny. So giving him sannyas does not mean that you have to structure him. You are not to force anything on him. Sannyas is freedom, so give him freedom to be himself, and be alert not to impose anything. Love him as much as you can, but don't give your thoughts to him. When you meditate, just persuade him to be with you. Sometimes dance with him.

You have said not to condition children with our ideas. What about sannyasin children? Why not let them choose consciously whether and when to take sannyas? For example, for children living in the west -- outside of the ashram anyway -- cannot the fact of their being sannyasins condition them in their relationship to other children or to their environment?

DEVA MAJID, CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION? -- Have you taken sannyas consciously? Who has taken sannyas consciously? If you are conscious, then what is the need, in fact, of taking sannyas? In that way, everybody is the same as children, grown-up, makes no difference. Children are truer. It often happens: a sannyasin mother or father brings a child to take sannyas and he falls asleep -- and that is the true picture of a sannyasin! But he is authentic and you keep your eyes open, that's the only difference. You are fast asleep with open eyes and the child is true: he is asleep so he has closed his eyes -- that's all. Why keep your eyes open when you are asleep? What is the point of it? The only difference I see between you and the children is that you are asleep with open eyes, unnecessarily straining…