Your name or title doesn’t make you spiritual; what matters is your inner change, and Osho kept old names to honor love, familiarity, and the heart of sannyas.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Secondly, all these years I have noticed that you address certain sannyasins, including me, by our original name, never using our sannyas name. Not only this, but you affix to our name "ji," "babu," "bhai" -- a sign of respect shown to elders. Beloved Osho, you being my respected and beloved master, I feel painfully awkward and as if I must be lacking something when you address me thus. Why is this so? Will you please kindly comment?
Govind Siddharth, this is true. There are a few people who I have known long before the initiation into sannyas started. Even before sannyas they were sannyasins by their attitude, by their gratefulness. So when they took sannyas, as far as I was concerned, there was no change. They were already sannyasins to me. They were unaware of it, but to me there was no change. This was the reason that I continued their old names. For example, I am addressing Govind Siddharth for the first time; otherwise I have always called him Lashkariji. Kakubhai... Falibhai... Jayantibhai... I have known them for so many years before sannyas, and there has been no drastic change. They smoothly moved into sannyas, so smoothly that I don't remember a few of their sannyas names. I don't know what is the name of Falibhai, and there is no need. Falibhai will become enlightened as…Read the full discourse →
Question: OSHO, HOW DO YOU ALWAYS FIND NEW NAMES TO GIVE TO YOUR SANNYASINS? Hence I change the name -- to give you a break, to give you the idea that name is just a given thing. Your old name disappears, a new name becomes your reality, but now you will not get so much identified because you are now more mature. The first name was given when you were a small child; you were not aware. Now you are a little bit aware. And by becoming a sannyasin you are becoming committed to more and more awareness, to a life of witnessing in which all identities have to be dropped. A man is absolutely free only when there is no identity left.Read the full discourse →
Osho, when you initiate disciples into sannyas you give them beautiful names. Please be kind enough to explain the mystery and meaning of these beautiful names.
A name is just a name. If I have to give one, I give a beautiful one—why give an ugly one? If I wished I could say, “Swami Chuhadmal Fuhradmal.” A name is just a name. And if I must give it, I give a beautiful one. There isn’t much in it. What meaning can a name really hold? Meaning belongs to action. Don’t get stuck relying on a name. If you do something, something will happen; if you allow something to happen, something will happen. However beautiful a name I give you—what will that do? If only life changed by changing a name—how simple it would be! By giving you a beautiful name I am expressing my aspiration, my longing for you. By giving you a beautiful name I am blessing you: I have desired the most beautiful in you! Now you must do something. By giving you a…Read the full discourse →
Osho, a dear friend of mine sent a letter to you from the west asking for a sannyas name and then came here before she received an answer and took sannyas here. The name she was given by letter was a totally different kind of name from the one you gave her here. I was very disturbed when I heard about this because I have always thought of my name as my path. I have used it to direct me when I have been confused. What really is the significance of the name you give to us.
Veera, all holy cow dung. Don't be deceived by the names. You are always hankering to catch hold of something, to make something big out of nothings. The names I give you are just like lovers' sweet nothings. Don't make much fuss about them. In fact, once I have given you the name, never come and ask me about its meaning again because I forget. It is in that moment that I create the meaning around it. Then how am I supposed to remember? I must have given thirty thousand names or more. A name is just a name. You are nameless. No name confines you, no name can confine you. They are just labels to be used -- utilitarian, nothing spiritual in it. But because I pay so much attention to your name and I explain it to you, you get hooked with it. That is just my way…Read the full discourse →
Osho, is my name an essential or something non-essential?
Existence is nameless. We are all nameless, but the name has a certain utility; without it life will be impossible. When the child is born he comes as a nobody, as pure nothingness -- that's the beauty of a child -- but it is a necessity that he should be given a name. Once the name is given, slowly slowly the child becomes autohypnotized by his own name; it becomes almost a reality to him. In fact, he can even sacrifice himself for the name. That's what millions of people are doing all over the world: sacrificing themselves for name, for me -- sacrificing the essential for the non-essential. A name is not an essential, but it has certain purposes; without it life will be very difficult. Hence we have even to invent names for God. God cannot have any name, but God has to be addressed. There are moments…Read the full discourse →