They’re helpful reminders that train your attention and openness until you can connect within directly, without any props.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Questioner: is there a special significance in changing one's name and wearing a mala given by you?
Yes, it has significance, great significance. The change of name has great significance for a sannyasin. It is an index, a symbol. Everything in our life is symbolic. You have a name; you are identified with this name. This name has become your symbol; it is identified with your individuality. Your name has an association with everything that you have been before yesterday. Changing the name of a sannyasin means we disconnect him from his old identity, from his old associations. We say to him, now you are not the same as you were before yesterday. Now you are starting on a new journey with a new name, a new identity. Since ancient times they have had a small ceremony at the time of one's initiation into sannyas. It is a kind of cremation ceremony. Exactly as we bathe a dead body and shave its head before putting it on…
Osho, do the mala and the renaming have any special significance?
Yes, they do; there is great meaning. Changing a sannyasin’s name has deep significance. It is symbolic. And in our lives, everything is symbolic. You have lived with one name; your identity is tied to it. A name has been your symbol. Your personality has become connected with it. Your name is associated with all that you were till yesterday; it is linked to that. The meaning of changing a sannyasin’s name is that we break him from his old identity. We say: now you are not who you were till yesterday. Now you set out on a new journey, carrying a new identity. In the old days, when initiation was given, they performed a small experiment. It was like this: just as we bathe a corpse before placing it on the bier, so they would bathe him. Just as we shave a corpse’s hair, shave the head, so they…
Osho, you have said that sannyas is the realization of truth. Then are ochre robes and the mala also essential for sannyas? And can a person not walk on your path without initiation? Kindly guide.
The day before yesterday a friend asked—he has taken sannyas, a simple-hearted man—he asked, “What is the scientific reason for this mala?” How can a mala possibly have a scientific reason? Its reason is religious, inward—not scientific. I told him, “If you want something ‘scientific,’ ask Laxmi.” A scientific reason? Does love ever have a scientific reason? A young man fell in love with Mulla Nasruddin’s daughter. He came and said, “I am in love with your daughter; please permit me to marry her.” Mulla said, “First prove it—what is the cause of your love?” The young man replied, “There is no cause, sir! Love has happened. Where there is a cause, can there be love? Where there is a cause, there is business, a bargain. Love is causeless.” Your love has happened with me; mine with you. Now some symbol becomes necessary. Think of this mala as the seven…
Osho, you have said that adopting personalities and faces from the outside is a subtle theft and gives birth to hypocrisy and irreligion. But it is being seen that these days many new sannyasins are gathering around you, and without any special preparation or maturity you are recognizing their sannyas. Are you not thereby causing great harm to religion? Please explain.
First thing: if someone tries to become like me, I will stop him; I will tell him that trying to be like me is self-destruction. But if someone sets out on the journey of trying to become himself, I have no hesitation in giving him my blessings. Those sannyasins who want me to be a witness to their journey toward God—to be a witness on their path—I have no objection to becoming their witness. But I am no one’s guru. I have no disciples. I am only a witness. If someone wants to take a resolve in my presence that he is setting out on the journey of sannyas, I have no objection to becoming a witness. But if someone comes to become my disciple, I have a grave objection. I cannot make anyone a disciple, because I am not a guru. If someone comes to walk behind me, I…
Question: at first sight, sannyas appears to be something that limits one's activities. Why does one have to change one's clothes to red? Why should one have to change his appearance, since sannyas is something that is within rather than without?
Gurdjieff used to say a very meaningful thing: that as you are now, you have no soul. He was both right and wrong. You have a soul, but you do not know about it. You are the outside, and so clothes are very meaningful. Because of clothes a person becomes beautiful and because of clothes a person becomes ugly. Because of clothes he becomes respected; because of clothes he is not respected. A judge has to wear certain clothes -- a supreme court justice has to use a particular robe -- and no one asks why. With that robe he is a supreme court justice; without that robe he is no one. This is how man is. When I look at a man he is more his clothes than his mind. And this is as it should be, because we belong to the body, we are identified with the body.…