What should I do if my parents are unhappy that I have become a sannyasin?

Osho, my jewish parents are not happy that I have become a sannyasin. What should I do?

And he destroyed two cities completely. What happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Jewish God had done three thousand years before! He destroyed two cities for the simple reason that people were not behaving according to his idea of morality, they were becoming immoral. He destroyed two whole cities. Now, all the people could not have been immoral and even if all the people had been immoral, they could not have been immoral to the same degree. There were small children also; they could not have been immoral. They didn't know anything of morality or immorality. There were very old people also; they could not have been immoral. There were ill people who could not even get out of their beds. What immoral acts could they have been doing? But he was so angry that he destroyed two whole cities just to teach a lesson to humanity. And this young…

Osho, I have heard that a seeker has to pass through four stages of sadhana: tariqat, shari’at, marifat, and haqiqat. The last is haqiqat, where the seeker meets his beloved and comes face to face with Truth. Osho, please explain the first three states.

These words are from the Sufis—very significant, and very straightforward. The first is tariqat. Tariqat means: the way, the method, the discipline, the means, the yoga. Tariqat means: something has to be done; only then will you attain—without doing, you will not receive. One has to walk a path; find the way; make a footpath. One has to bring some discipline into life, give it an order. Tariqat means learning the way to become worthy of it. When you go to have an audience with an emperor, you learn the etiquette of his court. You don’t just walk in. If you do, you will not be accepted. You learn how to sit there, how to stand there, how to bow there. If you are going to meet an emperor, you must taste something of the flavor of the emperor’s way of life. If you are going to meet the Divine,…

The children are always afraid. The fear is that if they are true then the parents are hurt. If they want to satisfy the parents they have to be untrue; then it hurts them. This is the problem. Parents don t allow authenticity they don't want you to be yourself. They have a certain idea of how you should be, what you should be. If you are that, they are happy; if you are not that, they are unhappy. And nobody can fulfill their idea, nobody at all, because you are not here in this world to fulfill anybody's idea. And your parents cannot conceive who you are going to be. The future is open -- utterly open and unpredictable -- but each parent tries to control the future and each parent feels frustrated. It is very difficult to find a parent who is satisfied.

Osho, my parents are so disappointed in me, they worry all the time. They have made my being here possible, so how can I turn from them? What do I owe to my parents?

Buddha said, "Please don't misunderstand me. The body certainly belongs to you, but not my consciousness. And my consciousness is my reality, not my body. And you are right that your father was an emperor and his father too, but as far as I know about myself I was a beggar in my past life and I was a beggar in a previous life too, because I have been searching for truth. My BODY has come through you, but you have been just like a passage. You have not created me, you have been a medium, and my consciousness has nothing to do with your consciousness. And what I am saying is that now I have come home with a new consciousness, I have gone through a rebirth. Just LOOK at me, look at my joy!" And the father looked at the son, not believing what he is saying. But…

Always remember that the mind is naturally divided. It always says two things together: Surrender, don't surrender. Love, don't love. Do this, don't do that. Now it is for you to choose. You are not these two minds. You are the awareness that is watching both. One mind is saying to surrender, another mind is saying don't surrender. Now you have to judge. You have to look into these and to think of pros and cons. You have to meditate on it. If you don't surrender, what is going to happen? If you surrender, what is going to happen? Just think about it, meditate on it. If you feel that it is good to be on your own, then be on your own; don't be worried. But you have been on your own and where have you reached?