What should I do when I am afraid of the path of sannyas?

Question: Second question: Osho, why am I afraid of sannyas? You still think Yama’s messengers ride buffaloes! A perfect pair—black buffalo, black messengers—a match made in heaven: one blind, one with leprosy! An exact fit. But these are born of your fear. Those who have died knowingly, who have recognized life, have said something else: Supreme Light dawns. In the moment of dying it is as if a thousand suns rise at once. As if lotuses bloom upon a lake, blooming and blooming. As if an infinite lake, with infinite lotuses opening. Those who have died awake, in meditation, have seen neither any blackness in death nor buffaloes nor messengers—yes, they have found God’s embrace, union. But for that you need to muster a little courage first. Sannyas is for the courageous. For the timid there are many temples. This temple is not for the timid.

Osho, the path of sannyas is unfamiliar and I am afraid. What should I do?

But this is everyone’s belief—that love arises from fear. So the husband frightens the wife as much as he can, thinking otherwise there will be no love. And the wife frightens the husband as much as she can, thinking the same. Parents frighten the children; and the children, for their part, do not hold back—they frighten the parents too; they have their own ways, their recipes. All devotees of Baba Tulsidas! Everyone is frightening everyone. Teachers are frightening students; students are frightening teachers. Fear pervades everywhere. Our notion of God is as if he were a policeman. We imagine he watches you twenty-four hours a day; he won’t even leave you alone in the bathroom—sitting there, peeping through the keyhole. I have heard: a Christian nun used to bathe with her clothes on. At last her companions became concerned. They said, “What sort of madness is this? Why don’t you…

Osho, I have been listening to you for years. I have been with you a long time. From time to time I have heard many different statements from you, even mutually contradictory ones, yet no question has ever arisen in my mind about them. And in spite of them you have always remained one and indivisible in my vision and in my heart. Kindly shed some light on this.

You can be with me in two ways: through thought and intellect, or through the heart and feeling. If you are with me through the intellect and thought, there will be great difficulty. Day after day you will find contradictory statements. Every day you will have to sort them out, and still you will not succeed. The intellect never really resolves anything. Even where things are simple, the intellect tangles them up. And my words are very tangled. Even where everything is clear, the intellect creates problems. And I speak of paths filled with mist. Even if there were only one path, the intellect would find contradictions; here there are countless paths—contradictions upon contradictions. There is hardly a statement I have not refuted a thousand times. So if you are with me through the intellect, only two things are possible: either you will go mad and drop the intellect, or…

Osho, I do want to take sannyas, but I am very frightened of the world. If I take sannyas, will I be able to withstand the whirlwinds that will rise around me or not? Please reassure me.

Sannyas means: stepping into insecurity. Sannyas means: placing your feet in the unknown. Sannyas means: leaving the known, falling in love with the unknowable. How can I reassure you? The whirlwind will arise. My reassurance would be a lie. I can only say this much: the whirlwind is certain to arise—it should arise. If it does not, how will sannyas ripen? If there is no sun, no heat, how will the fruit ripen? If no wind blows, no storm arises, the trees will lose their spine. Only by bearing the gusts of storm and gale does a tree grow sturdy. The whirlwind will arise. I can assure you of at least this much: be absolutely certain, don’t worry in the least—the whirlwind will arise. And it will be far greater than you imagine. Nor will it be that it comes today and is gone tomorrow. As long as you live,…

I desire to become a sannyasin, but at the very idea a great fear grips my heart. It is so new. And, moreover, I had not come here to become a disciple, I had just come to see a friend who is a sannyasin.

But you are caught, you are trapped! Now it will be very difficult to escape. It is always difficult to choose the new, but only those live who choose the new. To choose the old is to choose death, not life. To choose the familiar is to remain in the prison of the familiar, to choose the known is to avoid really the unknown that is knocking on the door. To choose the known is to reject God, because God is always unknown -- not only unknown, but unknowable. God is always fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops. God is always utterly new, unfamiliar, unmapped, unscheduled, uncalculated. God comes only as the unknown. And if you become afraid, if you shrink back, then you have to live in your so-called dark hole. What is your past that you cling to? What is there to cling to, except that it is…