Why is sannyas given to babies and children?

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…

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…

Osho, even after arriving at the camp why does a divide still appear? Does the distance vanish the moment one takes sannyas? Is your blessing only for sannyasins? Is it not for all living beings?

Blessing is for everyone. But it is not that just because I give it you will receive it; you will receive it only if you take it. The river is flowing—flowing for all. Trees will drink, animals and birds will drink, humans will drink. But only the one who drinks will be quenched. If you stand stiff on the bank, the river will not jump into your cupped hands. You will have to bend, you will have to form your palms into a cup—only then will you be able to drink. If you do not drink, if the water is not drunk, then do not complain about the river. The river was flowing. But man is very upside down. If he does not receive blessing, he thinks the blessing must not have been given. But do you have the capacity to receive? Will you accept blessing? Blessing is not 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…

For nine months he tastes something tremendously blissful. And then comes birth and the disruption of his world. Then his whole world is shattered. Then he has to become acquainted with strange things, strange people, strange situations. Slowly slowly he has to be responsible. He starts worrying, anxiety always a question of whether to do this or that. He is always in a state of either/or, and then on and on.... Then he forgets everything of those nine months. But somewhere deep down that memory remains. It cannot be eradicated. It becomes burdened by other things, covered by other things, but it can be easily claimed. Sannyas does not give you anything new -- there is nothing new under the heaven. And nothing is old either because if anything it new it can become old; if there is nothing new nothing can ever become old.