Risk

Is it good to take risks?

Good or bad is not the question. If you are alive you have to take risks. Life is a risk. Only death is secure, life is never secure -- there is no security. The companies that are called Life Insurance should really be called Death Insurance; in life there can be no insurance. Life is alive only because there is risk, danger -- that's why there is so much thrill. You ask 'Is it good to take risks?' If you want to be alive you have to take risks, and the more risks you take, the more alive you will be. So really you are asking 'Is it good to be alive?' Rightly interpreted, your question will mean 'Is it good to be alive?' Now, I am not a murderer, and I don't want to poison your life. Many people have done that: the priests, the politicians -- they are…

Question: Fourth question: Osho, what does it mean to put everything at stake? There are two kinds of people who take sannyas. One is those who take sannyas after thinking and considering; they say, “We will think it over, weigh all the pros and cons, then take our own decision, then take sannyas.” The second are those who take sannyas out of feeling, not out of thought. Their sannyas is of a very different order. They take sannyas through tears, not through logic. They take sannyas in rapture; not through inference, not through conclusion. They put the intellect aside and take sannyas. They come to me; I ask them, “Think it over a little.” They say, “What is there to think?” I say, “First consider.” They say, “What is there to consider! We saw you—everything happened. If you consider us unfit, don’t give it.

What does it mean to live dangerously?

If you enjoy many more things for their own sake, you will be more alive. Of course, your life will always be in a risk, danger. But that's how life has to be. Risk is part of it. In fact the better part of it is risk, the best part of it is risk. The most beautiful part of it is risk. It is every moment a risk. You may not be aware. You breathe in, you breathe out. There is risk. Even breathing out, who knows whether the breath will come back or not? It is not certain, there is no guarantee. But there are a few people whose whole religion is security. Even if they talk about god, they talk about god as the supreme security. If they think about god, they think only because they are afraid. If they go to pray and meditate, they are going…

Naturally when a child is feeling happy and somebody says, 'Don't make a noise. Don't jump. Don't shout,' he feels great anger arising, but you could not be angry either. How can you be angry with your father and your mother? They are powerful and you are helpless. So deep inside the pleasure was there and the anger came; they got hooked. So now when you become angry you feel pleasure, and if you want to feel happy and pleasant, immediately you feel a certain anger arising. That has to be settled. That hooking has to be dropped, and pleasure and anger have to be disconnected. The only way to disconnect it is to go through that experience which has been stopped. It has remained incomplete in your being and it can be dangerous. It can create many sorts of diseases, so it has to be finished with.