Vows

Will it happen for the one without vows or the one with vows?

Awareness bears fruit. Wherever you are, wake up right there. It is awareness that bears fruit—whatever state you are in. We are always in some situation, bound by certain limits, and doing something or other—someone is running a shop, someone worshipping in a temple, someone building a house, someone having a temple built—we are doing something. Someone is fasting; someone is eating. Whatever we are doing, awareness toward it bears fruit. What you are doing—it doesn’t matter. One man is stealing and another is worshipping—when one awakens to the doing, the fruit begins to come. If the thief becomes aware in his stealing, the same fruit will come.

A friend has asked: Osho, Gandhi has urged the practice of vows such as ahimsa (nonviolence), satya (truth), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya (celibacy), and asangraha/aparigraha (non-possessiveness), and Patanjali too has emphasized them. So is it necessary to cultivate these before samadhi? Or can one reach samadhi without them?

Gandhi used to say continually, “I have no doctrine, no ideology. There is no such thing as Gandhism.” It sounded very humble. In Karachi there was a conference where Gandhi was speaking. Communists waved black flags and shouted, “Down with Gandhism!” Gandhi was at the microphone. Always, whenever anyone spoke of Gandhism, he would say, “There is no such thing.” But that day, when the slogan “Down with Gandhism!” was raised and the black flags waved, it suddenly burst out of his mouth, “Gandhi may die, but Gandhism is immortal!” What was hidden in the unconscious surfaced. It had been pushed down in some inner corner; hard to detect. We are not even aware of the corners of our own minds—what lurks where. It can slip out in an unguarded moment. It is necessary to understand Gandhi’s life very correctly. Gandhi’s life is a great failed experiment—a great experiment, and…

Osho, for the practice of the five great vows—ahimsa (nonviolence), aparigraha (non-possessiveness), achaurya (non-stealing), akam (desirelessness), and apramad (alertness)—to bear fruit, and for the all-round development of the individual and society, what can your proposed new vision of sannyas contribute? Please explain in detail.

Ahimsa, aparigraha, achaurya, akam, and apramad are the fundamental sutras of the “art of sannyas.” And sannyas is an art. All of life is an art. Only those who master the “art of living” become available to sannyas. Sannyas is the art that takes you beyond life. Those who experience life in its totality naturally enter sannyas; it must be so—it is simply the next step in life. God is the temple reached by climbing the very staircase of the world. So first let me make it clear: there is no conflict between “the world” and “sannyas.” They are two stations on one journey. It is in the world itself that sannyas develops and blossoms. Sannyas is not the hostility of the world; it is the deep experience of the world. The more deeply one experiences the world, the more one finds one’s feet moving toward sannyas. Those who do…

Question: Second question: What is the value of vows in life? Vows have no value at all; only awareness has value. A vow itself means there is a lack of awareness, and you are trying to compensate for that lack with a vow. You have seen it: the more untruthful a person is, the more he swears oaths. He is always ready to swear in every matter. The liar walks leaning on oaths; he wants to pass off his lies as truth by taking an oath. In the West there is a small Christian mystical sect, the Quakers. They even refuse to swear oaths in court. Hundreds of times they have suffered punishment because the court insists they must take an oath, Bible in hand: “I will tell the truth.” But the Quakers’ point is right: is “I will tell the truth” something to swear about?