Osho : Once you become alive, once your life energy arises, you will suddenly feel that you fit with existence, but you don’t fit with the society. And I tell you: if you don’t fit with the society, don’t bother about it, because ultimately it means nothing. The only thing that will be meaningful ultimately will be whether you fit with existence or not.
Try to be harmonious with life, howsoever arduous. Even if it sometimes seems impossible, but try to be in harmony with the Whole. Even at the cost of being thrown out of the society and forced to become an outsider, don’t bother about it. This is what sannyas means to me.
Sannyas means an effort to seek ways and means to be in harmony with the Whole, even if it creates a rift between you and your society – because society is man-made.
Even if you fit, nothing is achieved. One has to find his home into the Ultimate. And all societies are against God. People think that there are societies which are not against God. No. Sometimes, very rarely, for a few moments in history, in the vast desert of societies, a few oases have existed – but they are exceptions. No society has really existed which was religious.
For example, when Buddha was alive, then an oasis existed around him: a few thousand people – nothing compared to the whole world – a few thousand people converted, transformed, existed with Buddha. But the moment Buddha disappeared, that oasis disappeared, the very springs disappeared – how long can the trees exist without it?
A few oases here and there, rarely, have existed, but the society at large has remained anti-religious. But the people who manage the establishment are very cunning. They give society a ritualistic, formalistic, religious shape; churches exist, temples exist, and people go and pray; and holidays are there, religious holidays – but all formal. Don’t be deceived by the formality of it; it is a deception.
It is to give you a feeling that the society is religious and you need not go beyond society to seek religion. And religion is always beyond society, because religion is always alive, it is not of the mind.
And society is always of the mind; it is an order maintained by the mind. Religion is not an order maintained by the mind – religion is a discipline, loose and natural. It is not that you maintain it and manipulate it; rather, on the contrary, you lose yourself into the river like phenomenon, and the river takes possession.